Tilly whirled on her. “What was that for?” she said crossly. “You scairt me out o’ my wits!”
“Th-th-that room,” Emily stammered. “I heard a sound come from there, I think.”
Tilly shrugged. “No doubts you did. That’s the Remembrance Room. Someone in there remembering what it done wrong.”
“Remembrance Room?” Emily repeated dimly. There was a chilling sound about the words. “It did wrong? Who did wrong?”
“One o’ the old ones, o’ course. Who did you thinks?” Tilly’s flat nose wrinkled with disgust at Emily’s stupidity.
The old ones, those sad shadows huddled in the chairs in the parlor! What new horrors was she still to discover at Sugar Hill Hall?
“Took a peppermint most likely,” Tilly went on in a dreamy kind of voice. “That’s what they always does. Hmmm, wonder which one? Most o’ them ain’t got the nerve.”
“C-c-couldn’t you knock and find out?” Emily’s voice was quavering. “Perhaps you could let the person out.”
“And has myself tossed in?” Tilly shrivelled her with a pale blue stare. “Not likely! Mrs. Meeching puts ’em in. Mrs. Meeching puts ’em out. I ain’t got the key anyways. Us’ll most likely find out at dinner who it is, not as how I cares all that much. Now you hurries and drops off your gear. Us can’t take all night.”
The gaslight Tilly lit as they entered the small room was so weak, the wonder was it gave any light at all. But as Emily took off her coat and tam-o’-shanter, she could see all she needed to of the room that was to be hers.
It was so tiny that, except for a sliver of a window high in the wall, it might well have been intended for nothing more than a storage room. And if the future inhabitant did not gather this, further notice was given by the lack of furnishings. The stone floor was bare and so were the walls, but for a row of thin nails that jutted out like bones from a fish skeleton, intended for use as clothes hangers. All the room provided by way of comfort was an iron cot, a small brown chest of drawers with gaping wounds that revealed at least half a dozen coats of paint below, and over this last a small oval mirror as full of cracks as a dropped egg.
After the one quick glance needed to explore this cubicle, Emily folded her coat and laid it neatly on the cot with her tam-o’-shanter. She had decided that no matter what the condition of her new life, or how ugly her room, she would follow the rules set down by Mama and Mrs. Leslie, including not only politeness and good manners, but neatness and cleanliness as well. She had no sooner put the tam-o’-shanter down, however, than Tilly, without even asking leave, snatched it up again and jammed it on her own head at a rakish forward angle. Then she began to pose before the mirror, so taken with her cracked image that she seemed to have forgotten all about the need to hurry.
“Please, Tilly, where may I wash?” Emily asked, certain that Tilly had forgotten about that, too.
Tilly jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Two doors back down the passageway that way. And see you doesn’t take all day ’bout it!”
The cold, damp, stone washroom would hardly give anyone the desire to “take all day ’bout it.” Emily was happy to escape it as quickly as possible, her fingers still stinging from the icy water provided by the cracked enamel pitcher. When she returned to the room, however, Tilly no longer had the hat on her head. Instead she was holding it in one hand and with the other stroking the fur as if it were a small animal.
“It’s nice,” she said dreamily. “Where’s it come from? A rabbit?”
“No,” replied Emily.
“What then?” Tilly persisted.
“An—an ermine,” Emily said. Then she promptly wished she had thought to say weasel, which didn’t sound nearly so royal.
Tilly’s pale eyelashes flew upward. “Oooh!”
“You—you may borrow it any time you like, Tilly,” Emily said quickly.
“Mights as well,” Tilly replied. “It don’t look too good on you with y’r hair all hanging ’round in strings.”
Emily thought this a remarkably ungracious acceptance speech, but decided it would be best to say no more about it. She simply remained perched on the edge of the cot until Tilly should be ready to leave.
Tilly continued stroking the hat a moment longer, and then looked up at Emily slyly. “I bets you has lots o’ pretty things in that bag. Ain’t you going to open it now?”
Emily hesitated. The key to the bag was hanging on the gold chain around her neck, along with her locket, where Mrs. Leslie had put it so she would be certain not to lose it. She would have loved right then to open her travelling bag and pull out her warm pink shawl. She was shivering in her silk dress. But the look on Tilly’s face, together with the sudden recollection of what else lay in the suitcase, made her settle instead on telling a lie, the first she had ever told. She drew a deep breath. “I—I haven’t the key, Tilly. My—my aunt has it.”
To Emily’s relief, Tilly never noticed the hesitation. “You is going to let me look at ’em some time else then, ain’t you?” she said, stroking the fur. Then without waiting for a reply, she went right on, smooth as syrup, into, “Us ought to be friends, Emily. I means, us both being orphings, and all that.”
Emily had already determined that she would try to be as friendly to Tilly as possible, but she was not at
