Chapter 23: Barren

By the time the snowdrops came up in the garden at Barrington House, nobody in Wexmoor cut me.

The countess who had studied the ceiling sent a card asking me to tea.

The lady in lilac sent a pot of honey and a note that said only, For your hands.

I wrote back to both, politely, and took the honey to the kitchen.

The kitchen girl was fifteen now, with an arm that had healed pink and smooth, and she was grinding willow bark at the table with great seriousness.

"The bark has to be dry, my lady," she told me. "Else it molds in the jar."

"You are quite right."

"Cook says I will be a lady's maid. I would rather be like you."

"Then you shall have the little room by the herb garden on Tuesdays," I said, "and the good pestle."

She went pink to the ears.

I sat in the sun at the end of the kitchen table with a piece of toast, and I did not eat it.

The smell of the butter turned my stomach.

Henry came in from the garden door with his sleeves rolled and his hair mussed by the wind.

He was not thin any more.

Four months of Cook's pies and one wife who watched his plate had put weight on him.

The lines had gone out of his face.

He kissed the top of my head without thinking about it.

"You are pale," he said.

"I am well."

"You have not touched your toast."

"I do not like toast today."

"You adored toast yesterday. You said it was a minor joy of the world."

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