Hester Fox - The Witch Of Willow Hall

“It’s not fair!” she shouts before she’s even halfway to the garden.

I quickly wipe off the dirt on my apron and crouch down to receive her, but she stops short and glares at me.

“What’s not fair?”

Before she has a chance to enlighten me, Catherine comes out, throwing up her hands when she sees us. “Get back inside this instant, Emeline!”

“I will not! Lydia, tell her that it’s not fair.”

“Someone is going to have to tell me what’s going on, because—”

They start talking over each other, both acting like eight-year-old children, even though only one of them is, and the other a young woman of twenty-two.

Emeline gets her words out first in a triumphant rush. “Mr. Barrett sent a note along saying he and Mr. Pierce are coming over for a picnic and Cath says that I can’t come because it will be an uneven number and it has to be two men and two ladies but I don’t think it’s fair because I don’t know any other—”

“Mr. Barrett is coming today?”

Emeline stops, and they both look at me as if I have two heads.

“It doesn’t matter anyway, you’re too young,” Catherine says. Turning to me, she lowers her voice. “She’ll say something dreadful, I just know she will.”

She means that Emeline will say something about Boston, and then all the trouble Catherine has gone to with both Mr. Pierce and Mr. Barrett will be lost. “Emeline knows what’s appropriate conversation for company and what’s not. Don’t you, Emmy?”

Emeline glowers at us and then looks down, scuffing her shoe in the dirt. “Yes, I know.”

“There,” I say brightly. I’m already taking off my apron and trying to remember if Ada was able to get the stain out of my favorite cream silk dress. “When will they be here?”

“After lunch,” Catherine says. Crossing her arms, she juts her chin over my shoulder. “What are you doing out here anyway? I don’t remember there being plants there.”

I follow her gaze, having already forgotten the gardening in which just moments ago I was so absorbed. “Just doing a little weeding.”

Emeline is hopping from foot to foot, her patience quickly running out. “So can I come?”

“Oh, just come, what do I care.” Catherine turns to leave. “But it’s your job, Lydia, to keep her out of trouble.”

* * *

I’m pulled from the dark romance of Mathilda by the sound of men’s voices carrying down the road. I put my book down and close my eyes. My stomach has felt light and fluttery all day, and now that Mr. Barrett is here I’m afraid I won’t even be able to sit still or have a level conversation. Mother is sleeping upstairs with a headache, and Father is who knows where on business. It will just be us today. A delicious shiver runs down my spine.

Taking a moment in front of the big gilded mirror in the hall, I smooth out my dress and cast a critical eye over my reflection. I wish I had Catherine’s clear eyes, playful and bright, that make men love her. Mine are dark and serious, just as she always accuses me of being. I test my smile the way she always does in the mirror, but the result is strained, and instead of looking pretty and lighthearted, I look like a bee just flew up my skirt.

Emeline is the first to the door, pulling on it with all her weight. It finally creaks open, swollen in the humidity. I feel the same—sluggish and heavy. Catherine sweeps down the stairs, and though her dress is still crisp and white, there’s a pallor to her complexion, and I know she’s suffering just as the rest of us are in this awful heat. But that’s not what gives me pause. “Catherine, you can’t possibly be wearing that.”

She stops, hand on the railing, and snorts. “And you can’t possibly think I’m about to take fashion advice from you of all people.” Nevertheless, doubt flickers across her face and she rolls her eyes. “Go on then. What’s wrong with it?”

I glance at the door where Emeline is standing, waiting for Mr. Barrett and Mr. Pierce to come up the drive, and lower my voice. “You’re all but spilling out the top.” She’s always been more endowed than me in that area, but this is immodest even by her standards. I imagine her sitting upstairs, plumping and padding, just another feather in her hook to snare Mr. Barrett. Or Pierce. Whoever it is that she feels like playing with today. “That button is near bursting off.”

She gives me a look of utter disdain, and then breezes past to welcome Mr. Barrett and Mr. Pierce.

Emeline is already chattering excitedly, leading Mr. Barrett by the hand straight through the hall and to the back door. I intercept them.

“Let’s offer our guests something to drink first, shall we? I’m sure they’re parched.”

Mr. Pierce’s waistcoat is partially unbuttoned and his lank hair rakishly slicked forward. He barely bobs his head at me before his eyes alight on Catherine, taking her hand with a wolfish grin. I send Emeline with instructions for Ada to bring refreshments to the parlor, and then fall into step beside Mr. Barrett.

He’s watching Catherine and Mr. Pierce with a little frown, his eyes melancholy. I want to say something to him, to have him say something back. I want him to turn those blue-green eyes on me and look at me the same way Mr. Pierce is looking at my sister right now. But all my words get tangled up in my head and the only thing I can think to say is, “They make a handsome couple, don’t they?”

Honestly, of all the things to say. I burn as Mr. Barrett glances down at me, but the look is fleeting and he returns his attention back to them. He’s standing very close and, despite the heat, a little flutter runs through me when his sleeve brushes my arm.

“Yes,” he says. “They do.”

We sit in the parlor, Mr. Pierce and Catherine whispering to one another. Mr. Pierce leans in close to her, and Catherine sweeps her lashes down, occasionally tilting her head back and laughing. Her color is high; she must be feeling better. Emeline monopolizes Mr. Barrett, lecturing him on the habits of mermaids and asking if he thinks there might be one in the pond.

“There might be, I’m not sure.”

He’s distracted. Emeline doesn’t notice, but he keeps glancing up at Mr. Pierce and Catherine, and he doesn’t look pleased. His fair brow is clouded, his jaw tense. How is it that Catherine can have not one, but two men vying for her attention? I might as well be invisible.

Ada presses a glass of something cold into my hand and I sip it automatically as I study him. He has the face of a classical statue, all strong angles rendered soft and beautiful as if by a practiced sculptor. His eyes are the misty green of shipwreck glass, and indeed I fear they could lure me to a stormy fate. Because if I’m understanding the look he keeps throwing in Mr. Pierce’s direction, he’s jealous of his friend. The light fluttery feeling in my stomach hardens and sours.

Damn Catherine. Damn her and her beauty and her cunning and the way she always comes out on top. And damn John Barrett too. I hardly know him, yet I would have thought someone so grounded, so sober, would be impervious to her charms.

The drinks are finished and Emeline is near to bouncing out of her skin. I clear my throat, bringing Mr. Barrett out of his reverie, and Catherine and Mr. Pierce out of their private conversation. “Should we go for a walk?”

* * *

Outside, the thickness of the air hits me like a wall, and I immediately wish I had finished that drink. Emeline skips ahead. Where does she get that endless energy? It’s a labor just to breathe in this heat and humidity. We’re barely out of the yard when Catherine stops in her tracks, her arm laced through Mr. Pierce’s.

“Mr. Pierce wishes to see...” She trails off, giggling into his shoulder. “What was it you wanted to see, Mr. Pierce?”