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[Eleanor]: 668.Amelia.Cha
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On Sundays the kitchen girls had a half-day off. Amelia took the opportunity to return to Gareth and Martha’s, where she knew she would find the tavern keeper and his wife enjoying some quiet time before the repentant sinners returned to resume their drinking. She knocked timidly at the door and Martha let her in immediately as soon as she saw who it was.
“Emily, my dear,” she cried, giving the girl a big hug. “What brings you to see us on this lovely Sunday morning? Come in, you must say hello to Gareth. All we’ve talked about this past week is your beautiful voice and that surprise concert you gave us. Neither of us had any idea you played the harp so well. You shouldn’t be keeping such secrets from us!”
“Thank you, Martha,” Amelia mumbled and blushed profusely, allowing herself to be pulled into the kitchen where Gareth sat drinking a cup of tea and eating his lunch of boiled eggs and ham. “Well, if it’s not our little songbird,” he said as he recognized her. “Would you be interested in a bite to eat, my girl?”
“No, no thanks,” Amelia demurred. “I just wanted to ask you about the musicians who were here, if you knew where they were from, and how to get in touch with them. I,” here she faltered before continuing, “I’d like to buy back my harp from Frederick, if it’s in the leastways possible.”
“Aye,” commented Martha, “that one was certainly good looking. Pity he’s blind. But then, you’re not much to look at yourself, now, are ye?” Amelia stiffened momentarily. No, she would not be a party to any matchmaking, no matter how well-intention
“My grandmother gave me that harp,” she said, pretending she had not heard Martha’s comment. “It was all I had from her, and I’m sorry I left home without it.”
“Well,” said Gareth thoughtfully, as he chewed on the last of his bread, “the fiddler’s aunt lives in town, Sarah Pyms. They have quite the reputation throughout the province, and no shortage of stops to play at, so I was lucky that I could get a family member to entice them here for us. There’s no saying when they’re coming back.” He stroked his chin. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give you Sarah’s address. Maybe she can help you. What was that fiddler’s name, Martha?”
“Jason. He’s Sarah’s sister’s son,” Martha said. “Helen went off and married a man from up north after her parents died, but Sarah stayed here. Never married, I don’t know why. Instead, she runs her father’s candle shop on High Street. Here dearie, I’ll just write it out on a slip of paper for you so you can talk to her yourself.”
Amelia thanked the couple and left with the folded address tucked into her trousers pocket. Every step on the path to getting answers made her more nervous, for she feared what she would find out. She tried to keep her apprehension to herself during the following days, waiting for an opportunity to pursue this next lead.
Toward the end of the week, Mistress Roach gave Amelia the morning off. She found the candle shop on a street with other mercantile establishments in a neighbourhood catering to the wealthier residences in town. Amelia was distracted by the opulent window displays and almost missed the one she sought. Checking the address against the slip she held in her hand, she entered the store nervously.
A bell on the upper door sill jingled as the door opened and then closed behind her. The interior of the shop was dark after the bright sunlight outside and it took Amelia several moments before she was able to see. There were candles everywhere, as well as candlesticks, sconces, and candelabras of all types amid the all-pervasive scent of beeswax. As Amelia took stock of her surroundings, a tall, thin, middle-aged woman glided gracefully from the back room and stopped quite suddenly at the sight of the masked girl in trousers.
“May I help you?” she inquired in imperious tones. She was dressed in a dark grey gown of moiré satin, with ruffles of immaculate white lace peeking out at her cuffs and from her high neckline. Amelia tried to imagine this woman as the aunt of the fiddler, Jason, who had seemed so relaxed and unselfconsciou
“Are you Mistress Pyms,” asked Amelia nervously, “the fiddler Jason’s aunt?”
The woman immediately relaxed, her face softened into a smile and she radiated a sudden warmth. “You must be the one Jason was talking about, the girl with the beautiful voice!” she cried. “I wish I could have heard you sing, he was so effusive in his praise. How can I help you, my dear?”
“I don’t want to bother you, ma’am,” Amelia began, her eyes downcast. “I was wanting to contact your nephew, if possible.”
“Oh? Why would that be?” asked the shopkeeper.
“Well, you see, his harpist, Frederick, has my harp.”
“I don’t understand,” Mistress Pyms said.
“He told me he bought it to replace one that got broken,” said Amelia, “when he broke his wrist in a tavern brawl.”
“Frederick was in a tavern brawl?” asked Sarah Pyms, bemused.
“No, he wasn’t. I mean, there was a brawl,”Amelia said, “and he broke his wrist and his harp, and this is very complicated.”
“I’ve got all morning,” said the older woman. “You’ve come at a slow time and I won’t see a single customer likely until after lunch.” She crossed over to the door and locked it, then took hold of Amelia’s arm and pulled her into the back of the store to a small kitchen where she began brewing a pot of tea. “Tea is a wonderful cure-all, don’t you think, my dear?” she said as she puttered about. Amelia sat at the small table and watched. She wasn’t used to people doing things for her, least of all women wearing moiré satin and lace. Mistress Pyms set a plate of biscuits and two cups for tea on the table and pulled up a chair for herself.
“Now, dear,” she said as she poured, “tell me about yourself. First off, what is your name?”
Amelia looked at her red hands and balled them into fists, hiding the ragged fingernails. When she looked up again, Mistress Pyms was still waiting for an answer, so she said, “My name is Amelia, but everyone here calls me Emily.”
“Why is that?” asked the candle merchant as she sipped her tea.
Amelia considered how much she could tell this woman. She liked her straight-forwa
“I come from a village several days’ travel from here,” she began, “next to a lake underneath a mountain. I grew up there. Until I left about a year ago, I had been nowhere else. I’m an only child, and even though I lived with my parents, they were always busy working and it was my grandmother who raised me. She taught me everything I know, how to cook and sew and play the harp. She was a wonderful musician. She gave me that harp that Frederick has and I treasured it over all my other possessions. It was my only friend, really. I never could be friends with the other girls in the village. They were always so silly, and I was never interested in the things they thought important: boys, clothes, pretty baubles.”
Mistress Pyms offered her another biscuit as she paused. “Continue, my dear,” she said. “I’m all ears.”
“After my grandmother died, things changed suddenly,” Amelia went on. “Our whole house collapsed in on itself. My mother took Nana’s death very hard, but she wouldn’t talk about it. She just closed herself up like one of those rag dolls that turns inside out and folds up into a little package that you button shut. I was younger and I didn’t understand her grief. I was only aware of my own. I would spend all day in my room, playing my harp, crying, missing my Nana. My father tried to keep us from totally falling apart. I never appreciated what he did for us at the time. But he went to work every day in his shop, and then he would make sure we ate and were healthy, at least, in body. I remember he tried to comfort me, but of course I was inconsolable. I don’t know how he managed with my mother. She never talked about that time after it was over.”
Mistress Pyms nodded sympatheticall
Amelia took a deep breath and continued, “When we came out of mourning, months had passed. I had started my monthly bleeding much later than the other girls in my village, and they had all got married or engaged or found work and I had no friends my own age left. So I went to work in my father’s grocery and he taught me how to keep the books.” Suddenly she grinned. “I actually became very good at it. I even bargained with farmers to bring down the prices on their produce. I never thought I would have the nerve. We started getting more customers and the business was doing very well and I was pleased for my father.” Here she suddenly stopped, uncertain as to how to continue.
“Don’t stop now, Amelia,” said her hostess. “I have a feeling you’re just getting to the good part.”
“I haven’t told anyone this,” Amelia confessed. “I’m afraid I don’t know how to.”
“I swear that I will not betray your confidence,” said the candle merchant. “Your secrets are safe.”
Amelia swallowed some tea, then took up her tale again. “I asked my father why people were coming into the store and buying one thing and then just staring at me. He told me, he said…” Amelia undid the mask under her chin and pulled it off her head. For the first time since the day after she had run away from home, she let another person look upon the perfection of her face.
“I’ve seen many ruined faces,” the older woman said slowly, “but I have never seen anyone hide such a one as yours before. What happened to you?”
Amelia told Mistress Pyms about the suitors, and about her decision never to marry, but how her mother took so much pleasure from the courtship of her only daughter that she kept up the charade. She broke down and sobbed as she recounted how Bartholomew and Crispin had died, and how she suddenly went from being celebrated to being reviled, how her mother’s flute students dried up and her father’s grocery barely made enough for him to keep it open.
“I couldn’t bear it anymore,” she said. “I had to leave so that my parents could live normal lives, and I didn’t ever want anyone to die again because of me. So I pretended to have suffered from the pox and made myself this hood.” Having ended her story, Amelia put the mask back on, tucking her short hair in and tying the straps under her chin.
“Well,” said Mistress Pyms, as she let out her breath, “that’s quite the tale. And what have you been doing since?”
“I came here and found work in Mistress Roach’s kitchen at one of the great houses up the hill,” Amelia answered, thinking that it was time she headed back there. “I scour pots.” She showed the candle merchant her rough, red hands and short nails. “Not exactly the hands of a musician anymore,” she said ruefully.
“Well, my dear, what can I do for you?” asked Mistress Pyms.
“Mistress Pyms,”Amelia began, “I don’t really know what I want. Well, I do know what I want. I want my harp back. I’m sorry I ever left it behind when I departed my parents’ house. I just couldn’t bring it with me.” She stopped and hung her head, suddenly ashamed at the feeling that she had somehow dishonoured her grandmother’s memory. Mistress Pyms sat quietly and waited for the girl to continue. “Anyway, when I played it that night at the tavern, I realized I needed it; and so I want to buy it from Frederick, if he’s willing to sell, that is, and if I can ever find the money to afford it.”
The candle merchant sat quietly and sipped her tea. She had a thoughtful look on her face as she studied Amelia’s mask, her grey eyes and full lips. “Jason said something to me before the boys left. He said he would love to have a singer like you with the band. They were all incredibly moved, apparently, by the power of your voice. I am absolutely sure that if you asked, they would take you with them. But you would need a chaperone,” she mused, trailing off.
“Really? They really said that?” Amelia could not believe her ears. She thought about escaping the drudgery of the scullery and traveling with musicians, having her harp back and singing and playing for her livelihood. It had been her fondest dream since she had heard the troupe playing in the town square when she was a child.
“Now, now,” said the older woman. “You have quite some time to think about it. Jason isn’t due to pass this way again for several months yet, perhaps even a year. But I will send a note to my sister. I know he still corresponds with his mother on a regular basis. In the meantime, don’t be a stranger, dear. You’re welcome back anytime. Oh, and please call me Sarah.”
Amelia impulsively hugged Sarah before leaving the shop. When she returned to the great house, she locked herself in her room and lay on her bed, missing lunch, and daydreamed about a future where music was her livelihood, not scouring pots.