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—

Dear Molly,

One of the great perils of youth is the false confidence that comes with it, but with each passing year, bravado erodes, taking the chip off and leaving something new in its place: humility.

When I was young—seventeen years of age, to be precise—I was elated that Papa granted me permission to take a prep course to sit university entrance exams. I was on top of the world—invincible. I ignored all of Papa’s caveats and warnings. I was practically skipping as I escorted the headmaster out of my father’s office, down the grand staircase, and all the way to the front foyer of Gray Manor. At the entrance, the headmaster handed me a long reading list, advising me to begin studying on my own before prep classes began.

“You’ll be the only girl in the class, Flora. Are you prepared for that?” he asked.

“Of course,” I replied. “What could go wrong?”

The headmaster’s Adam’s apple bobbed, but whatever he wanted to say, he swallowed it.

Uncle Willy, my father’s butler, was standing sentry in the foyer. Strong, broad-shouldered, with silver hair and a distinguished mustache, he seemed to me an old man, though he probably wasn’t even sixty at the time. I was forbidden from calling him Uncle Willy, a term of endearment that he loved but that both my parents found questionable. If you looked at his hands, you could tell he hadn’t always been a butler, for they were as large as bear paws, the skin weathered and callused from physical labor.

Uncle Willy had once worked as a caretaker on the acreage bordering Gray Manor. A man more comfortable in stables than in mansions, he became our long-serving butler when I was but a babe in arms, an unorthodox hiring decision on my father’s part, one that raised eyebrows amongst the trained serving staff, who suddenly found themselves led by a worker from the farm next door. Uncle Willy carried himself with great dignity, though, and could spot trouble a mile away. For that reason, Papa trusted him.

All of this flashed through my mind as Uncle Willy saw the headmaster out, then closed the door behind him. He turned to me expectantly. “Well?” he said. “Am I looking at a potential university scholar?”

My ear-to-ear smile was the only reply he needed, and after a quick look to make sure my parents weren’t about, Uncle Willy threw open his arms and I ran into them eagerly.

“You’ve always had gumption, ever since you were a wee girl. You do me and Maggie proud,” he said.

Maggie, a.k.a. my nursemaid, Mrs.Mead, was Uncle Willy’s sister. All the warmth I lacked from my own parents I found in excess quantities in those two beings. They doted on me hand and foot, celebrating my successes—my first steps, my first words, my first time riding a bicycle. They worried themselves silly over any setback I experienced, so much so that I sometimes felt they were my true parents, though there was not a drop of common blood between us. Despite the constancy of their love, I didn’t always treat them well, for my parents drilled it into me that servants were lesser than.

Mrs.Mead kept a small, thatched-roof cottage on the estate, given to her by my father when her husband, Franklin, a pilot in the war, was shot down by enemy fire. After Franklin was killed, Uncle Willy became his sister’s chief protector. He’d lost his own wife, Prudence, to tuberculosis a year earlier, leaving him with a young son to raise on his own. I can see now the burden of grief Uncle Willy must have carried, but I had no sense of it when I was a child. He’d lost his wife so young, and his brother-in-law. He’d been left with a child to rear by himself.

Uncle Willy kept a room in town, but on his days off, he could be found at Mrs.Mead’s cottage, tending to her garden or her chickens, picking apples in the orchard or sitting down to a homemade shepherd’s pie with his son and sister by his side. He never seemed more comfortable than when he removed his butler’s uniform—a crisp black suit with a neat bow tie—to don his weathered overalls. It was as though he’d shed a disguise to reveal his natural skin.

As for Uncle Willy’s son, who was about my age, I thought little of him when I was a child, didn’t even care enough to recall his name. He was a brooding brown-eyed boy with broad shoulders like his father’s. That lad lurked in the shadows of the estate and barely said a word. The truth of the matter, which I can see now, is that I ignored the boy out of petty jealousy. I wanted to be the only child Mrs.Mead and Uncle Willy fawned over, the only child they loved. Early on, I convinced myself there was something about that boy I didn’t like—the way he carried himself without apology, as if he had every right to visit the manor when in fact his presence was a special privilege granted by my father.

It is a sad truth that as children we take on the prejudices of our parents without even realizing we are doing so, and I internalized Mama and Papa’s belief that the children of domestics were below my station, so unremarkable they were easily forgotten.

I despised seeing the boy loitering about the grounds while at the same time believing it was my God-given prerogative to go wherever I wanted and do as I pleased. Though strictly speaking I wasn’t supposed to, I would visit Mrs.Mead’s cottage almost every day, finding in its rubblestone walls a comfort I never felt within the confines of my parents’ posh manor house. Mrs.Mead let me read or do schoolwork on her worn kitchen table. It was there, in her kitchen, that I learned to embroider and quilt, to bake bread and pies, and to brew a perfect cup of tea.

On rare occasions, after running out of the manor to the lawns and through the garden gate, then ambling down the stone paths, past the pond and farm fields, I would arrive at the squat, arched door of Mead Cottage and let myself in without so much as knocking.

“What’s for tea?” I’d demand of Mrs.Mead, who was usually toiling away at the stove or huddled under a lamp with her embroidery ring.

“Fresh biscuits and clotted cream,” she would reply, her green eye and blue eye crinkling with joy at the sight of me. “Hot out of the oven for the little missus in ten minutes’ time.”

Never once did Mrs.Mead make me feel unwelcome, nor did she ever order me back to the manor house, where I belonged. It was her job to tend to me all day long, and then, after her shift was done, she found herself looking after me again in her very own home. I still recall the times when I’d swing the cottage door open to find that tousle-haired intruder occupying my chair at the kitchen table. Mrs.Mead would take the boy by the hand and lead him out the door.

“Go find your father in the garden. Tell him we’ve got a visitor again,” she’d say, and lickety-split, the brooding boy would be gone. I’d gloat the second Mrs.Mead closed the door on his back and she’d lavish attention on me once more.

What became of that boy I didn’t know for several years. At some point, he simply vanished, rarely to be seen on the estate grounds. So all-consuming was my selfishness that it never occurred to me to ask Uncle Willy or Mrs.Mead where he was or even to consider they might be capable of loving this child even more than they loved me.

When I was seventeen, sharing the good news with Uncle Willy about my admittance to prep school, I learned where his son had been all those years.

“You may very well find yourself in classes with him soon,” Uncle Willy revealed. “My boy’s back from boarding school, and he’s about to attend your class.”

At first, I was confused. How could the butler’s son be attending a private prep school for the wealthy and privileged?

Uncle Willy explained without me having to ask. “Your father granted him another scholarship,” he said. “So you’ll see him at school.”

“I’m not sure I’d recognize him after all these years,” I replied. “And besides, I doubt we’ll run in the same circles.”

Molly, it hurts my soul to commit those words to paper, and it hurts even more to remember the pained look that crossed Uncle Willy’s face when this classist quip so casually spilled from my mouth. But I was a parrot echoing whatever I heard at home, repeating it ad infinitum, lest anyone forget my family’s God-given superiority.

“I’m happy you’ll be studying, Flora,” Uncle Willy said, ignoring my callous remark. “And I know you will achieve great things one day. Just don’t forget your ol’ Uncle Willy and Mrs.Mead.”

“I won’t,” I replied. “I promise.”

Just then, I heard my name, a familiar voice calling me from somewhere deep within the manor. “Yoo-hoo, Flora!”

“That’s my sister,” said Uncle Willy. “She’s been looking for you. Your gown arrived, and she needs you for a fitting.”

“Right,” I replied. “I better get to it. Thank you, Uncle Willy.”

“For what?”

“For everything,” I answered.

I made my way through the graceful front corridor filled with gilded portraits of Papa’s noble ancestors—gloomy men holding fountain pens or cocked rifles and pale-faced women in corsets so tight they appeared on the verge of fainting. I walked past the banquet room, with its long claw-foot table, and then past the parlor, with its brocade settees and the ominous grandfather clock ticking time in one corner. Up the grand staircase I went, hearing the creak and groan of the antique oak under my feet as I climbed each perfectly polished step.

Once upstairs, I passed my father’s office, then the library (my favorite room in the mansion), two lush and roomy bathrooms, and several guest rooms. I kept walking until I passed through the glass French doors leading to the west wing of the manor, which was mine and mine alone. I pushed through the ornately carved double doors to my vast bedroom, with its Queen Anne four-poster bed and throw pillows plumped perfectly by some hardworking, invisible maid.

“Mrs.Mead?” I called out. “Are you here?”

I found her in my en suite vestibule, lined with floor-to-ceiling mirrors on one wall and an antique vanity handed down to me through generations on my paternal line.

“There you are,” Mrs.Mead said the moment I crossed the threshold. “I’ve been calling you. Your father got cross and dressed me down for yelling in the hallway. Your mother will be here any minute. She wants to see you in the gown. Is it true what she said? Am I a step closer to calling you a scholar?”

I nodded. Mrs.Mead smiled and pinched my cheeks with her dry hands.

“You were always a clever one, Flora. When you were a wee lass, you used to school everyone on vocabulary. I used to laugh and laugh—all those big words coming out of such a tiny mouth. You do us proud. You really do.”

“If only they would see it that way,” I said.

“See it what way?”

I turned to find my mother behind me, a manicured hand on one hip of her Parisian culottes.

“Never mind, Mama,” I said. “The gown is here.”

“It’s about bloody time,” Mama replied as she marched over to the clothes rack by Mrs.Mead and began surveying the dress from all angles. “Honestly, that couture house is a complete disappointment. This gown is one week late, no explanations.”

“Well, it’s here now,” said Mrs.Mead. “And we’ve still got time before the Workers’ Ball. Your daughter is such a natural beauty, she could wear a paper bag and still be the prettiest girl at the party.”

“I doubt that,” said my mother. “Your father has worked all year long to court the right families, Flora, and the RSVP list is a veritable who’s who of the nation’s best and brightest. There’s even a baron and baroness coming this year. I’m not saying you’re unattractive. I’m just saying you’ll have stiff competition.”

“I didn’t realize the ball was a beauty contest,” I replied.

“Please don’t start, Flora. You’ll give me a headache.” Mama dabbed at her forehead with the back of her hand.

The Workers’ Ball was a special event my parents held once a year. It was the one social engagement that mixed the workers in the region with the well-heeled owners of the estates they served. My father had held the ball for a decade and counting, and I don’t know who dreaded it more—the workers or us. Still, it was a necessary evil, and for my parents, it was a chance to gossip with the other elites while sizing up the generation to come.

“That dress is fit for a princess,” said Mrs.Mead as she took the gown off its hanger and gingerly passed it to me.

I ducked behind my Venetian dressing screen and put it on. I barely recognized the reflection looking back at me in the mirror. In an instant, I’d transformed from a studious, bookish girl into the belle of the ball. A light pink, the color of a damask rose, the fitted satin bodice hugged my torso and waist. Billowing skirts fell in a blushing cascade all the way to the floor. I secured the tulle straps on my arms, covering my shoulders as much as possible before stepping out from behind the screen.

Mrs.Mead began to cry the second she laid eyes on me. “My little girl. My wee babe, all grown up. And to think I once changed your nappies.” She pulled a hankie from her bosom and honked her nose.

Meanwhile, my mother surveyed me like a lioness sizing up prey. “It fits,” she said, “and the color is right. If only you knew how to wear it properly.”

She pulled the tulle straps down my arms.

“There,” she said, once my shoulders were bare. “Never cover your best assets. Remember that.” She tugged at the bodice until my chest was practically heaving out of the heart-shaped corset.

“Mama,” I said. “Do I have to show everything?”

“Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative,” she replied. She stood back to appraise me again. “With good makeup and the right shoes, you might turn a head or two.”

“Goodness gracious, she’ll have the boys fighting for a chance to dance with her. Just you wait!” said Mrs.Mead.

“That’s not really the goal, is it? To make boys fight over me?” I asked.

“Of course it is,” Mama replied. “Courting these days takes forever. It’s not like in my time. Back then, your parents decided for you, and you were married within a month. Now there’s the dating, the family meetings, the engagement, the financial arrangements behind the scenes. Marrying off a girl is worse than going through a merger.”

“Who says I want to get married?” I replied.

Mrs.Mead and my mother exchanged an amused look.

“Always hold on to your dreams,” said Mrs.Mead as she patted my bare arm.

“As long as you hold on to your husband,” my mother added.

“You’re a relic, Mama,” I said. “Nowadays, women can dare to be so much more than wives.”

“Oh, here we go with your ‘women’s liberation’ and ‘equal rights.’ Honestly, Flora, I’m on your side. I do wear pants, you know,” my mother retorted, as she strutted in her recently acquired culottes. “Women these days have it better than ever, so why does this young generation insist on rocking the boat?”

I looked at my mother, so full of false bluster. All I could think about was how a month earlier, I consoled her when I found her lying in her bed with the curtains drawn, drunk on vodka, mascara and tears staining her cheeks. I didn’t ask her what had happened because it was always the same—my father, caught in some dalliance with a woman half my mother’s age.

“Are we sorted?” Mrs.Mead asked. “Is our Cinderella ready?”

“Can I take this gown off now?” I asked.

“As long as you wear it exactly as I showed you on the day of the ball,” my mother demanded.

“Fine,” I said, then I disappeared behind the Venetian screen to change back into my comfortable clothes. Once done, I popped out and announced, “I’ll be in the library. I’ve got books to read before classes begin.”

“Don’t study too hard or you’ll need glasses,” my mother called out, “and what boy on earth will want you then?”

—

I can tell you, Molly, that it was a relief to leave my mother and enter my father’s hallowed library, surrounded by perfect, cloistered silence and custom-made shelves of leather-bound volumes that reached from the floor all the way to the pudgy cherubs frolicking on the frescoed Renaissance-style ceiling. There was even a sturdy ladder on wheels that could be moved along an interior brass track, giving access to books on the highest shelves. And the scent of that room, Molly, I’ll never forget it—old ink and parchment paper; worn leather; polished, lemony brass.

I removed the headmaster’s reading list from my pocket and began searching for the tomes I required. But no matter what the category, no title listed could be found. I was certain I’d put Great Expectations back on the Dickens shelf just a few weeks earlier, and most definitely Romeo and Juliet had been amongst the other Shakespearean tragedies not long ago, so where was it now?

A galling thought occurred to me. Was my father behind this? Had he granted me permission to study only to then remove all the books I’d need to be successful? Was this some sort of cruel joke? A fiery dragon awoke in my belly, and youthful rage propelled me down the corridor to my father’s office.

The door was open a crack, and through it I saw Mama perched on the side of his sprawling banker’s desk while Papa, clearly distressed, paced the room, raking his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair.

“You can’t just let that man walk all over you,” my mother hissed.

“What choice do I have, Audrey?” my father spat back. “It’s bend backward or lose it all.”

I slowly opened the door and stood in the entrance. “What are you talking about?” I asked, looking back and forth between them. “Is something wrong with Gray Investments?”

“Since when are my business affairs your purview?” my father replied. He then took a seat on his Capital Throne and drilled me with his judgmental eyes. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, Flora. What is it you want now?”

All of my boldness suddenly left me. I could barely gather strength to pose my question. “Did either of you remove books from the library?” I asked as gently as I could.

“Do you really think your father and I swan about on settees immersed in Pride and Prejudice ?” my mother retorted. “It’s bad enough you fill your head with that literary rot.”

“I just granted you permission to study whatever you want,” said Papa, “and now you accuse me of stealing books from my own library?”

“I’m not accusing you,” I replied. “I merely asked where they were. And if you haven’t touched the books, someone has. Many are missing, the very ones I need,” I said.

My mother looked at my father. “That boy,” she commented.

“What boy?” I asked, already perturbed.

“The butler’s son,” said my father.

“You mean Uncle Willy’s boy?” I asked.

“I beg your pardon,” Papa said. “How many times do I have to remind you: you will call my butler ‘sir’ or nothing at all.”

My mother shook her head in dismay. “Flora, you know it’s dangerous to get too familiar with the servants. It confuses them. They forget their station.”

“If you’re concerned about them forgetting their station,” I said, “you should have the boy arrested for stealing books.”

“God help us all,” my father muttered as he cradled his head in his hands. “Before you draw and quarter the lad, you should know I gave him permission to borrow whatever he wanted from my library.”

“You what?” I asked. “Why?”

“Because he’s this year’s Gray Scholarship recipient, Flora,” my mother said.

Suddenly, what Uncle Willy had told me earlier became clear. His son had been awarded the Gray Scholarship, a yearly bursary my parents offered to a child of one of the servants working for us. Between the scholarship and the Workers’ Ball, my parents believed themselves to be the greatest benefactors on earth.

“Flora, I’ve been financing that boy’s schooling for years,” Papa said as he smoothed his lapels. “Quite generous of me, I’d say.”

“Quite clever is what it is,” said Mama. “The headmaster of that boarding school owed you a favor. And in return, your butler dropped his ludicrous petition for staff raises.”

“So you’ve supported his education all this time,” I said as my face colored with outrage. How was it that a servant’s son could be granted privileges I always had to fight for?

“Tuition is a small price to pay to keep the staff from agitating,” Mama explained.

“But why would you give that boy access to the library when you know I need those books myself?” I asked.

“You see?” my mother said to Papa. “She’s already taking this school business too seriously.”

My father sighed. “I’ll speak to the boy’s father and have him return the books. Now may I kindly get back to work? Neither of you women seems to have any understanding of the pressure I’m under—here you are, nattering on about nothing!” He punctuated this by slapping both palms on his desk, which made me and my mother flinch in unison.

“Yes, Papa,” I said quietly. The last thing I wanted was to cause an eruption of my father’s red-hot anger. “I’m sorry for disturbing you,” I added with a curtsy. My head bowed, I backed out of the office and closed my father’s door behind me.