Free Black Spring by Alison Croggon

that I accepted such behavior without giving her a sharp telling-off. She ignored me, but it relieved my own anger.) She didn’t speak to Damek, but at the end of the meal, when she pushed her chair back to leave the table, she met his eyes again and nodded slightly before she left. Damek seemed much struck, and it was a few moments before he too laid his napkin on the table and left.
    As I tidied up after them, I drew a deep breath. Perhaps this was the end of the storm, and our little household would be an easier place. I had chores to attend to and didn’t see either of them all morning; I was therefore wholly taken aback when Damek and Lina walked in together to the luncheon table and sat down as if they were intimate friends.
    “What?” I said to her. “Are you talking now to your brother, Miss Lina?”
    “Oh, Anna, he’s not my brother!” said Lina. “That’s the mistake. He’s my friend. ” And she smiled radiantly and leaned forward, in a pretty manner she then affected, to brush a lock of hair out of his eyes. “Aren’t we the best of friends, Damek?”
    He muttered something I couldn’t hear in response, and she laughed and turned to me.
    “He’ll be less surly soon, I’m sure,” she said. “It’s only that he’s shy.” At this I saw the back of Damek’s neck redden. “But he has forgiven me my lack of manners.”
    “Well, Mr. Damek is a better human being than you are, Miss Lina,” I said. “Look at those bruises on his arm! For shame!”
    Lina tossed her head, quite unembarrassed. “If he doesn’t mind, I don’t see why you should, Anna. And you’re just a servant anyway. It’s not your place to make remarks.”
    Lina had never before asserted her rank — it was of the nature of an unspoken agreement — and that stung me. I had opened my mouth to protest when my mother came into the room with a roasted peahen and put an end to our conversation. After that I was coming and going from the room, waiting upon the two of them. I was still hurt by Lina’s remark and was, I fear, excessively formal, though I’m sure Lina never noticed. I studied her change in manner toward Damek with amazement, unable to believe that she was sincere. She pulled her chair closer to his and murmured to him as they ate, her eyes flashing mischievously. He said very little, mostly nodding now and again in response, and I mistrustfully wondered what devilry she was hatching now.
    I confess a little pain of jealousy started in my heart, watching the two of them huddled together so intimately; Lina and I had always been close, for all our differences in rank and sensibility, and now it seemed that she was replacing me in her heart with this sullen, mysterious boy.

I t’s difficult to remember things precisely. All this happened so long ago, and when I reflect, it seems to me that I have forgotten many important things, while others which perhaps seem trivial stand out vividly from the shadows. I was, you know, a most ordinary child, with no precocious abilities; I had all the usual childish griefs and joys, and my life has been, for the most part, remarkably without incident or tragedy. Lina used to laugh at my equable nature, claiming I had all the sensibility of a stick, and as a little girl I did feel that I was a dim and shadowed lamp next to her brilliant flame. Yet for all that, I never envied her; I would always have far rather been as I am. Which is a happy chance, really, since I have no choice in the matter.
    In my education I was fortunate above most of my peers, because when the master employed a tutor from the South for Lina and Damek, he instructed him to teach me as well. This was not really an enlightened decision on the master’s part, although I certainly benefited; his kindnesses were almost always self-interested. Lina was at best an erratic student, and predictably she regarded the classes (as I think her tutor did) as a means of torture, which she thought was especially devised to