Free Amy Snow by Tracy Rees

seventeen who feels a hundred years older, dressed all in black and shrinking from the chaos.
    The faces of Mr. and Mrs. Begley beam like tangerines as they spy their son in the crowd. He cordially greets them with news that the young Mrs. Begley is at home in Pentonville, supervising a welcome luncheon. I feel I would give them my whole hundred pounds if I could go with them.
    But I am in the way of their happy reunion. I fear I have been forgotten, then experience a nauseating relief at suddenly being remembered and bundled into a cab with shouted good wishes and hasty, duty-done farewells.
    The cab sets off at a great rate through a sea of traffic. I am flung forwards, flung backwards. Flung from side to side. My carpet bag flying about the interior like a bluebottle. An omnibus hurtling towards us, missing us by an inch. Horses whinnying in alarm. A rain of curses from my driver. A world so different from Hatville, where all was grace and state and order.
    At last, a cry from my driver: “Jessop!” The cab draws up in a quiet street with terraced white houses stained gray with the pall of the day. I tumble out, unconvinced that my bones retain their original configuration.
    After trying at number six—Mrs. Begley was sure it was number six—I am directed instead to number eighteen. In Jessop Walk, a moatlike ditch separates street from houses. At each property a little walkway bridges the divide and high spiked gates protect against villains. Despite these precautions, the houses are narrow and the inhabitants could quite easily peer over a garden wall into the lives of their neighbors. At Hatville, if we wanted to see a neighbor, we had to walk some miles.
    I am reassured that Mrs. Woodrow is a scholarly-looking woman with spectacles and gray woolen mittens. She is not fat, slatternly, drunk, nor inquisitive (I had not been aware how much the novels of Mr. Dickens would shape my expectations of landladies). I pay for two nights’ lodging in advance, and she agrees that I can extend my stay if I need to.
    â€œAssuming, that is, a crowd of wealthy and important guests don’t all descend at once,” she adds dryly. “It is January,” she continues, seeing that I take her seriously. “No one ever visits London in January.”
    Looking out of my small window I can quite see why. A light rain has begun falling, adding its own luster to the day. The sky sags over the hodgepodge of cramped gardens, washing lines, vegetable plots, outhouses, roofs, windows, and walls that fit within my view of roughly two feet squared. Home . . . if such it ever was . . . is a long way away.
    My room has bare floorboards and a narrow bed covered in a plain coverlet. The walls are brown and there is but one small painting in an ugly frame, a sentimental shepherdess simpering at a rosy-cheeked swain. There is a washstand, one chair, and a small table bearing a glass jar of snowdrops.
    The sight of them leaves me awash with memories: the road between Hatville and Enderby; countless hidden corners of the estate; dark lush leaves and drifts of little white flowers; fresh air and the promise of spring with Aurelia . . .
    I wonder if this is what she imagined for me.

Chapter Thirteen

    The household was devastated by Aurelia’s diagnosis. I caught Lord Vennaway reduced to tears, and turned away out of respect. Lady Vennaway took to her bed, then got out of it almost at once when she realized that a decline was an ill use of precious time with Aurelia. Lord Kenworthy disappeared like a shot cannon, soon to become engaged to a wealthy young lady from Kent, so we heard. Every cloud has its silver lining.
    I could not catch my breath from the shock of it. Aurelia! She was far too bright a flame to be prematurely extinguished. If this sad destiny had been anyone else’s, I might have been able to conceive of it: Lady Vennaway was too brittle to sit comfortably in this life, Cook