Free Amy Snow by Tracy Rees Page A

was eternally tired, Rosy was always coughing and scratching. As for Marcus, he was forever falling off walls and dropping hammers on his toes and getting trapped under logs. But Aurelia? Goddesses don’t have weak hearts.
    She remained in good spirits. In fact, she was so little changed in that first year that it was easy to suppose Dr. Jacobs mistaken. She insisted, though, that I must cease my ambiguous role in the household and become her full-time companion.
    â€œIt is time to stop this nonsense now,” she told her parents soberly one day. “I know you disapprove of Amy, and I will stop trying to talk you out of it if you will accept my decision and allow her to carry out her duties in peace. I do not know what lies ahead of me or how long I have. Amy calms me and I trust her absolutely. Whatever befalls me now, I want her by my side.”
    Of course, she said it when the Reverend Mr. Chorley and Dr. Jacobs were present; she never hesitated to air her private business before the pillars of the community if it served her interests. Dr. Jacobs expressed his medical opinion that I was a beneficial tonic for Aurelia. Mr. Chorley urged compassion and said I was a gift from God. I loved him for that.
    And so I bedded down in the scullery no more but was moved into the room next door to Aurelia’s. We continued to take lessons together, though these were now a desultory affair. Mr. Henley was no longer grooming her for marriage, but Lord Vennaway had become so distracted with grief that he neglected to dismiss him.
    Aurelia continued to walk the two miles into Enderby each week to visit the villagers, as well as to discuss the plight of the unfortunate with Mr. Chorley, Mr. Clay, and Mrs. Bolton, but now I went with her. Everyone, irrespective of fortune or status, was appalled at the ill fate that had befallen Aurelia. She forbade anyone to talk of it, but everyone did.
    Lady Vennaway’s persecution of me eased, save for her insistence that I dress like a governess, provoking another battle. Aurelia chafed at the unkindness that it represented and swore that seeing me so drab would hasten her demise. Lady Vennaway would not hear of a lowly companion wearing beautiful clothes. Aurelia argued that to look upon beautiful things raised her spirits. Lady Vennaway retorted that Aurelia’s spirits seemed unnaturally high to her and that if she didn’t like it, she could send me back to the scullery. I did not care so I told Aurelia that she could yield with honor. There were greater things to concern us, after all.
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    The second year brought the first signs of her ill health, unwelcome and inevitable as the shortening days and withering leaves of autumn. She began to complain of fatigue, a word that was never in her vocabulary before. “It is not that I am tired ,” she told me, “it is not the feeling one has after a busy day or the longing to melt into sleep. It is like a weight upon me and I cannot wrestle it.”
    We still walked into Enderby, but only on a good day. Sometimes now we took the carriage and sometimes we stayed at home. Aurelia grew frightened. What would her condition impose upon her in the time that remained? She didn’t mind death, but she didn’t want to be changed before it came.
    In December 1843 we celebrated Aurelia’s twenty-first birthday. Her parents wanted no ritual at all to mark her passage into an adulthood that would be all too fleeting. Aurelia wanted a ball. They compromised with a dinner for selected family members, prepared by Cook, aided by me. And Aurelia came into her fortune.

Chapter Fourteen

    I eat a little of the cold collation Mrs. Woodrow has brought me. There is a cut of ham, some bread and butter, an orange, and a mug of ale. I am not fond of ale, but I take a swallow, then leave the rest untouched for later. I head downstairs and ask Mrs. Woodrow if she knows the whereabouts of Entwhistle’s