“Yes,” I amended quietly, “she has given me Grange House.”

She watched me a little. “And what will be lost if you do not, if you cannot, finish this story?”

“I will,” I answered.

“Aye? And what are you?” Her face softened.

“A girl.”

“All girls are lost. They marry. They become women.”

“Yes, but that is terrible.”

“Is it?” She folded her arms. “Why?”

“I cannot help but think of it as a sort of drowning.”

“I see, and you a sort of savior?”

She was scoffing at me. “Yes,” I said.

She turned away, wiping her hands upon the cloth still in her hands. “How little you understand.”

She must look at me, I thought. I walked round and stood by the side of the sink. “Then help me.”

“Why should I help you?” She was gazing out the window, but still, the hard woman of the attic was not in evidence now. Her question this time seemed really to seek an answer.

“Because you know the ending.”

She lifted her chin and gave a harsh chuckle.

I drew in my breath. “Tell me,” I begged, pressing against this reluctant. I stepped forward suddenly, causing her to jump, the ring on her left hand clinking against the lip of the sink. “Tell me,” I urged gently. She turned her spent face from the window toward me. “Tell me what you know. You need not fear that you have been disloyal to Miss Grange.” I paused.

She clucked then and shook her head. “Child,” she began, but she hit the word too heavily and it clattered in the air between us. I stiffened, again on my guard against her. She straightened, opened her mouth as if to continue, but then closed it and turned away from me. “It has begun,” she said, speaking so low, I thought she did not speak to me. The words grew in the silence, grew too heavy, it seemed, for she faced me once more and gazed upon me.

“Have you seen the little grave?” she whispered.

“Yes.” I could not keep my eyes from off her face, it was so changed, so inexplicably weary.

“Miss Grange showed it you?”

I nodded.

“Then”—she breathed a long sigh—“go with me there tonight. The thing can explain the plain truth far better than I.”

In a daze, I climbed back up the kitchen stairs, through the empty dining room already set for luncheon, the light from the windows catching the crystal glasses like indoor stars upon the dark tables. I caught the tip of my mother’s voice through one of the open windows that gave onto the verandah. Her voice and several others swatted and hung within the clear air, the words indistinct.

I wandered into the writing room, but it was occupied by a man standing with his back to me, facing out the window. I stole out and softly crept toward the stairs.

“Maisie?”

I turned round.