“Come. Let us go back.”

But now I was stuck to the spot. Though I could not cross the wall and read the legend on the granite marker, neither could I leave the place. “I cannot,” I said. “I do not understand.”

“Yes,” she said a little unkindly, “now I see that you cannot.”

And she stepped over the stone wall and headed directly through the trees behind me, following no path that I could see. I watched her slow departure in a torment of contradiction. I was horrified by this lonely, well-tended secret. Who was buried here? I shivered, remembering Miss Grange’s face stooped so close to mine. And what did she mean, “the story of this grave”? How might a grave hold a story? It was but a marker for the dead. And surely she who was possessed of so many stories, surely she knew who lay beneath. What had she need of my help? She is too elliptical now, I thought. I did not like her thus.

And yet she had placed me next to that hidden grave, had studied me, and then had found me wanting. It was I who had failed some type of test. I set off after her. A branch caught my shawl and I yanked at it, glad to hear the fabric tear.

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER NINE

Only Mrs. Lewes, the doctor’s wife, sat upon the piazza when we arrived back at Grange House, and inside all was still. I parted company from Miss Grange in the front hall and climbed the stairs up to my room, where I lay down upon my bed, determined to read until teatime, but I fell instead into a sound sleep.

A late sun stretched long shadows upon the front lawn when I awoke, and three fishing boats stroked slowly down Middle Haven harbor, crossing my window with the steady pace of the homewardbound. The sound of a teaspoon clinking against the thin sides of a bone china cup and the low murmur of voices reached up to me where I lay. I rose quickly and dashed water onto my face and neck, then refashioned my hair up into a tidy bun. I looked down at my dusty petticoats. Never mind, I thought, and opened the armoire to reach for my simplest tea dress.

Masculine voices burst into laughter as I descended the staircase, and then as suddenly hushed, cut over by a bright feminine exclamation, which only set the men to laughing harder. My pace quickened and I passed down the front hall toward the entrance, stepping out onto the bright glare of the piazza, across which the lowering sun illuminated the little group of guests in an orange glow.

“Maisie!” Mama called, and I turned toward the sound other voice to find her seated with Mrs. Hunnowell at a small side table, Papa standing round them holding a cake plate awkwardly in his hands.