Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter. Cathy’s First Letter.
24 September 1023, Bois-de-Bas
Amelia,
I have stopped stewing and taken a step. Yesterday, the day after I last wrote you, I rose late from my bed, tired, unhappy, and unsettled.
The ladies of Bois-de-Bas think me lazy and idle, so they must after my shocking behavior at the Hot Springs last Sunday. I cannot blame them for thinking so, as I have been living idly at the Griers for the past month as “Mr. Tuppenny’s guest” while I wait for John to sell the Attic and make the journey here to Bois-de-Bas.
But I do not like being idle! I suppose that it is all very well for a well-to-do woman in Yorke or Toulouse, with her round of social calls and all the delights of the city to distract her, but this is Bois-de-Bas, where no one idles and there are few distractions save the unspeakable Hot Springs.
Even if this were Mont-Havre, where, so I gather, things are “different,” I should still not wish to be idle. I am unaccustomed to it, having had to be on my toes ever since my parents’ passing. Nor, in truth, did I enjoy my one taste of Yorke.
I could simply choose to endure it until John arrives. But as I have discovered—as I discovered to the ladies of the Hot Springs—I no longer wish to be surrounded by the chaos of my brother’s enthusiasms. This is a time and a place for new starts, and I have resolved to make one.
And so, after the noon meal I rose and walked up the road from the Grier’s to the center of Bois-de-Bas, where Amelie Tuppenny runs a shop. I had not been inside before, having no money I dare spend. It is a large room divided by a long counter, with space for the patrons on one side and shelves full of useful items on the other.
A young woman I had not met was helping a customer at the counter. I waited my turn, and asked if I might speak with Mme. Tuppenny. She turned her head to call out, but before she could speak Amelie emerged from behind the shelves.
She greeted me cheerfully enough, though I thought I detected a bit of reserve; perhaps it was my imagination. “Bon après-midi, Mlle. Gamble! How may I help you?”
Miss Gamble, was it? I answered in kind. “Good afternoon, Mme. Tuppenny. Might I have a moment of your time?”
She pursed her lips, and then nodded decisively. “Bien sur. Come.” She raised a portion of the counter so that I could walk through, and then led me around the shelves and through a door into what I realized was her home. We sat, and she waited for me to speak.
“Mme. Tuppenny,” I started, and stopped at her look. We were no longer in the shop. “Amelie,” I said.
She nodded for me to go on.
I took a deep breath, and said, in a rush, “Amelie, I have no money and no occupation, nothing at all to fill my time, and it is driving me beyond the end of all things. And then—” and stopped.
After a moment she continued for me, “—and then, your brother is coming.”
“And my brother is coming. If I wish to make a new start, a real new start, I must do so before he arrives. And—”
“You wish my help.” She nodded. “And what would you like to do?”
There was a considering tone in her voice, and I chose my words carefully.
“I should not wish to tend the goats,” I said at last. “But I will if I must. It can’t be so different than tending John.”
It was the right answer, for she laughed in delight.
“Ma cherie,” she said, “no one tends the goats by choice.” She paused. “I think we can find you something. What can you do?”
“I can use a shocking variety of small tools,” I said, “and I am good with my hands. I was raised to run a household and manage the servants, not that I have had occasion to do that since my parents passed and we were obliged to let the servants go. And I have spent years learning to keep body and soul together on the little money we have had left from my brother’s projects.”
She nodded. “Most women of our age in Bois-de-Bas are married. There are many single men in Bois-de-Bas, perhaps you might…?”
I had prepared for this question, and so I shook my head. “I do not know what your husband has told you of my story, but for many years I bore the name of Sloane-Price. We did not suit, and so I returned to my brother’s house. And then I fell in love.”
Amelie gave me a sharp look.
“No, no,” I said. “It was not like that. I could not, I did not act on my attachment. How could I? Just months ago I discovered the Mr. Sloane-Price was dead, had been dead for many years, but it was too late—my beloved had become engaged to someone else.”
“Did he know of your love?”
I looked at my hands. “I took care that he did not. It is why I was willing to leave my home and come here.”
“There is more to the story than that, I think.”
I looked up. “There is,” I said, wondering yet again how much your cousin had told her. “But I have left all that behind me.”
“Bon,” she said at last. “You will come to church on Sonnedi, n’est-ce pas? But do not come to the Hot Springs, for we must consider.” She laid a hand on my arm, and continued, “Do not worry. C’est tres bien.“
And so now I wait. But just perhaps I have taken the hot water I boiled for myself, and made soup.
Cathy
Next letter
____
Zymurgia House 