A muffled voice came from beyond the door. ‘It’s Parker, madam…your girl told me you needed a driver tonight?’
My girl, Vastra thought. Oh, how I wish it were so. How I wish it were capable of being so.
‘Yes, Parker…just a moment. I shall not be long.’
‘Where to, madam?’ Parker questioned.
‘I shall tell you on the way, Parker…but for now, head toward the city’s center.’
‘As you wish, madam,’ Parker replied, snapping the reins. The carriage jolted as the horses began to trot, and Vastra closed her eyes in thought.
~~~
Vastra’s intuition was right…she was quite late getting in. Jenny found herself valiantly fighting off sleep as the clock in the entry hall chimed half ten. She was afraid that she might fall asleep if she tried to stay up much later, and was fearful of what Vastra might think if she found her asleep in the library, a book resting in her lap. She got up, stretching, and walked up the stair to her room. Changing into a plain white cotton nightgown, she slipped between the crisp white sheets she had dressed the bed with earlier that day. A pitcher filled with lilies and wildflowers scented the room slightly, and as she began to drift off, her mind was filled with a flurry of thoughts.
As always, she was thankful for her luck. A few weeks earlier she was struggling to survive, and now she found herself in a beautiful home, working for a kind and understanding employer. Yes, Madame Vastra could be stern, but it always seemed to be tempered with a strange kindness she had never experienced before. From time to time she would catch her employer out of the corner of her eye, watching her. It was impossible to know what Vastra was thinking, all the more impossible to know what expression her face held. Jenny was curious about that ever present cowl, and gossip on the street, while something she barely lent credence to, led in two directions. Some said that her employer was from a foreign land, and Jenny could certainly see the logic in that. It would explain the strange accent she occasionally heard in Vastra’s voice. Those people, she found, believed that Vastra was a widow, and in the land she was from, it was custom for a widow to keep her face hidden in mourning for a year or longer.
Jenny found herself wanting to believe that story far more than the alternative.
The other story she heard told was that Vastra was horribly disfigured, as a result of an accident or perhaps even from birth, and she wore the cowl and gloves to hide that disfigurement. It angered Jenny to hear those tales, cruel and heartless and without basis in anything but mere supposition. Once she had found herself so disgusted with a spinster telling a version of this tale in the fish and meat monger’s that she had to restrain herself from walking over and slapping the woman across the face. As satisfying as that might be for her (and as she thought about it, a small, wicked smile crossed her lips), she had a feeling that Vastra would find such a response as beneath her.
These thoughts quickly passed, to be replaced by thoughts that she found, at first, to be almost more disquieting. She had noticed Vastra watching her, and thought at first that she was simply keeping an eye on her new employee. When Jenny realized that the attention had not faded, she began to wonder, began to think…and she began to realize that she enjoyed the attention. As she nestled deeper beneath her sheets, a smile crept across her face, and she felt her heart race just a little bit. She had found herself looking forward to the times they sat in the library and talked, and she was surprised to find that Vastra encouraged her to think about things and express herself on more than a surface level. She looked forward to the times she made her employer laugh, or the occasional touch of a gloved hand across a table.
At first she’d yell at herself. Silly girl, she’d think. You only feel this way because she saved you from a life on the streets…or worse. It’ll pass. Only it never did. And now, weeks later, she was starting to come to grips with the idea that perhaps, maybe just a little, the feelings she had for her employer were moving beyond friendship. That perhaps she was falling in love. With Madame Vastra. And if she was afraid of anything, she was afraid of this. She was her employer. Of all things…and she was, after all, a woman.
She felt her thoughts quicken, then quell as she began to drift off, but her slide into the welcoming arms of Morpheus was interrupted by a quiet clicking noise in the entry hall. She sat upright, her eyes accustomed to the darkness, a darkness lessened only by the faint silvery light of a quarter moon shining through her window. She crept to the door and called through it.
‘Madam? Vastra? Are you home?’
There was a second’s silence before she heard a reply.
‘Yes, Jenny. I thought I told you to go to sleep if I were late?’
Jenny opened the door and walked out to the landing. Vastra looked up and saw Jenny standing there in her white nightgown, the faintest bit of light passing through the thin cotton. She caught her breath as her eyes opened wider.
‘I did, madam…and I was nearly asleep when I heard the door open. Can I get you anything?’
She watched as Vastra shook her head, ‘No, Jenny…go to sleep. I will talk to you in the morning. I just need to put some things away, and I will be going to sleep myself.’
‘As you wish, madam,’ Jenny replied. She quietly turned and began to walk back to her room.
‘Good night, madam,’ she called out quietly.
‘And to you as well, Jenny,’ Vastra replied, almost as quietly.
~~~
Vastra couldn’t help but detect the disappointment in Jenny’s voice, and she was tempted to…
No.
She shook her head again, trying in vain to wrest herself from the images and thoughts that were quickly becoming a constant in her waking and dreaming mind. She watched, instead, as Jenny walked back to her room and slowly closed the door behind her. As she walked toward the kitchen, Vastra pulled the hood of her cloak back. A tear rolled down one cheek as she grabbed a towel from a drawer, sat down at the table, and pulled a long, curved blade from her scabbard. She quietly focused on cleaning the drying red from the gleaming steel. Finally satisfied at her cleaning job, though she knew that the blade needed a proper oiling, she returned the blade to the scabbard, quietly walked up the stairs to her room, and closed the door behind her.
She stripped out of her clothes, dropping them in a heap at the foot of her bed. She carried the scabbard to her closer, secreting it in a corner. She’d return it to its proper resting place sometime tomorrow. Slowly she climbed beneath her sheets, hoping the evening’s exertions would quiet her restless mind enough to sleep. She knew it was a fruitless hope, but she hoped it nonetheless.
Tomorrow, she
thought to herself. We will have to talk, Jenny and I.
Tomorrow.
~~~
Morning.
Jenny rose with the sun, as she did every morning. Sleep did not come easily for her the previous evening, even after Vastra had returned from her business…whatever that was. Still, there were tasks to be completed, the first among them being breakfast. Jenny quickly dressed and quietly opened her bedroom door, intending to slip downstairs and begin breakfast without disturbing her employer, who certainly would still be sleeping if her tired appearance last night was any indicator.
She had made it down two steps when she heard her employer’s voice.
‘Jenny? Are you awake?’
Jenny turned, surprised that Madame Vastra was already awake.
‘Yes, madam? Anything I can do for you?’
The still closed door to Vastra’s bedroom muffled her reply somewhat, but the alert tone in her employer’s voice implied that she had in fact been awake for some time.
‘Yes. Before you start breakfast, would you go to the top of the street and purchase a copy of this morning’s newspaper?’
‘Of course, madam,’ Jenny replied. It was a bit uncommon to do that before breakfast, but certainly was far from an unfamiliar request. She turned back to face the descending stairs and made two more steps before Vastra called out again.
‘One last thing.’
‘Yes, madam?’
There was a pause, and Jenny waited. Her nervousness getting the better of her, she could bear the silence no longer.
‘Madam? Are you alright?’
‘Yes…yes, I am’
Another pause, almost as interminable as the last.
‘I apologize,’ Vastra continued. ‘After you’ve finished preparing breakfast, would you mind bringing it up here. I think I would prefer to take it here this morning. And…you are welcome to join me. If you wish.’
Jenny paused, her face showing the confusion she felt. After a few moments of contemplation, she finally replied.
‘Yes madam. As you wish.’
‘Go on now…the newspaper shan’t make it here on its own, nor shall breakfast cook itself without your attention.’
Jenny quickly descended the stairs, and made her way to the street. As the door swung closed behind her, closing with a solid clicking noise, she found herself wondering why Vastra had requested breakfast in her chambers this morning. That was something new, and it had Jenny concerned somewhat. She thought back over the quality of her work the past weeks, worried that somehow she was not meeting expectations. She cast this from her mind quickly, however; when she had come up short on a task, Vastra had been quick to point it out and make her expectations clear.
Jenny shook her head. No point in me worrying about it now, she thought. I’ll surely find out if there’s a reason for this soon enough.
She found the newsboy, handed him threepence, and took the newspaper he offered her. Rolling it up without so much as a look, she hurried back to the house, where breakfast was certainly not cooking itself, as Vastra had pointed out.
In the kitchen, Jenny busied herself with preparing breakfast. Poached eggs, thick slices of bacon, and roughly chopped potatoes cooked away atop the stove, while several slices of bread were being toasted under the back cover. Jenny plated everything up, carefully arranged the plates on a serving tray, along with the requisite silverware and napkins, and carefully carried the meal upstairs. She found the door to Vastra’s bedroom slightly ajar, and was about to enter before thinking better of it.
‘Madam? Breakfast is ready. Can I bring it in?’
‘Can you? Are you capable of doing so, Jenny?’
Jenny was about to ask if her efforts were in question before she heard Vastra laugh quietly.
‘Of course you may bring it in. There is a table next to the window…you may place everything there.’
Jenny walked in, seeing Vastra’s room for the first time. While much the same size as her room (which she found as almost cavernous in size…certainly no servant’s room, her bedroom), it was appointed far more richly than her own. Vastra’s bed was canopied, with thin, gauzy curtains of deep red and purple occluding the bed from view. Where Jenny’s room had a bare wooden floor, the floor in here was carpeted from wall to wall in a matching deep red hue. The walls continued this theme, with gold moulding setting off the rich red lacquer that glowed warmly in the morning light. All the furniture was carved from a dark wood; Jenny’s first thought was that the furnishings were walnut, but thinking about it, perhaps her employer was wealthy enough to afford something far more exotic, like mahogany or teak.
Vastra smiled deep inside her cowl as the girl’s face clearly showed her shock. She cleared her throat quietly, but it was enough to break Jenny’s awe.
‘Over there, Jenny.’
Vastra pointed to a table, just large enough for two to sit at, with paired chairs sitting across from each other. Blushing, Jenny placed the tray down, and quickly scurried from the room. Vastra looked after her, confused, but Jenny’s return a few moments later with a smaller tray, on which sat a tea pot, two cups, sugar and milk, along with the newspaper Vastra had requested. Jenny carefully placed these additional things on the table, and then stood there, arms crossed in front of her at the waist.
‘Is everything to your liking, madam?’
Vastra’s voice clearly showed her hidden smile. ‘Yes, quite very. It all looks delicious. And I see you brought two plates. I trust this means you will join me, then?’
Jenny nodded, a slight flush reappearing on her cheeks. Jenny waited patiently as Vastra walked over to the table, but was surprised when she walked to where Jenny stood.
‘Please…sit.’
Shocked, Jenny could do nothing more than move quietly to her seat. Her surprise deepened as Vastra seated her before returning to her side of the table, where she gracefully sat. They each took their plate, and Vastra watched as Jenny bowed her head, quietly speaking a small prayer before beginning her meal. Both had taken a few bites of food before Jenny exclaimed.
‘Oh! I’m sorry, madam…how thoughtless of me!’
‘Pardon?’ replied Vastra. ‘How precisely have you been thoughtless, Jenny?’
Jenny blushed, lowering her eyes for a second before snapping her head back up. She’s learning so quickly, Vastra thought. ‘I forgot to pour the tea!’