My True Love by Karen Ranney Page B

had insisted upon getting out of bed.
    Today, however, she answered Anne’s question with a smile. “He is up and dressed. Insisted upon it,” she said. “He looks much his usual self,” Betty said. “Although a little more pale and somewhat thinner.”
    Relief flooded through Anne so quickly and fiercely that she felt almost lightheaded from it.
    “I feel it is a bad sign, indeed, Muriel, when your mistress and Anne are deep in conversation,” Hannah said, eyeing them both with some disfavor. “Either you are to be punished, or I am to be starved.” She poked at the toast on her tray. “A plan that looks to have already begun.”
    “You will frighten Muriel, Hannah,” Anne said, looking over at her. She smiled at the maid. “I can tell you that she does not mean half of what she says.”
    “I do not?” There was a frown on Hannah’s face.
    “No,” Anne said. “I think you are being quarrelsome simply to see what kind of reaction you can get.”
    “I am not,” Hannah protested. “I am simply tired of this room and tired of remaining in it.”
    “Then I will ask the physician to see if you cannot at least begin to walk tomorrow. Would you like that?”
    She slitted her eyes at Anne. “I am not a cat to be coaxed to purr, Anne. And I am capable of asking him questions on my own.”
    “If you were a cat,” Anne said, feeling absurdly cheerful, “then I would simply rub you between the ears.” Hannah’s lips twitched. “He has promised to pay you a visit this afternoon. Ask him then,” Anne said, daring her.
    “He is a pompous know-it-all,” Hannah said.
    Anne said nothing, but her smile broadened. Prior to every visit from Richard Maning, Hannah had insisted her hair be brushed and her face washed.
    Hannah eyed her as if she’d heard her thoughts or could divine them in her smile. “Go away, Anne. Go for a walk. Take the air.”
    Betty caught her look and smiled. “I’ll ask my husband to set up a stool and a table in the garden. You might wish to sit and draw there.”
    Anne looked over at Hannah, torn. She would have dearly loved to spend a few hours outside, instead of the few minutes she allotted herself each morning.
    Betty’s hands were folded at her waist, her head tilted, a bit like an inquisitive bird. “I’ll be within hearing distance of the bell,” she said.
    It was, in the end, too tempting to be gone from this room, to sit in the garden for a little while. Anne nodded, capitulating.
    “See? We all agree,” Hannah said. “It is your mood that needs improving. Not my own. I am a thoroughly pleasant individual. A truly amiable soul,” she said, turning to Muriel. The young maid looked somewhat stunned by such sweet-tempered attention, Anne thought, as she left the room.
     
    The knot garden was imposing from above, but almost overpowering up close. Instead of the intricate designs cut into the hedges, all that was truly visible was their size. She felt as if she were trapped in a maze, one created for giants. With relief, Anne found herself in a smaller place, a garden with its beds mulched and readied for the first blossoms of spring.
    Betty’s husband turned out to be a short, wizened man with a face filled with wrinkles and the most charming smile she’d ever seen. He reminded her of what a gnome might look like if he’d been transported to the surface of the earth and instructed to marry and live among humans.
    “Did Betty send you out, then?” His blue eyes twinkled at her. “I’m Ned,” he said, nodding back at her. “Been married to the woman since Adam was a boy. Know her right enough I do. She’s a great one for the freshness of the air.” He smiled once again, then turned his attention to placing the table where she wished. With a wave he disap peared behind the knot garden, gnomelike.
    She sat on the stool Ned had provided and laid the drawing board down on the table. The board had been a present from her father on her eleventh birthday. Its surface