The House of Dead Maids by Clare B. Dunkle Page A

savage would have liked to try his scheme.
    “Old Jack don’t act like a master,” he retorted. “I’d not do as he bids.”
    “Of course he acts like a master,” I said. “He does as he pleases, that’s what masters do. Have you seen him out hoeing the fields?”
    “Masters sit at the head of the table with their people around them, all watching to do as they’re told,” he replied. “And masters give the orders like Arnby does. Jack doesn’t do it, he runs away and hides even from me, and he’s scared all the time now. He acts like a sneaky dog.”
    He jumped up from the hearth and faced Mrs. Sexton.
    “If I’m master, I won’t have my food in here like you do,” he told her. “I’ll sit at the head of thetable and make old Jack come to me. Then we’ll see which one is master.”
    “Masters don’t act so,” I argued. “Not when they’re little. You’re not fit to leave the nursery!”
    But Mrs. Sexton was already returning the humble earthenware plates to their places.
    “Supper in the dining room, then,” she said. “I’ll see to it, young sir.” And she crossed the passage to another room, from whence we heard the clink of dishes. It upset me terribly to see her coddle him so.
    “Now, you go fetch old Jack,” he said, turning to me.
    “I won’t do it,” I said, standing with my hands behind my back. “I’ve had enough of your heathen airs and threats, and I’m not going to humor you further.” I was resolved, if he came at me, to turn him over my knee.
    But the little imp was smarter than that.
    “Don’t be angry with me, Tabby,” he said, putting his arms around my waist, and I swear he knew what it meant to me to hear my name, since no one else in that godforsaken house would use it. “Mrs. Sexton doesn’t mind. Why should you? Go find him now, I know you like to see him.”
    I said
no
to that and more, and I argued andgrumbled besides, but in the end I found myself walking the hallways, searching for Mr. Ketch.
    Voices issued from behind the closed door of Miss Winter’s parlor. I leaned in close and ascertained that one of them was his. I had already lifted my hand to knock when I heard Miss Winter say, “Please, Jack. No one needs to know.”
    Now, it’s a wicked thing when staff listen at doors, and I’ll be the first to say it. But in that disordered place, with nothing but riddles to go on, and the whole house at sixes and sevens, I am not ashamed to say that I listened as if I had two sets of ears.
    “Just a little money,” she begged, “enough to set me up on my own, and you’d never have to see my face again. They don’t need a maid, you know that. Arnby says it’s the master who counts.”
    “And ruin the luck?” Mr. Ketch’s voice was indignant. “You’ve damaged it enough already, trying to run off with the coal merchant. The
Annabelle Jacobs
sank that very week, and all our cargo with her. You know what investments mean to this estate. We’re not getting rich off the village. Those clods pay their rent in potatoes and corn!”
    “You’re rich enough to lose five ships, I knowyou are,” she said. “They tell me how you live. As for the luck, I don’t give two pins about that. I wish this house and its village and all its luck were gone from the face of the earth.”
    “You were glad enough when we found this place,” Mr. Ketch returned. “You danced through the halls with your hair down.”
    “I hate it just as much as you do now, and you know perfectly well why. I’m begging you, Jackie. Just do this one thing for me, please.”
    “And let you out to come creeping down alleys after me?” His tone was snide. “That’s all I need, my old friend Flora skulking and spying on me.”
    “I know you won’t believe it possible,” rejoined Miss Winter. “Your powers of imagination will be taxed to the utmost. But I don’t care to spy on you. I don’t love you anymore.”
    I heard a loud thump and started back, but it was only him rising