“It took me another few days to become ready to leave my bed, the fever having sapped my strength, and my ankle did not allow me to walk well, or with ease. But on the third day I awoke in my bed once more and pulled myself from it in the early morning’s light to put on my dark gown. My hands shook as I did up my buttons, and I flinched often when stepping upon my tortured ankle, but I took long bandages and bound up my ankle with them, to make it sturdier. When Nancy came in with hot water in a bowl for me to wash with, I was already up, pulling my long hair back into its customary bun. I smiled wanly at her as she came in but held up a hand to the many protests that she made in seeing me gowned and risen from my bed.
“I cannot stay in bed for the rest of my life, Nancy,” I said. “I am well, and I must return to my charge.”
“You would do better to make sure you are truthfully well, miss,” said Nancy, tsking at me even as she came around my back to straighten my gown. “You’ll do no good to anyone, least of all yourself, wasting what strength you have before you’re well and hale once more.”
“Prolonged bed rest will do nothing for me but turn me into an infant,” I said as I stepped toward the door. My ankle wobbled under me, and I grimaced with the pain.
Nancy pursed her lips. “If you are determined to do this, miss,” she said, “I will get you one of the walking sticks of the old master. At least then you will be able to walk around without doing yourself further injury.”
“Thank you, Nancy,” I said with a little sigh, “that would be most welcome.” I turned and smiled at her. “Would you also consider offering me an arm to help me to the stairs?”
Her expression harboured much disapproval but she did as I asked, good woman that she was, and aided me along the little corridor to the stairs where I could lean on the banister for support.
“I’ll bring your breakfast and the stick to the schoolroom, miss,” she said. “Better than you trying to get all the way downstairs all in one go.”
Grateful to her for her care on my behalf, I made my way slowly to the schoolroom where I found Anna’s books spread out over the little desk. I hobbled to them and discovered my young charge had indeed been studying her mathematics in my absence. Anna’s small yet determined hand had scribbled down her tables over and over on the creamy paper. I smiled to see it. I was glad that I had made something of an impression on my charge, glad to see that even if she did not enjoy her studies in mathematics, at least she was trying. Being willing to put in effort is half the battle won.
I saw that Anna seemed to have started a new painting in my absence too. The old one, the view from the window, was finished. It sat with a stack of others in a row on one of the tables. I must ask my cousins for the opportunity to frame and display some of Anna’s works, I thought, for they showed talent, and it was often the way of fashionable households to display the works and talents of the daughters who resided therein, often of course to demonstrate their skills to potential suitors, but I hoped that eventuality would be a long time coming for little Anna. She seemed so much younger than her fourteen years in some ways, yet so much older in others.
And this is if they allow you to stay, after your blunder, said a voice in my mind. I swallowed, for neither cousin had come to see me when I was recovering, so I still knew not what their thoughts were.
I walked over to the painting on the easel and stared at the picture. It was as different to the last one as could be, and unsettling to my nerves. It was a picture of the moors, and of a circle of standing stones standing in the distance. Dark greens and browns covered the ground, with rising clifftops of grey and silver stone beyond in the distance. Tiny splashes of yellow formed little flowers on harsh, thorny gorse bushes of darkest green, almost black, and the rugged, bare expanse of the moorland even managed to appear boggy and wet under the skill of Anna’s brush. The stones in the distance of the picture shone with greys and blues and silvers. They should have been pretty, yet they looked fearful, strange and sharp, ominous and somehow, if stones could be said to emit emotion, they seemed threatening, angry even. I stared on that picture and thought of the strange dream I had had of the moors. I danced towards those stones and through them, I thought, just as the girls in the vision of Brune had. And I fell down a mine shaft, pushed from behind. I thought of Lizzie and her death not long ago.
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