Amy Snow (2 page)

I cannot help but begin with a reflection on beds. An unseemly object of consideration for a young lady, no doubt, yet why should it be so? A bed is a place where so much of life is played out—births and deaths and passions and dreaming—all the most fundamental moments of our fragile human existence.

In this story there are several important beds, not least the sick bed of my mistress, where she lay for the better part of three years. And my own, very first known bed, which was a bank of snow—a pristine white mattress that supported my tiny head, cradled my kicking limbs, and chilled my poor infant flesh 'til I was blue to the bone. It also gave me my name. Indeed, it provides not just a convenient name but an apt symbol of my identity. My whole standing in this society we call the world is drawn from that unloving, white blank.

I would not have survived that soft, glittering, beautiful bed—was not intended to, let us not shy from the facts—had it not been for a headstrong child who rarely did as she was told. That child was Aurelia Vennaway, only child of Sir Charles and Lady Celestina Vennaway, the first family of the county.

At a precocious eight years of age, Aurelia was her parents' treasure and their bane. Unimpressed by her own elevated standing in society, she seemed oblivious to the inherent differences in value that exist between human beings. I, in contrast, have never been ignorant of the fact that some children are infinitely more precious than others.

The day she found me, Aurelia wore a copper-colored dress and sturdy brown boots with copper-colored buttons. She was wrapped in a sky-blue cloak and wore a cream fur hat. I cannot remember this, of course, but she told me. Aurelia told me all the stories of my early life in painstaking detail, as if to make up for my unknown identity with a richness of personal history.

That day, the tedium of the overheated, overpopulated parlor had quite engulfed her. Although the deepest snow in living memory lay upon the ground, the sun was shining and Aurelia breathed easiest out of doors. The four walls of any given room could not give her the horizons she longed for—horizons she could measure with her eyes and strive to conquer with her own two legs. She was like a wild animal, Cook always said.

She ran to the woods, where the jays knocked and shrieked with such heartfelt outrage it was a wonder she heard me at all. But she did, and though she lost her hat as she scrambled and slipped in the snow, she found me—skinny and frantic beneath an endless blue sky. I wonder, if I were even able to be conscious of such a thing, whether Aurelia in her sky-blue cloak appeared to me like a divine being condensed from the air.

Unlike the babies of cousins and acquaintances who had hitherto constituted her experience of the infant population, I was not red-faced and hearty but sliver-thin and blue. Nor was I smothered in yards of satin and lace; I was entirely naked. I screamed, she said, as though I would take on the whole world.

So she wrapped me in her cloak and ran for home. Neglecting all rules of decorum and boot removal, she erupted into the parlor, where her mother and aunts still sat talking and stitching and talking. Horrified gasps greeted the snowy tracks on the rug as Aurelia laid her bundle carefully before the fire and loosened the folds.

She could not quite understand why Lady Vennaway's response to my arrival was to cry “
Aurelia!
” as if she had done something truly dreadful. She could not understand why she was in disgrace (and it was clear that she was) for helping a living soul. Nor could she understand why her aunt Evangeline made such a fuss about the loss of the hat, as though a hat were more valuable than a baby.

In time they explained to her that not all babies are of equal value, that their worth depends upon many things, particularly the circumstances of their birth and the family into which they make their appearance. Indeed, that the world has room for an entire hierarchy of babies. I was a particularly worthless example, an unsavory breath of disgrace—albeit not their own—that was simply neither welcome nor appropriate in the elevated Vennaway household.

Within moments of my arrival at Hatville Court, I was banished to the kitchen. Not for me the roaring parlor fire and the rich softness of the Indian rug. No, the residual warmth of the stove and a bucket hastily emptied of potatoes had to serve. But Aurelia insisted on following me there, and together she and Cook tended me, nursing me back to pinkness, and life.

Lady Vennaway was deeply shocked. Not at the atrocity that had been done to me, for she was well aware that mankind, outside the best families, was a seething pot of iniquity. But that the result of such immorality had presented itself on
her
property, encroached into
her
household—this was outrage. All she wanted that day (and her husband was in accord) was to get rid of me. There were orphanages, workhouses that existed to solve problems like me. But their cherished, adored Aurelia would not hear of it.

Hatville Court may be imagined as a sort of latter-day Agincourt, hosting a struggle that ebbed and swelled over two and a half decades. One army was composed of Lord and Lady Vennaway: powerful, respected, moneyed, and always, incontrovertibly,
right
. They had history, authority, and convention on their side. The opposing army consisted of Aurelia. As a child, a
daughter
no less, her chances of prevailing were non-existent, yet she refused to acknowledge the fact and this carried her a long way.

Most of Aurelia's battles were minor: the choice of a gown, censorship of her reading matter, whether or not she must accompany her mother's morning calls around the neighborhood. These she sometimes won, more usually lost. But championing me was the first of several causes over which she would have her way no matter what. On this occasion she achieved her victory with sheer obstinacy, showing an iron will far from palatable in a young lady. I believe she also resorted to a tantrum. However, just as even the most brilliant general can benefit from reinforcements, so was Aurelia's campaign fortified by unexpected allies.

The first of these was Lady Vennaway's visiting troupe of sisters. Although all were horrified by me, some also expressed sympathy for my poor infant self—and relief that Fate had brought me to a family with such ample fortune that I surely would be no trouble to anyone. (It may be that mischief towards Lady Vennaway, the proudest and most beautiful of the sisters, lurked behind these philanthropic sentiments.)

The second was the appearance, just two hours later, of the Reverend Mr. Chorley. If he was dismayed by the gaggle of ladies into which he stumbled, he was soon distracted by the news that awaited him. Aurelia, stubbornly absent since my arrival, suddenly reappeared and informed him of her discovery. Her florid description of the poor blue baby was further embroidered by Gwendoline, the youngest and least circumspect of the aunts. The good reverend was also of the opinion that God had brought me to the Vennaways in order to preserve my life, as well as to bless Lady Vennaway with a priceless opportunity to do her Christian duty and set an example to the whole village.

For the Vennaways, reputation was everything. Her ladyship was cornered. General Aurelia prevailed.

In the waning light of my lantern I take an envelope from the pocket of my black dress. I weigh it in my hands and think back to the reading of Aurelia's will. It feels like a full lifetime ago. In fact, it was just yesterday.

The funeral—vile occasion—took place in the morning, then we all retreated to nurse our grief in private. At four o'clock, we gathered in the study: Lord and Lady Vennaway, Aurelia's cousin Maude, myself, Cook and Mr. Clay, the village school teacher. In short, her beneficiaries. And Wilberforce Ditherington, her lawyer, of course.

It was a room well befitting the somber occasion. Indeed the whole house, though splendid, is grim and austere. A new visitor to Hatville might be deceived by the grounds, which are vibrant, lavish, and vast. The lush fields and rippling woods, the grand lawns and orchards, the walled gardens massed with herbs and roses are all unchanged these hundred years. Yet the beauty, the abundance, is all on the outside.

The facade of the house is impressive, to be sure. Once inside, however, the new arrival would be hard pressed to contain a shiver. Two of the wings are veiled in dust sheets, for three Vennaways are too few to fill them all. The furniture in the grand rooms is splendid in its way, but also old-fashioned and bare. The tables bear food, and the chairs provide places to perch, yet any further inspiration is lacking; it would occur to no one at Hatville to consider comfort or ornamentation.

From the moment of Aurelia's death I felt my own light die inside me. So the Amy Snow who stood yesterday in the corner of the gloomy study, most despised of all present, could no longer feel the excoriating looks shot her way. Mr. Ditherington read to us how Aurelia wished to dispose of her personal fortune and the words blew over me like sand. Sums of money, he intoned, had been distributed to the various philanthropic causes Aurelia supported: the Society for the Education of the Lower Classes; the Surrey Anti-Cholera Movement; the Alliance for the Promotion of Humane Housing for the Destitute, and so on. Aurelia's parents gazed out of the window, as ever unenthused and mildly disconcerted by Aurelia's charities. Then Mr. Ditherington came to the more personal bequests and the Vennaways paid attention once more.

Mr. Clay trembled when he heard the sum she had bequeathed to his little school. It would mean repairs, supplies, extension, his long-held dream come true.

Cousin Maude was delighted to receive all of Aurelia's sumptuous dresses, bonnets, and cloaks. Even as an invalid Aurelia had remained incongruously passionate about the latest fashions and regularly commissioned bespoke gowns from London. She had always been considerably—justifiably—vain.

Cook wept when she heard that Aurelia had left her several items of jewelry, including her gold and ruby heart-shaped locket. Lord and Lady Vennaway looked pained but Cook was not the dangerous one here. She was a family servant of long standing; it was inevitable that Aurelia should have some affection for the woman. And, being Aurelia, she was bound to be inappropriately generous.

It was I who was the danger, for I had been closer to her than anyone. Despite my shameful beginnings, and their insistence that I was a lowly, utterly dispensable servant, Aurelia had persisted in elevating me to lady's maid, then companion and, in the last months, private nurse. They had tried to evict me with multiple cruelties both petty and great. But Aurelia would not be parted from me, and I have a powerful capacity for endurance.

When my name was read, the whole party stiffened. Aurelia's parents bristled, waited to hear what insufferable extravagance she would bestow upon me posthumously. In the event, it was surprisingly inoffensive:

To Amy Snow, true friend and devoted companion through these long years of my illness, I leave ten pounds, a sum that I know she will manage wisely to start a new life wherever she may please. Also, my gold and garnet ring, which I entreat her to wear in memory of me. Also, my recent sketchbook capturing my impressions of this past autumn, made brighter through her friendship, which burned like a good fire to dispel the chill of my impending departure.

I was aware of the sighs of relief all around. There was no need for a scene so soon after Aurelia's death. The ring she had left me was less valuable than Cook's locket—of sentimental value mostly. The money at least removed the necessity for them to decide what to do with me; I knew they would not supplement it with a single penny. The sketchbook, though vastly personal, was more meaningful to me than to them. They could bear to allow it. Ah, how well she knew us all.

Ten pounds. This was the sum of money that Mr. Ditherington gravely counted out and pressed into my palm late yesterday afternoon. A ring and a sketchbook. These were the keepsakes I slid onto my finger, tucked into my carpet bag, knowing I would leave Hatville Court forever the next day. I would have been packed off the moment Aurelia passed if her feelings for me had not been so well known in the neighborhood. If I had not been at the funeral, people would have talked, and the Vennaways could not abide talk. Then of course I was needed at the reading of the will and they could not be seen to turn me out so late. Such tenuous threads of timing and circumstance made possible what happened the next morning. This morning. Today!

I slept fitfully, riven with loneliness and afraid of a future that I could not imagine. But I trusted Aurelia: if she said I could start a new life with ten pounds, then that is what I would do. This uneasy mix of trust and fear bore me through to morning, when I struggled upright in the dusty winter shadows to stand at the window and stare at the horizon, in the hope that it would yield some inspiration.

And so it did, though not in a way I could have anticipated. Mr. Clay was pacing in the kitchen garden.

I was astonished. He had of course gone home yesterday after the reading. Why was he back so soon, and amongst the vegetable plots? Surely he could not have business with the Vennaways, a lowly schoolteacher with no breeding?