Netherby Halls by Claudy Conn

the
open road to the open fields to offer service for the poor who had
no easy way to get to church.
    Sassy scrambled about her room, poured cold water
into her bowl, and shivered as she washed up before throwing on her
undergarments. It was Sunday, and she chose one of her better
gowns, a peacock-blue velvet trimmed around the low scooped
neckline with cream-colored lace. The gown was high-waisted and
long-sleeved. The skirt fell in a straight line to the scalloped
hem at her ankles.
    She brushed her long hair and tied it back with a
ribbon, allowing wisps of curls to trim her forehead and ears.
    She managed the few buttons at her back and with a
harried exclamation peeped out of her door in the hope of finding a
stray girl about. She was in luck; Molly was coming up the stairs
with an armful of sheets.
    “Molly, thank goodness you are here! I am having a
frightful time with these back buttons—would you mind
terribly?”
    “Oh, Miss, how grand you look! Oh, but you should
always wear colors. What a shame that you are hidden here at
Netherby.” Molly sighed as she put down her load on a wall table
and buttoned Sassy’s gown.
    Sassy laughed and said, “Molly, your father mentioned
that you were enjoying lessons with Miss Saunders before she left,
and I thought, if you liked, we—you and I—could continue those
lessons.”
    Molly’s face lit up. “Ye don’t have to do that.”
    “I know, so that proves it, doesn’t it? That I want
to.” Sassy touched the girl’s shoulder. “We could start this
evening, after dinner.”
    “Oh thankee, Miss, but she won’t like it if she hears
of it.”
    “Well, my time is my own, isn’t it?” Sassy smiled at
her, hesitated, and finally made up her mind to ask, “Molly, did
Miss Saunders have drapes?”
    Molly’s face went stern. “Papa says I am not to go on
about her, and I don’t want to cause him trouble, which is what he
says my mouth will bring him if I don’t stop going on about Miss
Saunders.”
    “Rest assured that what you tell me will be
confidential, but why should a question about drapes elicit all
this mystery?”
    “’Tis not so simple as it seems, Miss, as you will
soon hear,” Molly whispered after looking over her shoulder. “It
took Miss Saunders the better part of a month to save up and buy
some fine pink cloth—real pretty it was. Bought it the day she
vanished, in fact.”
    “How do you know this?” Sassy felt a cold chill
wiggle up her spine.
    “She showed the cloth to me. I even offered to help
her make them up, but she wouldn’t have it. Said I worked hard
enough around here already. Does that sound like she was planning
to run off?”
    “No, it doesn’t, and what happened to the
fabric?”
    “Well …” Molly hesitated.
    “Good gracious, Molly! Well what? Do you think she
has come to some harm?”
    “I will tell ye this—something had Miss Saunders
spooked. She wouldn’t speak of it. I asked her if something was
wrong, and she told me not to worry my young head over it and would
say no more.”
    “Then maybe her trouble called her away, and she took
the cloth with her?”
    “No, Miss Winthrop, so I’ll tell ye that in the end I
made her give me the fabric. I did and told her I would work on
them. She would not have let me do that if she meant to leave, I
just know it.”
    Sassy frowned. “I shall have to give this some
thought, but for now, I must rush if I am to make it for the
service in town.”
    “That be at nine, Miss, and Mistress Sallstone drives
there in her carriage. She won’t like having to take you up, but
there ain’t any way she can refuse you a ride if you was to ask
her,” Molly said, smiling impishly.
    “I think I would rather walk,” Sassy said and smiled
back at the girl ruefully.
    Molly chuckled. “She’d like that even less. Why, what
a figure she would cut, letting one of her teachers walk all the
way to parish while she drove in comfort?” Molly shook her head.
“Neither one of ye will