The Last Refuge by Marcia Talley

my hero, saw you my hero, saw you my hero, George?’ Amy sang, leaning forward, squinting, to better see the words and music as she played. Alex paced behind her back, conducting his motley chorus with his bow.
    â€˜Hark, from the hills, the woodlands, and dales,
(we sang)
    The drums and the trumpet alarms.
    Ye Gods, I give you charge of gallant hero, George
    To return him unhurt to my arms.’
    I was just thinking,
ooooh, bad choice
, when Amy’s head drooped, and her hands flew from the keyboard to her face. She rocked forward, then burst into tears and ran from the room. After a moment of stunned silence, Jack Donovan blustered, ‘What’s the matter with
her
?’
    Alex bowed, abandoned his violin and rushed out of the room after her.

SEVEN
    â€˜I explained to Mr Donovan why I came unglued while I was playing the harpsichord the other day. The advice he gave me came from the heart, but unfortunately it was all about Jesus.’
    Amy Cornell, lady’s maid
    A week later, I awoke just as fingers of light began to creep around the edges of the curtains. I propped myself up on my pillows and lay in bed with the coverlet tucked under my chin, listening to rain drum against the roof and gurgle along the gutters. I couldn’t stop thinking about the abrupt ending to what had been an otherwise delightful musicale, and the text message Amy had received in the dressmaker’s garden and wondering who could be so cruel, and why.
    A few minutes later, there was a gentle knock on the door hidden in the wall next to my bed, followed almost immediately by Amy, backside and petticoats first, carrying a tea tray. As had become her routine, she set the tray down on the table between the windows, then turned to draw open the curtains. She stood at the window for a few seconds, staring out into the cool, gray day, watching the rain sluice sideways against the antique glass. ‘Good day for ducks,’ she said.
    Amy turned, reached into her pocket and pulled out a letter, sealed with a familiar red blob of wax. ‘This came for you a few minutes ago,’ she said, propping the letter up against the sugar bowl on the tray.
    â€˜I’m beginning to dread these letters,’ I confided. ‘If it’s from our Founding Father, as I suspect, I think I’ll need tea first.’
    â€˜Allow me.’ Amy smiled, set the silver strainer over my cup and poured a cup of tea through it. She set the strainer containing the damp leaves aside, added a thin slice of lemon to the cup and brought it over to me where I still lay, like a slug, in bed.
    â€˜Amy, you are a gem,’ I told her, lifting the cup and saucer from her hands and taking a sip. ‘Should you ever need a letter of recommendation as colonial maid of all work, you need only to turn to me.’
    â€˜I’ll remember that.’ It was good to see her laugh. ‘If there’s nothing else you need, I’ll go wake up the children, then.’ She curtseyed and let herself out the way she had come.
    The secret door to my room opened left off the service staircase, and a similar door, I had discovered, led off to the right, directly into Melody’s room, the one adjoining mine. That room had once belonged to William Paca’s ten-year-old niece who had come to live in Annapolis as an orphan, and had died there, probably of tuberculosis. I hadn’t told the story to Melody, worried that if she knew the truth – that little Henny Dorsey had literally died in her room – she would have freaked. I’d been in Melody’s room, and I had to admit that being there gave me a creepy feeling, too.
    I could hear Melody moving around next door, singing ‘You Make Me Feel’ by Cobra Starship, when Amy returned to help me dress. ‘Did you sleep well?’ I asked as she laced me into my stays.
    â€˜Not very,’ she replied. ‘My windows are tiny, but you know what I see when I look out? The