Autumn Softly Fell Read Online Free

It was bad enough that someone had undressed her when she was half asleep last night, but to be left exposed in broad daylight was shameful. The maid, however, seemed to think nothing of it. She was gentle but insistent, worked quickly. Soon the borrowed clothes were being put on.
    ‘That’s the way, miss. Let me do up those buttons.’ The maid’s flow of chatter continued unabated. ‘As I was saying, I’ve had to help out downstairs today, but normally – why, this fits a treat! Who’d have thought it? Now for your hair – normally I spend all my time in the nursery. That’s my position, miss: I’m the nursery maid. Why, what lovely curls you’ve got! But they’re all in knots. I’ll be as gentle as I can. There now!’ The maid stepped back, looking at Dorothea with approval. ‘Pretty as a lily!’
    Dorothea was taken aback. She was sure the maid meant well, but nobody had ever called her
pretty
before, not even her papa. Sometimes he called her ‘my pumpkin’ or ‘my piccalilli’, but a pumpkin was hardly the same as a lily. (What a ‘piccalilli’ might be was anyone’s guess).
    This reminder of her papa brought Dorothea back to more pressing matters.
    ‘Please, do you know where Papa is?’
    ‘I don’t, miss. I’m sorry. But there’s no need to look so down- in-the -mouth! I’m sure your Uncle will be able to tell you.’
    ‘Is that man really my uncle: the tall, angry man? I didn’t know I had an uncle.’
    ‘Well, we knew nothing about you either, miss. It was ever so much of a surprise when you showed up as you did last night. Even the mistress – that’s your aunt, miss – even she was taken aback, and she’s never surprised by anything!’
    The maid’s smile was infectious. Dorothea found it impossible not to smile back. Even though Henry had been kind to her last night, she had still been rather in awe of him. The nursery maid was more down-to-earth, like an ordinary person: she was someone one could talk to.
    ‘Please, I don’t know your name.’
    ‘I’m Turner, but you can call me Nora if you like.’
    ‘And that lady….’ Dorothea hesitated, feeling the pain in her wrist. ‘The black lady. Is
she
my aunt?’
    ‘Heaven bless you, no! That’s Mrs Bourne, the housekeeper. As miserable a piece as ever lived. But don’t you go telling her I said so, or she’ll have my guts for garters!’
    ‘I don’t like her.’
    ‘You’re not alone, miss.’ Nora winked.
    Dorothea warmed to the nursery maid, found that her tongue was loosened. She could now ask some of the questions that were piling up inside her head. Nora did not seem to mind being asked. She answered cheerily and at length as she flitted round the room, scooping up the night dress, making the bed, tending the fire. Most of the people Dorothea had seen downstairs did not belong to the house, she learned. There had been a party, with lots of guests. Some of the guests had stayed the night.
    ‘Which is why we are all at sixes and sevens today,’ said Nora. ‘The party, the house guests – I’ve been run off my feet!’
    ‘There was a lady, a nice lady, and a man called Henry.’
    ‘That will be Lady Fitzwilliam from Hayton Grange, and her son.’
    ‘He’s got knobbly knees.’
    Nora laughed. ‘I daresay he has. He’s a funny one, Mr Henry, scooting along the horse roads in that machine of his.’
    ‘This house….’ Dorothea paused, not sure how to put it, the wayshe felt about the place: the dark façade seen the night before, the dazzling lights of the party, the long corridors, the endless stairs, room after room, walls lined with pictures, the eyes in the portrait staring with disapproval. ‘It’s like … like a palace!’
    ‘It’s a big place, miss, I’ll grant you that – much grander than Hayton Grange, for instance. But Clifton’s not a palace: not a palace that would be fit for the Queen.’
    ‘Clifton?’
    ‘That’s the name of the house, Clifton Park. Didn’t you know? But listen