Chapter One

I need a new dress for Christmas. Come to the manor at your earliest convenience. AC.

That was it, delivered to the Ashfield Circulating Library by a servant from Tifton Manor.

Rose Cuthbert, library proprietor, took her handy broom and tapped twice on the ceiling. The taps landed in the approximate location of the kitchen floor overhead.

Upstairs, Madeline Tifton smiled at her mother over the rim of her teacup. “Two taps means a message. What would you wager that Cousin Amelia Tifton has issued her usual demand and wants her dress right now ? I’ve been waiting for such a message.”

“She’s right on time, which means late as usual, and determined to inconvenience you,” Mama said.

Madeline debated between leaving on her slippers, which she typically wore to muzzle upstairs noise, or putting on actual shoes. She decided slippers would do, since it was too early for the circulating library to open its doors.

She was right. Miss Cuthbert handed her the expected note. “A Christmas dress,” Maddie told Miss Cuthbert. “She will likely pay me five shillings for hours of work, and dare me to ask for more.”

Miss Cuthbert wagged a finger at Maddie. “And she will again get a bargain. You are too timid, my dear.”

Maddie shrugged. “It’s Christmas and she is a relative, no matter how odious.”

She didn’t mention that at age twenty-six and by now decidedly on the shelf, Amelia Tifton, who never missed a dramatic moment at anyone else’s expense, was flat chested and somehow looked sallow in whatever color fabric she insisted upon, in the hopes it might turn her into a raving beauty. She would likely sniff at the exquisite dress, have the footman hand Maddie the five shillings, and blame Maddie when nothing of romantic importance happened this Christmas, one of many so noted.

“You could tell Miss Law-de-dah you’re too busy this year,” Miss Cuthbert suggested. “Are you?”

“You know I plan my dressmaking better than that,” Maddie reminded her. “I’ll humor Miss Tifton again because she is a relative, and because I should be charitable at this time of year.” She kissed Miss Cuthbert’s cheek. “’Do unto others,’” she quoted.

“But no one at Tifton Manor ever does kindly unto you!” the librarian protested.

A ll I know are ungrateful relatives , Maddie thought. Out of habit, she stopped at the New Volumes bookshelf in the circulating library, not that anything would have changed in the few hours since she had said goodnight and traipsed upstairs.

Miss Cuthbert laughed. “Nothing new overnight,” she said. “Imagine a world where that were possible! Go on now!”

It was all in good-natured fun. No matter how many years she and Mama lived upstairs, she knew every day was brighter because of Miss Cuthbert. Grumpy and managing she might seem to the world of Ashfield, Miss Cuthbert was one of Maddie’s valued anchors.

Besides, no matter how many furbelows and fancies cousin Amelia wanted on her Christmas dress, she would still be flat-chested and gawky. Not even the prettiest dress in Hampshire could change that. Amelia might blame her, but Maddie knew it wasn’t her fault that no suitors chased after Amelia, even if she did come from the moneyed side of the Tiftons.

That thought made Maddie shake her head. I am not homely but have no money at all. I wonder which of us will eventually marry? It won’t be I . She couldn’t help a little laugh. Although I would never settle for an old man with bad breath. Alas, Amelia may have to do just that .

She showed the note to her mother who tatted by the window now, where the light was best. Mama had her own projects. Between the two of them, they rubbed along quite well in rented rooms and no visible means of support beyond sewing, and twenty-five pounds a year, even if they were poor relations of Peter and Loisa Tifton of Tifton Manor, Hampshire.

Maddie had figured years ago that relatives could be the curse of the earth, or people to be tolerated; she chose the latter. At the ripe old age of twenty-six, her own days of wishful thinking were long over.

She was also not one to put off too many uncomfortable situations, especially since this was business, even if the Tiftons still seemed to think that since she was a Tifton, albeit the only child of the family’s black sheep, she somehow owed them. She didn’t.

On went her cloak, a sturdy affair she had sewn from a woolen blanket. “It weighs as much as you do,” Mama had commented, which wasn’t precisely true. Maddie knew it would last a lifetime, and she valued permanence, considering how little of it she felt in her own life.

The bonnet was a new one, a makeover from a lady she sewed for. More than one of her steady clients had remarked how good she was at repurposing items that others never thought twice about discarding. Maybe it was a little wicked of her: Maddie knew her stylish bonnet would rouse envy in her cousin’s scrawny bosom. Too bad.

She stood a moment on the front step of the library, enjoying the benefit of new fallen snow, which managed to turn the view of High Street into something befitting––if not the view from Scheherazade’s palace––at least a street in Emma , Jane Austen’s latest novel. The circulating library only had one copy of Emma , and it was always lent somewhere. Maddie had at least managed a glimpse inside the cover before Miss Cuthbert handed it to the next paying patron.

“It’s so popular, Maddie,” Miss Cuthbert apologized, after the patron pounced on the book, clutched it to her bosom, and hurried from the library. “I wish my library budget could have afforded more. I predict Emma will be available to you in perhaps 1840.”

“Twenty-four years ?” she gasped. (It was their little joke.)

Maddie had developed patience. When they moved into rented rooms over the library years ago, Mama had worked out a suitable arrangement: Madeline, then six and already a confirmed bibliophile, would sweep, dust and empty the ash cans daily, in exchange for a day or two with the book of her choosing for Mama to read to her. As she turned into the same skilled needlewoman as her mother, Maddie included a new dress a year to Miss Cuthbert’s wardrobe. This was paid for in kind, with an actual yearly subscription to the library, except, of course, for brand new volumes. Those still belonged to Ashfield’s paying patrons, of whom there were a fair number.

Before Maddie left for Tifton Manor, she swept the walkway in front of the library, another of her duties. There was only a skiff of snow, so she swept a little more, taking care of the walk in front of Mrs. Halton’s Pins and Needles, and then further down, a sweet shop.

Number Fourteen came next, a narrow house with one story above the main floor. That was it, a house in a row of stores. For years, Walter Ince had called it home.

At first, no one knew where he came from, but he appeared one day and moved in, an older gentleman who kept to himself, but wore clothes of good quality, according to Mama, who sewed on a few buttons when asked, and turned a collar or two.

There were few secrets in Ashfield. Word got out finally that he was the father of Loisa Tifton, of Tifton Manor. A former Wiltshire landowner of the gentry class, he had soiled his hands with trade, convincing both Peter and Loisa Tifton he was no longer fit company. Maddie thought Mr. Ince looked fine enough, always well-dressed, always with a ready smile, which made him highly unlikely to be related to the Tiftons. As with most gossip, if it wasn’t indulged or amplified, it died out, at least to a degree. No one could deny, however, that Loisa Ince Tifton never set foot inside Number Fourteen.

Maddie swept the snow from Mr. Ince’s little walk, remembering his kindness. He died three years ago as quietly as he had lived in Ashfield. He had been her special circulating library friend––he loved the London Times ––and kindly let her read Miss Austen’s Sense and Sensibility after he read it but before he returned it.

She stood another moment in front of Number Fourteen, thinking of the time she and Mama became his friends after he tripped on a step and broke his ankle, him, with no one to provide home care. It became an easy matter to share their dinners and light suppers: just a knock on his door, a bob and a curtsy, and the handing over of a hot dish wrapped in cloth.

G one three years and I still miss you , she thought, remembering the letters he had dictated to her, when his handwriting became too shaky. He tried to pay her for this service, but she refused. “Mr. Ince, I like doing this,” she stated firmly enough for him to believe her.

She did. Even now, somewhere inside Number Fourteen, there was a pasteboard box with correspondence to an American grandson of his, a seafarer. “Mr. Ince, my world is small,” had been her clinching argument to receiving no pay for this. “I enjoy learning about a wider world through these letters.”

S o there, sir , she thought even now, missing the man and the letters. Hopefully the seafaring American hadn’t suffered too badly during those recent years of war between the two countries, when no letters got through. She reminded herself to always sweep in front of Number Fourteen. Call it her gift to someone gone and missed, at least by her, if not his own daughter, now a proud Tifton.

Speaking of which––tape measure in her pocket, along with paper and pencil, Maddie continued down the street. Her annual duty to Amelia Tifton wasn’t going to go away, and Maddie seldom avoided even unpleasant tasks too long.

Still, she gave a backward glance at Number Fourteen, then stopped another moment to look up to the window where Mr. Ince used to sit. She looked around. No one was in sight. She blew a kiss to Number Fourteen.

Maddie continued until the High Street turned into the outskirts of Ashfield. Before she wanted it to happen, Tifton Manor came into view. No one was around, so she said what she always did, but under her breath:

“Would a little kindness have been so hard to manage, you Tiftons?”