The Purpose of Miss Shepley

Chapter Eleven

If there is one lesson I can impress upon you, dear reader, let it be this: Do not be afraid.

Your duty may be at times painful, disgusting, or merely humiliating, but take heart and face it bravely, for you are perfectly made for it.

(excerpt, The Bride's Duty, Mrs. Walter Briarly)

.:.

The days passed quickly after Midsummer, more or less in delightful idleness.

I breakfasted with Earnest each morning, and then he led me to Oakhurst's library afterward, leaving me to browse the shelves a few hours while he attended to Oakhurst's business.

Temperance usually found me before long, and then it was nothing but tarts and ribbons til Miss Goodwin found her. For all she complained about how hard choosing was, Temperance had already decided all but the tiniest details of her debut. She knew which silk she would buy, how many yards, and from what draper, which dresskmaker she would hire, and how much she would pay... She only vexed herself over gum paste figurines and how much puff to put in her sleeves. I was really quite surprised by her.

I often saw Stanley Blake here and about. He seemed a well-kept secret -- or, at least, if anyone else knew he was his lordship's beloved, there was no sign of it. He was given no favors that I saw; he ate downstairs with the other servants, and during the day he came and went through the house only as a valet would have need to. On a few occasions, I found him together with Earnest, discussing hair pomades and shoe polish and such. It was all desperately ordinary for a valet.

But in the evenings, as soon as Lady Oakhurst had retired after dinner, the three of us would gather to be just Stan, and Earnest, and Edith. Usually we played cards or we'd take turns reading to each other, though we sometimes snuck downstairs for some grand mischief out of doors -- the maze by moonlight became my particular favorite.

Eventually, Earnest lured me upstairs to his private library. He was as keen a collector as his father had been, though he favored newer works to the oldest.

I poked through the shelves, thumbing through poetry books, picture books, atlases, a guide on the Wyrms and the Wolves for the Enterprising Gentleman... And then Earnest pulled down a novel and put it in my hands.

"Try this one," he said. "It's one of my favorites."

I looked over it somewhat reluctantly. I was not much interested in novels -- Ewert didn't have many, and the few that did inhabit our shelves were grim and cautionary, full of fools whose poor choices led them to tragic ends.

"I met the author once. She's uncommonly talented... She writes plays, too."

"She?" I glanced at the cover again. "Gerald Bell is a woman?"

"Oh, it's not really her name, of course."

I nodded with new understanding. "Mrs. Gerald Bell..."

"No, I mean, it's not her name at all. It's a complete fabrication. Her real name is Shaw... Violet, I think. She just calls herself Gerald Bell so she can get her work published. It's clever, don't you think?"

Indeed, I thought it very clever -- I was sure I could never come up with such a deviously simple idea.

I took the novel and settled in the window seat beside the orange cat -- it never seemed to be anywhere else. I read the first sentences skeptically, but I was soon carried away by a fraught love affair between Amity Burns, the daughter of an imaginary Duke, and a poor sailor named William Reed.

I hardly moved from the window seat the rest of the day, only laying the book aside for dinner, and that night, I stayed up for hours and hours, reading just one more page til the candle guttered and snuffed itself out.