“Let the likes of you stand watch? We’d wake to have our pockets emptied and our throats cut!” a worker shouts.
There is more yelling; accusations are thrown, and another fight threatens to break out.
Mrs. Nightwing marches into the fray. “Gentlemen! The proposal is a sound one. The Gypsies will stand watch in the evenings so that your men might rest easy.”
“I won’t let them watch us,” Mr. Miller says.
“But we will watch,” Ithal says. “For our own protection.”
“Such a fuss.” Mrs. Nightwing tuts. “Girls! Why are you standing there with your mouths open like geese? To the schoolroom with you at once.”
I pass Kartik, keeping my eyes squarely on the other girls. Don’t look at him, Gemma. He did not answer your call. Keep walking.
I manage to reach the doors of Spence before I allow myself a fleeting glance behind me, and there is Kartik watching me go.
“Letters! Letters!” Brigid comes through with the week’s post, which she has brought from the village. Our studying forgotten, we girls clamor around her, hands reaching for some word from home. The younger ones cry and sniffle over their mothers’ letters, so homesick are they. But we older girls are eager for gossip.
“Aha!” Felicity holds out an invitation in triumph. “Feast your eyes.”
“‘You are cordially invited to a Turkish ball in honor of Miss Felicity Worthington at the home of Lord and Lady Markham, eight o’clock in the evening,’” I read aloud. “Oh, Felicity, how marvelous.”
She clutches it to her chest. “I can nearly taste my freedom. What have you got, Gemma?”
I peer at the return address. “A letter from my grandmother,” I say, sticking it inside my book.
Felicity raises an eyebrow. “Why don’t you open it?”
“I shall. Later,” I say, glancing at Ann. Every one of us has a letter except for her. Every time the post is delivered, it is a misery for her to come away with nothing, no caring soul to write and say she is missed.
Brigid holds a letter up to the light, scowling. “Oh, that man ’as lost ’is wits. This one isn’t ours. Miss Nan Washbrad. No Nan Washbrad ’ere.”