“That Teddy Fitzhugh is a sly one. He reminded her that he was about to come into a fantastic inheritance. More money, he says, than even the Duke of Cotswall. He points out that Wentworth Hall is in need of some serious repairs and says that if he and Maggie were betrothed he would feel it was his duty and obligation to preserve her ancestral home.”

“See, that’s how he is,” Lila said, “sweet and willing to help.”

“Sounds more like a bribe to me,” Nora pointed out candidly.

Lila considered Nora’s words. She just couldn’t see Teddy that way. Teddy’s offer wasn’t a bribe but rather an inducement to love just as a man might bring flowers to the woman he was pursuing. “I think it’s a lovely offer,” Lila maintained. “Romantic, even. It’s wrong for Maggie to mislead Teddy just so he can pay for repairs on the estate.”

“He’s already offered to pay to renovate the front entrance once the inheritance comes through. At first your father wouldn’t hear of it but Teddy said it was the least he could do to repay your family’s kindness to his sister and himself.”

“She has no kindness or sense of decency,” she said dismally.

“Oh, don’t be so hard on your sister,” Nora said. “She’s doing what’s best for the family.”

“Maggie is only playing with Teddy because it strokes her vanity,” Lila insisted.

“Aw, don’t be bitter against your own sister,” Nora counseled. With delicate finger work she coaxed small frills of hair out from Lila’s hairline. “There. What do you think?” she asked.

Lila gazed at her new hairdo. It made her look grown-up, which was precisely what she’d wanted. Lila decided that her new hairstyle looked pretty and made her feel the same way. This was just the way to get Teddy to notice her.

“It’s nearly dinnertime. You’d best get dressed,” Nora said.

Lila glanced at the sailor jumper she’d tossed on the bed. “I can’t put that jumper back on. It would look all wrong with the corset and new hair. Isn’t there anything else I can wear, something more stylish?”

Arms folded thoughtfully, Nora considered Lila’s request.

“There are two dresses that were ordered for Maggie before she went on her trip last year. She left before they were ready and she’s never worn either of them. She says they’re too prim for her taste, but I think they’re beautiful frocks,” Nora told Lila.

“Let me try them, please,” Lila pleaded excitedly.

“I’ll be right back,” Nora said, heading for the door. “Wait here.”

Lila turned in front of the mirror. The corset made her appeared more curvy than pudgy and Lila liked the way she looked in it despite its discomfort. It would be a small price to pay if her newly defined figure caught Teddy’s attention.

“Look at you, all grown-up!” a female voice sounded.

Lila was mortified. Nora had forgotten to shut the door on her way out.

Crossing her arms modestly over her bare collarbone, Lila whirled around, startled to see Jessica Fitzhugh standing in the doorway grinning at her. In the girl’s hand was the small red notebook she always seemed to be scribbling in. Lila had a diary too, but she didn’t write in it in public. Seemed to defeat the purpose.

Jessica didn’t wait to be invited but strolled in and sat on the edge of Lila’s bed, depositing her notebook at her side. “Oh, don’t be embarrassed,” she chided. “You look smashing. It’s about time, too. You couldn’t go about in those little girl jumpers forever.”

Although Lila could feel her cheeks burning, Jessica’s words pleased her. “Do you think so? Really?”

“Positively,” Jessica confirmed.

In the month that the Fitzhughs had been at Wentworth Hall, this was the first time Jessica had sat down to talk to her. Lila studied her there on the bed. Her auburn hair was piled high on her head and she wore a fashionable black tea-length skirt beneath a white blouse with balloon sleeves and a bow at the neck.

“With your hair up, you’re every bit as pretty as your sister,” Jessica went on.

“No one is as glamorous as Maggie,” Lila protested glumly.

“My brother, Teddy, certainly thinks so,” Jessica agreed with a sigh. “He’s utterly abandoned me for her.”

After her last disastrous conversation with Jessica, Lila had come to the conclusion that Jessica was just snooty and looked down on the Darlingtons since she and her brother were about to come into so much greater wealth. Now it struck Lila that maybe she had been right all along, that the girl was shy underneath her seeming brashness. People often mistook Lila’s own shyness for snobbery. And perhaps she wasn’t friendly because she’d always had her outgoing brother to lead the way. But now she was on her own.

“I know how you feel,” Lila sympathized. “Ever since Maggie returned from her year abroad she’s completely wrapped up in herself. It’s as though she thinks she’s grown and I’m only an insignificant child.”

“Well, you don’t look like a child right now,” Jessica said.

“Here are the dresses I told you about,” Nora said, entering the room with two dresses, one gray, the other a navy blue. “Try these.” Nora stopped short when she noticed Jessica sitting there. “Hello, Miss Jessica.”

Jessica stood up from the bed and approached Nora. “Let me see those dresses, Nora,” she said, taking them from Nora and spreading them on the bed. “Dreadful,” she pronounced.

“That’s what Miss Maggie says, but I thought they were rather fetching,” Nora disagreed.

“They were fetching two years ago,” Jessica insisted. “Look at the length of them. They’re to the floor! Everything is well above the ankle this year.”

Jessica snapped up her red notebook with one hand and grabbed Lila by the wrist with the other. “Come to my room. I have some dresses I can lend you. We’re about the same size.”

Lila pulled back. “I can’t go into the hallway. I’m not dressed.”

Jessica yanked the pink satin cover from the bed and wrapped it around Lila’s shoulders. “There! Good enough.”

Lila felt wild and rebellious as she trailed Jessica down the hall in her bare feet covered only in the blanket. Once in the room, Jessica tossed her notebook down on her bed and flung open the door to her wardrobe. Extracting a silk dress of deep cobalt blue with a dropped waist and ruffled bottom, she held it up to Lila. “This would be divine on you and you wouldn’t even need a corset.”

Lila held the corset protectively. “No, I want the corset.” She looked at herself in the mirror, dazzled at the prospect of wearing the gorgeous, stylish dress.

“Try it on,” Jessica urged her.

When Lila had slipped the dress over her head, she spun in front of Jessica’s gilded mirror, feeling unbelievably glamorous.

“You could wear it to dinner tonight,” Jessica suggested.

“I could never,” Lila protested, suddenly worried. “What if I got a food stain on it?”

Jessica laughed. “I’ve dropped food on it plenty of times. That’s what servants are for.”

“I suppose,” Lila said, beaming at Jessica. It occurred to her that the two of them had a lot in common. They weren’t far apart in age and they had both been recently abandoned by their closest sibling. Jessica could be a lot of fun. “I think we could become good friends, Jessica,” Lila took the bold step of saying.

The expression of withdrawal in Jessica’s eyes instantly made Lila wish she hadn’t spoken. What had gone wrong?

“Yes, I hope we will be,” Jessica agreed without an ounce of sincerity.

Why was she suddenly so against the idea of their friendship when she had been exuding camaraderie only moments ago? Was the term “friends” too much of a commitment? Had it reminded Jessica that she’d dropped her guard?

Lila glanced at the red notebook flung on the bed and, for a moment, thought she’d ask Jessica what she was always writing in it, but quickly reconsidered. It was probably too personal. Lila certainly wouldn’t want anyone reading her diary.

“If you’ll excuse me now, I need to go back to my journal writing,” Jessica said with the faintest cold breeze in her voice.

Lila caught herself up, trying to return Jessica’s sudden reserve with a distance of her own. She did not want to appear overeager. Still, maybe Jessica was simply fatigued and it was nothing personal.

“You write in your journal a good deal,” Lila observed as she headed for the door.

“Hmm, I do,” Jessica said, picking up the notebook.

“Yes, well… thanks for the loan of the dress. I’ll have it washed, pressed, and back to you in no time.”

“Keep it,” Jessica said. “I’m done with it.”

“I couldn’t. I’ll have it back to you,” Lila insisted. At the door, she flashed a smile. A friendship with Jessica would be nice and it was too soon to give up on it altogether. “Enjoy your journal writing.”

“Thank you,” Jessica said politely. “I do find solace in my notebook.”

“What a comfort it must be to you,” Lila said.

Perhaps someday soon, when they knew each other better, Jessica would share its contents with her.

That evening Nora lay on her narrow bed in the servants’ quarters, dressed in her maid’s outfit, rubbing her bare feet. Was it possible that, at seventeen, her feet continued to grow? It certainly seemed that her shoes were pinching lately. Maybe they were simply swollen from being on them all day.

Helen came down the hall dressed in her plain white cotton nightgown, her orangey hair in a single braid down her back. She stopped by Nora’s door, hovering outside. “Feet hurt?” she inquired.

“They’re all swelled up,” Nora reported, lifting them to show Helen.

Helen held her hands up, spreading her fingers. “With me it’s my hands. Having them in water so much of the day makes my cuticles crack. Hurts like crazy.”

“My feet have only just started giving me trouble this month, since I have to tend to Jessica Fitzhugh in addition to my regular duties.”

Helen leaned against the doorjamb casually. “Why don’t they get her a maid of her own?”

“In this place? Cheapskate manor?” Nora asked with a laugh. “There’s no money for that.”

“Do you honestly believe there’s no money, or is Lord Darlington just the tightest man who ever lived?”

Nora considered the question and decided that the money really wasn’t there. The once brilliant colors of the Moorish style ballroom were faded and chipped. The leather couch in the upstairs smoking room had sustained a tear that was getting bigger by the day, yet the couch remained. Fixtures were broken, in places ceilings were coming down, tiles were chipped: The list went on and on. Surely those things would have been repaired if the Darlingtons had the money to do so. “They don’t have it,” Nora told Helen. “Just look around.”

“Then why don’t they move to a smaller place?” Helen questioned.

“Wentworth Hall has been in the Darlington family since the seventeen hundreds. They would never give it,” Nora explained. “They’re not like me and you, Helen. They’re rich and they’ve always been rich. They can’t stop being rich just because the money has run out.”

“I don’t understand,” Helen admitted. “How can they be rich if they have no money?”

“It’s breeding, Helen. Rich people have been marrying other rich people for so many generations that by now it’s in their blood. They wouldn’t know how to stop being rich.”

Helen shook her head wearily. “I wish I knew how to stop being poor,” she said. “It’s never going to happen if I keep working here. A person can never get ahead when she earns only her room and board, medical expenses, and such a small amount of pay it’s all gone by the middle of the week.”