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in my grandfather’s naughty pictures, but she carried a sourness about her that seemed to come directly from having to work among the wealthy. “Not everyone grew up with a room of her own, and if you intend to grow lazy and fat, I will put you out with the sheep,” she would scold me when I remained in bed late in the morning, or after the morning’s meal. “When I was a girl, I had oat cakes and water for breakfast, and took an ice-cold bath. It is a pity that such luxury is wasted upon someone your age.”
     
    During lessons, if I should mistake a noun for a verb, she would slap my hand with a stick until the tears came to my eyes. If I played a tune badly on the piano, she would rap my knuckles. Once, when I sat listening to one of her many lectures on the natural world, she complained that I played with my hair too much. She brought in scissors and told me to cut my hair in those places where my fingers wandered. I could not do this, and began sobbing, begging her forgiveness. She took the scissors back and grabbed the back of my scalp and cut a clutch of long hair. She held it up before my eyes and said, “Now you shan’t be so pretty,” and repeated this over and over again as if she were somehow broken on the inside.
     
    I felt completely as if I were her prisoner if my brother Harvey wasn’t nearby to rescue me. Spence sometimes looked in on my lessons, but without the intention of rescuing me. Spence watched my governess at times, and when she went to her bed at night, he often asked me what kinds of music she liked, or if she had a favorite flower.
     
    Once, when she was prickly with me, I told her that she was a servant of our house and to show respect. She reached for my shoulder and pinched me very hard and leaned over to whisper in my ear, “Someday, you might be where I am and I might be where you are. Someday, I might call you ‘servant.’”
     
    It wasn’t until the winter of my fifteenth year, near the holidays—when I found her with my brother Spence, on the great oriental rug in our grandfather’s library— that I grew to truly hate her. Edyth lay in Spense’s arms; her blouse unbuttoned too far; her hair wild like briars; an animal heat in her eyes.
     
    Sprawled on the sofa and floor beside them were the pictures of the nude women. In an instant I realized that the pictures had incited their lusts.
     
    In the next moment, I knew that I finally could destroy Edyth and make her pay for her cruelty to me.
     

6
     
    I stood in the doorway and said, “Disgusting! Look at you, Edyth Blight . You shan’t last long in this house now. No one in all of Cornwall will ever employ you again! No one in the entire country! You will be turned out into the street!”
     
    She glanced up at me, her face turning bright red—first with shame, and then with fury. “You little witch !” she cried out, while Spence, covering himself up, laughed and rolled to the side as if disinterested in my anger.
     
    I turned away haughtily, for I had won in the battle to rid myself of Edyth. I stomped my way along the corridor, heading straight to the West Wing, where my mother spent her days and nights in bed. Harvey had taken his books to her room that day to study and spend time with her. I would tell them about Edyth and Spence, and how they both needed to be thrown out of the house immediately. I knew that once my mother heard this, she would not let Edyth live under our roof one more day, nor would she hesitate to let others know of Edyth’s behavior. And Harvey would help, too. He could scold Spence and send him packing back to university again, and then everything would be good. And perhaps my father would come home to take care of us again.
     
    Edyth raced after me along the hallway, catching up too quickly. She pulled me aside into the alcove beneath a red velvet curtain. I could just see, through the glass of the window, the shape of someone in the garden below.
     
    The gardener’s son was out