In The Belly Of The Bloodhound by Louis A. Meyer Read Free Book Online

bit of brandy, as it might be chilly.” I get up, take his hands in mine, kiss him on the cheek, and leave his office, my mantilla wrapped tight about my face.
    The school is on the same spot, built on the same foundation, but it is now made of brick, red brick, and it has a slightly different kind of roof—but it is essentially the same, right down to the widow’s walk perched up top. I imagine Mistress insisted. The stables have been rebuilt, too, but not the church. The churchyard remains, and I guess always will remain. I pause for a second by Janey Porter’s grave on the other side of the stone wall, same as it was that first day I came upon it, except that now there is a gravestone put at her head.
    Here Lyeth ye Body of Jane Porter A goode girl cut down in the prime of her Sixteenth year. 1802
    Requiescat in Pacem
    I do hope you are resting in peace now, fang, I do.
    I stand for a while, and then I turn and enter the kitchen door, which is where it always was, opening through the stone foundation in the back.
    It’s like nothing had ever happened. Peg is standing at the steaming stove as usual and the girls are dashing about getting ready to serve dinner. Annie’s mouth drops open upon seeing me and she gasps, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! It’s Jacky!” I’d planned on saying something arch and clever, but when Peg turns and sees me and I see her sweet face, she who was like a mum to me, I start bawling and hold out my arms to her and am folded into her warm embrace.
    Eventually I recover somewhat and we have a joyous reunion. Everyone’s here ‘cept Abby, who married the other Barkley boy and is now great with child, and I’m told Betsey and Ephraim will marry in the spring when they are fully set up in the furniture-making business. Annie still carries a torch for that Davy, and Sylvie Rossio and Henry Hoffman are still hand-fervently-in-hand and will marry as soon as their parents say they are old enough.
    There are two new girls, the jolly Ruby McCourt, who’s a cousin of the Byrnes sisters, and Katy Deere, a tall, thin, and very reserved girl from the frontier, who I am told just showed up one day at Peg’s kitchen door, half starved and looking for work. She is very solemn and not much given to smiling.
    We chatter on deliriously, and although I want to stay there with them forever, these, my sisters of the Dread Sisterhood of the Lawson Peabody Serving Girl Division, I must get something done. After gratefully accepting an invitation to spend the night with Annie and her family, I ask about and am told that Mistress’s office is in the same place it used to be, so I climb the stairs to the second floor and approach the door. I smooth down the front of my dress, take a deep breath, and knock.
    “Come in,” says the voice from within.
    I open the door and enter. All the furniture is new, as are the rugs and curtains, but the white line is still drawn upon the floor. Although I have seen and done a lot of things since last I left this place, I go up and put my toes on the line and I am once again a schoolgirl. Mistress Pimm, Headmistress of the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls, is seated at her desk, her iron-gray hair drawn back in that same severe bun.
    “Good day, Mistress.” I fix my eyes on a spot on the far wall and wait.
    She looks up and says, “Ah, Miss Faber. So, you have returned to us.” She regards me without expression. “I do not, however, recall having dismissed you when you left last year.”
    “No, Mistress, but at the time it seemed the best thing for all concerned.” Being that the school and church and stables were all burning down, largely because of me…well, totally because of me.
    She smiles slightly at this and says, “Perhaps so. Well, I have spoken with your attorney and informed him that you are welcome to come back to resume your studies, as you still have tuition on the books, and, if I guess right, you still have not attained your majority. That is, if