7.

~ The next few days could hardly be called work for Ariadne. She had never had such an easy life before. Her duties consisted of running little errands with Mrs. Willows, of helping her clean out closets and going through old trunks.

Mrs. Willows liked having her around for conversation. She wanted someone to listen and respond to her. She wanted someone to go to lunch with and someone to just keep her company.

Ariadne didn't mind. Mrs. Willows was pleasant to her and the money was all right. At the end of the week, she was paid what she had made slaving for the Dawson family.

At the Willows house, she wasn't required to clean and do the hundred other jobs she had done before. Jenny did most of the cleaning and what washing they could, was sent out to make things run smoother.

On Wednesday, a team of stout maids came in and gave the house a good cleaning. It was then that Mrs. Willows took her husband to some unknown place for the day and left Ariadne alone in the house to ensure the maids kept busy.

Mrs. Willows didn't want to imply that they would steal from her, but Ariadne had worked in service long enough to know that the rich never trusted anyone.

The maids were a group of four Irish girls with thick accents and hair hastily tied away from their faces. They were good cleaners and worked quickly. All of them roaming each room in little packs of sweeping and dusting.

Ariadne made sure to always walk into a room unexpectedly that they were cleaning. She disliked the notion of hovering over them, but didn't want to be responsible if something broke. Mrs Willows was go good to her, she wanted to protect her things.

"Mother still has the help watched I see." Grumbled a deep voice from behind her.

Ariadne was peeping in at the maids dusting and sweeping the front parlor and hadn't heard Arthur creep up behind her in the narrow hallway.

She jumped and felt her pulse quicken.

"You scared me." she hissed.

"Apologies." he nodded and peered through the crack in the door. "Sorry she makes you do this. She's locked up the good silver and the jewelry, don't worry about anything else."

"I'm not worried." Ariadne said easily. Her voice was shaking slightly. "I was told to keep an eye on the ladies cleaning today and I intend to do as I am told."

She caught Arthur giving her a rare smile.

"You haven't seen Everleigh, have you?" he asked after a moment. "She vanished right after cook made her breakfast and I can't find her. She does this everyday."

Ariadne wanted to tell him to look under the beds, but had to bite her tongue.

"You told me not to concern myself with the girl, sir." she said instead.
"I only ask, Miss Stevens, because I have some interviews to conduct today for a nanny to look after her. I would like Everleigh to be present in case she responds favorably to anyone." he said lightly. His voice indicated he was not at all angry at her.

"Very nice of you." she said and turned back to the maids.

"I thought so to." He agreed.

It occurred to her slowly that he was still standing behind her. Both of them peering out at the hard working Irish girls.
"Tell me about the last house you worked at. Did you like it there?" he asked.

She froze at the question.
"The Dawson's?" she asked in a chocked voice.
"Yes, I know their sons. Tom Dawson and I want to school together." Arthur said.

Ariadne felt the cold creep into her heart. As though a knife were plunged into her back.

She wanted to say something, but her jaw refused to move.

"I saw Tom a few months ago in fact. He was traveling." Arthur mused darkly.

"Sir, It's not fitting for me to talk about my former employer." She hissed.

"I see." Arthur said with a smile. "Discretion. Very correct of you."

"You might find Everleigh under one of the beds." she whispered. She felt suddenly very hot in the narrow hallway with Arthur Willows.

He was no better than Tom Dawson. He was spoiled, arrogant and used to taking what was his. She had to keep away from him.

"Why would she hid under the bed?" Arthur asked. His voice low.

She stiffened and moved away from him. She could feel him standing too close to her and didn't like it. It was how things started with Tom.

"I don't know. I found her under the bed after her first night here." she said and refused to look at him.

"Did she tell you why?" Arthur asked.

"I didn't ask, sir." Ariadne said simply. She shouldn't have added on, but the memory of the girl sleeping under the bed like that bothered her as a mother. "But, she had some rocks and pencils around her."

She heard Arthur sigh but didn't turn around.
"She loves her rocks." he said sadly. Buttons to. Buttons, pencils, ribbons. She won't play with the tea set I got her or the bear. She insists on keeping the most useless of objects."

Ariadne felt herself smile.
"It's nothing to worry about. My sister's children make toys out of the strangest things." she whispered. "When I was little and working as an under maid, we used to pretend a bag of potatoes was a baby. We would even dress it up."

She flushed at the memory.
"I'd hate to see that baby." Arthur mused and she felt herself smile.

She was about to turn around when she heard a crash in the sitting room.

Her heart raced in her chest and she pushed through the doors to see that one of the maids had broken and blue and white vase on the floor. It's beautifully painted patterns a wreck now of broken glass.
"I'm so sorry, miss!" Stammered the teenager. "It just fell!"

"Clumsy!" Ariadne snapped. She would no doubt get the blame for this and be fired from the best job she had ever had.

"Ladies, clean it up." Arthur said calmly. "Don't worry about it." he said to Ariadne.

"Oh, no!" Ariadne breathed.

"Don't worry. I'll tell mother I did it." he said.

"What?" Ariadne laughed.
"I don't want you getting into any trouble." he told her.

"No, I should have been watching." Ariadne argued.

"Miss Stevens, Mother is used to my being reckless in her house. She won't think anything of it." he said.
"Sir-"

"Not another word." He snapped.

~ Ariadne worried over the broken vase long after the girls were paid and left for the day. Arthur had asked her to find Everleigh and send her down to meet the ladies he was interviewing to be her nanny.

"I know it's not in your job description, Miss Stevens." he said quickly. "But you seem to know where she hides."

Ariadne had no difficulty at all in finding the girl. There was a hallow buffet table on the upstairs landing with a false front. It was a perfect spot for any child to hide. Indeed, that was where Ariadne found Everleigh, crouched with an old newspaper and cutting it into paper dolls. Her hands covered in ink.

"Your father wants you to come and meet some ladies who are you to take care of you." Ariadne said gently.

Everleigh looked back at her with wide, distrustful eyes.

"There's no reason to be afraid. You don't have to talk to them if you don't want to." she told the girl.

~ A line of women paraded through the parlor that afternoon. Arthur found most of them unpleasant and too abrasive.

"I don't clean, or cook." one woman said. She was a large, ham fisted woman with ill fitting clothes. "I don't take any sass from young ones either."

"You're excused." Arthur sighed.

The next few weren't any better. The older women were ill tempered and mean looking. The younger women tried to flirt with Arthur and even tried to woo Everleigh into talking to them.

"I'm not married, sir." one blond woman said shyly. "But someday, if I meet the right man, I would be so happy if we had a girl as sweet as yours."

Arthur felt his face grow warm at the comment. Particularly because that Miss Stevens had walked past the room at that moment and no doubt heard the whole thing.

Finally, he decided on an older woman in her fifties. She had looked after children her whole life and seemed very calm and no nonsense which Arthur liked.
"Now it's always been that I've reported to the lady of the house. It's odd the husband is doing the hiring." the Irish woman said.
"You'll answer to me when it comes to my… my ward, Miss Nolan." Arthur said uneasily.

"That will be fine, sir. Just so I know what's expected of me. That I'm to care for the child alone, mind you and no one else. I also expect a free hand when it comes to my minding her. I've tended a lot of children, each of them more silly than the last and I know how to deal with the head strong ones."

"Everleigh is very quite." Arthur nodded to her daughter who was sitting uncomfortably in a chair next to him. Her hair brushed out no doubt by that Miss Stevens. Her small hands stained black for some reason.

"Good to know." Miss Nolan nodded. "I was paid seven dollars a week as a live in nanny."

"That will be fine." Arthur agreed. "When can you start?"

"Well, I've it in me to start today if you like, sir." she shrugged.

"Very well. We have the guest room for Everleigh, but I'd like you to share her room. I'll have the maid bring down a spare bed from the attic for you." he said and shook Miss Nolan's hand.

"I hope your girl will be good." Miss Nolan told him briskly.