"I stayed talking with Miriam. I just wanted information from her, but there was something else. Through her blood I could sense a terrible loss and a tragedy in her past, a tragedy so terrible that she tried to forget it Loss and tragedy, I understood too well. Prodded, she told me that she had no memories before she came to Benchleytown. That she had shown up, dazed on their lawn, not knowing who she was – she remembered her name – Miriam, and that she was a governess.
"Alice Benchley had taken her under her wing, and since she was a governess, she found herself teaching Frederick's children. Frederick at some point complained about some of the things he taught the children, and for insisting that Lilah learned the same lessons as her brother. But Dame Alice backed her, and Frederick had grin and bear it. Dame Alice enjoyed the talks she had with Miriam and found her far more interesting than her grandchildren."
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"But I wish I knew who I was and how I ended up on the Benchley lawn."
"Maybe I could help. I have certain… powers."
"Dame Alice thinks that it was a very bad thing, that I want to forget it, could it be?"
"It could. Some things are too hard to be borne, so the mind shuts out the knowledge. Until the pain is less, and it can be faced."
"I am afraid. I am afraid to know, and I am afraid not to know."
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"She told me about a maid named Mimi Diaz who seemed privy to some secrets. Thomas had tried to romance her, and she had rebuffed him, calling him irresponsible, and a bad father. When Thomas complained, Dame Alice told him that the way to get nothing of the inheritance was to keep harassing Miss Diaz.
"Funny how in the show they show her as being in love with him. There was never love there. She never stopped despising him, based on his actions, and her own experience. Mimi Diaz was the illegitimate daughter of a banker who had taken her mother – who was also a housekeeper – as a mistress. Or rather who used the droit du seigneur on her. He was conscientious enough to let her have some money and references when she too had to go into the service. She knew Thomas's history and she judged him no better than her own father."
"I would have to find Miss Diaz and take her under my power, but before I could do so, Thatcher told me that Dame Alice had heard of me and wanted to meet me."