Promise Me Tomorrow

It was a long room, lined with narrow beds along either side. Beside each bed was a small chest with three drawers. In each bed lay a girl. Marie Anne had never seen so many people sleeping in one room before. Was she expected to sleep here, among so many other children? Where was her room? She thought with longing of the nursery at home, with her own snug little room, and John and Nurse and the baby all in their little rooms across the schoolroom from her.

Some of the children slept, but most of them awoke at Mrs. Brown’s entrance. In the glow of the woman’s candle, Marie Anne could see wide-open eyes peeking out from beneath their blankets. Mrs. Brown turned to Marie Anne.

“Now, I want you to undress and get into bed. Tomorrow you will be introduced to the other children and assigned your duties.”

“Duties?”

“Of course. Everyone earns their keep around here.” The woman turned and started away.

“But—what about the light?” Marie Anne asked, unable to completely hide the tremor in her voice at the thought of being left here in the dark. “How can I see to undress?”

“There is plenty of light from the windows,” the matron answered, indicating the tall, curtainless windows that lined either side of the room. “I don’t allow children to waste candles.”

With those words, the woman strode out of the room. Marie Anne watched the flickering light of her candle recede. Tears welled in her eyes, and her chin began to wobble, no matter how hard she struggled to keep it still. She had never felt so alone in all her life, even the night her mother had handed them over to Mrs. Ward, then hurried out the door, sobbing. At least then she had had John and Alexandra, and she had known Mrs. Ward, who was a kind, soft-spoken woman. But now—now she was utterly alone and abandoned.

A small hand slipped into hers, and a soft voice whispered, “’Ere now, don’t cry. It’ll be better tomorrow, you’ll see.”

Marie Anne turned to see a girl about her size, but with a face much older than hers. She looked at the girl curiously, her tears slowly subsiding. She wiped them away with her hand and said, “Hullo. Who are you?”

“I’m Winny,” the girl responded with a shy smile. “I’m eight. Wot’s your name?”

“Marie Anne. But that woman said now I must be Mary.”

The little girl nodded. “She likes plain names. ‘Ow old are you? Would you like to be my friend?”

“Aw, don’t be daft, Winny.” A rough voice spoke from the bed on the other side of them, and an older girl swung around to sit on the side of the bed, facing them. She had curly dark hair poorly suppressed into braids, and a round, pugnacious face liberally sprinkled with freckles. “’Oo’d want to be friends with the likes o’ you?”

“I would,” Marie Anne told the other girl stoutly. “Winny seems very nice.”

“’Winny seems very nice,’” the other girl mimicked in a high voice, striving to imitate Marie Anne’s precise diction. “’Oo’re you, a bleedin’ princess?”

Marie Anne lifted her chin. “No, but I shall be a duchess one day, if I want. Mimi said so.”

“A duchess!” This statement afforded the other girl much amusement, for she slapped her thigh and rocked with laughter. “Lookee ‘ere, everybody, we got a bleedin’ duchess among us.”

Marie Anne frowned at her. “You shouldn’t use such words. Nurse says it’s wicked and—and low class. Beside, I’m not a duchess now. But I will be, if I want to. Mimi said I could—and she’s a countess!”

“The Duchess of St. Anselm’s,” the other girl pronounced, still chuckling.

“Never mind her,” Winny whispered. “Betty don’t like anyone. I think you look like a duchess.” She touched the sleeve of Marie Anne’s dress admiringly. “But you’d best get into your nightgown now. Miss Patman will be coming through shortly. She comes every hour to check on us, and she’ll punish you if you’re out o’ bed.”

Marie Anne sighed. She didn’t want to take off her clothes and put on the rough nightgown, but she was dreadfully tired. And perhaps if she went to sleep, she would wake up the next morning and find herself back in the nursery with John and the baby, and Nurse waking them up with a cheerful hello and a cup of hot chocolate.

She unbuttoned her dress with Winny’s help, pulled it off and reached for the nightdress to put it on.

“’Ere! Wot’s that?” Betty, still watching her, leaned forward now and reached for the locket around Marie Anne’s neck.

Marie Anne stepped back quickly, her hand closing around the precious locket. Mimi had given it to her last Boxing Day. It was gold and opened to show a cunning little portrait of her mother on one side and of her father on the other. The front was inscribed with an ornate, looping M for Marie. Mimi had given one just like it to the baby, with an A on the front for Alexandra. Of course, the baby was too young to wear it, only two, but Marie Anne had put hers on and never took it off.

“Give it to me,” Betty demanded, getting up and coming around the bed toward her.

“No! It’s mine! Mimi gave it to me.”

Betty’s face lit with a wicked glee. “It’s mine now.”

Her hand lashed out and grabbed Marie Anne’s smaller fist. She jerked it toward her, and the chain of the locket bit painfully into Marie Anne’s neck. All the anger and fear of the past few weeks exploded now in Marie Anne, and she let out a feral shriek and sank her teeth into the other girl’s hand.

Betty jerked back her hand, letting out a yowl. She drew back her other fist to hit the smaller girl, but Marie Anne was on her like a wild thing, hitting and kicking and biting. Finally, laughing, the oldest girl in the room came over and hauled Marie Anne off the bully and set her on her feet. Betty sat up, hunched over, trying to nurse both her injured hand and her bleeding nose, and gasping for air from a blow that had landed square in her stomach.

“I think you met your match, Bet,” the fourteen-year-old said in an amused voice. She made a mocking bow toward the little girl standing beside her, still rigid with fury. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Duchess. I’m Sally Gravers.”

“Thank you. I’m pleased to meet you, too,” Marie told her, giving a little curtsy, just as Nurse had taught her to do when she met important adults. Sally Gravers wasn’t an adult, but she looked the most important person in this group, so the gesture seemed appropriate.

The older girl grinned, further amused. “You’re all right.” She turned toward Betty and scowled. “You leave ‘er alone now. You ‘ear me? That trinket’s ‘ers.”

“All right, Sally,” the bully replied in a surly voice, shooting Marie Anne a venomous look.

“Right now. Let’s get some sleep,” Sally went on. “I, for one, ain’t lookin’ forward to getting up at five and scrubbin’ floors on no sleep.”

Marie Anne gaped at the older girl, scarcely able to believe her ears. Had she somehow become a maidservant? But, given the topsy-turvy events of the last few weeks, she knew that anything was possible. She scrambled into her nightgown, tucking the locket protectively beneath it.

Winny, still beside her, whispered, “She won’t steal it now—she’s too afraid of Sally. But the matron will take it if she sees it. She’ll say it’s above you. I’ve got a ‘idin’ place. No one’s ever found it. I’ll show it to you, and you can ‘ide it there.”

Marie Anne nodded gratefully as she and Winny spread the blanket over the narrow mattress. Then she crawled into bed, remembering with a sigh the deep feather mattress of her bed at home and the layers of thick, warm blankets that Nurse would tuck around her at night. The thought led her to memories of her mother coming in to kiss her good-night. Sometimes she would be already dressed to go out, her elegant brocade dress spreading out wide beneath her narrow waist, her hair powdered and towering in a confection of curls, decorated with jewels or feathers. Other times, she would still be in a dressing gown, and her thick black hair would be tumbling down around her shoulders in a curling cloud. She would bend over Marie Anne and whisper that she loved her. Marie Anne could smell again the orris root of her powder mingling with the scent of her perfume.

Tears seeped out of her eyes, and she lifted the locket out from beneath her nightgown, her fist closing around it. Why hadn’t Mama come for them? She had told them that she and Papa would join them as soon as they could. A horrible lonely feeling welled inside Marie Anne as a wicked voice whispered that Mama and Papa no longer wanted her.

But that wasn’t true! Marie struggled against the engulfing horror. She knew her mother and father loved her. They would come and get her, and they would find the baby, too, and John—and he wouldn’t be sick anymore. She just had to hold on, she told herself, and someday they would come for her. Someday her family would find her, and she would be happy again….

CHAPTER ONE

MARIANNE DREW A DEEP BREATH AS SHE surveyed the glittering crowd. She had never been to a party this large, nor one filled with so many titled people. She wondered what they would think if they knew she was plain Mary Chilton from St. Anselm’s Orphanage, not the genteel widow Mrs. Marianne Cotterwood.

She smiled to herself. The thing she enjoyed the most about her pretense was the idea of pulling the wool over the eyes of the aristocracy, of conversing with some blue-blooded member of the ton—who would have been horrified if he had known that he was speaking to a former chambermaid as if to an equal.

The thought settled her nerves somewhat. This might be a larger and more cosmopolitan set of people than she had deceived in the resorts of Bath and Brighton, but essentially they were the same. If one spoke as if one were genteel, and walked and sat and ate as if one had been trained to do so from birth, people assumed that one belonged. As long as she kept her lies small and plausible and was careful never to pretend to be someone more than the minor gentry, it was doubtful that anyone would sniff out her deceit. After all, most of the people here were too self-absorbed to spare much thought for anyone else, for good or ill. That was one of the traits which made it so easy to prey upon them.

Marianne regarded all members of the ruling class as her natural enemies. She could still remember the days at the orphanage, when the grand ladies would come on their “missions of mercy.” Well-fed and warm, they would stand in their elegant dresses that cost more than would be spent on any of the orphans in a year and look at them with pitying contempt. Then they would go away, feeling vastly superior and quite holy for their charity. Marianne had stared at them with anger burning in her heart. Nothing that happened to her after the orphanage had lessened her contempt for them. She had been sent into service at Lady Quartermaine’s house when she was fourteen, and there she had worked as a housemaid, emptying ashes from the fireplace, hauling water for baths, and cleaning, all for less than a shilling a day, with only Sunday afternoons off—and woe to her if anything was deemed ill-done or amiss. Of course, even that did not compare to what else had happened to her at Quartermaine Hall….

“It’s a lovely party,” Marianne’s companion said, and Marianne turned to her, firmly shoving aside her thoughts.

Mrs. Willoughby was a fluttery woman, so proud of her invitation to Lady Batterslee’s rout that she had simply had to invite someone along with her to witness her glory. Marianne was glad she had been the person with Mrs. Willoughby the day she received her invitation.

A party at the elegant Batterslee House was an opportunity that did not come along every day, and Marianne had seized upon it, even though it meant suffering Mrs. Willoughby’s stultifying conversation all evening.

Not, of course, that she meant to stay by Mrs. Willoughby’s side. She would stay with her long enough not to appear obvious—and to meet as many people as Mrs. Willoughby could introduce her to, for the chance to mingle with this many people who might invite her to other parties was almost as important as examining the treasures of the house. But as soon as she reasonably could, she meant to slip away and spend the evening exploring.

They were almost at the front of the receiving line now, just beyond the doorway of the ballroom. It was the sight of the ballroom filled with people whose clothing and jewelry cost more than most people would earn in a lifetime that had given rise to Marianne’s jitters. The room was enormous, all white and gilt and filled with mirrors. A small orchestra played on a raised platform at the far end, but the noise from the crush of people was so great that Marianne could barely make out a tune. The walls were lined with spindly-legged chairs, as white and gold as the room, except for the red velvet of their cushions. Tall candelabras were filled with white wax candles, and more such candles blazed in the chandeliers, setting off bright rainbows in the prisms that dangled beneath them.