Noelle sighed. "I can't imagine ever being able to read this."

"Of course you will," Constance responded briskly. "Put the book next to your bed. Every night before you go to sleep, open it and try to read from it. One night you will surprise yourself."

The clock in the hallway chimed. "I have some matters I must attend to before lunch," Constance said. "This afternoon I would like you to practice what you have learned this morning, but only after you have a nap and then a long walk. Exercise is as invigorating to the mind as it is to the body." Constance swept from the library, leaving the fragrance of violets in her wake.

The next few weeks quickly settled into an established routine. Noelle ate a sizeable breakfast, and then the two women worked together in the library most of the morning. Constance was an exacting taskmaster, even modifying Noelle's pronunciation if it rang too harshly to her sensitive ear. Declaring it was not enough for Noelle to be able to read, she soon decreed that her pupil must also write.

"But I won't be here nearly long enough to learn that," Noelle argued. In fact, she was not as certain of that as she seemed. There was still no sign of her monthly time and a heavy band of fear was settling itself around her.

"Nevertheless, you will begin," Constance insisted stubbornly. "You must first learn to print the alphabet in upper and lower case. After you have mastered that, you will begin practicing the letters in script."

Noelle complied with Constance's dictate; however, the task proved maddening for her. The recalcitrant letters stubbornly refused to stay in an orderly row. They clumped together or developed spidery blots at their ends. Her final product was so different from Constance's flawless model that she invariably crumpled it into an angry ball and flung it into the basket.

At meals, the two women remained polite but distant with each other, their conversation strained and desultory. The silver epergne had permanently disappeared from the center of the table, but Noelle found herself sometimes wishing it were back, for she soon determined it was not as easy to eat properly as she had at first thought, especially when she was always so hungry.

There were so many rules. She was also unaccustomed to using a fork. A spoon was the utensil she had grown up with and she had felt lucky to have that, since the others she knew relied on their fingers. It did secretly amuse her to discover that she had somewhat better luck wielding her knife. It, at least, felt familiar in her hand.

Each day after her nap, Noelle began taking long walks, venturing farther into the countryside surrounding the estate. She feasted on all that met her eyes, a world clean and pure, unmarred by muddy potholes formed from sunken cobblestones or filthy, open sewers. She found a nest of violets cradled by the roots of a sycamore; moss, tender and new, near a brook. One day she walked far out into the hills, reveling in the joy of being totally alone.

She met Boggin, the old, wrinkled gardener. He liked to identify the plants in his herb garden for her or talk of flowers that were just beginning to bloom. He named the trees that surrounded the house, often repeating himself, sometimes lapsing into silence in the middle of the conversation. But Noelle didn't mind; she felt comfortable with him.

When Noelle returned from her walks, she would enter the house through the kitchen as a precaution against encountering any of an increasing number of neighbors who were making their way to the Peale doorstep. As Constance had predicted, the story of her unusual guest had spread rapidly throughout the countryside, and rivalry was growing by the day to be the first to catch a glimpse of the young Englishwoman who had been raised in India. Despite the announcement that her guest was convalescing and would not be strong enough to have visitors for some time, Constance's callers continued to arrive on one pretext or another.

So, during the late afternoon when they were most likely to appear, Noelle made it a habit to secrete herself in the library, where a maid would bring her milk and a generous stack of tiny watercress sandwiches. Sometimes she would practice printing her letters, but more frequently she would continue browsing through the books that fascinated her.

In the evenings Noelle would excuse herself from the dinner table and retire to her bedroom and Robinson Crusoe. She now recognized many of the shorter words; however, the longer ones continued to befuddle her. She would sound them out laboriously, but by the time she was done with a sentence, she would realize she had concentrated so hard on reading the individual words that she had lost all sense of the meaning. So she would start again. "I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York…"

One evening as she lay propped up in her bed, Robinson Crusoe open in her lap, there was a soft rap at her door. It was Letty.

"I'm here to brush your hair, miss," she murmured, staring at the toes of her shoes.

Noelle was startled. "Why would you want to brush my hair, Letty?"

"Mrs. Peale told me I'm to brush it every night," she answered stolidly.

"Well, you can just tell Mrs. Peale I'll brush my own hair." Noelle was indignant; she had been as cooperative as she could manage since Constance had agreed to teach her, but this was too much. She wasn't about to be combed and brushed like a trained lapdog.

For the first time since she'd entered the bedroom, Letty's bovine eyes rose to meet Noelle's. "I couldn't do that, miss," she said impassively.

"Why on earth not?"

Letty seemed to be confused by the question as if the very thought of going against Constance Peale's will were so foreign to her as to be incomprehensible. Finally she clumped to the dressing table, where she picked up Noelle's hairbrush and stood waiting patiently.

Noelle sighed with exasperation. "Please tell Mrs. Peale that I do not require your services."

But Letty was not to be deterred. She anchored her bulky form into the French carpet, a marble Nike armed with a hairbrush. "Mrs. Peale said I'm to brush your hair every night," she repeated phlegmatically.

Winning an argument with a block of wood would be easier than swaying Letty from her purpose. Noelle cursed softly under her breath as she seated herself in front of the gilded mirror.

Letty set to work. She began slowly, pulling the brush carefully from Noelle's scalp to the cropped ends of her hair. Gradually she became more forceful, brushing until Noelle's scalp tingled. Finally she stopped and pulled a small pair of silver scissors from her pocket. With practiced efficiency, she snipped away at the damaged hair.

Noelle sighed as she studied her reflection. True, her hair no longer looked like such an unruly thatch; there was even a faint suggestion of curl to the now even ends. But the cutting, so far, could not change the ugly carrot color she was coming to detest more each day in this house, which held far too many mirrors.

These days would have been ones of peace and contentment for Noelle had it not been for her nightmares and the ever-increasing likelihood that she was pregnant. Her relationship with Constance settled into one of polite formality. They were together at lessons and at meals; otherwise they avoided each other.

Noelle came to love the beautiful house more and more as each day passed. She would wander through the rooms, admiring the graceful proportions of the furnishings or running her hands over a smooth curve of polished wood. Picking up a piece of crystal, she would feel its weight, then hold it up to a window and watch the sunlight fractured into rainbows.

Her old life began to take on a sense of unreality, and she had to remind herself more and more frequently that her presence in the white stone house was the dream.

Chapter Nine

It was six weeks to the day since she had arrived in Sussex. Noelle had awakened to find that her body had not accepted the bitter seed that had been forced upon it. Jubilantly she had danced a circle about the blue bedroom, finally catching one of the bedposts in her hand and swinging herself out in a gay arc.

Now, as she fastened her petticoats around her waist, she tried to absorb the realization that she was finally free; her nightmare was over. She could return to an existence she understood, a place where she was respected.

Plopping herself down on the floor, she brought her knees up under her chin and contemplated going back to her old life. Her bare toes dug into the carpet; absentmindedly she reached out her hand to stroke the soft pile. Such a pretty room; the blue and white, so calm and clean. She was going to miss this bedroom.

Snatching her hand from the carpeting, Noelle uttered a particularly foul expletive and pushed herself from the floor. She tried to recapture her earlier happiness as she finished dressing, but she could not. The relief at not being pregnant was still there, but with it was a sadness at the thought of leaving this beautiful house. She realized too late how much better off she would be if she had never lived here. How squalid and desperate her old life seemed in comparison.

She draped a dun-colored shawl around her shoulders, picked up her copy of Robinson Crusoe, and decided to sit in the garden until it was time for her lessons. She needed a chance to sort out her thoughts.

A hint of chill still hung in the morning air as she let herself out of the house. She gazed around her at the brick wall covered with fragrant honeysuckle, the fountain with its stone cupid, and finally, inevitably, admitted to herself that she did not want to leave. She had become ensnared by this house and the existence it represented. It was as if she had permitted a net to be thrown about her the night she arrived. It had seemed inconsequential, a delicate thing, fragile, easy to throw off. Now, when it was too late, she had discovered that she couldn't rid herself of it so simply; its gossamer strands were intricately woven and strong beyond their appearance.