Crimson Snow Read Free Page A

George’s office, all these had to be cleaned and new fires laid in the morning, when there were few callers and the servants would not be seen about their duties. It made, in Hilda’s opinion, a lot of needless work. The big coal furnace in the cellar kept the house warm enough, at least for someone raised on a Swedish farm. And the fires in the rooms created soot that had to be dusted away, every single day, from tables and carpets and windowsills and ornaments and draperies and lamps.
    Hilda didn’t actually do all the work, of course. There weren’t enough hours in the morning. She supervised Janecska and the other daily maids, with Anton, the footman, carrying the heavy coal bucket from room to room.
    This morning the dailies seemed even slower than usual. Having looked over the drawing room and grudgingly approved what had been done, Hilda whisked into the library, to find Janecska and the two other maids huddled in a corner, whispering.
    â€œAnd why are you not doing your work?” Hilda demanded.
    â€œHaven’t you heard the news?” asked Sarah, the oldest and sauciest of the three. “I’d’ve thought you’d know all about it, being so much smarter than the rest of us.”
    Hilda tapped her foot. “I do not know what you are talking about, and I do not care. The ashes will not clean themselves out of that fireplace.”
    â€œDon’t you even care that a girl about your age is missing, maybe dead? Or no, beg pardon, a little younger than you, I guess. Miss Jacobs is only twenty-two.”
    Hilda was quite sensitive about her age, and Sarah knew it. Twenty-three was getting well up into old-maid status, and marriage seemed a remote possibility unless several miracles occurred. Today, however, she didn’t respond to the insult. “Miss Jacobs! What do you know about Miss Jacobs?”
    â€œOnly what everyone’s saying. She’s a teacher at Colfax School, and—”
    â€œOf course I know that!” said Hilda, interrupting. “She teaches my brother Erik.”
    â€œOoh! Then what do you know about her?”
    â€œI know only that she is a very good teacher, and she did not come to school this morning. I think her parents needed her help. They live in Elkhart. Now you must—”
    â€œPeople are saying she was in trouble,” whispered Anna, at sixteen the youngest of the maids. “They say maybe she went home to—to have a baby.”
    â€œOr not to have it,” said Sarah in a meaningful voice.
    â€œThat is enough!” Hilda stamped her foot. “Miss Jacobs is a respectable girl, and this is a respectable house, and Mr. Williams does not allow that kind of talk. If you do not have that grate cleaned and a new fire laid in five minutes, I will ask him to come up and talk to you, and he will not be happy about it.”
    The threat silenced them momentarily, but as Hilda turned her back to dust the windowsills, she heard Janecska whisper to Sarah, “The boy who brought the groceries said she had a big fight with her gentleman friend yesterday. And he thinks the man is somebody important.”
    After that Hilda stood over them until the job was done, and gossip was curtailed.
    After lunch Hilda climbed the fifty-odd steps from the kitchen level to her third-floor bedroom to change her clothes. She was going out, and she wanted to look pretty.
    Her drab uniform dress was exchanged for a smart dark blue woolen skirt and her new white waist with the plaid taffeta ribbon trim. She arranged her blond braids in a careful coronet and topped them with a fearful and wonderful hat that her sister, Birgit, had concocted at the millinery shop where she worked after school. Hilda would never have been able to afford such a confection of feather and ribbon, but Birgit had made it of scraps and it was really very beautiful. At least Hilda thought so.
    It was a pity she had to cover up her finery with her old black