The Lady in Disguise

Chapter Three (Part 2)

Emilia didn't manage to sleep well that night, either. She woke before the cock had even thought to crow with her covers tangled about her legs. That part wasn't unusual, but waking without aid was rare for her. She'd considered closing her eyes again, but decided against it.

She needed to look in on her father before she left. As she took the short route across the damp fields at dawn, she thought about what Mrs. Douglass had said. No surprise. Mrs. Douglass had said a lot and she'd done little else but mull over all of it while sleep escaped her, but one sentence kept echoing, as if Mrs. Douglass was walking beside her and whispering it.

Children shouldn't be beholden to their parents forever.

She felt strangely miffed at the words. Though Mrs. Douglass had started out talking about Ian and Charity making their own life away from their parents, she knew Mrs. Douglass had been directing it at her -- or her father. She and Cook had said some variation of it over the years. And it was truly unfair.

She was not beholden to her father. Her father never said an ill word about what she did or where she went. She came and went as she pleased... as long as he was taken care of.

If she worried about him, that was her own business. He never meant to trouble her.

Yet when she let herself into his rooms and saw that the boxes of cloth had now been replaced by crates of vegetation with flies hovering over them, she reflected that he did a spectacular job of troubling her without trying.

"Papa?"

"Oh, aye, Em. Is that you?"

"Would else would it— agh!" She'd started to mutter under her breath, but the smell wouldn't let her finish. "I was just stoppin' in," she called out loudly, putting her handkerchief over her nose.

Her father moved into the kitchen. "Terrible smell, isn't it? I suppose you get used to it."

She wasn't surprised her father was up with the dawn. He often was when he got a new big idea — usually because he hadn't slept. "Do you?"

"It's a bit ripe, aye. But I had to collect before they burned it or buried it." He came into the kitchen, dressed in — by the look of it — yesterday's clothes. "Can ye believe some people throw all this away?"

"Yes. Very easily," Emilia choked out.

He gestured to her basket. "What is all that?"

"Bread, ham, edible things." She waved hand around the room. "Papa, what is all this?"

"Mulch... in time, at least. Very valuable stuff. Crops live or die without the right mulch and I have an idea on how to make it better."

She didn't know much about mulch, but she'd heard the word, here and there. "But what about the quilts?"

"Oh, that!" He swiped a hand outward dismissively, swatting a few flies while he was at it. "These village girls. Don't have no work in 'em. Expected wages up front."

Expected wages at all, Emilia corrected him, though she kept it to herself.

"Hard to get a business off the ground," he was saying, "when no one wants to put in the work."

Especially you, she thought, but didn't say. "And how are you to get workers for... this?" She tried to gesture to the crates of rotting fruits and vegetables, but couldn't keep her handkerchief from her nose for long.

"That's the best part. It don't need no work. Only time and a bit of tendin'. I asked Mrs. Hall if she might let me take a corner of the yard for it."

"Then why is it in here?"