Bell Weather by Dennis Mahoney Page A

breaks my heart. Even here alone, I would swear that you were angry.”
    “I am,” Nicholas said, speaking so calmly, and with so little movement, that it seemed as if the words had issued from his mind. “I am angry at Father and at my own futility. And yes, I am angry at you—irrationally so, I openly admit. You are no more to blame for acting as you did than the leeches are to blame for feeding on our arms. Mrs. Wickware herself is merely who she is. I admire her extremity.”
    “Admire!” Molly yelled, standing up and stomping around the garret. “She has all of us in misery and buckled to her will!”
    “She does it perfectly,” he said. “Do you not find it wondrous that in so little time, she has screwed down the house tighter than our father? The servants are rewarded for exemplary performance. They are handsomely rewarded for informing on each other. Have you heard about Emmy?” Nicholas asked. “This very afternoon, she informed against her mother for giving you the pie.”
    “I stole it!” Molly said, spinning around to face him.
    “But the pie was hers to guard. The woman’s own child turned her in within the hour and received half a crown.”
    “It’s horrible.”
    “It’s masterful. With nothing but her will and a well-trained brute, Mrs. Wickware has silenced all dissent and shaped the home as she desires. You and I could do the same, instead of suffering and quailing. I have learned a great deal that we will use to our advantage. Please come and sit before your pacing wakes Jeremy.”
    Molly hesitated, furious but aware of just how noisy she had been. Her heart was like a cricket captured in a hand, frantic in the dark and struggling to spring. She tiptoed back and sat before Nicholas on the floor, feeling wretchedly alone and pushing the uneaten food out of sight. He held her hand, his touch so feathery she might not have noticed it but for the coldness of his fingers.
    “We know her methods now,” he said. “We know the servants fear dismissal and crave reward, yet most of them are willing to support us in revolt. I have spoken to each of them—”
    “What revolt?”
    “More of the same,” Nicholas said. “A great deal more. Mrs. Wickware trusts me thanks to my dutiful compliance. I will carry on complying, as will all the servants.”
    “What of me?” Molly asked.
    “Be yourself, far more than you have been. You must laugh at every stricture and defy every rule. You must shoulder all the blame and suffer all the penalties. I need you to be strong, but you will not be alone.” He smiled and his chipped tooth glinted in the dark. Then his grip turned firm. “Many Mollys will assist you.”

 
    Chapter Eight
    Mrs. Wickware had instituted a shut-door policy with the coming of autumn’s cold. There were few greater threats to health than icy drafts, a fact she had expected Molly to appreciate given her constant, vocal worry over Nicholas’s well-being. And yet the girl had flouted the rule from the day it was announced, not only refusing to close doors behind her but opening doors wherever she encountered them, and it was this—the long chain of household doors hanging wide—that Mrs. Wickware followed in pursuit of her devilish quarry.
    Nary an hour passed anymore without Jeremy, the servants, or Nicholas coming to Mrs. Wickware with a fresh report of Molly’s misbehavior, which had unexpectedly worsened after a single, promising day of near capitulation. Mrs. Wickware had never seen the like. One evening Molly had been leeched without struggle, admitting to defeat and seeming to submit, and then the very next day she had seemed possessed. She routinely rejected her meals, fled the dining room, and hid for much of the day, emerging just long enough to steal a piece of cake or a bottle of milk from the kitchen. One day Jeremy had locked her in her room, and Molly had emptied her wardrobe onto the busy street below. As punishment for this, Mrs. Wickware had taken the clothes