Read Online The Dragon in the Cliff by Sheila Cole - Free Book Online

window all that day, the next, and the day after. I cannot say how many days. I fled the house and wandered up and down the shore looking for curiosities. When I would return from my fruitless searches, Mama would turn away from the window to look at me and then would turn back to her lacework without a word. After a few stitches, her gaze would wander back to the window and her hands would grow motionless. She would forget to put out food at mealtimes. I do not know whether she ate, but we did not sit down together. We did not talk. We could not bring ourselves to. Talking would make our losses and the breakup of our family real.
    Joseph, who had put out word that I was looking for a post, heard that the housekeeper at High Cliff was looking for a girl to run errands and to help the cook. High Cliff was a grand house on Pound Street where many newcomers to town were building homes. It was owned by a family that made its money in tea plantations in India. Joseph told me to go there the next morning.
    How I dreaded the interview! More than that I dreaded leaving our home to go to work in a strange house and live among strangers. Lizzie and I had discussed what it would be like. Knowing that I had little choice in the matter and that I was afraid, Lizzie tried to comfort me with pictures of a kind, young mistress who would make a friend and companion of me and who would let me read her books, and take me with her to London and Bath. “Now that could be a real adventure, Mary. Going to London in the company of a young lady,” she said. “She might even let you sit in on her lessons.” Lizzie’s gray eyes were round and solemn as she tried to convince me, but her mouth twitched and I could see that she didn’t believe that such a thing was possible any more than I did.
    Far more likely, I thought, as I climbed up Broad Street, was what happened to Susanne Allen. She had gone to work in a big house after her father died. We never saw her again down on Bridge Street. She did not even come when Grannie Allen, who had raised her, was buried. Her little sister, Fannie, told me that her mistress would not give her permission and had cuffed her when she cried.
    The wrought-iron gate to the carriage yard was open when I arrived. I walked into the graveled courtyard. The house was large, with a portico supported by columns and wings stretching out on either side. I knew better than to call at the front door, but I could not find the tradesmen’s entrance. I walked along one wing of the house to the side.
    I was stopped by a gruff voice demanding to know where I was going. “This is private property,” the voice warned me. I looked around for the speaker, but saw no one.
    â€œI’m looking for the servants’ entrance,” I explained, still looking about to see who was speaking.
    â€œOh, come to see Mrs. Wiggins, have you? You look a bit young to be leaving home,” the voice said.
    â€œWhere are you? I cannot see you.”
    â€œUp here in the tree,” the voice said.
    Then I saw him high in a beech tree, a wrinkled, old man with a long white beard, wearing a broad hat with a saw in his hand. “The tradesmen’s entrance is round the other side of the house,” he told me.
    I walked back to the front of the house, past the porticoed entrance, past the tall blank-eyed windows that seemed to be looking down on me disapprovingly, and around to the other side where down three steps was a small, black door. I knocked. No one answered. I knocked again. My heart was beating so loudly I could barely hear anything else. After several minutes during which I knocked repeatedly, I heard someone call through the door, “Stop that banging!”
    I called back, “It is Mary Anning, the cabinetmaker’s girl. I have come to talk to Mrs. Wiggins about running errands.” I heard the bolt being pulled.
    The door opened a crack. “Wait here,” said a red-faced woman