Walking the Labyrinth by Lisa Goldstein

most needed to know.
    One woman had arthritis. I saw that this would worsen, but I saw also that the pain had woken within her a fear of death, and I was able to reassure her that her life would be long and, except for her illness, fairly happy. A man fretted over a new business venture, but I said nothing to him; I saw the business fail and his life along with it.
    I can see today those meetings so long ago, the broughams drawing up the drive, the men entering and shaking the rain from their chesterfields, the women from their capes and mantles and boas. Beneath these outer coverings the men wore tailcoats with a flower in the buttonhole and bright waistcoats, the women crinoline bustles and trains trimmed with ribbons, frills, lace. Candlelight gleamed on silk, crepe, satin.
    I must move forward a few months in my narrative and describe the members as I came to know them, before you, my dear friend, joined the Order. They were an odd group, even for their class. Colonel Augustus Binder, the man with the serpent’s beard, sometimes slipped off his shoes and stockings when he came in the door and sat at our meetings barefoot; he thought that this allowed him to feel the nearness of the telluric currents. It was inexpressibly strange to see this careful man, with his neat tailoring and parted beard, walk towards the table on naked feet.
    But he was not the most eccentric of them. A sharp-faced fellow named Jack Frederick brought a green cordial which he would sip at intervals during the evening; he claimed it would double or treble his life span, though I saw that it was nothing but distilled fish and hay. Another man had painted a third eye on his forehead and talked about his sexual exploits on the astral plane. But this proved to be too much even for our freethinking group, and it was made clear to him that his first meeting would also be his last.
    After the first few meetings I saw that Harrison generally sat to my right, and that there was a kind of eagerness in the way he took my hand. I was not the only person to notice this; once or twice Lady Lydia pushed him aside and grasped my hand so tightly it hurt.
    I did not want to cause Lydia pain. Furthermore I had seen, in both the houses in which I had worked, what happened to servants who aspired above their station. I tried to arrange the table so that I sat between two guests, Colonel Binder and Mrs. Frances, for example.
    One day I went upstairs to put bedding in the linen room. As I closed the door I saw Lord Harrison coming towards me down the hall.
    “Ah, Em,” he said.
    “Yes, my lord,” I said.
    He seemed at a loss. I did not need my Gift to see that he was drawn to me, and if truth be told I was drawn to him as well. I had tumbled one or two boys in my village, and had once spent a memorable night with Miss Sylvia’s coachman, but I saw that Harrison was different, honest and gentlemanly. But it was just this honesty, I thought, that would ensure that nothing would happen between us.
    “I wanted to tell you that I appreciate how hard you work,” he said. “Both as a laundress and as an adept in our Order.”
    “Thank you, my lord,” I said. As I went past him I felt the pressure of his arm against mine, and I continued to feel it at various times throughout the day. To be honest, I can recall that touch to this day.
    A few days later Lydia received word that her father was dying. She packed quickly and left. The house without her seemed quieter, more peaceful. When I think of Lady Lydia today it is not her face or clothing that I remember, or even her remarkable red hair, but the fact that she wore what we called a chatelaine around her waist, an ornamental chain hung about with household objects. Scissors, button hooks, keys, containers of smelling salts—all these clanked together as she moved through the halls, so that there was ample time for the servants to hear her coming and seem to be hard at work.
    While she was gone we held another meeting.