Mistress of Trevelyan

Chapter 1 San Francisco1873 The house on Trevelyan Hill had always beckoned to me. Its stone turrets, stained glass, and gray spires, often swirled with mists from the bay, rose like a dark manor in the clouds. Even today, an unusually bright San Franciscan day, the mysterious air hovering above the house intensified as I drew near.Butterflies fluttered over my nerves, making me pause to stare at the house and dab at the perspiration upon my brow. As a child, in the rare moments when my mother and I escaped our laundering, I'd beg to go to Holloway Park. There, I'd sketch the manor's stark beauty and listen to my mother tell of her privileged life in England. She'd always drift off to sleep, dreaming of those days, and I'd make up stories about those who lived on Trevelyan Hill.Such things as drawing and dreams were foreign to my practical nature, as was my penchant for books, but they were my only luxury. I held on to them as I grew from girl to woman -- the art, the books, and the dreams. They eased my soul, and were my only solace during the toiling days of scalding water, lye soap, and scorching irons.My fantasies of the inhabitants of Trevelyan Hill never matched the rumors about their rich lives. In recent years, tragedy had befallen the Trevelyan family as persistently as the waves of the bay beat against the dark, jagged cliffs visible in the patchy fog behind the manor. The death of their patriarch, rumors of madness, and then the suicide of Benedict Trevelyan's young wife had marked them. Leastwise, suicide was the official ruling concerning Benedict's wife's fall from one of the manor's turreted towers last year. No one had proven Benedict Trevelyan guilty -- but there were whispers.Gathering my courage, I forced myself up the manor's long drive to the perfectly polished mahogany doors. Desperation, or perhaps fate, spurred me. I had decided, and nothing would deter me, least of all rumors. My own life had made me immune to wagging tongues. Closer now, I saw with some surprise that the tall castle-like doors were carved with winged demons chasing after fair, dainty maidens. I'd expected something stately, like a royal emblem, or a proper design. My curiosity about the inhabitants of the manor grew.My mother had named me Titania after Shakespeare's Queen of the Fairies. I think she'd expected I'd be as beautiful and tiny as she, and not the almost-six-foot plain woman I had become. Somewhere over the years -- at my insistence -- my name had been shortened to the more suitable form of Ann.The heat of the afternoon sun must have had a strange effect on me. For as I straightened my dress to walk up the steps of the manor, I suddenly wished to be as attractive as a fairy queen. To be dainty and desirable, even if it meant having to run from demons.Shaking my head, I put my mind back on my task and smoothed the stolen paper I held in my hand, suffering a twinge of guilt as I read it again. This was the first time I'd ever done anything so unseemly. The moment I'd seen the employment notice in the window of Mr. McGuire's Bookstore, I had snatched it down, unwilling for anyone else to read it and apply for the position before I could. Benedict Trevelyan was looking for a tutor for his small children, and those interested in the job were to apply in person at his residence.I bolstered myself with a small prayer and a deep breath, feeling my hopes for a different life than that of a laundress lodge in my stomach as I lifted the gargoyle-like brass knocker.A butler wearing a suit and black tie answered. At the sight of me, his polite smile immediately drooped and his nose inched higher. "May I help you?"My attempts to hide the threadbare state of my gray serge dress with extra starch and ironing had apparently failed, and the heat of the day had wilted the crisply efficient air I had striven to achieve. Now that I was here, doSt. Giles, Jennifer is the author of 'Mistress of Trevelyan', published 2004 under ISBN 9780743486255 and ISBN 0743486250.