“You’re a tasseographer,” said Mrs. Moyle in wonderment.
I raised my eyebrows. “Tassy ...what?”
Her blue eyes were full of interest. “Tasseography! I’ve read about it but never knew anyone who could do it.”
“Whatisit, ma’am?” I asked, finding some comfort in the idea that the things I was seeing had a name.
“The reading of tea leaves. They form shapes that are symbols of certain outcomes—births, deaths, marriages, and the like. Did your mother read them, by any chance?”
I frowned. “Not so far as I know.”
“There are women who earn money by it; it’s a kind of fortune-telling. Once, a customer left a copy ofThe Timesthat had an article about it. There’s a school for young ladies on an estate in Yorkshire thatteachesit.” She smiled. “My grandmother always said women with red hair could divine things, especially freckled ones like you, my dear.”
My mother’s hair had been dark, but now that I thought of it, we’d had strangers in the house sometimes for tea. Only when Da was at themine. Mum sat with them, and she’d send Jack and me outside to hang laundry or peel potatoes. After they’d gone, Mum would tell us not to pester Da by talking about the guest, and she’d give us a bit of bread with jam. Once when I sat down to eat it, I saw her pluck a sixpence coin off the table.
“I think I might be wrong about my mother,” I said.
Mrs. Moyle gave me a knowing nod. “I daresay some would call it the devil’s work, and maybe she thought it best to hide it. Not thatIset any store by such ideas.” She eyed me more keenly. “Did you see something in that gentleman’s cup? Is that what made you ask about him?”
“I did. I saw a magpie.”
She frowned, thinking. “I know some people believe a magpie’s bad luck, but my grandmother believed that magpies bring news from the spirit world, and that they’re a sign we should pay attention.”
I swallowed. “I saw a dagger, too.”
Now her brow clouded. “I can understand why that would worry you. I wish there was something I could say to set your mind at ease, though I expect all will be well.” More cheerfully, she added, “We may see the man in here again. People don’t forget my scones.”
I smiled. “No, they don’t.”
“Why don’t you go sit in the front room, and I’ll make you a cup of tea. Take the chill off your thoughts before you go out into the fog.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Moyle,” I protested. “You’ll want a rest yourself.”
“There’s plenty of time for that when the house is quiet this evening.” The tearoom was in an old cottage with fresh thatch and a door painted the color of grass shoots. Mrs. Moyle slept in a small bedroom upstairs. “You can continue reading about young Catherine Morland’s adventures,” she said. “I’m anxious to hear what you think of her!”
My employer wouldn’t have it otherwise, so I went out and settled in one of the armchairs in front of the coal stove.
The Magpie was about the coziest place I’d ever been in. The cottage had last been home to a bookshop. Mrs. Moyle had removed most ofthe bookcases and filled the space with odds and ends of battered tables that she’d whitewashed for both “uniformity” and “practicality”—her idea being that white tables meant she could do without white cloths, which would always be tea stained.
The white furnishings against the old house’s dark flooring and wood paneling reminded me of the light and dark feathers of the bird the place was named for. Mrs. Moyle had chosen the name well, as I doubted more gossip was exchanged anywhere else in the village.
She had made the room cheery by hanging colorful paintings against the white plaster above the wainscot. She arranged flowers from the kitchen garden in little vases on the tables—fresh in the spring and summer, dried all the rest of the year. The money she saved on tablecloth laundering she spent on pretty lamps and fine white candles for the darker days of autumn and winter.
She’d filled the few remaining bookcases with her own collection. Novels of high adventure, gothic terror, and romance, and books on things like flowers and birds that were filled with pretty illustrations. Some customers even read them, and Mrs. Moyle was kind enough to loan them out if anyone asked. I read them myself when business was slow. Jack said working at The Magpie had made me a different person, and I had to admit it was true in some ways. But I thought the books were as much to blame as the job itself.
I opened a small drawer in the tea table next to my chair—my favorite hiding place for the books I was reading—and took outNorthanger Abbey.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Moyle joined me with a pot and two cups. We sat quietly, me with my book and her with the customer’s newspaper, until I realized the room was growing dim.
“Heavens,” I said, starting up. “I better get on before I’m walking home in the dark.”
“I quite lost track of the time myself,” replied my employer, also rising.
She picked up a basket from a nearby table and held it out to me. Under the linen cover, I knew I’d find scones left from the day’sbusiness. Jack had come to take them for granted and was vexed when there weren’t any for his supper.
“I’ll see you in the morning, dear,” she said. “Keep safe on your way home.”
I went to the kitchen for my bonnet and shawl and slipped out the back door. The path through the garden led me between rows of tall sunflowers, nearly spent, their heavy brown heads drooping like a congregation in prayer.
