Amie Bernstein; Chapter 9

 

Amie Bernstein; Chapter 9

© 2022 by Amber Wright

ON THE FIRST DAY...

Date: Winter 1901

Place: London, England

“Guess where I went today?” Kitt grinned mysteriously just before supper.

Amie shrugged, sitting on the hallway settee waiting to be called.

“Shopping. And that’s not all…” Kitt lowered his head and voice. “Guess who I went with?”

“I can't imagine.”

“Just guess.”

“I can’t.” Amie gave him a thoughtful frown. “Just tell me, thank you.”

“With Gad and your maid Annie!”

“What? And I wasn’t there to witness it all…no fair, you got to!”

“Shh!” Kitt changed the subject quickly.

Amie looked up, confused. Then Annie the maid herself walked by them briskly with a bright smile for each.

After Annie had passed, Kitt added in a confidential voice, “Annie said she needed to buy something for her—oops! Well, anyway, your oncle said his sleigh needed a run and so… I went along as chaperone, ha-ha. It was fun! They laughed constantly and I listened.”

“I bet you did, no fair!” Amie tossed her blond curls back. “Next time, I’m going too and that’s that.”

“But what if Annie won’t go again. She said she was—uhm, nothing.”

“Well, next time I’ll pretend to be sick and she’ll feel sorry for me.” Amie grinned mischievously. “But all the time I’ll be hiding in the back of the sleigh!”

“Supper is served.” Cook called from the dining room, and Amie and Kitt practically ran to the table, starving to death. Well, so they thought.

Just as Amie sat down, her mother bent over to kiss her cheek and plopped a little wrapped gift into her lap. “For a get-well present. Happy December 13^th!”

“Thank you!” Amie planted a kiss on Mamma’s cheek. “I can guess what it is.” She felt the book-like package. “A journal?”

Mamma tweaked her nose. “Yes, Miss Sherlock Holmes!”

Amie went to bed early that night and hoped tomorrow there would be no falling down the steps and getting concussions. Consequently, she awoke earlier than usual and her clock read 5:30 a.m., a whole hour before anyone else would get up. She dressed in the chilly darkness and a thought crept into her mind like the surrounding coldness. The sky was still black outside but the lamplights shone brightly as morning traffic bustled along the streets far below her window and just beyond the tidy garden that separated their mansion from the walkway.

“I shall surprise everyone, that I shall do!” Amie lit the oil lamp on her desk, glancing out the window behind it, and washed her face and brushed her hair into a braid, tying it with a festive red ribbon. “Now don’t tell on me, Mr. Bluebell,” she warned the blue bird in his silver cage. “Or I won't feed you today!”

Wrapped in coat, mitts, scarf and boots, Amie carefully opened her bedroom door and slipped down the steps one at a time, softly, quietly, not wanting to disturb a single soul. She made it to the street and glanced back once to make sure nobody was watching. The flickering light from the oil lamp shone softly from her bedroom window. She smiled. So this is what it looked like from down below. She had always been up there, watching from above.

Amie walked down the streets, lit by the towering lamplights, and walked in the direction of the bakery. Smitt’s Bakery, her favorite. She ordered a nice warm cinnamon roll and hot tea which slipped down her throat tastefully.



Amie slipped into her bedroom less than an hour later—unnoticed and unmissed—with her arms loaded with bags of little wooden men, colorful paints and paintbrushes. Now for 11 days straight, she would have a lot to do if she was to get done in time. She hurriedly took off her wraps, hearing feet moving down the halls. The maids were lighting up the fires in the fireplaces now.

Amie dumped her bags into her closet and peeled off her boots, and then slid under the covers just as the maid began to turn the doorknob. She nearly suffocated as she tried to calm her racing heartbeat by breathing shallowly. Laying there, silent as a mouse, had never been so hard in all of her entire life.

Thankfully, the maid left and Amie popped back up with a gasp for air. She began moving around the room. First, she set up a corner of her room with a little table and chair; then, she carefully set up her paints and brushes. And then she stacked her little wooden men in neat little stacks onto the table. Finally, she covered it all with a sheet and smiled at her morning’s work.

“No one will ever know but me,” she smiled and crossed her arms proudly, “until Christmas morning.”

Amie put on a pair of dry boots and took her braid out. She was washing her face the second time that morning when Annie entered and called out, “Good morning, Miss Amie! Your mother has the Christmas music going on downstairs.”

“Good morning yourself, Annie!” Amie patted her face dry. “Isn’t it such a beautiful day? I like how the sun sparkles over the entire landscape with a dazzling beauty, don’t you?”

“Indeed.”

“And yes, I hear the music now. On the first day of Christmas, my true love came to me—”

Annie pushed back the curtains grandly. Immediately, she noticed the little covered table in the corner. “Hmm, what have we here?”

“Oh, please, it’s a secret! Don’t tell.”

“I won’t.” Annie promised with a grin. Now it was her turn to keep mum quiet. “Now, let’s get those tangles into curls, shall we?”

“Precisely.” Amie placed herself on the stool before the vanity and let Annie do her hair. “Thank you.”

“Posh, I like doing your hair.” Annie smiled and began singing On the First Day of Christmas.

“On the first day of Christmas,” Amie began impatiently tapping her feet and swayed on her seat vigorously, “my true love came to me…” She screeched loudly, playfully offbeat and off-tune.

Her head bounced from side to side with each syllable.

“Please stop, you’re messing me up!”

Amie could see Annie staring at her dancing head between the maid's fingers. She jerked to a stop, putting on a contrite smile.

“Thank you.”

A knock sounded on the door. Amie recognized it be Gad’s knock so she hastily called out, “Come in!”

Annie stopped singing and silently finished doing Amie’s hair. Amie grinned. What a perfect song for a perfect time! Coincidence. She stood up. Her hairdo was complete and she felt like singing…offbeat, off-tune. She grinned as she began.

“On the first day of Christmas,” Amie decided to have a fun twirl in the middle of her open floor as she crowed brightly, “my true love came to me!”

“Out you go, Miss Amie.” Annie tried to hush her by shooing her out the door. “You’ll be late for breakfast if you don’t hurry.”

Gad offered Amie his arm, “May I escort you to the dining room, Miss Bernstein?”

“Yes, and thank you!” Amie sang out and grabbed onto Gad’s arm unceremoniously. “On the first day…”

French/English translation:

Oncle…………………… Uncle