An Apology and Freedom

Margaret had just set her spoon in the drawer when the younger servant girl slipped in behind her.

The girl hovered by the worktable, fingers white around the edge of a tray. “Miss Margaret, should I start the stock pot again?”

“Not yet,” Margaret said. “Set the onions on the left. The carrots beside them. You’ll be quicker if you keep the boards in order.”

The girl blinked, then nodded.

Margaret crossed to the old table and ran her hand over the hairline crack in its center. Three days of chopping, stirring, and writing lists had worn a little shine into the wood. She paused there once, just once, then folded the apron over her arm.

The back door opened.

The ranch owner stood in the doorway with his hat in one hand. He looked less certain in the kitchen than he had at the table, as if the stove and the hanging pans had turned him into a guest. He shut the door behind him.

“Miss Ellis,” he said. “I owe you a plain apology.”

Margaret clasped the apron in both hands. “Sir, I am only glad the matter was resolved.”

“That is not the point.” He rubbed his thumb along the brim of his hat. “I kept my eyes on cattle and books and let the house run itself. That was poor business. Worse than that, it was poor judgment.”

The younger girl stared down at the floorboards.

He reached into his coat and set a folded paper on the table, not near her hand but within sight. “No one in this house had any right to extend your service under threat. The contract is voided. You are free to go where you please.”

Margaret looked at the paper, then at the stove, where a pot kept its slow bubble. Her fingers tightened on the apron hem, and she made herself speak evenly. “Thank you.”

He nodded once, then stepped back as if to give the room to her.

Margaret turned to the girl. “Would you mind fetching the ink?”

The girl fetched it at once.

Margaret took the pen and drew the page closer. Charles’s new contract lay beside it, this one open and clear, with each line written in plain hand. She read it again, then bent to sign her name.

Charles’s handwriting had a space for questions at the bottom. She looked up. “If I find a better way to arrange the shifts, may I change them?”

“Must you ask?” he said.

Her mouth eased. “Then yes.”

He folded his hands on the table. “And if I am wrong?”

She met his eyes, steady now. “I will tell you.”

“Good,” he said. “I’d rather hear it from you than from the cookfires.”

The younger servant girl made a small sound in her throat and looked from one of them to the other.

Margaret set down the pen, then turned and touched the girl’s wrist. “Mistakes are only lessons you haven’t learned yet. Do not let anyone make you think otherwise.”

The girl swallowed hard and nodded.

Margaret gathered her spoon, apron, and the small bundle of papers she had kept tied with string. Then she looked once more at the crack in the table, ran one fingertip across it, and left the kitchen with Charles waiting at the door.