The Mansion House was where the Crawfurds lived—the Baron of Cartsburn and his family—who did own the whole of Crawfurdsdyke. Their house was grand, and set within a garden by the running water of the burn, with trees all round, and the green hills behind.
There were children in the house, which Maggie found exciting. Not that there weren’t children in the houses closer to their own, but Maggie had not found a friend among them. And although sometimes a boarder brought a child along who wished to play, the boarders did not stay beyond a short handful of nights and days and those playmates were soon departed.
But at Cartsburn House, within the Crawfurd family, there were two girls close to Maggie’s age. She had met them when she’d gone the first time to help Mrs. Reid do fittings for them, and she’d found them very friendly.
Mrs. Reid had said to Lily later, “If you would imagine fitting sparrows in a field, all hopping round and chirping at the same time, that’s what it was like.”
But she took Maggie with her the next time she went to Cartsburn, and the next time after that, and Maggie and the Crawfurd girls grew still more comfortable with one another.
One day, on arriving, there was music playing in the house, and Maggie had been mesmerized. Peering round the open doorway to the grand front parlor, she saw one of the girls sitting next to her mother in front of a long, box-shaped instrument set upon legs, with a raised lid on which there was painted a landscape with fields and white clouds.
Lady Cartsburn’s hands were on the white-and-black keys of the instrument, making the music, and something within Maggie rose in response like a bird seeking somehow to soar in those painted clouds.
Holding her breath, she stood, transfixed and listening.
Afterward, she asked the Crawfurd girls what they called the incredible instrument, and she learned it was the virginals, and that it had come from Italy, and that they hated to play it, but their mother wished them to be proper ladies and so they were bound to take lessons. They showed Maggie how the keys plucked at small strings, and allowed her to touch one, to make a note sound.
“Maggie.” Mrs. Reid, standing behind in the doorway, was watching them closely. “It’s time to go.”
So Maggie played one last note on the wonderful virginals and thanked the Crawfurd girls and, with reluctance, trailed Mrs. Reid home.
Some days after that, Lily asked Mrs. Reid, “Did you wish me to enter the week’s accounts for your work up at the Mansion House?”
Mrs. Reid shrugged and replied, “There is no payment to add this week, nor will there be one for some weeks to come. Lady Cartsburn and I have agreed upon new terms.”
And so Maggie started to have music lessons each week at the Mansion House.
Lily would take her, because Mrs. Reid said she thought Lily might like to walk in the gardens awhile and enjoy the peace while she was waiting for Maggie. It would make a change from the hours she spent cooking and keeping house. For some reason, that had made Lily cry quietly, but she had hidden her tears and thanked Mrs. Reid, and every Wednesday, while Maggie was spending her happy hour with Lady Cartsburn and learning to play on the virginals, Lily was walking in all weathers out in the Mansion House gardens, along the burn and through the towering trees of the deep woods behind.
Lady Cartsburn walked Maggie out one afternoon at the end of the lesson and met Lily underneath the lime trees by the gate.
She laid her hand on Maggie’s shoulder. “She is very, very good. I fear she’s passed beyond the limits of my own ability. There is a lady who retired locally who once performed at London, and at Paris. I should like to bring her in, if you are willing, to continue Margaret’s lessons.”
Maggie’s flush of pride was drowned beneath a cold wave of reality. She knew a private music teacher would be something they could not afford.
As though she understood that, Lady Cartsburn carried on, to Lily, “I am told by Mrs. Reid that you’ve a lovely writing hand. I wish my girls to learn their letters well. I wonder, do you think we could arrive at some sort of arrangement? An exchange?”
Lily nodded, as though words were not available.
Against the gate, a spider’s web was blowing loose, and in its strands a small white moth had caught its feet and could not flutter free. Maggie did not think she’d have noticed it at all if Lady Cartsburn had not gently reached to break the web and loose the moth and set it high up on the facing wall where the returning spider would not be a threat.
“Sometimes,” said Lady Cartsburn, “I believe God gives us gifts that carry us to places where we might not otherwise have gone, if we are able but to use them.”