The Witch in the Lake by Anna Fienberg

signorina,’ he said just to Merilee, and in a second the carriage was gone.
    â€˜Fancy speaking to us like that,’ Beatrice said angrily, picking up her case. ‘You see, it’s your fault, you with your common manners—you invited that peasant to flirt with you.’ She sniffed. ‘Comes from all your keeping company with that troublemaker back home. You only encourage bad behaviour.’
    She sighed heavily, as if the weight of a hundred ignorant girls lay on her shoulders. But as she turned to look at the elegant garden that led up to the grand building before them, her face changed.
    â€˜There, young lady,’ she crowed, sweeping out her hand at the view, ‘I hope you are grateful for the opportunity of becoming a member of an Order such as this!’
    Merilee stared. She dropped a box of little jars on the ground.
    But Beatrice was so entranced by her surroundings she didn’t even notice.
    As they struggled up the path with all their packages, a servant in a coarse grey dress with a black cape came hurrying towards them.
    â€˜Greetings, ladies,’ said the woman. She pulled nervously at her servant’s hat of linen tucked around her head.
    Beatrice pushed her cases into the woman’s arms. Merilee saw that the woman had a slight figure, which barely reached Aunt Beatrice’s shoulder. Soon she was loaded up like a donkey. Beatrice wasn’t finished yet. She thrust a final package under the woman’s chin. The veins stood out on the servant’s forearms.
    â€˜Aunt,’ Merilee said quickly, ‘I’ll carry mine. Surely the signorina can’t manage all of them,’ but Beatrice gave her a sharp dig in the ribs and told her to mind her tongue.
    â€˜The woman’s a slave, for heaven’s sake,’ she whispered. ‘That’s her job. And a lot better off she is too than back in that freezing old Russia or Poland or wherever she came from, without a roof over her head or decent people to serve. Signorina indeed! Pah!’
    Merilee walked silently behind them. She tried to wipe away the effect of Beatrice’s words that always settled like scum over any still surface. She kept moving, staring straight ahead of her.
    The Academy soared above them, a massive three storeys high. Merilee had to crane her neck till she ached, to see to the top. But it was so beautifully proportioned, so simple with its regular arched windows and wheat-coloured stone blocks, that Merilee felt calmer just looking at it. As they grew closer she saw that the building was lit by an invention of iron lanterns. On thin stems the little flames leaned out from the corners of the building like sparkling flowers.
    She followed Beatrice through the open door into an entrance hall. Her eyes swept up the marble staircase which led, the servant said, to the main living rooms upstairs.
    â€˜Some of the ladies are still dining,’ the woman told Beatrice. ‘If you would like to take some refreshment there, I’ll put your things in your rooms.’
    Beatrice waved her hand at the woman as if she were batting away a fly, and marched ahead of her up the stairs.
    â€˜Thank you,’ whispered Merilee.
    The place was truly wondrous, she thought. Never had she set foot in such a grand
palazzo
as this. The marble floor, the glowing tapestries on the walls . . . The size of the entrance hall alone was staggering—you could fit several bedrooms in here, she decided, her eyes widening.
    Merilee grinned suddenly, thinking of Leo. ‘What a waste,’ he’d say with disgust. She imagined his bustling energy as he set about with plans of housing poor families amongst all this generous space.
    But when she came to the dining room she couldn’t help letting out a cry of admiration.
    â€˜The Green Room,’ Beatrice hissed in her ear. ‘Don’t speak until you’re spoken to.’
    The room was like a gleaming, well-kept garden. The long