For a long moment, she said nothing at all. She simply looked at Clara from head to toe, the way someone might look at a stain on a carpet.
"What is your name?" Cecilia asked sweetly.
"Clara Bell, my lady."
"Clara Bell," Cecilia repeated slowly. "Yes, I thought so."
She walked in a slow circle around Clara and stopped behind her. Clara felt a hand lift the end of her long braid.
"Such pretty hair," Cecilia said. "Far too pretty for a maid, don't you think so, Mrs. Dobbs?"
The housekeeper hesitated. "She keeps it neat, my lady. Always pinned up properly."
"Neat," said Cecilia. "Is that what you call it?"
She came back around to face Clara. Her smile was gone now.
"I know what you did this morning," she said quietly. Then she raised her voice so the whole hall could hear: "This girl was alone in the library with the Duke, fluttering her eyelashes and playing the sweet little helper, hoping he would notice her!"
A murmur went through the lines of servants.
"That is not true, my lady," Clara said steadily. "I only mended a book."
"Do not contradict me!"
Cecilia's voice cracked through the hall like a whip. Several of the younger maids flinched.
"A servant who forgets her place," Cecilia said, "must be reminded of it. Kneel."
Clara did not move.
"Kneel, I said."
Mrs. Dobbs stepped forward, pale and nervous. "Clara," she whispered urgently, "do as her ladyship says, or you will be out of this house tonight."
Clara thought of her little sister, Polly—Polly, who was ill and lying in a cold boarding house in London; Polly, who depended on every shilling Clara sent her. If Clara lost this position, Polly would have nothing.
Slowly, Clara knelt on the cold marble floor.
Cecilia turned to her maid. "Hannah, give me the scissors."
Hannah's face went white. "My lady, please—"
"The scissors. Now."
With trembling hands, Hannah opened the sewing basket. Cecilia did not wait; she snatched the long silver scissors out of the basket herself. Somebody gasped. Old Mrs. Pike, the cook, took one step forward, then stopped, her hands twisting in her apron.
Cecilia took hold of Clara's braid and pulled it tight.
"Vanity is a sin," she said, "especially for those who cannot afford it."
Then she began to cut.
The scissors were not very sharp. It took a long time. The sound of the blades chewing through the thick braid seemed to fill the whole silent hall: *snip, snip, snip.* Clara closed her eyes. She did not cry out. She did not move.
Then it was done.
Cecilia held up the long chestnut braid for everyone to see. It hung from her hand like something dead. She walked to the great fireplace and dropped it into the flames. The hair curled and blackened. A terrible smell filled the hall. One of the kitchen girls began to cry quietly.