Chapter Four
“To begin, you will sup at the lowest table in the servants’ hall, with the dairy maid and the scullions. So long as you are under my dominion, you will earn the right to improve your station, and not a moment before.” Mrs. Rutledge’s voice was cold and pinched. What little civility she had shown the previous day had vanished before Allegra’s new and servile position in the Hall.
Allegra gave an uneasy curtsy. “Yes, ma’am.” What had she done to earn the woman’s obvious disapproval? She guessed it must be because Ridley himself had brought her into the household without consulting his housekeeper. A slap at the woman’s haughty authority in the Hall. Surreptitiously she scanned Mrs. Rutledge’s room, centrally located on the lower ground floor next to Mr. Briggs’s office. However much the housekeeper might hold her employer in contempt, it was clear that she had profited mightily from her service here. The room was lavishly furnished; a snug alcove separated a velvet-curtained bed, polished tables, and comfortable chairs from a solid and workaday desk, covered with ledgers and schedules and the various accouterments that attended the running of a large household. Even there, however, nothing had been spared: the inkstand was of silver, not brass, and the armchair upon which the housekeeper sat was upholstered in a handsome crimson mohair.
Mrs. Rutledge opened a little enameled box on the desk and popped a sucket into her mouth. “Have you served in a great house before?”
“No, ma’am, but I’m not a stranger to work.”
“So His Lordship has indicated. And yet I have been instructed that you are not to be given any excessively heavy work.” She searched Allegra’s face as though she were seeking clues to the mystery. “You’re not sickly, are you?” she asked with suspicion.
“I’m as fit as any servant here.” It was difficult to keep the edge out of her voice. The last thing she wanted was favors from Ridley. “I can work as hard as the next girl.”
A slow, crafty smile spread across the housekeeper’s face. “But for a great deal less. Three pounds. An insulting pittance, I should say. I wonder why you accepted it. Or why His Lordship didn’t offer more.” She waited expectantly, her eyes bright with curiosity, for Allegra’s response.
Wait in vain, thought Allegra. I’ll tell you nothing.
After a long moment of silence, Mrs. Rutledge shrugged. “Well, who knows what goes on in that man’s head?” she said, her lip curling. She took another sweetmeat. “As to your duties, you will work as a housemaid, unless you prove yourself apt for more taxing responsibilities. Follow Verity’s lead. She’s an industrious girl, and a good example.” Mrs. Rutledge’s lips puckered in sudden displeasure. For a moment, Allegra wondered if the sucket was made of lemon peel. “Mr. Briggs tells me you can read and write,” the older woman went on sourly. “I trust that will not prompt you to give yourself airs above your station. Or lord it over the other girls. I can make your life very unpleasant here, if I choose.” She twirled an imperious finger in the air. “Now, turn. Let me look at you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Allegra swallowed her resentment. It would be foolish to make an enemy of the woman. She turned slowly, allowing the housekeeper to assess her costume. Before they’d gone down to a hearty breakfast in the servants’ hall this morning, Barbara had given her several additional pieces of clothing—a neckerchief that modestly covered her breasts and tucked into her stays, a small white linen cap to perch on her pinned-up black hair, and a crisp apron. Though she was dressed in the usual habit of a housemaid, it was far grander than anything she’d ever worn in Carolina. Gammer Pringle had been as stingy with clothing as she’d been with food. Or kindness.
Mrs. Rutledge frowned. “The sun has scorched you to a parchment. You’re scarcely fit to look upon.” She nodded her head for emphasis. “Well, a few good scrubs with fuller’s earth and sand should take off that color and make you as white as a summer lily.”
Allegra frowned in her turn. She was here to be a servant, not a pale-faced flower. Godamercy! She had a sudden, dread thought. “Is it His Lordship’s wish?” she asked with some heat. “Does he still hope I’ll play the lisping, mincing trollop for him?”
The housekeeper’s cold eyes narrowed. “You will not speak to me in that way again, miss! His Lordship likes pretty wenches around him. What he does with them is entirely his affair. ’Tis not my place to question. Nor yours, the good Lord knows! But I do not intend to bear the brunt of his sharp tongue if you are not fit to be seen! You will scrub your face twice a day, without fail. Or I shall have the cook and her helpers do it for you. Do you understand?”
Allegra bowed her head in defeat. “Yes, ma’am,” she murmured.
Her tone seemed to placate the other woman. “If you mind your manners,” she said more kindly, “you will find life pleasant enough at the Hall. At least below stairs.” She hesitated, toying with her quill pen. “His Lordship…I mean to say…that is, Mr. Briggs tells me you were present last night.” She lifted her chin and stared directly into Allegra’s eyes. “You saw?”
Allegra nodded, the color rising to her cheeks at the memory of Ridley’s dreadful humiliation.
“His Lordship is given to…occasional outbursts of that sort. You will have to learn to accept it. And hold your tongue outside of the Hall.” The housekeeper’s voice deepened with scorn. “Whatever one may think of such behavior, His Lordship’s shame is ours while we serve him. I will not have it noised around the parish, to add to all the other things they say about him.”
Allegra nodded again, but kept silent. Mrs. Rutledge was certainly not the one to ask about Ridley’s reputation as a coward, no matter how curious she was. Barbara and Verity seemed more likely to share the local gossip with her. “Where shall I begin this morning, ma’am?” she asked.
“Have someone direct you to His Lordship’s apartment. He was particularly fitful last night. There is much work to be done. You will find the other girls already there.” The housekeeper dismissed her with a wave of the hand.
There was no need for Allegra to ask directions. Ridley’s rooms had been Papa’s apartment. She climbed the main staircase to the ground floor, went along a wide passageway past open salons and drawing rooms, and mounted the back stairs to Ridley’s rooms on the floor above. It gave her an odd sensation, to pass through the house this way. She tried to picture herself as a young child—skipping in these passageways, sneaking down to the kitchen for a treat from the kindly cook, trailing worshipfully behind her grown-up brother and sister. But her memories were too dim, washed away by the horrors that had followed.
Moreover, everything within Baniard Hall was changed. The paneling was new, the wall-papers freshly hung, the furnishings far more showy than Mama’s elegant taste would have approved. Here and there, in passing, she thought she recognized a piece of furniture—a table, a carved chair—but she couldn’t be sure. And the paintings on the walls were, for the most part, unfamiliar to her. She sighed, feeling an odd sense of guilt. Of unworthiness. Why did she have to be the only survivor? Mama wouldn’t have felt so remote from her own house. Nor Lucinda, or Charlie.
A half dozen footmen were busy in the passageway in front of Ridley’s apartment when she reached it. They bustled about like bees in a hive, sweeping up the debris from the night before, removing the charred carpet, replacing broken chairs and mirrors. A workman with a bucket of plaster and tools was attempting to restore a chipped piece of molding around a doorframe, and a fresh-faced young boy scrubbed diligently at a stain on the painted wainscoting.
Allegra skirted a smashed marble bust that lay in front of Ridley’s door and stepped over the threshold into his private drawing room. The havoc here matched that of the passageway. Overturned furniture, broken porcelain, candles and candlesticks scattered to every corner. There were three maids in the room, hard at work; the only one Allegra recognized—Barbara—was on her knees near the door. She held a small knife, which she was using to scrape at hardened candle-drippings on the polished floor. She looked
up as Allegra entered and scowled. “Do you always dawdle?” she asked petulantly.
“Mrs. Rutledge kept me. I’m sorry.” Allegra glanced around the room and clicked her tongue. “Godamercy, what a mess.”
Barbara snorted and jerked her chin in the direction of an inner door. “The bedchamber is worse still. He wanted a doxy last night, but changed his mind when he saw her. He drove her away in tears, then began to pour bottles of claret all over the place. One for his gullet, one for the room. Lord knows how long it went on. The boys carried out a tub piled with empty bottles this morning. The bed is stained beyond belief—linens, hangings, everything. Even the draperies at the windows!”
Allegra shook her head in amazement. “How can a man spend good money to furnish his house and then befoul it? Drunk or sober.”
“They’re not his furnishings. He never bothered to change a thing when he bought the Hall, Mrs. Rutledge says. What’s here belonged to the last lord of the manor. Baron Ellsmere.”
“I’ve…heard of him,” said Allegra. “Wickham was the family name, wasn’t it? Or so they say.” She tried to sound offhand. It was best she learn to hear and say the hated names without flinching. She was suddenly curious about the current parish gossip. “Did the Ellsmeres always own the Hall?” she asked.
“No. The Baniards were before them. A long time ago. That’s where the Hall gets its name. They’re all dead now. And good riddance. Traitors to the Crown, they say. I never knew a one of the rascals, myself. Though there be a man or two in Newton, and a few of the older cottagers, who still speak kindly of the family.” She frowned and scratched at the stubborn wax on the floor, then threw down her knife and rose to her feet. “This will never serve. Perhaps a firkin of green soap and a good scouring with a brush…” She made for the door, pointing toward the bedchamber as she went. “Verity is inside with Margery. Go and help them.”
The one called Margery—the laundry maid—was bending over a large, canopied bed and complaining as Allegra opened the door. “Oh, Verity,” she said in a soft whine, “I’ll never get this damask clean! What am I to do?” She stripped the stained coverlet from the bed, then began to pull off the sheets.
Verity was perched on a tall ladder that leaned against the bedframe; she unhooked a length of pale-gold silk from the tester and sighed. “’Odds fish, Margery. Don’t start in to wailing again. Mrs. Rutledge don’t expect miracles. If it comes clean, so be it. If not, maybe Mr. Briggs can talk His Lordship into buying new goods.”
“But you don’t understand!” Margery’s lower lip had begun to quiver. “He took me to task only yesterday. Called me a stupid, clumsy girl who couldn’t keep his linens clean. And after I’d dipped them in blueing three times and all, and scrubbed my fingers raw…” She fluttered helplessly with her hands, gesturing toward the piles of gold damask on the floor; the delicate silk was mottled with dark-red stains. “Now, what am I to do about all of this?”
“Don’t you fret, Margery.” Verity turned, saw Allegra and nodded. “See? Here’s another pair of hands for us. This is Allegra, the new girl.”
Allegra smiled a greeting. “If you wish, I’ll fold the draperies as you take them down,” she said, to be helpful. At Verity’s nod, she set to work, folding the heavy lengths as the other two women stripped the bed and the windows.
“They were talking about you at breakfast,” said Margery at last. “And that cruel Sir Henry.”
“Wicked man,” muttered Verity. “With wicked hands. I met him in Ludlow on market day last month. He tried to…” She shuddered.
“I can’t believe Lord Ridley came to your rescue, like a champion of old,” said Margery, shaking her head. “Not a man who speaks such hurtful words as that one does.”
Verity snorted. “Champion? Farmer Jenkins told Humphrey that His Lordship wouldn’t take Sir Henry’s challenge. Not even fat Sir Henry, that a lad of ten could fight! His Lordship could drub him with one hand, if he had a mind to it. ‘Champion,’ indeed.”
“’Tis true, then?” asked Allegra in dismay. “He’ll never accept a challenge?”
“I don’t know why,” said Verity. “But they say when he ventures to London everyone makes sport of him. There’s never a man who fails to throw his glove at Lord Ridley’s feet. Just to see him turn tail and run. Why, I remember once, in Newton…”
“Enough!” said Allegra. “We’ll never finish if we chatter.” She didn’t know why she should suddenly feel so vexed about Ridley. Why should it matter to her if he chose to act the coward? To drink his life away. Because he was favored by fortune and handsome and rich? Because it seemed such a waste?
She worked in angry silence, folding and stacking, until the room had been completely stripped of its fabric and Verity had descended from her ladder. The maid bent and lifted an armful of drapery. “Margery and I will take these to the wet laundry and start in on the scrubbing. There’s fresh linens for the bed. There—in the corner. After that’s done, you can come and help us. Come, Margery.”
Margery picked up the remaining fabric, but Verity’s words seemed to have reminded her of the hopeless chore that lay ahead. Her mouth collapsed into an unhappy pout. “I’ll never get them clean. What shall I tell him, when he complains?”
Useless man, thought Allegra, still feeling anger at Ridley. To dissipate all his advantages, when others had so little…“Tell him to do his own washing!” she snapped in a loud voice.
Verity gasped and pointed to a small door in the corner of the room. “Shh! He’ll hear you,” she whispered.
Allegra stared in surprise. “He’s in there?”
“’Tis his private closet. There’s a little bed there…” Verity moved toward the drawing room door. “Finish this chamber. Then come to the laundry.”
“And don’t disturb the master,” breathed Margery, her eyes wide with fear.
“Wait a moment, Verity,” said Allegra. She was bursting to ask. And didn’t the girl seem to know all the gossip? “Who is the ‘Lady of the Sorrows’?” It had haunted her dreams—his heartbreaking words, the look in his eyes when he’d called her by that name last night.
Verity shrugged. “I don’t know. I never heard of her. Come, Margery.” They left Allegra to her work and her troubled thoughts.
It took no time for her to make up the bed, to smooth the sheets and fluff the pillows. She was used to far harder work. She glanced at the door to Ridley’s closet, hesitated, then shook her head. She really should go down to the wet laundry. Still…just one peep. What harm?
The sweet, musky scent of incense wafted to her nostrils as she opened the door cautiously. “Godamercy,” she whispered, staring in surprise and wonder. This room surely was Ridley’s doing, not Wickham’s. The man who had furnished the rest of Baniard Hall in such a commonplace manner would never have chosen this style!
The room she had entered was as strange and exotic as anything she had ever seen. The morning light filtered through delicately carved sandalwood shutters at the windows, and the floor was covered with a thick, luxurious carpet in a multihued design of intertwining leaves and flowers unfamiliar to Allegra. The single large armchair, which sat near a window, seemed more like a collection of silk-covered pillows attached to a wooden frame than any chair an English gentleman would choose. And the unusual yet harmonious colors of the individual pillows—saffron and sharp yellow and the bright scarlet of a tropical bird—seemed to speak of distant lands and mysterious climes.
There were several round tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl, three or four straight-backed chairs of carved and pierced teak with silk-cushioned seats, and a parade of ivory Indian elephants marching across the mantel. The various candelabra and vases and incense bowls that decorated the room were of exotic shapes—shiny brass etched with fanciful designs.
Strangest of all was the display on the wall above the hearth: a mounted collection of swords and knives, their hilts studded with precious stones, their polished blades chased and embossed with all the skill of
the swordsmith’s art.
Allegra bit her lip in dismay at the imposing array of weapons—forceful, challenging, bellicose. What was in the man’s heart, she thought, that he should torment himself with such a reminder of his own cowardice?
Viscount Ridley lay uncovered on a small, upholstered couch to one side of the room, breathing gently. With his pallid face and white shirt, he looked strangely vulnerable against the vivid, patterned silk. He lay on his back, his eyes closed, his limbs relaxed in the softness of sleep. There was no sign of the ropes that had bound him the night before; perhaps his valet had removed them once he’d fallen asleep.
Allegra crept near the bed and studied him with curiosity. His wide brow was as smooth and free from care as a child’s, and his long, dark eyelashes curled against his cheeks like delicate, fringed feathers. He was in need of a shave, though it detracted not one whit from his superb good looks. The bluish line of his stubble curved down in graceful scallops from his ears to his chin, and circled his mouth in a symmetrical oval that was extraordinarily pleasing to the eye; it made Allegra want to trace the pattern with her fingertip. His mouth—the cruel mouth that could curl with scorn, or utter harsh insults, or take hers with rapacious abandon—was now so sweet and tempting in its repose that Allegra had to fight the mad desire to bend and kiss it. Had there ever been a time, she wondered, when the man’s nature had been as young and innocent and good as now his face was in sleep?
I should have liked to know you then, Greyston Ridley, she thought with a pang of yearning. To call him sweet friend, and joke and laugh, and flirt a little. And perhaps to exchange tender kisses with that mouth. They might even have been neighbors, had her life been different.
What nonsense! She smiled ruefully at her own foolish fancies. One would think she had never seen a man before, to indulge herself with such daydreams! Their worlds were as different as day and night, and she was a goose for allowing his handsome face to set her heart to pounding.
Summer Darkness, Winter Light Page 6