by Abigail Agar
‘Bastard. If you’ll pardon my French, my dear. So he’s got the magistrate out looking for his last victim. You’ve come to the right place, dearie. We’ve smuggled a few reprobates out from under the eye of the law in our time, me and Mr Pli– Mr Fielding. Lucky for you my little Peter here has lifted some silver from his employer, and so there is a live-in position for a young manservant going at The Avonside Manse.’
‘The Avonside Manse?’
‘Aye. It’s the seat of the current Lord Stanley. A strange old place, but one which should be more than comfortable for a woman who can fall asleep beneath the stars in King’s Park.
‘But you said it was a place for a manservant?’
‘Aye, but look at young Peter there. If that spineless little bastard – pardon my French – can pass for a manservant, then I’d say a rat in a greatcoat could work.
‘Providing you claim your age is young enough, your lack of beard isn’t so strange; you’re scrawny for a wealthy lass, so your bosoms shouldn’t show off too much if we bind them down. Put you in trousers and cut those ringlets back and you could pass for a manlier boy than Peter. And I say that of my own wretched son. If only his father would come back from the Colonies.’
‘Mr Plimpton is abroad? Does he not want you to join him?’
‘My dear girl when I say the colonies I mean a prison colony. He is working off a great debt as an indentured labourer in the Americas. If the cold and savages don’t get him, I’ll kill him myself when he sails back home.’
During her short speech, Mrs Plimpton’s eyes wandered over to Mr Fielding who was curled up in a very childlike posture on an armchair before the fire. He was hugging his knees rather as a small boy might.
Vera wondered about the connection between Mrs Plimpton, young Peter, the absent father, and the mysterious Mr Fielding, and felt she could hazard a guess as to where Mr Plimpton had ended up.
‘So?’ Mrs Plimpton asked. ‘The constables are looking for a wealthy merchant’s daughter of nearly twenty. They won’t be questioning the boy servant of a degenerate aristocrat.’
‘Why do you say degenerate?’ Vera asked, though she knew whatever the answer this would be her best, maybe only, option.
‘Best a young girl like you doesn’t know. I wouldn’t send you into that house wearing a dress though is all I’ll say on the matter. It may only be hearsay, but I’ve heard rumours that would make your blood run hot at first and then turn to ice. That’s all I’ll say on the matter, except that there’s plenty a little rogue like Peter there who owe their origin to the Stanley name. And that’s the last you’ll hear from me on that house of dubious reputation
Vera had not considered, raised in the safety of a moderately wealthy home, the dangers that being a woman exposed her to. Only her walk with Mr Fielding in the dark had suggested hints of her vulnerability to her. Now at the prospect of an outward transformation, she began to understand that for Vera Ladislaw, this house could be a lion’s den of ravishment, but for Master –
‘What name should I take in my new form?’
‘You can keep the Fielding name my dear,’ suggested Mrs Plimpton, ‘Caruthers, the Head of the Servants at Avonside, knows our Mr Fielding, so a nephew of his will be more than welcome.’
‘And for a Christian name?’
‘What is your Christian name now?’
‘Vera.’
Mr Fielding uncurled in his chair and said loudly, ‘Fidel.’
‘What’s that now, you old drunk?’ asked Mrs Plimpton turning to him.
‘Vera from the Latin “verum” meaning “truth” or “belief”. Fidel from the Latin “fidem” meaning ‘belief” or “faith”. Master Fidel Fielding.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Plimpton. ‘That will work nicely.’
The new name felt good, as if by changing her name from Vera Ladislaw she was leaving behind Vera’s grief, her loss. Fidel Fielding had his own troubles to be sure. But by comparison, they were nothing to the wanted murderess and orphan, Vera.
‘So how do we go about making me into Fidel?’ she said at last.
***
The bindings hurt more than any corset she had worn, they pinched and squeezed her chest painfully strapping down the giveaway shape of her womanly breasts and allowing her undershirt to fit without bulging suggestively.
The process of tying britches was unusual but the tight smooth cloth of the garment made for a most pleasing shape in Vera’s leg which she found herself admiring in the mirror Mrs Plimpton was dressing her before.
They were in the cramped and smoky room above the bar where Mrs Plimpton slept in a grubby bed with a number of tobacco pipes on the nightstand and a fireplace with a blocked chimney that fed puffs of smog back into the room whenever the wind changed direction.
Vera tied her cravat again and again in front of the small mirror with Mr Fielding’s help until she could do it without a stuttering of the fingers or an unsightly knot resulting.
Then with Vera’s clothes sorted, the ship-like Mrs Plimpton sailed into port with a pair of half-blunt sheep shears and did the honour of hacking away Vera’s curls, turning them to a neat, close-cropped cut.
‘You want to keep a little for a moustache,’ joked Mrs Plimpton tickling beneath Vera’s nose with a lock. ‘Go on, keep a knot. For good luck, and so’s you don’t forget what’s really in yer codpiece.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Plimpton. I will.’
‘Oh, she’s only funning you,’ said Mr Fielding, who from his familiar manner with the barkeeper Vera was beginning to suspect might really be the late Mr Plimpton, upon whose ghost the whole public house swore.
Vera reached down and took a long chunk, made up of a beautifully tight ringlet, and split it in three. She watched her fingers braiding it carefully into a neat lock and then tied it off. It settled in her purse as the only remaining object in it.
‘Thank you, dear Mrs Plimpton, Mr Fielding,’ she said. ‘I will pay you back as soon as I can.’
‘I know you will, dearie,’ said Mrs Plimpton. ‘You’re like the son I never had. You best start talking like a boy does. Give us your best deep voice and a little unladylike language if you will.’
Lowering her voice a little, Vera tried a: ‘Damn your eyes, wench.’
The Plimptons – both the confirmed Mrs and suspected Mr – laughed heartily at this.
‘You’d fit right in on the docks,’ said Mr Fielding. ‘A regular blue mouthed, cockney sailor.’
‘The docks maybe, but with that soft skin, never so much a sailor … I’ll say no more.’ Mrs Plimpton chuckled, which made Vera flush very red indeed.
‘Well, you can’t be getting all embarrassed like that, my dear. These servants you’ll be living with will open your eyes up to all sorts. And from what I hear, so will that Lord of yours. He’s an unhealthy sort of character. I can hardly bear to see a son of mine go into that den of sin.’
Mrs Plimpton appeared to have forgotten her son Peter in all the excitement of getting Vera ready and, even as Fidel, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for the boy who was being slighted by his parent in this way. Perhaps parents – she still could not work out if Fielding had fathered Peter or if perhaps there was more to that story to find out.
***
With her clothing fixed and her story straight, Fidel went forth into the world. He had at moments a most ladylike sway to his hips and some moments of strange effeminacy.
His skin showed no signs of needing a shave, and his hands were uncommonly fine, but he was no doubt a boy in the eye of any passer-by, Vera felt very sure of that, having seen herself in the larger mirror in the back room which Mrs Plimpton was keeping safe for Jimmy the fence.
Vera received no second looks in the street as she walked with Mr Fielding out to the coach house where they found a cart headed upriver and passing within a half-mile or so of the Avonside Manse.
In part as a form of practice, and in part as a form of play, Vera sat with the carter and spoke with him at
length telling him stories about Fidel’s life and practising the rougher voice she was affecting ahead of her interview with Caruthers.
Fielding had told her to be careful of Caruthers. ‘He’s a shifty fella with more going on in his head than he ever lets on. He’s run the Stanley household for decades, and the old Lord Stanley relied on him entirely. The new Stanley is a bit more of a free spirit, so Caruthers has tightened his hold on the servants. It’s Caruther’s Kingdom when Lord Stanley isn’t in the room, and you want to make sure you are on the side of the king.’
They dismounted the cart while the sun was still high overhead.
‘You going to the Manse?’ mumbled the carter, whose name Vera had found was George, in a West Country accent so thick even Mr Fielding seemed to have trouble understanding him.
‘Aye,’ said Vera in her best Fidel voice.
‘Horrible place. Haunted I hear. By devils raised in evil practices. That Lord Stanley has many women brought to him there to seduce. None leave I’m told. He holds masked balls where the wildest things happen. At least them’s the rumours.’
‘Pish, you old fool. That’s nothing but fisherman’s tales. I don’t doubt the parties and the chippies, George. But really, do you credit these black cockerel doings?’
‘Out here there’s witches aplenty. One came to my village and cured my weak back using a toad. She drew the pain out into her familiar.’
Mr Fielding laughed, whispering to Vera, ‘I know the witch in question. She is without a doubt one of the finest quacks in the county. She sells cures for everything and moves on before you know they cure nothing. She stays at the Rose when she passes through Bathcombe.’
As the carter rumbled away with his dolorous horse, Vera and Mr Fielding headed away from the road, crossing a few fields before coming to a small gate set into a huge, carefully cut hedge.
Beyond the gate, they emerged into a beautifully landscaped garden some forty acres by Vera’s guess. It was hard to tell because the ground rose and fell in artificial hills through which fountains and lakes flowed. Across the grounds, towering over the topiary were the many windows of Avonside Manse.
It all took Vera’s breath away.
‘My, God,’ she said. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Careful, Fidel. Your voice.’
He was right, in her surprise she had spoken as Vera: better educated and more womanly.
What if I slip up like that in Avonside?
Images of the courtroom and the gibbet swam before her eyes, and she resolved to be far more careful in future no matter how surprised she was rendered. Or perhaps she would find herself ravished by this Lord, whose capers seemed to grow with every story she heard of him.
Mr Fielding’s dismissal of the carter’s story had calmed her mind a little, but there must be something about the man and this place that generated so many rumours.
She remembered childhood tales of the Kabbalist who could create vast men from clay, and stories of savage tribes where ancient rituals were practised. If a foreigner in a top hat and sideburns could avoid a murder charge, how far could someone like Lord Stanley, isolated in these beautiful grounds, get away with it?
The walk to the servant’s entrance of the house was passed in such idle speculation. By the time they had reached the huge edifice of the house, Vera had created any number of Gothic extravagances that might hide behind the many windows in well-appointed rooms.
***
Caruthers answered their knocking at the door. He was a tall and soft man, well fed for a servant, with smooth childish cheeks that contrasted with the unruly grey wires of his hair which seemed his one submission to disorder, for in every other aspect he was the epitome of precision.
His boots and buttons shone as if just polished, his collar and coat revealed no wrinkles, his skin and nails were scrubbed pink. Even his teeth were straight and clean.
‘Afternoon, Mr Fielding. Is this the boy?’
‘Aye,’ said Mr Fielding.
‘Introduce yourself, Fidel.’
‘Good afternoon, Mr Caruthers. It is a pleasure to meet you, sir.’
‘And you too, my boy.’ He looked her up and down in a way that reminded her of the lieutenant’s careful appraisal of her figure and dress on their first meeting. ‘Come in, we must get you established here as soon as possible. Lord Stanley has been demanding we begin preparations for the Solstice Ball early.’
The Solstice Ball! A pagan date. Perhaps the carter was right …
Vera put such thoughts aside. She would keep an eye out for anything suspicious, do her work, and keep as much to herself as possible.
Mr Fielding shared a few quick words with Caruthers on the merits of his nephew while Vera stood by trying to look as if such words were not new to her.
She noticed her shoes were spattered with mud from the fields, and with the shine of Caruthers shoes appearing to mock them, she tried to scrape the worst of it off. Instead, she made the mess worse.
‘Helen will show you your duties.’ It took Vera a moment to realise she was the object of the conversation now. Looking up, she said, ‘Oh, yes–’ Her voice came out rather high pitched, and she quickly corrected it. ‘Yes, it will be a pleasure to meet Helen.’
‘She is the maid. I understand the urges of a young man such as yourself, but you will not fraternise with her in any unseemly way. Lord Stanley’s reputation is very important to me, even if it matters not to his Lordship.’ These last words were spoken in a tone that conveyed great tiredness and sadness as if Caruthers were wearied by the immense weight of the Stanley family’s name which he alone had borne through these troubled times.
‘Of course, sir,’ she replied.
Mr Fielding shook her hand goodbye and returned to the road hoping to pick up a lift from the carter as he headed back to Bathcombe from his visit to the markets outside Bristol.
***
Caruthers led Vera through a gloomy corridor, the entry way to the kitchen where she was greeted by a young blonde.
‘Helen here is to show you to His Lordship for you to assist him with his morning routine.’ He looked at the clock on the large kitchen fire mantelpiece. It read nearly two o’clock after noon. ‘Well,’ he corrected himself. ‘His routine on waking up.’
‘But I’ve only just arrived.’
‘Quite, I will put your things in the quarters we have prepared for you. We are always understaffed here, and I don’t have time to walk you through all this. Just take that tray up, and you’ll find the tea things in the bedroom cabinet.’
He seized Vera’s bag and strode confidently away leaving her with a young blonde girl of maybe sixteen or seventeen with a large smile. She wore a rough woollen dress and a household bonnet.
‘Nice to meet you Master Fielding, I’m Helen. You best grab that tray and come with me.’
Vera was so off guard she simply picked the tray up and followed Helen, trying to remember her instructions and reassurances that Mister Caruthers would give her a full tour once Lord Stanley was seen to.
Helen left Vera at the door of Lord Stanley’s room with instructions to return to the kitchen as soon as Lord Stanley dismissed her.
With a trembling hand, Vera turned the door handle and stepped into the room. The door swung shut behind her on a breeze and banged startling her almost into dropping the silver tray.
The room was dark apart from the fire from the grate. In a huge four poster bed, the shape of a man beneath sheets could be seen.