She felt a touch at her arm and turned to see Philip staring at her. “When are the lodgers coming?”
Julia reached up to tousle his auburn hair. “Our advertisements should be published in a week or so.” Following Jensen’s advice, she had sent the advertisements to newspapers in the major cities instead of to monthly periodicals, so that they would be printed sooner and receive more exposure. “We’ll find out after that.” It can work, she reassured herself, refusing to give ground to the negative thoughts that loomed in the back of her mind. God gave us the idea through Jensen—and He’ll help us make it work.
She set Grace back on her feet, turned to the coachman, and dug his fee out of her beaded reticule. As she tipped the man an extra florin to bring the trunks and bags inside, she heard a voice as raspy as dry leaves drift over from across the lane.
“So … ye’ve come to live in the Larkspur, have ye?”
The group turned, and Julia sent a wave to two white-haired women seated in front of a thatched-roof cottage. She had heard of lace spinners, had even seen them used as subjects of paintings, but had never before actually seen any in person. In the centuries-old custom, the women sat in the sunlight with lap cushions, pins, patterns, and reels of thread to weave their delicate laces.
“Yes, we have,” Julia answered genially.
“We’re Iris and Jewel Worthy, dear.” This came from a voice as soothing as the first had been grating. “Jewel was a Perkins before she married my brother Silas.”
“I moved in with my sister-in-law after my husband passed away,” the one named Jewel explained. Her nimble fingers never slowed down from winding threads around the pins sticking from her pillow. “Folk have called us the Worthy sisters for years, even though we ain’t blood related. And ye are …?”
“Julia Hollis.” A wagon bearing a man wearing the fustian work clothes of a laborer passed between them, slowing so the driver could cast a curious stare at the group standing in the carriage drive. Julia offered a smile, but the man gave a quick nod in return and directed his attention back to his team. When the lace spinners were in sight again, Julia made quick introductions of her children and Fiona, then sent the Worthy sisters another wave. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. We should go inside now.”
“Ye aren’t going to sleep in there tonight, are you?” the raspy voice queried.
Julia turned. “I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing, dear,” Iris answered with a sharp look at her sister. “But do pop over later when you’ve time. There is something you’ll want to know.”
Jewel’s white head bobbed in agreement. “Come alone, mind you.”
“What did she mean by that?” Aleda asked, clutching Julia’s sleeve with one hand and her doll with another as the group walked across the courtyard, shaded by a sentinel oak with wide-reaching branches. The driver brought up the rear, shouldering a heavy trunk.
“I’m sure it’s nothing, dear.” They passed cast-iron benches mottled with algae before arriving at a solid oak door. A wrought-iron bell pull was fastened to its frame, worn smooth by generations of hands that tugged at it. Julia fished the ring of keys, two candles with tin holders, and matches from her satchel and said to the children, “Now remember, it’s been closed up for eight years.”
“Will there be mice?” Still at her side, Aleda asked the question in a low voice so as not to alarm Grace.
“I wouldn’t imagine,” Julia answered, at the same time sending up a quick, Please, Lord, no mice! She tried one key and then another. “There should be no food inside to attract them. We should probably get a cat later, though.”
“A cat?” It was Grace, the animal lover, who perked up at this. “Can it be a mother cat, so she’ll have kittens? And black, please, with a white face and paws.”
“Just as soon have the mice, if it was me,” grunted the overburdened coachman from the rear. “Will ye open that door, or are we to stand out here all—”
“This is the right one.” The rusty hinges squeaked and the door stood wide open. Julia was encouraged to hear no scurrying sounds as she peered inside. A corridor stretched out before them, musty-smelling and murky black beyond the light coming in from the doorway.
Julia lit her candle and stepped inside. Now that the corridor was illuminated, Julia could see that it was actually a very short one, emptying into another longer corridor running the long part of the “L” of the house. It looked no less forbidding, however, for cobwebs hung as thick as bed curtains in some spots. Aleda came up behind her and gripped at her sleeve again. “Please, Mother, let’s leave now,” she whimpered.
“It’s going to be just fine, Aleda,” Julia answered, wiping a string of cobweb from her cheek as she took another step forward.
“Would you like me to lead the way, ma’am?” asked Fiona, her candle now glowing.
The idea was enormously tempting, but Julia turned down her offer. What message would be sent to the children if she were to cower behind Fiona? She turned to the right and walked cautiously down the corridor, passing two closed doors at either side of her before pausing at the arched open doorway to a central hall. Julia took a step through the doorway and gasped when something crunched beneath her foot. Behind her, Aleda let out a squeal.
“What is it, ma’am?” Fiona asked from the rear.
“I don’t know.” Julia lowered her candle, and discovering something resembling dried leaves scattered over the stone floor, she scooped up a crumbling handful. “How odd. Why would anyone strew leaves all over the floor?”
Fiona stepped past the children and into the room, then bent to take up some leaves. Her circle of amber candlelight then illuminated her smile. “They’re likely meadowsweet—perhaps some lavender as well. To keep away mice and moths.”
Thank you, Lord, Julia prayed, silently blessing whoever had had the foresight to take such precautions. Holding the candle above her head, she could make out a high rafted ceiling and cavernous stone fireplace. Sheets covered with dust draped every piece of furniture, many showed signs of rot where the years of neglect had taken their toll. Combined with the cobwebs, they gave the room a decidedly ethereal atmosphere.
The children came into the room in a huddle. Julia turned to reassure them that the room would look quite different when cleaned and was disheartened to see that the anxious expressions upon their faces had deteriorated into something resembling terror. Perhaps we should stay at the Bow and Fiddle for a couple of days until the place is more presentable, she thought.
They had sufficient money to do so. Besides the hundred pounds lent to her by Jensen and the six quid still left from the original household money, she had an extra thirty-five pounds from selling several gowns to a shop on Petticoat Lane. Some were of Parisian design and worth five times what she received for them, but she’d been too grateful for the extra money to feel any loss. In fact, she would have culled out even more of her wardrobe had not Fiona persuaded her to keep some colorful gowns for when her year of mourning was up. “You won’t be wearing black forever,” the maid had argued. “And your lodgers will expect their landlady to look cheery and presentable.”
But I’ve no idea how much it’s going to cost to refurbish the house, Julia thought, mentally counting the money again. How could she know, until all the rooms had been examined and cleaned? And her children’s futures lay in making the Larkspur Inn presentable to lodgers who were accustomed to quality.
The driver grunted from beneath the trunk. “Where d’ye want this?”
This is our home. We have to stay. Julia shot a questioning glance to Fiona. But where indeed should the luggage go? She wasn’t even sure which bedrooms they would choose for their own yet.
“How about in here?” Fiona suggested. “We can always move everything later.”
“Yes, that’s fine,” Julia said to the coachman. “But why don’t you rest before unloading the others?”
“Want t’make Shrewsbury before lunch,” the driver replied. Whe
n he was gone, accompanied by Philip to hold the door for him when he returned with another load, and while Fiona went to look for the lantern room, Grace pointed to a sheet-covered form in a familiar shape. “Look, Aleda!” she exclaimed. “That looks like a piano. You’ll be able to play for us.”
“I’m not touching anything in this house … ever,” her sister sniffed.
Julia squelched the sharp words that rose in her throat. She just needs time to get used to the idea. Mercifully, a few minutes later the doorway they had walked through earlier became brighter and brighter, until Fiona appeared carrying two paraffin lamps. “I found a lantern room just inside the courtyard door,” she said, placing one on each side of the chimneypiece. “Candles, paraffin, and gallons of oil. We’ll have enough light for months to come. And I’ll bring more lanterns in here when we’ve uncovered the tables. A little light always makes a room more hospitable.”
This fact lifted Julia’s spirits, but the girls still huddled close to her with dazed expressions. Give them something to do, she thought when Philip had returned and the coachman was gone. It’ll keep their minds occupied. And today was as good a day as any for the children to understand that the days of having servants attending their every need were over.
“Look, children, I’ve a little chore for you,” she said.
“Chore, Mother?” Philip said, but the puzzlement was across all three faces. Julia sighed inwardly, recalling the two times she’d explained to the children that their help would be vital to making the Larkspur a success. It still obviously hadn’t sunk in, for now all three sets of eyes had drifted over to Fiona.
Aleda was the only one with enough bluntness to voice what they were all thinking. “But why can’t Fiona do it?” There was no animosity in her voice, just the incomprehension of a child who’d taken it for granted all her life that children amused themselves and servants did the work.
“Because Fiona can’t do it all. And she and I need to see how the other rooms are laid out.” Moving over to a sofa-shaped form, Julia took up a corner of the sheet and snatched it aside. A cloud of dust overwhelmed her nostrils and brought on a fit of sneezing.
“It’s better to fold the sheets aside, ma’am,” Fiona said tactfully as Julia wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. The maid demonstrated, lifting a corner of the cloth and making a series of folds until a Georgian tea table with cabriole legs was uncovered. “We should go through the sheets later to see if any are worth salvaging. The others we can cut up for cleaning rags.”
“See?” Julia said with forced cheeriness after blowing her nose. “The rooms won’t look so frightening when the furniture is uncovered. You can busy yourselves with that while Fiona and I decide where we’re to sleep.”
Aleda’s face fell again. “It’ll take years and years to clean this old house. Why don’t you hire more servants now?”
“And why don’t you stop complaining!” Julia snapped, her nerves strained to the limit. Immediately regretting her burst of temper, she walked over to put an arm around Aleda’s young shoulders. The girl buried her face in Julia’s side.
“Yes, in time we will,” she said softly. “But it’s never going to be like it was in London. We’re going to have to learn to do some things for ourselves.”
“I hate this place! I want to go back home!” Aleda said amidst muffled sobs.
“I know you do,” Julia murmured as she smoothed the girl’s auburn hair and allowed her to cry while the others looked on with long faces. Close to dissolving herself, she thought, If you could have looked ahead to the future, Philip, and seen the tears of your daughter … would you have thrown our future away so recklessly? “But I give you my word, we’re going to make a home out of this place.”
When Julia had calmed Aleda somewhat, she and Fiona got the children started on the task of uncovering the furniture. But no matter how carefully they folded the sheets aside, dust scattered into the air. It was Philip who came up with the idea of taking handkerchiefs from the luggage and tying them around their faces highwayman style.
The ground floor consisted of two main corridors. Along the corridor running west to east and forming the long part of the “L” were the scullery, kitchen, and a sizable dining room ending at the main hall. Facing those rooms from across the same corridor were the pantry, a back staircase, the short courtyard corridor they had entered the house through, the cook’s and housekeeper’s chambers, water closet and lavatory, and a main staircase that ended at the hall again.
Another corridor ran north to south from the hall. Julia was following Fiona down it when the front bell clanged. Automatically Fiona turned in her tracks, but Julia switched the lamp she was carrying to her other hand and touched the maid’s arm. “It’s about time I learned how to answer my own door.”
Crunching dried leaves with her feet, Julia hurried back into the hall, where the children were staring with uncertain expressions at the front door. Like herself, they’d been raised to take for granted that servants answered doors without exception. We’ve a lot of habits to unlearn, she thought on her way past them. “It’s all right, children,” she assured them, picking up her reticule from the exposed tea table and taking out her keys. She tried three keys on the chain before one unlocked the front door, but she finally swung it open to find four people standing upon the stoop.
“Good day, madam,” said an elderly gentleman with fresh pink cheeks and clear blue eyes. He switched the cane in his right hand to his left and lifted a bowler hat from his balding head. “I’m Vicar Wilson, and this is my daughter, Henrietta, our housemaid, Dora, and our gardener, Luke. We’ve come to offer our assistance to Gresham’s newest residents.”
“But we’ve barely just arrived,” Julia said after a second of stunned silence. “How did you know …?”
“News travels fast in a small village, madam.”
The daughter, a sturdily built middle-aged woman with brown sausage curls peeking from her bonnet, nodded down at the basket in her arms. “And we brought you some lunch.”
“Firewood too,” said the gardener, doffing a billycock cap.
Julia could see part of a small gardening wagon behind him, heaped with split logs.
“The nights and mornin’s still got a nip in ’em. And if ye don’t mind me lookin’ out back for a ladder, I’ll see to opening those shutters.” A gap between his front teeth caused “shutters” to come out with a faint whistle.
Dora, a young woman in apron and lace cap, simply gave a quick bob. Julia put a hand up to her cheek and tried to imagine Reverend Douglass, her former rector at Mayfair, condescending to helping someone with housework. Or even herself doing the same just weeks ago.
“Why, I don’t know what to say,” she finally told them.
“‘Come in’ will do very nicely,” the vicar said, smiling.
As it turned out, Vicar Wilson was very familiar with the layout of the Larkspur, having been a close friend of Ethan Banning, its previous owner. The vicar was kind enough to take up a lantern and offer a tour.
“That would be wonderful,” Julia told him, and even the children managed some enthusiasm this time. They left from the hall again, along the corridor that Julia and Fiona had started to explore. This passage had rooms only on the south side—the first was a small library, then a storage room. Three bedrooms were next.
“These are the family quarters,” the vicar explained.
“Downstairs?” Philip asked.
The old gentleman smiled. “In the coaching inn business, the proprietor has to keep a sharp eye on the goings-on of the establishment.”
There were six bedchambers upstairs that would hopefully lodge people instead of spiders one day, a linen room, storage room, water closet and bath, and a sitting room. In the attic were also six bedchambers—smaller because of the slope of the house—but surprisingly well insulated and each with a fireplace and garret window. Julia opened one door and gasped at finding another water closet. She had expected those on the two other f
loors that Jensen had mentioned, but even her house in London hadn’t provided such an amenity in the servants’ quarters.
“Ethan Banning was a thoughtful man,” the reverend said with an amused little smile. “When the water closets were added, he decided that the servants should have one as well.”
“It makes sense to me.” Julia smiled back at him.
Hours later, when the foursome were on their way back to the vicarage with a promise to return the next day, Julia put aside her dusting cloth long enough to wander down the family corridor with an appreciative eye. At Julia’s insistence, Fiona was assigned to the housekeeper’s quarters, which would hopefully be cleaned by tomorrow evening.
“Just until we’ve time to ready the maids’ rooms in the loft,” Fiona had finally relented. “You’ll need this chamber when you can hire on a housekeeper.”
Julia had smiled at Fiona’s statement, made totally without guile, and hoped the time would indeed come when she could afford to pay a housekeeper’s wages—and she already had a certain young Irishwoman in mind for the position.
She ran her fingertips lightly along the inside cobwalls of the family corridor. They felt slightly damp from the scrubbing she and Dora had given them earlier. The vicar’s maid had had to teach her how to use a broom on cobwebs, and then how to clean one section of the wall at a time before moving on. Such a deceptively simple-looking chore had caused Julia’s back to ache and arms to feel leaden, but she was so determined not to draw attention to her lack of skills that she’d pushed herself on. And learned something with the effort. How startling it was to discover the sense of satisfaction that could be experienced while wringing out a cloth in a bucket of warm sudsy water!
So much had been accomplished today. Even the vicar, hindered as he was by rheumatism, and Philip by his sprained finger, did what they could to sweep away some of the neglect of the past eight years.
The Widow of Larkspur Inn Page 6