The Servant

by Maggie Richell-Davies

  THE SERVANT

  Maggie Richell-Davies

  © Maggie Richell-Davies 2019

  Maggie Richell-Davies has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2020 by Sharpe Books.

  For Florence Richell, who dreamed of teaching but, as a Northumbrian miner’s daughter, had to forego a scholarship and go into service in London

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  End Note

  Chapter One

  London, Spring 1765

  ‘Let’s have a proper look at you.’

  I step within touching distance. The visitor has eaten something strong-smelling. Fragments are lodged between her teeth. And her breath, and what is happening, jolt me back to being ten years old.

  Toasted cheese. The mouth-watering odour hit us as we were hustled into the room. Mary and I had been dragged from bed by one of the older girls and hurried, barefoot, to the overseer’s quarters. There was a stranger with her, in a satin gown too bright and young for her face. From the plates and porter bottles on the table, they had just shared a meal.

  ‘The dark haired one is the looker, with those striking green eyes,’ said the visitor. ‘Hannah Hubert, did you say?’

  ‘Yes. A handful, though.’

  The stranger yanked up my shift and, when I resisted, gave me a slap.

  ‘Keep still.’

  Fingers searched, hurting, and I bared my teeth.

  The blow from the overseer knocked me to the hearthrug. Inches from my face was a brass toasting fork and I lunged for it.

  ‘Don’t!’ A foot stamped on my wrist. ‘Troublesome little bitch.’

  I froze, the taste in my mouth bitter. Knowing I could be handled by strangers, like a donkey at a horse fair, and do nothing.

  ‘I’ll take the other one.’ The stranger shoved a tattered shawl at the whimpering Mary, sounding bored. ‘Can’t be doing with trouble.’

  ‘Want me to send for her boots?’

  ‘We are not going far. Stones and filth under those bare feet will fix her mind on what running off would mean.’

  ‘The parents are dead?’ The voice is curt, dragging me back to Mistress Buttermere’s elegant parlour. ‘You are sure?’

  In the chair opposite my mistress, the visitor is ramrod-straight. Hands twisting like snakes in the lap of her black gown. A figure fashioned from whalebone and iron. She means me harm, I know it. The eyes studying me are sharp as a skinning knife.

  ‘I sent my housekeeper to look for Hannah’s father after we took her in.’ Mistress Buttermere shakes her head. ‘There had been fever in Spitalfields. She found no trace.’

  The breath envelopes me again.

  ‘What have you been taught?’

  The poorhouse liked to say that it pleases God for a servant to be humble, so I compose my face to a meekness I don’t feel. Not convinced the Almighty cares how I go about emptying piss pots.

  ‘I know plain cooking. And the care of linen.’

  ‘Then imagine I give you a gentleman’s coat. Marked with spilled candle wax. What would you do with it?’

  ‘Scrape off what I could with a blunt knife. Then use brown paper and a smoothing iron. Not too hot.’

  She turns back to Mistress Buttermere.

  ‘I presume the girl has not been interfered with?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘No followers, then?’

  ‘She is only fifteen, Mistress Chalke.’

  ‘Being young didn’t stop our last maid obliging anything in breeches.’

  I concentrate on standing still, an unheard-of activity in my working day. Why must this happen after I had felt safe and happy these past two years? For the first time since Mother pushed out my stillborn sister and bled her life away.

  Becoming this woman’s drudge is the last thing I want. Being on the edge of her world. Making her life easy. While mine is menial work and always having to do what I am told.

  ‘And you pay three guineas a year?’ The woman’s narrow lips compress. ‘You are too generous.’

  ‘I am sorry to let her go. But I plan to move to York at the end of the quarter.’ Mistress Buttermere’s voice softens. ‘Maria is close to her lying-in.’

  ‘’Tis only proper to be with your daughter.’ Our visitor frowns, an unnaturally black fringe visible under her cap. ‘And the girl is available soon?’

  ‘On Lady Day.’

  ‘Show me those hands.’

  I offer my palms, but instead she pokes long fingernails into my bodice and I shy away.

  ‘She is only a scrap of a thing. I would need a proper day’s labour.’

  Mistress Buttermere’s eyes stray to her French ormolu clock and I realise my future is just another chore for her before the move to York.

  ‘My housekeeper says Hannah’s strong for her age.’

  ‘And eats like a carthorse, no doubt. I do not plan to fatten a waif at my expense.’

  ‘She will not expect spoiling, Mistress Chalke. Remember where she came from.’

  ‘Another parish bastard?’

  ‘Her father was a respected silk-weaver, so she ha
s gone down in the world.’ Mistress Buttermere lowers her voice. ‘There is insufficient work in his trade. Too many mouths to feed and a stepmother who despatched her to the poorhouse. At ten years of age.’

  The visitor sniffs. ‘It is no wonder the streets are awash with beggars. With all these foreigners flooding into our cities.’

  The parlour fire crackles in the grate and I look at the women debating my future. They know I can hear every word, yet I might as well be the brass fire-irons for the interest they have in what I think. When Mother died, I became an object to be disposed of.

  ‘Could you make yourself useful? In my house?’

  I am sure it was Mary I had seen, a year after I came here, when Mrs Lamb took me to the draper’s shop to teach me about fine-thread linen.

  We had passed her, holding out a tin cup for spare change and dressed in rags. And though she had kept the bright red hair, her face was disfigured with running sores. She could be dead by now, yet lives in my mind as a reminder to keep my wits about me.

  ‘Well?’ The voice is brusque.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ I take a deep breath, to calm my uneasy imagination. Under that starched bombazine Mistress Chalke is just a woman, like myself. Not a devil.

  ‘Then I shall give you a trial. But mind you give me a decent day’s work. Or you will be sorry.’

  It was a kind of magic, the weekly cleaning of the kitchen copper. I loved putting blackened pans in the stone sink, sprinkling them with salt and vinegar, then rubbing vigorously with a rag. Bowls and pans turned into rosy-hued mirrors that threw back an image of my pale face and dark hair. It reminded me of the Genie with the Lamp that my mother used to read to me at bed-time.

  Everything had been unsettled since the housekeeper clattered down the stairs into the scullery, huffing to herself as she did when flustered.

  ‘Quick! You’re wanted in the parlour. And get yourself a clean apron.’Now all is changed; the copper is a chore and I hunch over it, sighing.

  ‘Don’t sulk, Hannah.’ Mrs Lamb struggles to look severe. ‘You had better start boiling that tongue. You need the practice.’

  ‘I don’t want practice.’ I pull a face, remembering. ‘Why must I work for that woman? She looked as if she planned to put me in the stocks, not in her kitchen.’

  ‘Now, my dear. Show more respect.’ The housekeeper leans forward to tuck a wayward curl beneath my cap. ‘Be grateful the mistress has arranged another place for you. Many wouldn’t bother. Not for a kitchen maid.’

  ‘Couldn’t I come with you? I would work for nothing.’

  The household tabby winds around my legs, hinting for a bowl of cream.

  ‘We will be in lodgings. By rights she should not be taking me.’ Mrs Lamb studies her swollen knuckles and I wonder if she is uneasy about her own future. What if Mistress Buttermere moves in with her daughter and son-in-law, who will have a houseful of servants already?

  I leave Puss in front of the fire and fill an iron pot with water. Boiling ox tongues is something I hate, always picturing the poor beast lowing in powerless protest as it is driven into the slaughterhouse yard.

  I take myself into the scullery where the tongue is soaking in brine and carry it to the sink, turning my nose from its smell. Then I rinse it in clean water and take it through, dripping on Mrs Lamb’s clean floor, to drop into the pot. There is an air of sympathy in the kitchen and nothing is said about the glistening trail as I throw in salt and bay leaves.

  ‘It might not be so bad, Hannah. Mistress Chalke looks respectable enough. And that is what matters.’ The housekeeper has her special face on, with brows raised and eyes intent. The one she saves for lecturing me. ‘Our lady did not want you going to a household with young men. Footmen are good-for-nothings, often as not. And sons of the house little better.’

  ‘I don’t care for young men,’ I say, airily, though I have scant experience of such creatures. ‘But one might be useful for heavy work. Next door’s manservant hauls water to the top of the house. The young ladies take hot baths. In their rooms.’

  ‘Never mind the fancy ideas at Sir Christopher’s. Magistrates are not like ordinary folk. If people must boil themselves like lobsters, there’s nothing wrong with the public bath house.’

  She sniffs; to her, cleanliness is the regular scrubbing of faces and hands with a soapy cloth and fresh linen once a week. My own views are different after two years in the poorhouse. Rat droppings and grit in our bread. Dishes caked with old food. Bodies unwashed. Clothing rank.

  Mrs Lamb sighs as I place a saucer and spoon by the fire, ready for the scum that will form on the water. ‘You are so young, with no mother to advise you. I should have prepared you better. The world is not always kind.’

  ‘I know that, Mrs Lamb. I gave up fairy stories at ten years old.’

  She nods her head. Knowing my history. Remembering my arrival at the Buttermere house half-starved and frightened, with lice in my hair.

  ‘But with those looks, I fear you will be a temptation to some sweet-talking man. You need to be wary.’

  I study a blister on my thumb. Being pleasing to look at is not as valuable to me as it would be to a young lady, needing to snare a fine gentleman for a husband. I have decided I need skills and experience so that one day I can have my own cosy housekeeper’s room in some great house. Where I will have a full staff of servants under me and will organise grand dinners and splendid shooting parties for important people before retreating into my private sanctuary with a book.

  I shall miss the Buttermere housekeeper, who has stood in place of a mother, taking me to be fitted for my first pair of half-stays and explaining how I must accept the discomfort of them. Telling me that being a woman meant bleeding each month and needing to hide it from the world as best I could. And that I must be guarded in my dealings with men.

  ‘I bet Mistress Chalke beats her servants,’ I mutter, prodding the seething tongue.

  ‘Which you will deserve, if you fail to do a proper day’s work.’ Mrs Lamb eyes the water glimmering on the floor as if having second thoughts about a rebuke. ‘You will be safer in a quiet household. In a year, when you are more experienced, you can seek out smiling faces.’

  Then she opens a cupboard and pulls out a handsome carpet bag.

  ‘The mistress thought you would find this useful, going to a new place.’ She closes my calloused fingers around its pigskin handles. ‘Our lady is done with it. See, the cloth is faded and there is a tear in the lining, though that is soon mended. Plenty of thread in the workbasket.’

  It looks far from faded to me. The colours remind me of baskets of jewel-bright silks behind the loom that my mother used to tell me I was not allowed to touch in case my curious fingers dirtied them.

  ‘She is sorry your place is going, when you are so young.’

  The housekeeper pulls a handwritten recipe book, smeared with thumb prints, from her pocket. ‘Take this, as well. Though Mistress Chalke knows you are not a proper cook. If she wants fancy tarts she can send you to the pastry-shop.’

  She heaves a sigh. ‘If anyone asked my opinion, which of course they never would, you are too young to be in charge of a household. But you are a bright girl. Perhaps you will please her. Perhaps she is kinder than she looks.’

  She places my gift carefully on the table, away from the fire.

  ‘It is said her husband is related to the great men at Court. But he disgraced himself and was disinherited. Maybe that is why his wife looks so sour.’

  I turn back to the simmering pot. Life is not fair. Not for girls like me: alone in the world, and poor. Perhaps I will use that thread to embroider the words on the square of gingham I had cut from the hem of Mother’s favourite gown, as a remembrance. Before my horrible stepmother sold it at the second-hand clothes stall. The only thing I had fought to keep at the poorhouse. I promised myself then that one day I would have a dress that was not a hand-me-down. That despite being a girl I would somehow have command of my own life.


  ‘Will you think of me sometimes, in York?’

  ‘I will remember you in my prayers, which is better.’ Mrs Lamb pauses, clearly wanting to be encouraging. ‘If you work hard and keep that cheeky tongue of yours in check, the worst that is likely to come your way is an unfair box on the ears.’

  I only wish she sounded as if she believed it.

  Chapter Two

  Mrs Lamb frowns up from the written directions in her hand to the tall, narrow house at our journey’s end.

  ‘What was Mistress Buttermere thinking? Sending you here.’

  Set behind spiked railings, little more than a yard from the public street, it is not somewhere you would expect a gentleman to live. The green-painted front door is chipped and flaking. The windows are grimy, with heavy curtains drawn tight across all those at ground level despite the sunny morning. Soapy water thrown over the steps has not been swept away, puddling dirty suds under our feet.

  ‘Your new master may have fallen on hard times, but I did not expect this.’ My arm is tucked in hers and she squeezes it. ‘But it is only for a year, Hannah. By then we could be back in London. I cannot see Mistress Buttermere wanting to move under her son-in-law’s roof. Being a widow all these years, she has lost the habit of doing any man’s bidding.’

  She gives me a quick hug before leading me down the steps to the servants’ entrance and rapping at a tarnished knocker.

  ‘Perhaps there is a magic carpet inside,’ I murmur, ‘and I will climb onto it and fly over the sea and far away.’

  ‘The only carpets I suspect you will find in there will be ones in need of vigorous beating.’

  My elbow is squeezed again as a rattle of bolts announces the opening of the door.

  ‘Mistress Chalke…’ Mrs Lamb starts in surprise at its being answered by the lady of the house.

  The face is not welcoming.

  ‘You have brought the girl.’ Her hand grips my wrist and I catch a last glimpse of Mrs Lamb’s startled eyes as I am jerked inside and the door is slammed behind me.

  Then I am in the kitchen of my new home, flustered and with my nostrils twitching. The place stinks of old meals and rancid fat. Dirty dishes overflow the stone sink. The fire is a bare glimmer.