I am released and Mistress Chalke looms over me. Skirts lifted clear of the floor and her mouth turned down. Its preferred position, I have decided.
‘Don’t just stand there. Make yourself useful. You can take your things to the garret later.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
I drop my carpet bag and start poking the embers. There is sea coal in a bucket and I select a few pieces and add them. Then grab the leather bellows and pump, hard. With only my wits and what Mrs Lamb has taught me, I must satisfy this hard-faced woman. Hot water will mean I can make a start. Though where is the other servant? Does the lazy slattern not know to sweep dirty water away from steps used by visitors?
Mistress Chalke turns towards the stairs, then pauses. ‘And while you are at it, memorise my house rules.
‘No dealings whatsoever with men or boys. On pain of dismissal.’ Her lips twist with concentration. ‘Jabber to anyone about our affairs and, again, you are on the street. Next door’s maidservant has a nose the length of a poker. But the bitch will get it smashed if she sticks it in our business.’
She scowls as I blink at her language.
‘No candle stubs. They are to be melted down for kitchen dips; not sold for your private profit. And we do our own laundry. I will not waste guineas hiring-in washerwomen. Old Peg can help you.’
With a final twitch of camphor and ill-temper from her skirts she mounts the stairs.
I grit my teeth. I am bound to this place for a year and will cling to Mrs Lamb’s belief it will prove a step up for me. I must serve; it is my only respectable option. But I will merely pretend respect and plan for better things.
Grease from an iron pot sticks to my fingers as I fill it with water from a tub in the scullery and hang it over the fire. If this is to be my world, I will bring Buttermere standards to it.
A shadow looms in the gloom of the scullery doorway and my heart jumps, but it is only an old crone. A gaunt bundle of rags I can smell across the room. More like a beggar off the street than a servant in a decent household.
‘I am Peg,’ she says, revealing teeth like a broken fence.
The way she hunches back against the wall reminds me of a cur, hurt so often that only starvation will tempt it within kicking distance. I must be right about Mistress Chalke mistreating her servants. Perhaps the old woman fears me, too, now she is in my charge.
I will be kind to her but must first discover what kind of worker she is. Worse than useless, from the state of those steps outside and from what surrounds me.
Her bucket of slopping water is heavy and when she sets it down and leans for a moment against the kitchen chair, I see that she drags a crippled leg.
I find a rag to lift the pot of boiling water from the fire to refresh her pail.
‘One other thing.’
My fingers are scalded and I squeal. The mistress is back.
I soothe my reddened skin against my apron. Mistress Buttermere never interfered in domestic arrangements, but this household threatens to be different.
Her eyes dart past me, to Peg.
‘Away from that chair, you useless piece of shit! Before I kick you off it.’
Peg seizes a cloth from her pail and shrinks to her knees. A glimpse of leg beneath a torn petticoat reveals no stockings and men’s boots stuffed with rags to stop them slipping off her feet. One of the soles is split from its uppers like a hungry mouth.
Mistress Chalke turns back to me as I struggle to keep my face impassive.
‘Come.’
I follow her up the stair. Those drawn curtains, plus red flocked wallpaper, make the light so murky I need to watch where I put my feet.
‘That door. At the top. Opposite the big mirror.’ She points. ‘It is the master’s book room. He keeps it locked. You are not allowed in there.’
‘Not even to clean, mistress? Or lay the fire?’
‘Of course, you must clean.’ Her eyes narrow. ‘And naturally you must see to the fire. But you must never be in there unsupervised.’
‘Yes, ma’am. I understand.’
I do not, of course, understand anything except that life with this foul-mouthed woman will be a nightmare.
‘But when the master is out, perhaps…?’
My face stings from her slap and I have to grab the bannister to save myself from falling.
‘What have I just said?’ Her face mottles as she looms over me. ‘Add insolence to stupidity and there is a leather strap I will introduce you to. You are only allowed in the book room when I am with you.’
I have visions of the master shouting with exasperation at there being no fire for him on a cold morning, but keep silent. In time, I will understand the ways of this house. I must, if I am not to end up without employment.
‘Is that clear?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ I dip a resentful curtsy, willing her to leave me in peace and let me return to her filthy kitchen.
At least they have a book room. Not a proper library of course, for I cannot imagine this shabby house will have anything like the Buttermere library with its walls of books. It even boasted a wooden lectern, like those in church, with a volume of Dr Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language on display.
Whenever I dusted I would pluck a new word to savour, happy as a lady selecting a sugared almond. And on my days off, if there were no visitors, I was allowed to go in there and read. Sometimes I would practise writing on scavenged scraps of parchment. I made it into my schoolroom.
‘Well, then,’ says Mistress Chalke. ‘We understand one another. But do what you are told. Or I will flay the back off you.’
I have not been beaten since the poorhouse and I suppose life at Mistress Buttermere’s has softened me. Mrs Lamb warned me servants sometimes get blows that are undeserved. It is how the world turns. Though the thought of being treated like a dog sickens me.
‘Now get back to work.’
I soothe my scald again, relieved as the crackling of starched petticoats signals her departure. That locked room is a puzzle, but my flesh quivers at so much talk of whipping.
Downstairs, Peg shrinks into the shadows, water dripping from her cloth. Is it weakness that makes those knotted hands tremble? Or something else? Perhaps when we are alone she will explain the workings of this house, though it looks as if it would take thumbscrews to get a word out of her.
I want to be back in the familiar surroundings of the Buttermere house, but know that is not possible. Mrs Lamb said I was a bright girl. Perhaps if I prove I can run a household at fifteen this position will lead to better things.
Perhaps it won’t be the calamity I am beginning to fear.
Chapter Three
The window is pulled down as far as it will go. All I can see of the outside world are the area railings and the legs of passing horses and people in the street. It is early and these are working folk, for the gentry are still abed. The air is busy with the rumble of wagons and handcarts hauling food into the city.
Already the kitchen is better and I proudly smooth the heavy wooden table with my hand. It is scraped and scoured almost white. The chamber pots are emptied. The water jugs filled.
A fire is set in the bedroom where the master and mistress are snoring so loudly behind their bed curtains that I am astonished they don’t wake one another. I had worried the beef I roasted yesterday was tough when Master Chalke haggled at it with the carving knife, but nothing was said. The shortcomings of the girl before me have masked my inexperience and I am relieved.
He is a big man. Fleshy rather than fat, and must have been fine-looking in his youth. He wore an ivory waistcoat embroidered with flowers and butterflies, its tiny silver buttons cascading down the silk like rainwater on glass. It impressed me that he stuffed a linen napkin under his chin to protect it from the grease of his dinner.
He is a proper gentleman. I can tell from his voice and manners as well as his dress. More used, I can believe, to a great estate somewhere than to this gloomy house with only the c
rippled Peg and myself to wait on him. More used, surely, to fine ladies than to our mistress who looks like a poor relation brought in, for charity, as governess to someone’s spoiled children. And uses language belonging in a stable yard.
I intend to discover what is so secret about his book room. The door was open last night and I glimpsed him at a great desk piled with papers, a quill in his hand. But as soon as he saw me looking, he levered himself out of the chair and whumped the door shut.
I hear Peg dragging her brush over the front steps, water slopping and the wooden bucket scraping, and smile that my pots are clean, if not bright. The mouse droppings are swept from the corners and the bread is baking, its yeasty smell chasing away the ghosts of sourness and neglect. My loaves will be nothing like Mrs Lamb’s, but this household’s standards are low.
There is a clatter outside. Hooves on cobbles. A deep voice.
‘Wholesome milk! Fresh country milk!’
‘Get to know the trades-people,’ Mrs Lamb had urged. ‘Sift the honest men from the rogues and be friendly. Encourage them to give you a fair measure. But don’t let anyone think you a simpleton because you are young.’
I grab the coins I was given last night and hurry out, but although a bay horse and a four-wheeled wagon stand on the cobbles, the man selling milk must be busy with an order in a nearby house.
It is a beautiful blue-sky morning. Cold, but bright.
A dog’s head pokes out from under the canvas cover, tongue lolling. He has such a broad, bony head that I move closer, to examine him.
‘Good morning, dog,’ I say, formally. He is brindle and white, with a patch of mottled colour over one intelligent eye. Handsome in a strange way.
‘Get away from the dog!’ The shout makes me jump and my fingers, about to stroke the animal, freeze in mid-air. A man is behind me, his boots surprisingly quiet on the cobblestones.
‘I was not doing anything wrong, Mister.’ I stiffen. He is a tall pillar in a coat the colour of burned toast. Black hair and a broad forehead. An expression between a frown and a scowl.
‘He is not some lady’s lap dog. He is there to guard the wagon.’
‘I didn’t touch your wagon.’
‘Maybe not. But unless it is nailed down, anything of value around here disappears.’
‘I am no thief!’
‘Who is saying you are?’ He clinks coins into the leather pouch at his belt and I wonder how he keeps customers if he is always like this. Maybe there should be a warning about him, not the dog.
‘Hector can bite. You wouldn’t want to lose your fingers.’
‘Well, I need a quart of milk.’ I remember my manners, even if he has none. ‘Please.’ I hold out my money, which a large hand takes and tosses into the pouch.
‘Hardly worth stopping for. Don’t they like milk in your house?’
‘I suppose not. It is only my second day.’
‘You are the new kitchen maid?’
‘Cook and housemaid.’ I try to stand taller. ‘And I am in a hurry.’
There is an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders as he transfers milk from his churn to my container with a tin pannikin. The wagon is smart, with yellow paint on its wheels and body. The man might look as if he has lost a guinea but picked up sixpence, but he is a good tradesman which is all that need concern me.
‘But not so much of a hurry you can’t poke your fingers into the jaws of a strange dog.’
Remembering Mrs Lamb’s advice, I summon a smile.
‘I thought Hector loved peace. Despite being a famous warrior.’
Black eyes stare down at me.
‘Since when does a housemaid know about the Greeks?’
I stop myself asking how a man selling milk knows of them. But he is unusually well-dressed and well-spoken. This is the first proper conversation I have had since leaving Mistress Buttermere’s and I expect I will see this man most mornings.
‘I used to read stories about them, with my mother.’
‘And you like dogs? As well as stories?’
‘If they are friendly.’ I look at the animal, who thrashes his tail. He doesn’t look savage. ‘His face is like the curve of a bowl.’
‘He is a cross between a bulldog and a terrier. I bought him to chase the rats from my barn. The whole litter had those noses. Like faces on coins from the time of Julius Caesar.’
I take the jug from him, thinking I might ask Mistress Chalke if she would like a milk pudding. I can make those, if she will let me. All it takes is sugar and rice. These are cheap, which the bad-tempered witch will approve.
The dog leaps off the wagon and approaches us, legs splaying, as if bowing. He is quite a big dog. Muscular, but fast-moving. I could imagine him being an efficient ratter.
‘What does it mean, when he does that?’
‘He has seen us talking and knows you are not a threat. Now he wants a stick thrown for him.’
I am taken with the idea of this great, stern man unbending to play with his dog. People are not always what they seem.
‘’Ere!’ A stocky maidservant from the next house stands by the area steps, hands on hips, apron flapping in the wind, two large pitchers by her feet. From the prominent nose, I presume she is the gossip Mistress Chalke warned me against. ‘Come away, Farmer Graham. Some of us don’t have all day for tittle-tattle.’
The man scoops up the dog with one arm and pitches it onto the wagon.
‘Walk on!’ he tells the horse and they move off to their next customer without a backward glance.
I carry the milk down the steps, careful not to spill it. At least I have had a friendly word with somebody, even if it is only a farmer with a wagon.
Peg is back in the kitchen, avoiding my eye.
‘What is that? In your hand?’ I must not let her think, because I am young, she can take liberties.
She squirms against the wall, one arm behind her back and I wonder what she can have found to steal. There is little enough.
‘Show me.’
She holds up the mouldy bread I threw out earlier for the sparrows. It is dirty from the yard and looks as if a rat has gnawed it. A rat with broken teeth and a leg that does not work properly.
‘Are you hungry?’ I frown at the thinness of her shoulders. The wrists like bird-bones. ‘Hungry enough to eat that?’
She studies the floor.
‘What I gets from the mistress only pays for where I sleeps.’ She looks up, the crust disintegrating in restive fingers. ‘But I wouldn’t never complain about me wages. You won’t say I did?’
If it only pays for her room, what does she do for food, for clothes, for heat? Peg gets a bowl of water gruel every morning and a heel of bread at mid-day. I hadn’t thought – why hadn’t I thought? – what else she might have to keep her from starvation.
I shake my head in reassurance and go to the pantry. On the floor are sacks of potatoes. Above my head, suspended from hooks, hang pieces of bacon and strings of onions. On a slab of marble for coolness, and covered with china bowls to save them from mice, sit blocks of butter and cheese. But they have been divided into squares with a knife by Mistress Chalke and her flinty eye will know if anything is taken. Yet under a cracked saucer is a bowl of dripping from yesterday’s joint with rich jelly at the bottom and, next to it, a stale loaf that I am planning to use for a pudding.
I grab a knife. One slice will not go amiss. I carve off a chunk and thrust it deep into the dripping. It comes up rich with the smell of roast beef and makes even my mouth water.
‘Here.’ I turn a cautious ear towards the stairs, but all is silent. ‘Take it into the yard.’
Peg’s haggard face brightens and she seizes the food, devouring it already with her eyes.
‘Thank you, Miss...’
‘Don’t thank me. Get it eaten, before we are caught.’
I stand the dripping by the fire to melt so that when the surface sets again nothing will show what has been taken. Then I go into the scullery to check
the tubs of soaking laundry, guilty at my earlier lack of charity.
Our coarse-mouthed mistress may be able to command my body, but my mind is my own. I will somehow stretch the food to put some flesh on Peg and, while I am at it, find out if it is only beatings the old woman fears in this strange house. Or something more. Something in that locked room.
Chapter Four
‘Be sure to put that into Goodman Twyford’s own hand.’ The master’s fingers grip the package until I have acknowledged his instruction. ‘Understand, girl?’
‘Yes, sir. I must give it to Goodman Twyford. Nobody else.’
I have to stop my eyes searching the room. The best furniture is in here, some of it remarkably fine, but otherwise nothing to explain the room’s mysteries.
A round table stands at the far end, surrounded by chairs and with an ornate silver candelabra standing at its centre. He had guests last night, though I failed to see them because he brought them into the house with him and, unusually, the mistress took up their wine. Perhaps they played cards around the table. They were noisy enough and I heard sums of money shouted out.
It must be what he does in here that is so secret. Is he composing something people will wonder at, like Dr Johnston’s Dictionary? The desk is heaped with papers I would love to study. Or even help with. Then I hear the whisper of Mrs Lamb’s favourite rebuke: ‘Remember your place, Hannah.’
My father may have been a silk weaver and my grandfather a merchant, but that was all in the past. I am now just a girl wearing a coarse apron.
Master Chalke continues to stare, as if assessing my trustworthiness. He is a squint-eye, with one brown orb staring at me while the other wanders outwards as if utterly indifferent to my presence. As usual in the mornings he wears a striped green and pink banyan over his shirt and breeches. His matching silk nightcap is askew, though I wouldn’t dare mention it. He is a clever man. An educated man. Perhaps a writer of important books.
‘He will give you something in return. To bring back.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The Servant Page 2