‘I merely remarked on her dumplings. What is wrong with that?’
‘Don’t take me for a fool.’
‘If you wanted her ignored, you should have picked a less comely girl.’
‘And what good would that be to us?’
‘I am serious. If you don’t like Hannah, there is a hiring fair at The Black Bull every other Saturday.’
‘I am not interested in those who cannot find work. Or are without characters. Would you have us employ a blabbermouth? Poking her snout into our private business? Or another slut, like Susan?’
I am poised for flight if they sound like leaving the room, my polishing forgotten. Earlier, I was daydreaming of Jack’s disturbing salutation on my palm. And those brilliant blue eyes.
Now I strain for every word. Why is the witch making lewd insinuations? The master has shown no sign of being a man who gropes beneath the skirts of serving girls. He simply appreciates my cooking. And how does having a pleasing-looking maid differ from wanting a handsome footman to answer your front door?
‘Remember our agreement. Maids work their year, then go to Jarrett. They are not playthings. That nonsense with Susan cost us a good ten guineas.’
‘Come, my dear...’
‘Don’t my dear me. It is bad enough being paupers, without you sniffing after girls under your own roof.’ Her voice has an edge. ‘You promised me a country estate, with a town house and carriages. Instead we live in cramped rooms with mildewed wallpaper and damp attics. Scrimping every penny.’
The silence that follows is broken only by the ticking of the hall clock. When it comes, the master’s voice remains placating.
‘Being the second born, of twins, my father’s conscience was troubled about me. He swore that though I might not get his title, I would lack for nothing. So how could I suspect he would cut my allowance from his will? Simply because I refused to live like a monk?’ He becomes truculent. ‘Come, woman. Don’t I labour long enough over that damned List. To make amends?’
Mistress Chalke’s tone is no softer.
‘Pushing a pen like a quill-sucking clerk will not restore our fortunes. Grow a backbone. Demand more. After settling with Twyford and Jarrett what remains barely pays our creditors, never mind Charles’s allowance.’
I ease out my breath. The subject has changed. Talk of replacing me was spite from the mistress because I am not old and ugly, like her.
‘And I want the auctions held elsewhere. At Twyford’s.’
‘It is more discreet to have them here.’
‘The trade is hardly at risk. Where else could such habits be satisfied?’
‘I still prefer to keep the business in our own hands. You know what Valentine is like. My brother will rip my guts out with his bare hands if I give him another scandal to cover up.’ The master sounds weary, and no wonder. His wife is a bitch with a scrap of meat between her teeth. ‘Come, I have proofs to check.’
‘If you must. But remember our agreement. Do what you want outside, but respect our house.’
There is another silence. A truce, perhaps. I slip the pot of polish into my pocket and move to tiptoe downstairs. They must not catch me here.
‘Let us not fight, Harriet.’ The master’s voice lowers. ‘I wonder, do you still have those yellow satin garters...?’
‘Don’t try to cozen me with talk of garters. Finish your scribbling. I have better things to do.’
A chair scrapes and I scuttle downstairs, clutching my rag.
Back in the kitchen I sit at the table and force myself to be calm, for if I cannot be mistress of myself, how can I keep safe? But my mind is in turmoil. What trade were they talking of? What is being auctioned? What scandal might need to be covered up?
I may be young, but sense and Mrs Lamb’s warnings tell me that if these goods satisfy men’s weaknesses, and require secrecy, they must be something dark. Something from the underbelly of society.
Perhaps Master Chalke is not the good man I thought him. He may not have laid a hand on me, but perhaps he had dealings with Susan. Perhaps she really was sacked for lewd behaviour, with him? Perhaps she also talked about those secret auctions. And was silenced because of it.
And who is this Jarrett that the mistress talks of sending me to, after Lady Day? Can she pass me on to another employer, regardless of my own wishes? And why would Jarrett need a girl to be comely? I shudder. Do they have dealings with some house of ill-repute, where young women offer their bodies in exchange for money? Might that be my destiny after Lady Day? If it were, it would explain Peg’s warning.
Master Chalke pens something called The List, which does not sound like any book I have heard of. Does it provide details of girls for sale? Sight of it might uncover the house’s secrets. But when I think of what happened to Susan, I realise sight of it could put me in danger.
I glance down at my hands and my fingers are trembling. I expected this position to be a year of thankless work, but with prospects at its end of being able to say I am an experienced cook. That it would give me the opportunity to be employed in a better household where I might be valued. Where in some sense I could finally be mistress of myself. Instead I believe Peg and that maid were right. I am no longer safe.
Chapter Fifteen
My mind is feverish with the danger I might be in. Should I walk out next Saturday, find The Black Bull and hope some unknown housewife might give me work? With a live-in post I could survive forfeiting my wages, but how would I know who to trust at a hiring fair? When even Mistress Buttermere was deceived about the Chalkes?
I stab a needle into my sewing and wonder how many girls are forced to live in danger because they own nothing but shabby garments and a few coins. Who have no prospects and, most of them, little or no education.
For the time being I have decided to appear passive. To simmer, not boil. Lest someone slam a lid down on me. I will hide my fears until I can get away, for it appears I should be safe until Lady Day.
I am hunched over an old sheet that I have cut in two and am re-forming, sides-to-middle, so a tear will not end its useful life. Mrs Lamb would have let me use it to fashion rags for my monthly bleeding, but in this house nothing must go to waste and anything damaged is Peg’s fault, or mine.
‘Are you planning to spend all day on that?’
‘It must be double-stitched, ma’am. For strength.’
I take care to look suitably chastened when criticised. Until I secure another place it should hide my suspicions.
‘You’ve ruined that with harsh rubbing. I shall take its value from your wages.’
The woman knows no more of needlework than she does of kitchen matters. She must be schooled in some form of housewifery, though I have yet to discover what it might be, except penny-pinching.
Every day her ignorance confirms to me that she was neither born nor raised a lady. Mistress Buttermere rarely stepped into the kitchen, but questioned Mrs Lamb daily about what was purchased and what would be served at her table. She knew the price of a leg of mutton. The best shops for linen and where the finest candles could be purchased. She no longer had a husband to answer to, but considered it her duty to oversee everything that took place under her roof.
Mistress Chalke, on the other hand, knows less than a fifteen-year-old poorhouse girl. Mrs Lamb said there was some family connection with Ireland. Perhaps there, daughters of the gentry are differently raised. Or perhaps she really was an actress, before she lost her looks. How I wish Mrs Lamb might be right about the Buttermere household returning to London, but that would not happen for months. In the meantime, I intend to seek Thomas’s advice about alternative work.
The Chalkes have been bad-tempered since receiving a rare letter from the son in the Americas. The master spluttered over his breakfast chocolate about its news.
‘The boy would not expect so much if you had not spoiled him from the cradle. No word for months, then a begging letter. He is supposed to be mending our fortunes. Not whining after my hard-ear
ned guineas.’
‘He needs capital to buy more land. For the planting of tobacco. He is fortunate that his uncle gave him some useful introductions out there.’
Master Chalke sucked his teeth, as if they were troubling him again. I gave him oil of cloves yesterday and he thanked me with one of those smiles he slips me when the mistress is not looking. Is he really a lecher who needs to be watched? I bite my lip and wish I was older and understood men better.
‘I cannot send what I do not have, Harriet.’
‘Then tell Jarrett to find more merchandise.’
‘How often must I say it? That would be risky.’
‘Grow a backbone, you spineless loiter-sack. No wonder your father cast you off.’
I scurried back to the kitchen with their dirty dishes, pretending to be deaf as well as stupid. Jarrett provides the merchandise for those auctions and is also the man the mistress talks of sending me to, after Lady Day. But spring is a long way off. Time enough to get away from whatever the heartless woman has planned for me.
I take up my book of recipes, sniffing the scents of herbs and spices Mrs Lamb must have handled when using it and homesick for her friendship. A fragment of eggshell is stuck to a page and I pick at it with a fingernail, wishing I could use my education to earn my bread. If I were a lady, I might be a governess – not that enviable a life – but I am not, so I must strive to become as fine a cook as Mrs Lamb was. To hope to gradually better myself and become a valued housekeeper, like her.
Peg has been swabbing the scullery floor, but looking less bleak, probably at the prospect of spooning up the onion and potato broth simmering on the fire. It scarcely seems possible, but there is already a trace of colour in that gaunt face. I suspect it is also because she knows someone cares. But we both need to be elsewhere. When I escape, I must try to take her with me.
She puts aside her bucket and approaches the mistress, twisting her hands together, clearly anxious.
‘Please, Mistress?’ Her crippled leg drags. ‘Me wages?’
Mistress Chalke stares at her with such contempt that I am more than ever convinced they have a history of some kind.
‘The landlord is after me. For rent.’
Her look shrivels Peg back against the wall, but the expected blow does not come. Instead Mistress Chalke turns a sour look on me.
‘Have you some coppers about you, Hannah? I have no change.’
‘I do not, Mistress.’ I make myself meet her eye. My modest store of coins is all I might have on which to exist if things go wrong here.
‘Hear that, Peg? If you are short, go and collect some dog turds for the glove tanners.’
‘There are pennies in the jar on the mantel,’ I venture.
They are meant for tomorrow’s milk, but I am sure Thomas will give us credit.
‘If I want instruction from you, I will ask.’ She divides a glare between us. ‘Perhaps I should thrash the pair of you. Useless bitches.’
I go to the table, grab the rabbit I need to prepare for supper, and slide the kitchen knife into its belly. Seething that we are forced to work for such a monster. There are dogs who are better treated.
Peg’s misery will not only be from hunger and unfair blows. It must be because of whatever happened between the two of them in the past. Despite what Mrs Lamb thought, mercy and charity will have had no part in it.
Chapter Sixteen
Being a wet day, the washing is festooned on rails in the kitchen and scullery making the air inside the house damp, but at least the Chalkes have left us in peace. It is a relief to see the back of them.
A discarded quill of Master Chalke’s is clutched in Peg’s scrawny hand and she is dipping it nervously into the ink pot on the table, her fingers already stained black. Later I intend to ask Thomas about finding work, but meanwhile am keeping busy, teaching Peg to write.
‘What is your other name?’
‘Don’t have one.’
‘But what were your parents called?’
‘Dunno.’ She scratches at a scab on her neck. ‘Never did know.’
This is that terrible lesson I learned at the poorhouse. That children do not always know their parentage. Even by a name.
‘You cannot remember them at all?’
‘There was a woman was kind to me. When I was little. Before I was took to the city. I like to think she was my Ma.’
‘So, you were not always in London?’ It is hard uncovering Peg’s past and questions make her mouth snap shut, like a bad mussel.
‘Don’t rightly know. I remember having my dinner once in a field. A juicy raw onion that made my eyes water, and some bread. Scaring crows I was. Flapping my arms to frighten them off a farmer’s corn.’ She screws up eyes with the effort of remembering. ‘There was a cottage that smelled of piss and the pigs in the yard. But that was before I was took to the house.’
‘What house? This one?’
‘You ask too many questions.’ Peg glances behind her, though we are the only people in the building. ‘It will bring you trouble.’
She is probably right, but that is enough for now. For, while I am still here, I am determined to gather pieces of the puzzle of what happens in the Chalke house.
I smile encouragingly and guide her hand to form the capital letter, P. Followed, shakily, by the smaller letters, e and g.
‘There. That is your name. Peg. Short for Margaret, I suppose.’
The browbeaten wretch was stolen away from her home and family as a child. But why? Does she even know?
Chapter Seventeen
‘Tell me how you became an apprentice,’ I ask Jack at the booksellers next morning.
I missed my chance of speaking to Thomas earlier, since a whip-thin boy interrupted us then ran off, happy with scrounged milk in a battered tin mug. But I have until next March to escape and meantime need distraction if I am not to become as haunted-looking as Peg. And I still have hopes of learning about Master Chalke from my talkative friend.
It amuses me to see Jack puff out his chest and hold forth like a boy bragging to school fellows. But I encourage him. Peg remains withdrawn and the only other person I can talk with is Thomas Graham.
Mrs Lamb said apprentices were rough lads, best avoided, who love nothing better than carousing, breaking folk’s heads and insulting honest womenfolk.
I am sure she is right, about some of them. Yet I cannot believe Jack is like that. I have never smelled even ale on his breath and he is the kind of young man any girl would be proud to be seen with. I suspect he is too careful of what he has to lose to misbehave. With such fine prospects, he would be a fool to put his future at risk. And Jack does not strike me as anybody’s fool.
‘I was bound to my uncle Twyford at fourteen,’ he says. ‘For seven years. I have completed five of them.’
So, he is nineteen. He looks older, but that will be because he dresses well and appears so worldly wise. Those are silver buckles on his shoes.
‘Apprentices sign agreement to strict rules. And must be able to recite them, whenever asked.’ Jack straightens his shoulders and stares up at the ceiling to aid his concentration or, more likely, set off his manly figure:
‘I must do no damage to my Master, nor see damage done to him by others, without telling him of it. I must not waste his goods. Or lend them unlawfully to others.
‘Nor must I play at cards or dice. Or frequent taverns.’
He pulls a face.
‘Life is nothing but work, except on Sundays when I have my afternoons free.’ He grins. ‘To attend church and pray for help in leading a truly pure life.’
‘But at the end of it, you will be your own master.’
‘Aye. One day this shop and its commerce should be mine.’
‘Is he a good master?’ I hardly need ask, since Jack has an air of health and hands soft as any lady. Today he smells faintly of sandalwood, perhaps from where those fine clothes are kept.
‘Good enough. My mother is a widow and was glad to have h
im act in place of a father to me.’ He frowns. ‘But I am not free. He expects me to walk out with my horse-faced cousin, who will not have opened a serious book in all her twenty-two years.’
He grins again. ‘At least Uncle lets me attend the occasional cockfight. If it takes place in a tavern, so be it.’
‘Jack…’ His smile encourages me, though I do not like him being drawn to blood sports. Cockfighting is hateful, especially when they put steel spurs on the birds’ feet. ‘Do you know what it is that Master Chalke writes?’
Jack hesitates, the smile gone.
‘He pens things for my uncle.’ he glances upwards, where the family rooms will be. ‘Bookselling is not as profitable as it used to be. The work is nothing to interest you.’
This is a disappointment, for I want to cling to my illusions about my master being a proper writer.
‘We also deal in snuff and tobacco. From that shop next door.’
‘I hoped Master Chalke might be writing a serious book.’
‘His work is for gentlemen with special interests.’
‘Is he a scientific man, then? Writing about rare foreign trees or plants? I have heard of such things.’
‘Come,’ Jack is brisk. ‘The Maids’ List need not concern you. We still have not been for those oysters.’
I avoid his eye, so he won’t see my gratification at discovering what the mysterious List is called.
‘We could go this Sunday. Uncle’s barometer suggests fair weather.’
He is persuasive. If I come across him in a public place, as if by accident, I can hardly be accused of loose behaviour. And since he has a prospective sweetheart, this will be a simple act of friendship.
I love to walk. It is an opportunity to pretend I can go wherever I please. The nearest thing I have to freedom, for I usually only get out of the Chalke house to go to the market or on errands like this.
‘I would like that,’ I admit. ‘As long as Mistress Chalke does not find out.’
The Servant Page 7