The Servant

by Maggie Richell-Davies

  Thomas has gone to stand in the open doorway, and I am glad for I will not smell so bad from there. ‘You have been terribly wronged, Hannah,’ he says. ‘I cannot undo that. But I intend to show you not all men are evil.’

  ‘May I have a bowl of water? Soap?’

  ‘Betty will see to everything.’ He spreads his hands. ‘We might get Dr Hodges to come and look at you. He is a good man and discreet.’ He nods towards a truckle bed pushed against the far wall. ‘That is for Peg. We thought you would like to be together.’

  If I can hold up a little longer, I will be able to wash and then crawl into that bed. I yearn to collapse into its comfort. To close my eyes and lose myself in oblivion. For at last I am faint, not with hunger, but with hope.

  Then Betty is back, pink-faced with haste, a white cambric garment over one arm and a jug of steaming water in her other hand.

  Thomas nods approval. ‘I will go and collect Peg now.’ He pauses at the door, his voice a murmur I am not meant to hear. ‘I suspect the weakness is lack of care after her confinement. And hunger, no doubt. Like a fool, I gave her some sour apples. Try her instead with a little bread and milk.’

  The chair by the fire is comfortable and the temptation to sleep so powerful that I do not even care about his final low-voiced instruction as he turns to leave.

  ‘And burn every stitch she’s wearing.’

  Whereupon he is gone and Betty is gently helping me out of my rags.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  This has been no fantasy of my mind, for I wake in the feather bed wearing the soft cambric nightdress. Much too big for me, it bunches around my hips and smells of lavender and being blown on a line in the fresh air. A downy pillow is under my cheek, its cover edged with lace. Everything is a heaven of cleanliness.

  I have never slept on a feather mattress before. You sink into its softness and it moulds itself around you like swansdown.

  Then I think I must be dreaming again, for Thomasina is wailing in the next room. It is a lusty cry. Stronger than any I remember her making.

  My feeble attempts to climb out of bed wake Peg, in the truckle bed next to me, and she is immediately at my side.

  ‘Shhh… Go back to sleep, Hannah. It is not yet dawn.’

  ‘Thomasina. She is crying.’

  ‘No, no. It is only Betty’s boy in the next room. Teething. Go back to sleep.’

  I fall back against the plumped-up bolsters and struggle to clear my head. Betty’s child? Then I turn my head into the pillow, eyes damp. We are in Betty’s cottage. Thomasina is far away. Gone from me. Probably for ever.

  I remember now, before I slept, having bread and milk with grated sugar and nutmeg sprinkled on its surface. Betty saying Thomas had gone to fetch Peg, while my spoon circled the bottom of the dish as if I were chasing the last speck of dust from a floor. After that had come long and blessed sleep.

  Since then I have dozed on and off for days, waking only to have chicken broth or sips of watered-down canary wine. Peg will have been there that first night, but I was not aware of her until the next morning, when she stood at my bedside, a faded dimity gown secured around her with pins. Something that I suspect must once have been Betty’s.

  ‘Find me a needle and thread,’ I said. ‘I will soon make that fit. It will give me something to do.’

  I am still weak, but feel like a wilted plant that has at last had water.

  I remember hearing Thomas’s voice on the landing outside from time to time, instructing Betty: ‘She needs oatmeal gruel, with fresh milk. New laid eggs, coddled with best butter. Perhaps one of your custards.’

  ‘Never fear, Master. She is young. We will get her well again.’

  ‘And cut down some of my mother’s old gowns, for when she is ready to get up.’

  He never came in to see me, but I can guess who picked the primroses in that china jug on the windowsill by my bed. Who placed my Aesop’s Fables there, together with Robinson Crusoe and a slender book of poetry.

  Peg’s gown is altered now and two morning dresses, finer than anything I have ever owned and that I have been sitting up in bed stitching to fit myself, lie waiting across a chair.

  Nothing is too much trouble and it makes my eyes well-up that people have such kindness for a ruined girl. When I am strong enough, perhaps I should slip away early one morning and take my shameful presence back to London to seek honest work. I should be strong enough for that now.

  ‘What else can I fetch you, Miss?’ Betty never seems to resent the work I make for her. Nor the interest her master takes in a penniless rag of a girl.

  ‘I would like a proper wash,’ I say, fingering my lank hair. I have already had a basin and a cloth, with soap that smells of lemons, but want to sluice hot water over my head and body. To be certain no fleas or lice remain to infest this good woman’s home.

  ‘She wants a tub,’ Peg grunts from the chair in the corner, where I had thought her asleep. ‘Cannot abide not being clean as a parson’s shirt on a Sunday.’ She lifts a currant bun from the plate beside her and begins gnawing at it with reverence.

  ‘That is no problem, for we have a proper tub,’ says Betty. ‘While you were missing, the master busied himself shifting the midden, to occupy his mind. He often used the tub, to clean the muck off. I will have Jed bring it up.’

  A whole tub of water would be unimaginable luxury.

  There is a big fire in the grate of the bedroom an hour later, as Betty bustles around me, filling the tub and helping me into the wonderfully soothing water. A folded towel is beneath me to cushion my still-protruding bones. She rinses my long hair from a jug until it squeaks between her fingers and I turn my mind from the unsettling thought of Thomas sitting where I am now, naked.

  Afterwards I make my way downstairs in one of my new gowns, and wrapped in a faded paisley shawl, sit drying my hair before the kitchen inglenook. I am still shaky on my legs, despite eating four times a day and drinking from the jug of milk always at my bedside, a weighted net protecting it from flies. Then a draught tells me the door into the yard has opened and I turn to see Thomas.

  ‘Am I disturbing you, ladies?’

  ‘No, Master,’ says Betty. ‘But close that door before the child catches her death.’ She is behind me with a brush, working tangles from my hair, and after doing as he is bid, Thomas comes to stare at it, curling almost to my waist.

  There was talk of cutting it, when I first arrived, but I am glad Betty held her hand. He has never seen me without my cap. Then he looks into my face and his feelings are plain to see. Since having my daughter, I know what love looks like and it pains me, for to care that much for a fallen woman makes him almost as unfortunate as I am.

  Most mornings now I get dressed and make my way to Betty’s kitchen, where I address myself to the boys’ shirts in her mending basket. It is a comfortable place to be, though it still grieves me to look at her plump-cheeked son, crawling around the floor under the watch of Peg, who has already made herself his nursemaid. But I can never take his wriggling warmth into my own arms without wanting to weep.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  The birds wake me, early, and I ease myself from bed to tiptoe to the window on legs still stupidly weak. Peg is a lump under her bedclothes. A mist lies over the fields outside and dawn is breaking. Quietly I unfasten the latch on the leaded window and breathe in the clean, cool air.

  At the edge of the nearest field, a figure in shirtsleeves leans on the split rail fence gazing into the distance. Thomas. The dog is at his side, tail enthusiastic for the morning.

  I dress swiftly and slip out through the darkened kitchen to join him, Hector bounding up to nose at my legs.

  ‘It promises to be a fine day,’ Thomas says, looking me over. ‘You have colour in your cheeks at last. Might you be strong enough for a walk, later? We could go down to the far paddock to see Aurora.’

  ‘I would love that,’ I say. ‘Now my belly is reacquainted with food, my legs need to remember what t
hey are for.’ I look around for a stick to throw for Hector. ‘It is shaming to starve. To be prepared to do anything to put a crust in your mouth.’

  ‘It is only shaming to those responsible.’

  ‘There are always people in want, Thomas. It is how things are.’

  ‘There are men who dream of making a just world.’ He shakes his head. ‘I wish them joy, but would never wager on it happening soon. One must not hope for the impossible. All one can do is help those within one’s reach.’

  At last I find something to throw and Hector is not too proud to chase after a fragment of tree root.

  Thomas gazes into the brightening distance. ‘I feared you might be gone from me for ever,’ he says. ‘London is such a vast place.’

  ‘But were you not disgusted, when you saw me in the street? I was rank.’

  ‘You will always be a summer meadow to me, Hannah.’

  Hector is back, pawing at my ankle, and I retrieve the root from his jaws to toss again.

  ‘I have not thanked you properly for all you have done. For me, and for Peg. I am well enough to work now. Find something for me to do.’

  ‘There is time enough for that.’

  ‘You have put a roof over our heads. You are feeding and clothing us. I prefer not to be an object of charity.’

  ‘That is nonsense.’ Thomas grunts at Hector to stop bothering me with the root. ‘What I have given you is an advance of wages, no more. In a week or two, you can start getting involved with our cheese-making. Take on some more girls. Working here will likely save them going into service.’ He gives Hector a rough pat for sitting obediently at his side.

  ‘And you could start teaching the village children to read. What I have been doing for Betty’s boys is not enough. There is space in one of my old barns for a little school.’ His smile is insistent. ‘You would be good at being both a teacher and a cheese maker. But you and your daughter need more than just a wage coming in, Hannah. You need a proper home. I can provide that. A farm is not a bad place to raise a child.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘That you should come and live with me. Both of you.’

  I blink. ‘You are a churchwarden. Your brother is a vicar. Having a bastard and her mother under your roof would shame not only you, but him.’

  ‘Not if I give them both my name.’ He glances at me. ‘What did you call your daughter? You never said.’

  I hesitate a moment. ‘Thomasina.’

  His arm comes around my shoulder to give it a brief squeeze, before releasing me.

  ‘Though she will not be called that now. They give them new names. It is as if my baby ceased to exist.’

  ‘But, Hannah,’ he takes half a step closer. ‘We could easily make her Thomasina again.’

  My breath catches in my throat and I swallow hard. For an intelligent man, he is making no sense.

  ‘Come,’ Thomas says. ‘Let us walk over to the yard. Wish Aphrodite a good morning.’

  ‘I know you mean me a great kindness,’ I say, as we reach the sty and I lean over the rail to scratch the sow’s rough back. ‘But you could not hide the truth. You would make yourself food for gossip.’

  ‘I am suggesting we marry, Hannah.’

  It was what I knew he meant, for he has asked me before. But I have no reply. Too much has happened since then.

  ‘Hector had a grand morning yesterday.’ Thomas smiles at the dog who is staring at us with a fixed expression, as if he understands everything that is being said. ‘Ratting in the great barn. Look at him. He wants you to stay. He knows you belong.’

  ‘A wife with a bastard would shame you, Thomas. Before your neighbours. Your relations, and friends.’

  ‘They will think she is mine, Hannah. Country people are not so precious about such things. Many brides walk up the aisle close to their time, and nothing is thought of it, twelve months after.’

  ‘But she isn’t yours, Thomas.’

  ‘As I have said, the world will assume that we were dilatory about formalising our union. It happens. You and your daughter are innocent in the face of God. And to me. So, who needs to know the truth? My house is lacking a daughter. In time she might even have brothers and sisters, God willing.’

  I flinch at his words. At the picture it raises in my mind. Yet he is right. My child and I are innocent of any wrongdoing.

  His strong hands rest on the edge of the sty, tanned from the outdoors. ‘Do I need to say it, Hannah? Surely you know I love you.’

  I cannot speak, for there is an ache in my chest for what might have been. I could not bear to be in his, or any man’s bed, but could picture myself willingly sharing everything else with Thomas.

  He lets out a deep sigh. ‘Well, then, be my cheese-maker and schoolmistress. You could make a good life here. I will find you a snug cottage, if you will not make your home with me. After perhaps a year, the Hospital should think you able to provide a fit home for your child. I can make sure you have the character references they will require.’

  ‘I am sorry, Thomas.’

  ‘So am I.’ He glances sideways at me, the gleam of humour in his eye suggesting he is not offended. Saddened, perhaps. But he is used to disappointment from me. ‘Would I have done better in a more romantic setting? Proposed in a meadow bright with celandines? Rather than beside a pigsty?’

  ‘I would prefer,’ I say, facing him, ‘to make my own way. I am a good cook, now. You should try my raised pork pies.’

  ‘Don’t mention such things in Aphrodite’s hearing.’ He reaches into the pen and gently tugs the sow’s ear.

  ‘You must know in your heart you should not tie yourself to someone like me.’

  ‘If you could see into my heart, Hannah, you would not deny me.’ He stoops to rescue a turnip that has rolled under the gate, tossing it back to the pig. ‘I still think that to be sure of getting your daughter back as soon as possible, you need a husband.’

  He is stubborn. But so am I, and even if the thought of marriage did not revolt me, I cannot let him ruin his life because of me.

  ‘No, Thomas.’

  ‘Let me speak.’ He studies his hands and the sprinkling of dark hair on his wrists sends a tremor through me. ‘I loved Liza, but it did not consume me the way my feelings for you do. I want a different marriage. One where the two of us share our work; our books, our thoughts. As if we were one person.’

  I think now that I will cry, for what woman would even dream of such an offer, never mind refuse it? To hide my face, I bend over the sow as she noisily demolishes her turnip.

  I remember Mrs Lamb joking about finding a rich old man to marry. How hard would it be to keep someone’s cold feet warm for a few years? she’d said. Then why not do it, I’d asked. Because, my girl, it takes a strong stomach to take on a gouty wreck. With an old man’s noises and an old man’s smells.

  And Mrs Lamb, as a virgin of over forty years, knew nothing of the assaults and degradation of the marriage bed.

  But Thomas is not, of course, old. He has a fine figure and an intelligent face. He is a landowner and could have a lady for his wife if he chose, so what he proposes is not only abhorrent to me, but imprudent and nonsensical.

  ‘Come. I will not rush you. With your history, it is not surprising you need time.’ He offers his arm and we make our way towards the house, the dog at our heels. ‘Let us see if Betty has some breakfast for us.’

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  I have always tried not to covet what others have. In the Buttermere house I enjoyed being surrounded by wonderful things and having the care of them. But this modest parlour, with its feeling of having been lived in by generations of decent honest yeomen, this I envy.

  ‘It is unusual to so dislike the idea of marriage.’ Thomas is studying my face as the salty tang of bacon drifts through the open door from the kitchen and the dog sprawls at our feet. ‘Though in Catholic countries young women take the veil, as a vocation. Seeing themselves as brides of Christ.’

&nb
sp; ‘I feel no vocation,’ I say. ‘How can I believe in a heavenly father, when he failed to care for me?’

  ‘I can understand that, Hannah. After my family died, I stopped going to church.’

  ‘You do not believe?’

  ‘My belief dropped down a deep well. Though I expect to haul it back up again, one day.’

  I nod. His feelings are not unlike my own.

  ‘I know an evil thing was done to you, Hannah. But I hope you can learn to put it behind you.’

  ‘I have never told you…what happened.’

  ‘I know enough. Do not distress yourself by speaking of it.’

  ‘But I cannot bear to think…of what men want from women.’

  I am unable to meet his eye, and stare instead at a patch of mottled sunlight on the floor.

  There is a pause and I wonder if he is digesting what a bad bargain he would be getting.

  ‘That is no surprise,’ he says, quietly. ‘There are horses who have been so cruelly treated, they never learn to trust.’ He pulls out a chair so I can sit, my hands in my lap, my eyes still avoiding his. ‘But we could live as brother and sister. I have been alone so long that even a sister-wife would be a joy. We could have separate bedrooms, as the aristocracy do. The rest of the world will think us a regular married couple. The parents of a child.’ He smiles. ‘I would love a daughter. Especially one who might look like you.’

  The idea of living with him is unsettling, even as a sister-wife, and the thought makes my stomach quiver. But how could I accept such a sacrifice, after all he has done for me? It would mean him never having a proper wife.

  ‘As I have said, I am accustomed to living alone.’ He shrugs, as if it does not matter, though it surely must. ‘Continuing will be no punishment. But to have a companion, especially if that companion were you, would be the greatest blessing.’

  If there is one person I could trust, it is this loving, generous man. But that makes it an impossible gift. What if he meets someone in years to come, a woman without a past, that he wants to make his wife? Someone who could give him sons?