Eppie

by Robertson, Janice

  A gong sounded, followed by the butler calling: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, dinner is served.’

  Though Catesby offered to escort Genevieve, she shrank back.

  Hortence lingered at a pier-glass to pinch colour into her cheeks. Smoothing her ruffles, she flounced into the dining room. ‘You keep an odd household here, sir!’

  ‘Hmm? What is it?’ Betsy asked woozily. ‘Oh, Eppie. Do you want me to shove off?’

  Genevieve kissed her. The skin on the old lady’s cheek felt as thin and fragile as damp silk. ‘Of course not. Go back to sleep.’

  Lady Wexcombe descended upon the chair at the head of the table, settling like a black hen upon a clutch of eggs.

  Taking the seat at the opposite end, Gabriel groaned from the stiffness in his legs and arms. ‘I rather think I overdid my ride today.’

  Genevieve shifted uneasily when Martha, wearing a bibbed apron and cap, entered to help Duncan bring in the first course of fresh salmon and mashed potatoes in scallop shells. As becoming of a servant, Martha kept her eyes lowered when in the presence of the gentry. Having laid the food, she quit the room.

  ‘You will miss your estate at Helsell?’ the parson asked Permelia. He motioned for the wine to be served. Duncan presented a glass to the butler, who poured the wine at the side-table.

  ‘There is much to lament. My sister and I have known no other home. When we were children we held tea parties for our friends in the summerhouse. It was an ornamental cottage, artificially rural with a thatched roof. Of course, it was equipped with every necessary comfort.’

  ‘Many a cottager would welcome such a dwelling,’ Genevieve said.

  With much grunting, Betsy rose. ‘More fool me for sitting here. Though this chair’s softer on me piles, it’s far too low.’

  ‘Would you feel more comfortable here?’ Genevieve asked, rising and letting Betsy take her seat beside Lady Wexcombe.

  ‘Ah, this is better. More like the hard benches at the poorhouse, though they had no backs.’

  Genevieve went to sit beside Permelia, the footman drawing back the chair for her.

  ‘Oh my!’ Lady Wexcombe said, fanning her nose against the odour drifting from Betsy. ‘Have you ever considered sucking lozenges to freshen your breath?’

  ‘Can’t say I have. What about you?’ Setting her work out on the tablecloth, she began cutting throngs from a piece of leather, for use as laces, Lady Wexcombe looking on in disgust.

  ‘Never be short of thwang, that’s what I always say. Your Wakelin was always glad of the ones I made for his boots.’ She chuckled at her memories. ‘I remember you as a bairn, Eppie. After your ma had her accident we took a walk to the river, remember? We saw her.’

  Genevieve was so astonished that her spine tingled. ‘You saw her?’

  ‘Saw whom?’ Lady Wexcombe asked.

  Betsy pointed into the garden with her clasp knife. ‘A dead face.’

  Genevieve and Gabriel turned to see Talia staring in at the window, no flicker of emotion showing in her ashen face.

  ‘Your lordship,’ Lady Wexcombe appealed, ‘I request that you eject this low woman from the room. Although I do not admit to knowing what she is, it is quite clear to me that she has a blight of the brain.’

  ‘You knew didn’t you?’ Genevieve asked Betsy, startled. ‘All this time?’

  ‘When Wakelin had his falling-fit by that old granary I guessed that he’d taken you from the manor house. Martha’s bairn had looked sickly. I didn’t tell her at the time, but I was worried that the baby might not make it through the night.’

  ‘Why did you keep this from me?’

  ‘I kept quiet because I guessed it would come to this. Her sort. Her n’ ‘er cacklin’ brood.’

  Duncan stood behind the parson, holding his glass for him in case the contents should spill on the pristine tablecloth.

  The parson beckoned the gloved footman to approach so that he might take a further sip. ‘Hannah is no doubt finding you useful in the kitchen?’ he asked Betsy.

  ‘Hogweed.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘That’s what yer eating.’ Dipping into a serving dish, Betsy fished out a tender shoot and sucked it noisily with her almost toothless gums. ‘First thing this morning I went out gathering.’

  ‘Most pleasant,’ the parson said, ‘rather like asparagus.’

  ‘I wun’t know.’

  ‘Have you ever visited Bath, Lady Genevieve?’ Permelia asked. ‘We hope, eventually, to take up residence there.’

  ‘I can’t say that I have, though I know my mother benefited from the waters.’

  ‘Now that Lady Genevieve is to come out in society,’ Permelia said to her mother, doing her best to ignore Betsy, ‘she must be introduced to gentlemen of wealth.’

  With her fork, Genevieve stabbed a shallot in her serving of stuffed roast veal. ‘I don’t give a hoot about riches.’ Aware of Catesby’s eyes fixed on her, she added, ‘Nor gentlemen, come to that, neither.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Hortence said, ‘any unmarried woman in her early twenties will die a spinster. Mother, when we next attend the Assembly Hall in Bath you really must chaperone Lady Genevieve.’

  ‘I will be delighted,’ Lady Wexcombe conceded, knowing that, as an impoverished widow of noble blood she would be entitled to payment for such an undertaking from Gabriel. ‘One meets many notable families at such engagements. Your lordship must also become acquainted with a diversity of well-connected society people, from which you will be able to select a wife.’

  ‘I am bound to my mill manager’s great-niece.’

  At this devastating news, Permelia’s fluttering eyelashes stilled.

  Parson Lowford drank liberally from his fifth glass of wine. ‘Now you have returned to your rightful home, Lady Genevieve, you should not feel guilty about, hic, bless me, living the high life. The bible prescribes joy as a means to, hic, righteousness.’

  Clutching a sparkling, quartz bowl of jelly, Betsy gave it a vigorous wobble. ‘I whipped this up with a dollop of cow hoof gel. See ‘em things bobbin’ about? ‘em’s crystallised lemons.’

  ‘It is quite the place to be seen,’ Hortence said.

  ‘What is?’ Genevieve asked.

  ‘Bath. There are well-paved roads, a magnificent Town Hall, luxurious stores and fine statues.’

  Tiring of the affected conversation, Genevieve knowingly stirred trouble. ‘Not like how I lived in Rotten Yard, with its open sewers and everything as mucky as sin.’

  Lady Wexcombe gripped her neck as though in excruciating pain.

  Hortence glared at Genevieve. ‘You have much to learn of what is deemed polite conversation and what is not.’

  ‘Your ladyship is unwell?’ Gabriel enquired.

  ‘I am at the mercy of carbuncles. No remedies my physician ministers have the slightest benefit.’

  Embittered by her treatment at the hands of the privileged class, Betsy chose not to mince her words when speaking to insufferable members of the aristocracy and would happily go further; seeking to aggravate those whom she believed merited no regard. She dunked a roast potato into a steaming gravy boat. ‘Suck a dead frog; it’s the best cure for an abscess.’

  ‘You vile individual!’ Lady Wexcombe cried.

  ‘Don’t call Betsy vile,’ Genevieve said angrily.

  ‘Such a creature as this woman is lower than a dog,’ Lady Wexcombe declared, ‘and should not even be permitted at the table.’

  Genevieve glowered at Lady Wexcombe. ‘Privilege has made you self-righteous and shallow-minded to say such a thing to Betsy.’

  ‘Genevieve,’ Gabriel said, raising his hand by way of warning to silence. ‘Perhaps, Betsy, it would be better if you left the table? I only ask because it upsets me to hear you slighted.’

  ‘Simply because Betsy has had a hard life, that doesn’t mean you have the right to insult her,’ Genevieve told Lady Wexcombe. ‘I wonder whether you have ever reflected upon the wasted lives of the poor, or felt
compelled to help those worse off than yourself. Have you ever thought about how workers are crowded together in atrocious working and living conditions in towns, or given a thought to the dreadful diseases that afflict the underprivileged?’

  ‘Such individuals are simply the servants of the affluent,’ Lady Wexcombe replied haughtily. ‘I cannot imagine in what manner their lives can be wasted.’ Pursing her lips, she considered the hefty choice of which dessert to select: peaches, nectarines, brandy cherries or chocolate-coated filberts.

  ‘The poor are thinking people, with feelings like you,’ Genevieve declared passionately.

  ‘That I very much doubt. Now, your lordship, my furniture, when it arrives I insist that your footmen store it in the Green Room. They will be careful? I have several antiques worth hundreds of pounds.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  INFURIATING REMEDIES

  Making much of her aches and pains, Lady Wexcombe repaired to bed. Her chamber, last occupied by Genevieve’s mother, resembled an intimate sitting room, the bed sumptuously overflowing with cushions.

  Genevieve and Betsy, almost constant companions at her bedside, were adamant that the lady was feigning illness. Betsy had procured several cures, none of which would her ladyship entertain. Not only had she refused to endure the sheep’s lung upon her feet, she had declined to drink the blackcurrant and dung cordial.

  Old habits dying hard, Betsy sat at a mahogany table hollowing turnips ready to place lighted candles in their cavities. Cupping her hand to her mouth, she whispered to Genevieve, ‘If she was really ill she’d have eaten that butter-coated harvest spider.’

  ‘It was rather immense,’ Genevieve said. ‘It even made me shudder. Maybe we ought to try something less invasive?’

  ‘Rusty coffin nails are admirable for creaky bones. They couldn’t do no more harm than them powdered pearls she swills.’

  ‘Don’t you think you are infuriating Lady Wexcombe a little with all your homespun remedies?’

  ‘Only a little? I must try harder. You can’t laugh, young miss. I’ve heard you lapse into the cottage tongue. Don’t tell me that’s not meant to annoy them?’

  ‘You are extremely astute, Betsy.’

  ‘What are you two scheming about?’ Lady Wexcombe asked. ‘Come, Genevieve, I am in need of conversation.’

  Genevieve seated herself in the pink and white striped tablet chair beside the bed. ‘The farm has done well this year, the barns and granaries are generously stocked for winter.’

  ‘A bad harvest always follows a good ‘un’, Betsy said.

  Lady Wexcombe wafted her lace-cuffed wrist. ‘Such tedious talk. Do you know nothing of the wider world, Genevieve?’

  ‘Every day the plight of the poor worsens. With the number of idle rising, many are forced to take ships to North America.’ Thinking about Fur, she added, quietly, ‘I wonder whether he survived the voyage to Canada.’

  ‘I do declare, Lady Genevieve, that your line of impolite conversation is calculated to disturb my timid nature.’

  Hortence stood before the looking-glass, dressing her hair with tortoiseshell combs. Admiring herself, she chewed her lips to redden them. ‘Oh, so gloomy! We must contemplate some entertainment. What about holding a ball?’

  ‘After the corn was in, a Harvest Home was held in the threshing barn,’ Genevieve said. ‘Father stopped the merrymakings the year after I left for Malstowe.’

  ‘You are surely not implying that we hold the ball in a barn?’ Hortence asked. ‘A barn is for pigs. It shall be in the Great Hall. Gabriel goes to London tomorrow. He will take invitations. He must also invite all the local gentry.’

  ‘Do you not think that his lordship would take exception to us arranging such an event?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Not at all. Often you have recounted to Permelia and I about the balls you used to attend at Tunnygrave Manor.’

  ‘We would need musicians,’ Permelia said, ‘and a vast stock of victuals.’

  ‘Are you aware if his lordship keeps a vast stock of victuals?’ Lady Wexcombe asked Genevieve.

  ‘I think it most unlikely.’

  ‘I wonder who we shall invite,’ Hortence pondered. ‘There is Lord Tyllstoy and his family, and Lady Peppelowe.’

  ‘I see no occasion for her to attend,’ Lady Wexcombe said dismissively. ‘I have not the slightest opinion of her.’

  ‘Miss Mendelove?’

  ‘A most charming young lady,’ her mother reflected.

  ‘I’ll hobble over to the graveyard, Eppie. See if ‘em rats have scratched up any nails.’

  ‘Catesby and his company must come,’ Permelia enthused.

  ‘By all means,’ her mother answered.

  ‘Lady Smert also,’ Hortence said.

  Lady Wexcombe sniffed with disdain. ‘We owe her no particular courtesy; it would be most tiresome to invite such a specimen.’

  ‘Before Genevieve is exhibited at the ball, it is imperative that she becomes acquainted with the customs of polite society,’ Permelia said.

  ‘Such as?’ Genevieve asked.

  Permelia picked up her fan, beautifully made from horn with mother-of-pearl ornamentation. ‘Such as the language of the fan. One holds it in one’s left hand, thus; in front of the face infers that one is desirous of making a gentleman’s acquaintance.’ Coquettishly, she fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Flourish your fan as the company leave and your beau will know that you mean him not to forget you.’

  Taking up her fan, Hortence pursed her lips. ‘A fan on the lips, kiss me!’

  ‘If Genevieve is to develop a habit of wealth and fashion, something must be done about her hair,’ Permelia said.

  ‘Apollo’s knots would be a marked improvement,’ Hortence suggested. ‘Although with that shocking scorch mark about her ear I expect it would be best if she retains her bird’s-nest style.’

  ‘When I was a child I remember my mother dressing to attend a ball,’ said Lady Wexcombe. ‘She ornamented her hair with the prow of a ship. It was a fetching style, considered to be the height of elegance.’

  ‘Sister, I have the most entertaining idea,’ Hortence said. ‘Let us embellish Lady Genevieve’s hair this very afternoon.’

  Genevieve wanted to get along with the sisters to please Gabriel, but this was taking things too far. ‘I think not,’ she said warily.

  ‘I think so,’ Hortence persisted.

  Whilst Hortence and Permelia ransacked the house and garden in search of curious objects, Genevieve read Lord Byron’s Hours of Idleness to Lady Wexcombe.

  Compelled for the last two weeks to remain indoors as companion to the sick lady, Genevieve felt claustrophobic. Earlier that morning, she had gone to watch the shearing in the threshing barn. As custom would have it she took with her packets of tobacco for each of the men who, that night, would attend the sheepshearers’ dance.

  In reality, it was an excuse to see Samuel. Since the arrival of the Wexcombes he had barely spoken more than a few words to her, and these of a servile address, of a servant to his mistress.

  ‘Why can’t things be the way they were, Grumps? I want nothing to change between you and me.’

  He seemed to shrivel into himself. ‘Things are different, whether you wish it or not. You’re a lady now.’

  ‘Don’t call me a lady; it puts such a distance between us. Say we may go on as before.’

  ‘’ee knows that wun’t be right, One-Quart. You have to forget the way we was.’ He added, less forcefully, regret in his voice, ‘I have to.’

  ‘What about this?’ Hortence had discovered an ornament of the ruined folly.

  ‘Or this two-handled watering can?’ Permelia said, clutching it with a fragment of linen.

  Curious as to the reason for the sisters’ shrieks of laughter, Gabriel peered around the door, smiling.

  Genevieve sat before the dressing table. Wired to a pad of false hair, garlanded with beads and ribbons, was a stuffed snipe which Hortence had taken from a glass-fronted cabin
et in the Brown Room.

  ‘Take that ridiculous thing off!’ he demanded, sensitive to the sisters’ playful malice and Genevieve’s gullibility.

  The sisters blushed, their looks of guilt betraying their embarrassment that he should expose their jest.

  ‘It is fashionable,’ Hortence objected. ‘Don’t you think it makes Genevieve look even more amusing?’

  It was rare that Gabriel displayed expressions of rage. This was one of those occasions. ‘You have no right to make fun of my sister!’

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  SHATTERED WINGS

  Genevieve desperately needed to hide her face in humiliation, and sought out the familiarity and solace of the Swan Chamber.

  ‘Grr!’ she roared as she marched along the passageway, tearing at the snipe, which now hung upside down, tangled in her hair. ‘Grr! Grrr! Grrrr!!’

  Talia was playing with the ghostly baby-house.

  The sight of her sister, her calmness and compassion, eased Genevieve.

  Fetching out a chair made from a chicken’s wishbone, Talia made to pass it into Genevieve’s hands.

  ‘What do I wish?’ Genevieve said. ‘I wish with all my heart that you had never died. I wish I could hug you, proper like. I wish Molly had never died. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I heard Wakelin crying about her. It made me feel so sad. If only he could have seen her one more time.’

  The wide window sill in the drawing room was bathed in sunshine. Genevieve settled here, hidden by thick curtains, to read Goldsmith’s Deserted Village. She had read to Where wealth accumulates, and men decay, when Hortence and Permelia drifted in, tittering as though over a secret shared.