While Chloe combed out Helena’s hair, she propped her elbows on top of a spindly- legged bureau, her chin in her hands, and stared into her reflection.
I’m really here at last. I’m in London.
Chapter 12
“Mistress Devero” “as sent your breakfast mistress,” Chloe declared the next morning, limping to the bed where she balanced a tray on the coverlet.
Helena propped herself onto one elbow, smiling as she examined her breakfast tray of tiny pastries, a beautifully crafted silver pot containing hot chocolate, and a plate of thinly sliced bread and butter.
“They sleeps late in this ‘ouse.” Chloe tutted disapprovingly, and opened a door to the left of the bed. “Look at this, Mistress.” She revealed a closet containing Helena’s clothes chest and bureau, the heavy craftsmanship incongruous in the neat space, but achingly familiar.
Helena slid from beneath the covers, plucked a pastry from the tray and sipped the cup of hot chocolate Chloe had poured out. For the first time since crossing the city boundaries, Helena could not hear ironclad wheels or rough voices, clattering buckets, braying animals, or noisy peddlers. She assumed this was because her room stood at the back of the house, the walled garden acting as a buffer from the street.
A light knock came at the door, but before Chloe could respond, two maids entered bearing steaming buckets of hot water in each hand. A third dragged in a hipbath and set it in front of the fireplace while her companion set to laying the fire, which bloomed into life and warmth with surprising speed.
While Helena observed from the sidelines, the maids lined the bath with linen sheets that gave off a fragrance of lavender and chamomile as they poured in the water.
“Do all Londoners bathe in the mornings?” Helena asked no one in particular.
The maid who stood closest concealed a snigger as if the idea was monstrous. “Not every day, Mistress.”
“Mistress Devereux’s instructions,” the maid kneeling on the hearth responded.
The maids stepped back, two on either end of the hip bath, waiting.
With a small shock, Helena realized they expected her to disrobe while they were still in the room. Unwilling to appear unworldly, she allowed her shift to fall to the floor, though they barely glanced at her.
While Chloe stood sulkily to one side, watching with resentful eyes, Helena climbed into the hot water and slid beneath the surface. She trailed her hands under the water as the fragrant heat worked instant miracles on her sore back and stiff muscles. The water had begun to go cold before she stepped reluctantly from its caress, into a towel warmed by the fire one of the maids wrapped round her.
Another attempted to arrange Helena’s clothes for the day, but Chloe nudged her sharply aside and tended to the task herself.
Their jostling made Helena smile, and at that moment, she knew this was how she wanted to live, how she ought to live; with the entire magical city of London spread out on the other side of her window. Removing the hipbath took a deal of effort and some muffled cursing from the maids, but once they had gone, Chloe helped Helena dress in a russet silk brocade gown. The plain cut skirt, split down the front to reveal a cream silk underskirt, accentuated her slender figure. Deep lace ruffles fell from the sleeves, the bodice lined at the neck with an almost transparent lace bertha. Satisfied she would not disgrace herself in front of her hosts, Helena twirled before a long glass.
“I remember when Sir Jonathan brought this cloth, from right here in London.” Chloe fingered the heavy material lovingly.
“Do you?” Helena’s voice was nonchalant, but at the same time she felt an uncomfortable warmth creep up her neck.
“He intended it for your mother.” Chloe’s voice grew wistful.
Helena remained silent. Of course she remembered. The instant she had seen it lying on the carriage seat, she was fully aware the silk was not for her. Determined to have it, she had thrown herself into her father’s arms gabbling her gratitude for his generous gift. The resigned smile on her mother’s face in response to his dismayed shrug had confirmed she had won.
Having to listen patiently while he recounted the fate of the Huguenot silk makers from whom he had obtained it had been a small price to pay.
French-made silk was very expensive and heavily taxed, and its importation restricted. However, since the arrival of the Huguenot émigrés, there was an abundance of reasonably-priced silk available in London.
Her mother had taken her to the seamstress on the morrow to have the gown made up, but despite her tantrums, Helena had rarely worn it. Now as she looked down at herself that morning, shame spread through her once again. Lady Elizabeth would have looked beautiful in this colour.
My selfish bone again.
“What’s that you said, Mistress?” Chloe asked.
Her mother used to tell her she possessed a tiny, misplaced bone that only surfaced when she made a choice based entirely on self-interest. Helena’s “selfish bone” became a family joke, and frequently got get her into trouble when she was younger.
“Nothing.”
Celia erupted into the room without knocking.
“How was your first night at Lambtons Helena? Not too noisy I hope? London must be so different for you than the wilds of Devon.”
“Devon isn’t so wild, Celia,” Helena said, protective of her childhood home. “It’s a beautiful place.” A sudden nostalgia for the sea-tinged wind and the call of seagulls over green wide open spaces made her suddenly homesick.
Celia didn’t seem to notice, busy peering into Helena’s jewel case, then jumped up again and trailed plump fingers through the open trunk at the end of Helena’s bed.
Helena suddenly felt her entire wardrobe was drab beside the pastel silk Celia was wearing, but when she said so, Celia was complimentary. “That colour suits your dramatic coloring perfectly,” she said, from her supine position on the unmade bed. Then she leapt to her feet, grabbing Helena’s hand. “I must show you the Inn.”
Helena looked toward the door. “Where’s Phebe?”
Celia rolled her eyes. “Sulking. Ignore her. She always wants to be the pretty one, and your arrival was something of a shock.”
Helena acknowledged the compliment, recalling Phoebe’s reaction to her arrival. However, she had no time to give it another thought, as Celia was pulling her down the wide staircase for a tour of the inn.
“We serve the best wines here,” Celia called over her shoulder as she led the way through the dining areas of the inn, each one more luxurious than the last, their arched and curtained doorways decorated with rich hangings in red and gold. One had booths for diners, sectioned off with wood and glass partitions. Candles sat in pewter and glass holders on walls and on tables, and as Samuel had promised, rows of silver tankards were lined up in the taproom where serving girls swept the floors and scrubbed the furniture to shining brilliance.
“The duty on imported wine is ruinously high, which makes it expensive, but our ale is also the best, and we steep fruit and herbs in it for flavour.”
“Is the ale brewed here?” Helena asked, as was the custom in Exeter.
“Oh no.” Celia”s bright curls bounced on her shoulders. “We buy it from brewers in Norfolk. Father says it is a messy, smelly process, and not worth the space required.”
The kitchens, located behind the rear staircase, were the largest and busiest Helena had ever seen. Rows of massive wooden dressers lined the walls, loaded with platters and trays, pitchers and trenchers with silverware, jugs and bowls, all ready for the diners who would fill the public rooms.
A long, low hallway led away from the main kitchen, with storerooms, a dairy, meat lockers and storage areas on both sides; opening out on a backyard where the stables and coach house were located. The main cooking area was a steamy, airless space where shouted instructions were hurled across the room. Everyone seemed frantically occupied and the atmosphere was strained, but it all fascinated Helena and the smell of onions, herbs and cooked meat was c
ompelling.
Henry had apparently been up for some time. He chatted comfortably with the serving men, complimenting the girls who bobbed curtseys to the handsome young gentleman, welcoming him to Lambtons with shy smiles and blushes.
“You shanty have much to do with the customers. And you’ll never find Mama in the kitchens. Carstairs manages the staff.”
Carstairs turned out to be a jovial but strict, middle-aged housekeeper, whose role was to marshal the serving girls into their various duties. A skill she performed, Celia told her, laughing, like a mother hen.
The woman eyed Helena with mild suspicion. “Our taproom girls are from good families,” she said, defending them. “Not ignorant slatterns like those in The Sunn, or even Thompsons.”
These names meant nothing to Helena, who accepted Mistress Corsair’s judgment in polite silence.
“Our servers are all men, naturally,” Celia announced, with all the authority of a chatelaine. “Lubbock trains them to keep everyone’s personal orders in their head.” She bent closer Helena, whispering, “They are more discreet than the girls when it comes to the private dining rooms.”
Helena frowned, confused, though confident that given time, everything would make sense.
On the second floor, they discovered Phebe loitering by the stairs. Helena was convinced she had been waiting for them, but when Celia invited her to join them, she looked disinterested. “I have little else to do this morning, I may think about it.” When neither girl attempted to persuade her, she trailed behind them at a distance.
The ceilings were lower on this floor, and the windows smaller. Each of the rooms was furnished with a table and two chairs in an alcove; others contained elaborate canopied beds as well.
“These are our private dining rooms.” Celia waved a hand. “Exclusively for the use of our married guests.”
“How do you know which of the guests are married?” Helena exchanged a sly smile with Phebe.
Celia raised an innocent eyebrow. “Of course they are. Only respectable people come to Lambtons.”
Helena felt a small thrill of excitement, wondering what her father would think. Then it struck her; this was her new life. A life he was not part of. Until he returns, a small voice in her head reminded her.
Their tour of the vast inn ended in Celia”s bedchamber, where the noise of the street intruded, though when Helena commented on this fact she was brushed aside.
“I could not bear the silence of the country. I love the clamor of city streets.” Phebe shuddered, apparently having overcome what her mother called her “shyness”. She produced a box of “mouches”, holding up a sheet of spanish paper with a flourish. “I use it to colour my cheeks,” she explained unnecessarily.
“It can barely be seen when you do use it, Phebe.” Celia rolled her eyes. “You already possess such high colour.” Her pained look told Helena they had had this conversation several times before.
Helena perched on Celia”s bed, her high-spirited chatter flowing over her as she cast her mind back to the summer in Ideswell. The Ffoyle girls were kind hearted, loving creatures, but she had soon outgrown their homespun kindness. To have the sophisticated, colorful city of London laid out before her was more than she could have hoped for. She could not wait to be a part of it.
Helena moved to the window and looked onto the street, where hackney coaches clattered on the cobbles and sedan chairs disgorged their occupants onto the swarming street.
It was not yet noon and Lambtons already bustled with activity. Despite the cold, the inn doors were thrown open, and from where she stood, Helena could hear the enthusiastic welcomes of Lubbock, combined with muffled greetings and chattering of the diners as they entered the halls.
Helena stared, fascinated at the swaying headdresses and billowing skirts of the ladies, the ornamented coats and impossibly full wigs of the men strutting through the doors, with their oversized muffs and silver-topped canes.
Celia came to stand beside her, pointing to a black vehicle pulled by four bay horses in the street. “Oh look, there’s Lord Marlborough’s carriage.”
Helena strained forward to see, exhilarated at being so close to the famous John Churchill. Yet shouldn’t she have felt more resentment than curiosity? This was, after all, the man who had led the King’s forces against her family at Sedgemoor.
Celia nodded. “He’s very handsome, and his wife, Lady Sarah, has the loveliest golden hair. They have been married for seven years, and he is still madly in love with her.”
“Hmm,” Phebe muttered from her position at her sister’s bureau. “She is proud, that one, and thinks she is more important than the Princess Anne.”
Helena pressed her nose against the glass. The street was so crowded, he was out of sight before she saw his face. Mildly disappointed, she turned to lean against the sill. “I had no idea an alehouse keeper could be so-” She paused, aware she was about to be insulting.
“Father isn’t just an innkeeper, Helena. He’s also a goldsmith-banker.” Phebe beamed with pride.
“Master Ffoyle often uses his services.” Celia turned her gaze on Helena. “And I believe Sir Jonathan Woulfe, too, when he came to the city to trade wool.”
“Master Devereux knew my father?” Helena’s heart lurched at his name on Celia”s lips.
“We saw him but twice.”
Helena detected triumph in Phoebe’s face, aware Helena had not known this, but ignored it. If only she could make Phebe less hostile. She would need all the friends she could find in this vast city.
A worry had nagged at Helena all the way there from Devon. If their father lived, and she dared not believe otherwise, how would he find them now they had left Devon? The fact he knew about Lambtons, and had been here, made her less troubled.
She could not wait to tell Henry.
* * *
Eager to make a good impression to his hosts, Henry rose early and dressed carefully that morning, his first in London. He wandered into the main hall, only to be told by the inscrutable Lubbock than no one else was up yet. “I doubt you’ll see any of the ladies much before ten of the clock, master,” the manservant said with a wry smile.
Thanking him, Henry turned to leave, though with no idea where to go or what to do next. Preoccupied, he almost collided with Master Devereux.
“I do apologise, sir. I didn’t see you there.” Henry scooped up his hosts” muff and cane, both of which had clattered onto the tiled floor in the collision.
“No harm done, young man.” He dusted off the muff and tucked the silver topped cane beneath his arm. “What plans have you for the morning?”
“Plans, sir?” Henry shrugged.
“Well.” Master Devereux turned to a gilt-framed mirror in which he adjusted his curly black wig. “Why don’t you take a carriage ride with me? I have some business this morning, but the City being new to you, I imagine you’ll find something of interest. What do you say?”
Henry accepted with enthusiasm, eager to see this vast city which he was now his home. Robert Devereux proved an entertaining guide, and kept up a stream of chatter all the way along Fleet Street, where he pointed out the old houses that had survived the Great Fire, comparing them with ones constructed during the last twenty years..
When they halted on Ludgate Hill, Master Devereux gathered up his muff and walking stick. “I imagine you might like to take a look at Wren’s cathedral while we are here, Henry. More entertaining for you than my booksellers, at any rate.” He pointed his cane at a fence opposite. “Building work has started again, and Wren has employed an army of stonemasons. The cathedral site is busy these days, and worth a look.” He chattered amiably as he alighted from the carriage.
“The new cathedral, sir?” Henry asked, fascinated, jumping down behind him.
Hendry’s grandfather had told him all about the terrible fire that had destroyed the old cathedral of his childhood, and that nearly all the City had been destroyed by the terrible blaze.
“Was there
anything left of the old one?” Henry asked.
“The statue of John Donne survived intact. He was a Dean of St Pauls, though many remember him best for his poetry. Some stonework is left from Inigo Jones” original choir.” He had to shout to make himself heard above the yelling, banging and construction noises on the other side of the wooden hoarding, as well as the hubbub of the street behind them filled with pedestrians, carriages and carters. “The lead roof of the old building melted, and ruined everything inside. They say there was molten lead running through the streets here.” He gestured again with his cane.
“It must have been a terrible sight, the fire.” Henry kept his face solemn, but he was eager for more details. “Did you see it, sir?”
Master Devereux stared into thin air. “I was a young man then. Alyce and I had an alehouse at the rear of Fleet Street.” He glanced sideways at Henry with the ghost of a smile, “I was neither quite so respectable, nor as wealthy, in those days.” A smile that he quickly suppressed hovered on his lips. “The old place burned to the ground and I had to begin again.” He gave a deep sigh as he arranged his muff over one arm and held his cane in the other hand. “Alyce and I had to flee to my father-in-law’s house in Southwark. The bridge prevented the fire from spreading across the river.”
“Did it take long to clear up the mess?” Henry asked, trying to imagine what rivers of molten lead must have looked like.
“Years, Henry, years. Master Wren, as he was then, had to engage a team of thirty laborers to operate a battering ram to demolish the ruins of the old cathedral.”
“A battering ram?” Henry glanced over at the site, almost hoping it might still be there.
“Yes…of his own design. However, it was slow work. To speed things up, he enlisted the services of a gunner from the Tower, to explode gunpowder under the cathedral.” Robert gave a throaty chuckle. “That worked too, although it frightened the residents hereabouts.”
The Rebel’s Daughter Page 14