‘Lawd save us, what have we got here?’
A short woman stood in front of the fire, almost as wide as she was tall, her arms the size of Wiltshire hams and generous hips bound by a greasy apron. Wisps of hair the colour of a new penny escaped a mob cap and her cheeks were veined and russetted, like autumn windfalls. She appeared to Rowan very much like a ruddy, slightly wizened pippin.
‘Prudence, this is the new maid-of-all-work,’ said Patrick. ‘She will be seeing to me from now on, while Alice will serve Mistress Hollander.’
‘Very good, sir.’ The cook wiped her arm across a forehead beaded with sweat as she scrutinised Rowan. ‘She’s skinny enough. Looks strong all right, though. Whatever happened to your eye, girl?’
‘Caught it on a meat hook, mistress,’ Rowan said shyly. The truth was more obscure than that, for Rowan had been born with the injury. She never knew if it had been inflicted as she emerged from her mother (a difficult birth by her account), or if she had simply grown like that, misshapen and warped. She’d learned that it was better to offer the easier explanation, for those born with deformity were often regarded with suspicion. There was enough reason for people to view her as different, without that too.
The cook winced.
‘Mistress Hollander has requested that she bathe. After supper will be perfectly acceptable,’ Patrick said as he left.
‘Sit down then, girl,’ Prudence said, indicating a seat at the large table that took up most of the kitchen. ‘Did they not feed you at your last place? Even an urchin would have more meat on her bones.’ She placed a bowl of barley studded with carrots and dark with shreds of meat in front of Rowan and passed her a slice of bread from a loaf on the sideboard.
Rowan did not wait to tuck in. ‘Is there nothing I can do to help you?’ she asked, mumbling through a mouthful of food, wanting to prove her usefulness straightaway.
‘You’ll be busy here soon enough, girl. I’ve managed on my own in the kitchen for near seven years now, another day won’t harm me. First with the master when he was in London and now here.’
‘He lived in London?’ Rowan swallowed. She had heard cautionary stories about the capital, a city of thieves and cutpurses, strumpets and beggars, press gangs and bodysnatchers, thrilling tales of loose morals and avarice. She regarded the place with a mix of outright terror and fascination. Oxleigh was a bustling town that fair exhausted a quiet soul; she could scarce imagine another twenty times larger.
‘Aye, before he was married.’ Her voice turned brusque. ‘Now, enough idle chatter, for it profits none of us.’
Rowan took another spoonful of barley porridge, scraping every last morsel of food from the bowl. For the first time since she could remember, the fullness of her stomach pressed against the coarse fabric of her dress.
When she had finished, she watched, fascinated, as Prudence busied herself about the kitchen, hauling pans, draining steaming water and setting out serving dishes with impressive alacrity. Rowan had never seen so much food as the feast that was assembled. And all that for two people. She counted herself most fortunate to have found a wealthy employer.
The warmth of the kitchen and the nourishing food made her drowsy, and she laid her head and arms on the table, thinking to rest for just a moment.
‘Come on, sleepy head.’ Rowan felt a gentle tug at her sleeve and looked up stiffly. She blinked, seeing that the kitchen now bore little evidence of the cook’s earlier industry. ‘Let’s see about a wash, shall we?’ She disappeared into a passageway that ran off the back of the kitchen but was gone so long that Rowan began to wonder what had happened to her. Eventually she returned, carrying a cotton shift, a folded square of fabric, a scrubbing brush and a cake of pale brown soap. ‘There’s a trough in the scullery, down the passage to your left. I’ve filled it with water from the pump outside,’ Prudence said, giving Rowan the items. ‘I don’t hold with hot water, brings in all manner of ills.’
Rowan’s mother had felt the same way.
‘Get on with you, then; there’s no time for dawdling in this house.’
‘Yes, Prudence.’ Rowan hurried in the direction of the scullery.
After she had scrubbed every inch of her body, her teeth chattering with cold, then dried herself with the cloth, wrung out her hair and combed it through with her fingers, Rowan put on the shift. It was obviously once a fine gown, though it was darned at the wrists and dragged along the floor, the sheer fabric soft as thistledown against her skin. She gathered the extra yardage up with one hand, bundled up her soiled clothes in the other and returned to the kitchen.
‘Oh!’ Rowan nearly dropped the bundle she was carrying. Sitting at the table was the butcher’s boy she had seen in the town earlier that day. ‘Begging your pardon.’ A crimson blush rose up from her neck, and where she had once shivered she was now only uncomfortably warm. She wasn’t used to being seen by strangers, at least not in her nightwear.
The boy looked at her as if he’d seen a ghost. ‘Who are you?’ he asked when he had recovered himself.
‘Rowan Caswell. Maid-of-all-work,’ she said, liking the sound of her new position as it rolled off her tongue.
‘Tommy Dean, what are you doing here?’ Prudence had returned to the kitchen and plumped herself down at the table. In her hand was an onion-shaped bottle containing a clear liquid, some of which she sloshed into a tumbler next to her.
Even from a distance, Rowan could smell the unmistakable aroma of gin, for her aunt had also liked a glass or two.
Prudence then noticed Rowan and gasped. ‘Your hair …’
Rowan put her hand to her head. Prior to bathing, it had been hidden behind her cap. She knew what had caused Prudence’s sudden intake of breath and the boy’s reaction, for her hair was of a colour that was rarely seen: white-blonde, and as fine as gossamer. It hung over her scarred eye and fell almost to her waist. Rowan’s brothers had teased her for it: ‘Queen of the snow, nowhere to go!’ they would chant until she chased them away, laughing as they tripped over each other in their haste to escape. In the evenings, her mother would comb out the snarls and when it caught the light from the fire, even her father stared.
Prudence regarded her warily, for it was common knowledge that those with such hair often brought an ill wind – some said outright bad luck – with them. She pursed her lips but said nothing further about it. ‘You’d best be getting upstairs, and mind sure no one sees you. Here – ’ She handed Rowan a men’s dressing gown, and Rowan immediately wondered if it had once belonged to Mr Hollander; the wool was finely woven, a tiny frayed edge on the cuffs the only sign of wear. ‘Put this on first. That shift’s barely decent.’
Rowan gathered the gown about her, but stopped, curious about the boy. He seemed to be in pain. The expression on his face gave nothing away, but Rowan sensed an overwhelming hurt radiating from him as though it were heat from a fire.
It wasn’t the first time she’d had the foresight. One afternoon, the summer she turned ten, she had been out in the fields with her brothers, when she had a sudden urge to run home. She tore up the path to their cottage and arrived to see her mother’s hand stained scarlet with blood, her face a rictus of agony. ‘Fetch me a cloth,’ she hissed at her daughter. Rowan returned with a smock, the first thing she could find, and helped bind the wound. ‘Knife slipped,’ her mother explained through gritted teeth.