Home > The Strange Adventures of H(5)

The Strange Adventures of H(5)
Author: Sarah Burton

“This would appear to be the end of a most distressing episode for us all,” she announced, “and I earnestly hope we will now be able to forget these most undeserving of sisters.”

Even when people died, you remembered them, I reflected. On the tombstones of our parents and Belinda and Abraham, our sister and brother who had died before I was born, it said ‘In loving memory’. To deliberately choose to forget someone seemed to me harsh indeed, especially when they were your own family, and still alive as well.

“H, let this be a lesson of where disobedience ends,” Clarissa added.

“Yes, let this be a lesson,” added Diana, who always liked to remind everyone she was just as respectable as Clarissa.

“However,” Reverend Grimwade said, “I have had a reply from Aunt Madge. She says that she feels it would be impossible to take Evelyn on the terms we suggest.” My selfish little heart sang. She was to be spared to me at least a little longer. “She says H is too young to be parted from her sister and therefore suggests that both Evelyn and H go to live with her.”

And then I don’t know what my heart did – it skipped, it hollered, it turned somersaults. I jumped up and ran to Evelyn and hugged her and we both cried for pure joy and relief.

“You see, it is this unchecked show of emotion the child is subject to which concerns me,” I heard Reverend Grimwade say to Diana’s husband.

“Indeed,” said Mr Pincher, “but she’s not our problem now.”

 

 

4


Getting into a stagecoach as a child had a thrilling sensation to it that I have never forgot. Quite apart from the novelty of the scenery, the other passengers who got in and out were always entertaining, even if they said nothing, for Evelyn and I would make up stories about them in our heads which we would compare when we were alone.

I must have slept a good deal of the way for when I woke up it was to the sights and sounds of London, where there is everywhere something to look at, and often to wonder at. The sheer number of citizens always struck me forcibly – how so many people lived and worked in one place, how they did not use up all the air just by breathing seemed incredible. The first time I went to London I did not sleep all night, for there were sounds, be it watchmen, linkboys, carriages, chaises, carts, drunks, dogs, church bells near and far, and other unidentifiable cries and crashes. But by the end of my first visit I was in love with the endless noise and the never-ending parade of trade and transport; here you could see the most beautiful people in the world – and the most pitiful wretches – all in the same minute, and, if you had the money, buy anything you could think of. When I went home I could not sleep again, so unused was I to silence, yet the teeming throng of humanity stayed in my head, circling my brains, peopling my dreams for a long time afterwards. Though it was two years since I had been in London, the old sensations quickly came flooding back the moment we were within its great walls.

At home if a coach stopped anywhere everyone looked up to see who would emerge and I felt mightily important if I were one of those people. However, the road to London little by little diminished both the coach and the significance of its occupants, and of course no one looked twice when we got out near Aunt Madge’s house. Everyone was far too busy being Londoners to notice two little girls from the country. Evelyn knew the way to take, and although I was now a great girl of thirteen or thereabouts, I am ashamed to say I still held tight to my sister’s hand in case I should get lost. I sometimes think it is the curse – or blessing – of youngest children that they never quite grow up.

The first to greet us as we arrived at Aunt Madge’s house was a little terrier who barked and barked and would not let us move from the hall until our aunt appeared. She seemed older and more tired than when we had last seen her, but still retained her essential sweetness which made her pretty, and she seemed touchingly pleased to see us, and kissed and embraced us and said how we had grown and we were now quite young ladies and so on. The little dog sniffed us and our shoes and our baggage suspiciously but finally seemed satisfied that we would do and contented himself with following our aunt about.

“I got him when your uncle fell ill,” explained Aunt Madge. “He kept him company when he was confined to his bed. And now he keeps me company.”

“What’s his name?” asked Evelyn.

“Your uncle named him Puss,” replied our aunt, raising her eyebrows.

Our uncle had indeed been a merry man and though we saw little of him as he worked long hours, he would sometimes play with us, which our own father never did, and let us ride on his back like a donkey, and also make us laugh by playing jokes and tricks, mostly on poor Aunt Madge, which he would then blame on us.

Uncle Harry was a spicer and they had this great house in Cheapside with his shop underneath – all the merchants’ houses in that district having shops below, and being often split into several apartments above. After my uncle’s death, my aunt had considered removing to the country (where she had a house and lands I had never seen, left to her by her first husband), and disposing of the whole Cheapside property, or letting it as divided dwellings. However, in the event she had only let the shop to a bookseller and kept the kitchen at the back on the ground floor and all the four floors above. She was too old to face the rigours of country life, she said (though I believe she was not above fifty years of age), London having spoiled and made her unfit for it. She also said the London house would always be worth a deal of money because of where it was situated, at the heart of the city’s trade and commerce, and she could sell it at any time and live comfortably elsewhere.

As it was a great house with ever so many rooms, Aunt Madge had given us each our own bedchamber but Evelyn saw my face, I think, and quickly said, “We should like to share if it is all the same to you, Aunt, and then you will have an extra room for visitors.” Then when we had seen the bedchambers, which were most comfortable, Aunt Madge took us down to the kitchen, which I had never been in before, where there was a stout red-faced woman making pastry, and two brown children, who were filling up a great cauldron with water.

The red-faced woman did not drop so much as a cursory bob to my aunt when we came in, which I thought mighty strange, and was introduced as Cook. The children were Sal, who was about eight years old, and her brother Joe who was a year or two older. Sal looked after the hearths and Joe fetched water, ran errands, carried messages and was a general dogsbody. I wondered how Aunt Madge came to have two little Indians in the house, but held my tongue as I had one question more pressing.

When we came out of the kitchen, I asked my aunt why Cook had not curtsied, or even nodded, as lame servants may, to her mistress. My aunt simply said, “Cook is a Quaker,” and seeing that this did not convey any meaning to me, added, “she believes we are all equal in the sight of God.”

I thought about this reasonable belief for a moment before asking my aunt if she minded. She said no, she didn’t mind, but you couldn’t have a servant like that upstairs as people of quality wouldn’t understand. Emboldened by my aunt’s answers I asked about the brown children and she said it was a long story she would tell us someday. I thought she started to sound tired and resolved to ask no more questions if I could help it. Later on we were to meet the footmen, who were to be addressed by their Christian names, Reg and Ted, as they were brothers, and Potter and Potter would have led to too much confusion, and the maids, Fanny, Sarah and Alice were also introduced to us. They were all very pleasant, but it seemed to me a great number of people to look after just one lady.

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