The Companion

by Kim Taylor Blakemore

  The front door swung open. Mr. Burton emerged on the landing, his suit coat and beaver hat darker still than the band twined round his arm. His lean features were humorless and sharp cut. The face of an ascetic—or a king.

  He stood in front of us, the space between empty but for the mingling of our frozen breaths. He did not move, his visage still, his eyes blank.

  “You’re the new maid.”

  A sharp poke in the shoulder from Cook startled me back into focus. “Yes, sir.”

  “The new Mary.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ah.”

  He turned back to the open door, his gloved fingers finding the arm of his wife, guiding her by the wrist and waist, a whisper in her ear warning of each granite step. As if this was the first time she’d encountered them, or she was a porcelain doll that might shatter with the slightest misstep.

  As if she were blind.

  I caught a breath, feeling the burn of the air’s teeth and realizing that indeed this was true. I recalled how she stumbled across the lawn and how her hands searched the bushes and pressed against the wall until she’d contacted the frame of my window.

  The mistress was blind.

  But while this was a shock, it did not perturb me as did Mr. Burton’s cloying kindness as he guided her down the steps, and Rebecca, now solid rather than the drift of light hair and green eyes that had passed by the first morning, trailed obsequiously behind. How meek the mistress looked. The drop of her shoulders, the bend of her neck, those wild tresses braided tight to her head. So tamed and timid, her small hand fluttering above his arm, taking his lead as he moved to the carriage. Sitting like a pliable lump as her husband shifted the wool blankets round her skirts before holding a hand to Rebecca to assist her to the seat beside.

  Rebecca plucked the blanket smooth and straightened the tails of the cockade on the mistress’s shoulder. Mrs. Burton batted Rebecca’s hand away, twisting her mouth in defiance before ruffling the blankets about and lifting her chin.

  “We are met, Mr. Friday.” The sleigh dipped and swayed as Mr. Burton dropped next to him.

  John Friday flicked the reins and gave a soft burring sound to the horses, then the sleigh pulled forward for the trip down the hill to the Dawson family cottage and all the tears inside.

  We walked behind. Mr. Beede murmured and his voice lingered. He stopped and waited for a nod from Cook before continuing on.

  Jacob slowed his stride and dropped to my side. He shrugged his shoulders and pulled at the tight collar of his shirt but took care to keep his boots in the hard ruts of the road and away from the dirtied snow that clung to each side.

  “I’m to help with the foaling this spring,” he said.

  “Are you?”

  “Ayuh.” Ice pellets dropped from the tree limbs with a rat-a-tat. Jacob pulled his cap lower and balled his hands in his pockets. His eyes were tinged red from the cold or crying.

  “Did you know Mary well?” I asked.

  “Ayuh.”

  “My sympathies.”

  “Nothing to do.” Jacob sniffed, then turned and peered at me before quickening to walk with Mr. Beede and Cook.

  The Burtons’ sleigh was the only transport near the Dawson cottage. The other mourners walked from the mill housing or the neighboring streets. The path along the picket fence and up to the black-wreathed entrance had been shoveled clean, and mourners shuffled forward to give their regards to the newly dead.

  “Go to the back door and help in the kitchen, child.” Cook tapped my shoulder. “You know not a soul here.” She pressed a roll of cloth in my hands: our aprons.

  I turned away from the line and moved toward the kitchen. Mr. Burton alighted from the sleigh and assisted Rebecca to the ground. He strode up the walkway, slight tips of his head to those waiting, and moved into the front hall. Rebecca’s eyes followed him, then caught mine. Her lips curled at the edges, then she adjusted her muff and trudged toward me, her shoes sinking in the snow banked near the house.

  “You’ll leave the mistress?” I asked.

  “She has blankets.”

  The kitchen was full of women and a table of small cakes and cordials. The trays were of different patterns, as were the manners of baking. Rebecca took my elbow and walked us closer to the stove. We were greeted with gazes both curious and hard, but nods of greeting were given, as was a space near the warmth.

  Rebecca sneaked a cake, lifting it to her lips and raising her eyebrows at me in challenge as she took a bite.

  She was no more than my age and close in height, with a sharp nose and curious, wide-set eyes. Her gaze flickered over my features and cloak. “It was an odd place for Mary to be, wasn’t it? Down Windall Hill and quite away from the path to the house?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “No. You wouldn’t.” She offered me the other half of the cake, to which I demurred, then popped it in her mouth. “What’s your name?”

  “Lucy Blunt.”

  “Not from here.”

  “No.”

  She leaned against the wall, wiping the cake crumbs from her palms, the muff swinging from her wrist.

  “So, the mistress is left in the cold?” I asked.

  A shrug. “She’s not one for company.”

  “Should you take her a tea?”

  She straightened. “Of course. It’s what I came for.”

  “Did you not know Mary? To give condolences?”

  “I’ve shared more words with you today than I ever did with her. Saw her come and go, of course. She was a maid; I am Mr. Burton’s cousin.” She picked up a teacup from the counter and poured from the large pot. “What good graces you must have to gain a room and a full position.” She leaned close. “Not so lucky for Mary, though.”

  I rubbed my arms against sudden pricks of cold, and before I could ask her meaning, she turned to bring the tea to the mistress, leaving me to the stove and strangers who ignored me.

  Cook finally came and waved from the doorway. I snuck a maple cake still warm from its pan and gave it to her on the walk to the house.

  Good graces are earned, are they not?

  Here, for example. I’ve spoiled the matron with compliments. On the cut of her dress and the braid of her hair and the lilt of her voice—though I gritted my teeth when I did. I’ve called her over and cooed in her ear that indeed John Currier would soon ask for her hand even though I know nothing of him but her talk. He walks the men’s cells. I’ve seen him once or twice when I was summoned to the warden’s office on some offense.

  He looks much like a man who steals other people’s suppers. He’s fond of his mustache, much like you, Mr. LeRocque.

  Down the corridor a new girl’s been brought in and mewls on her cot.

  “That’s Laura Reed. They won’t have her in the warden’s attic right now. She likes to scream.”

  LeRocque turns on his stool. He runs his finger along his mustache and blinks in time with the whimpers and sniffles.

  “Are you listening?” I ask.

  Still, he looks down the way. I kick at the door and it hurts. I do it again and again, until he rises from the stool and raises his hands and pleads for me to stop.

  The girl sobs now, piteous and fake.

  My foot throbs.

  My hands curl round the bars of the cell door, the iron rough and sharp, cutting and stretching my waterlogged skin, peeling it back to the stinging pink underneath.

  I bite the inside of my mouth, swallow the sharp blood. “Have you seen someone who’s drowned, Mr. LeRocque? The skin slurries and grays, like my fingers from the laundry, can you see?”

  “I see.”

  “It’s an interesting place, the laundry. You’ve no idea the trinkets and treasures hidden in hems and pockets. Last week I found a matchstick with an entire seascape carved upon it. And—listen to me.”

  “I’m listening, Lucy.”

  “They covered Mary’s face with lace to keep the women from fainting.”

  �
�How would you know that?”

  “I saw it for myself.”

  “You were in the kitchen.”

  “Not the whole time.”

  The women in the kitchen regained their shawls, making for the procession to the graveyard and the temporary interment in the vault.

  Jacob came through from the front, pressing a finger to his lips and then gesturing me into the heart of the house. I grappled for the kerchief in my sleeve, though I knew it would be useless against the smell of the dead. We moved past mirrors covered in cloth, into the front room, where the clocks had been stilled and the mantel draped in black crepe. A woman leaned heavily on the arm of another, her mourning clothes fresh pressed. She held a handkerchief tight to her mouth, her breath ragged and thin as she slowed in front of her daughter’s casket, then continued to the door.

  Jacob and I crept in; the pallbearers stood by, hands piously clasped and waiting for the last string of visitors to depart. The casket was plain pine, the interior lined with a soft white linen. Mary’s body was clothed in what looked like her Sunday best, her hands gloved, her pale hair curled and fanned on the pillow. And indeed, her face was hidden behind an intricate square of lace. Jacob glanced over his shoulder, then reached in and lifted the corner.

  Enough. Just enough to see the damage the water had done, the stitch that held her mouth shut, the pennies against her sunken lids.

  I grabbed a hand to my chest, no breath moved in nor out, and stumbled back, upsetting a chair as I careened away to the kitchen. I bent over, my fingers digging into my knees, and cursed Jacob for showing me. I could hear the furniture being pulled aside and low voices as the men lifted that simple pine case from the table. Her father, a brother perhaps, or cousins. Strong shoulders to carry her to her final fate.

  No one to carry my Ned.

  No one but me to mourn.

  And there was Cook then, standing in the doorway, holding the rolled apron I’d forgotten like an accusation of my sloth.

  “Let’s to home and get the meal started. Mr. Beede and the boy will give the respects.”

  I lifted my head and stared at her.

  “Are you deaf?”

  “No.”

  “Come then before Peter Savage freezes my bones.”

  “Peter—”

  “Give the weather a name and invite it round like a guest. Keeps it from getting the better of you.”

  She didn’t wait for me. Turned and hobbled toward the road, her broad hand flat against her hip. She stopped at the gate and watched the mourners plod to the cemetery. When I joined her, she stared hard at me. “How does someone drown in a half-froze brook?” Then shook her head and bound her scarf round her nose and mouth. “Stupid girl.” We turned away from the cottage and trudged toward the house, our feet following the path the Burtons’ sleigh had carved earlier that day.

  Chapter Four

  It snowed for ten days.

  The flakes swirled and knitted round the house. Jacob dug a path to the privy and the barn, then met John Friday to bed and feed the livestock. Mr. Burton and Mr. Beede left for the mill on Monday and remained in town, for the path was impassable. The temperature was a steady bit of hell, and the woodstoves were greedy for fuel. Our diets narrowed to salted pork and potatoes and puckered apples, though Cook surprised us with Indian pudding one night.

  Still the sheets and underclothes and linens dropped down the chute to the laundry, and still I boiled the water and swilled it all in lye soap and breathed the thick humid air as the woodstove steamed the hanging fabrics.

  Still Jacob attended to the slop buckets and filled the great fireplace and the stoves.

  All the stoves.

  The mistress insisted, or so Rebecca told him.

  And one does exactly as the hand that feeds you dictates.

  Three raps at the door to upstairs. Three raps as usual to state the breakfast trays were empty and ready to be washed. Three raps from Rebecca waiting near the door.

  Rap rap rap.

  Cook, sitting to my side as I kneaded and punched the bread dough, grunted but did not stop peeling the last of the winter potatoes.

  “Keys, Cook.”

  She stared at me. “What for?”

  “Rebecca knocked. Didn’t you hear it?”

  “It’s too early for the trays.” The paring knife rested in her hand, a half-blacked potato tight in the other fist. Peelings curled in the folds of her apron.

  “Three raps,” I said. “There. She did it again. She has the trays.”

  “She doesn’t have the trays.”

  I twisted the dough tight. “Didn’t you hear it?”

  “Jacob’s still above. It’s too early.”

  She was right; the trays had only just gone up. And yet, it was three raps, I was sure of that. It wasn’t two for the linens or four to summon Mr. Beede.

  “It’s not the trays.” But Cook pressed the knife to the table and dropped the potato in a bowl. She lumbered to the railing, grabbed and pulled herself up to the door. Her hand shook as she searched for the key. She yanked the door wide.

  Rebecca held a tray with a single silver egg cup that bounced and skittered on the surface. She looked past Cook, her eyes finding me, and gave a half smile. “You’re still here.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Mrs. Burton doesn’t like the egg.”

  She pushed the tray at Cook. “And she threw the hash at the cat.” She raised her hand in front of her, as if she were setting up to block an imminent blow. “I found both to be of perfect consistency.”

  “She doesn’t like the egg.”

  Rebecca shook her head.

  Cook’s mouth, so often tight with murmured prayers or curses, loosened and slacked. She turned her head to the small windows, her eyes glazing as she stared at the sharp edges of frost and fingers of ice that trapped us inside this kitchen. She quivered. Then a bellow from her gut, hurling past her lips. She slammed the tray to the floor then knocked her fists against her skull, twisting round with wild eyes.

  My hands slowed, and I stepped away from the yielding bread, away from Cook, whose body shook with anger as she cut a zigzagging path through the kitchen, her elbow knocking a plate to the floor. She grabbed the heavy dough and hurled it at the larder. Her white hair unfurled from its pins, and her hands flailed, grabbing wood spoons and strainers and pans and throwing them on the ground. No words passed her lips, just the wheezing keens and growls of a great horrible witch.

  Rebecca retreated to the stairwell. “Jacob!”

  Cook lurched to the stove. I grabbed her arm with both hands, trying to pull her from the boiling water and the iron heat, my heels skidding and catching on the seams in the floor.

  “It’s just an egg, Cook.”

  But it wasn’t just an egg, and I should not have belittled its rejection.

  I cut a glance to Rebecca, frozen with her hands clawed to the iron banister. Jacob shouldered past her, hesitating at the sight of Cook. Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her to the door.

  “It’s just Peter Savage,” he said.

  She blinked at Jacob. “Peter Savage.”

  “Peter’s come to call, Cook. Just Peter Savage.”

  He took both her hands in his and coaxed her out the door. I yanked a thick shawl from the hook nearby and followed them, wrapping it round Cook’s shoulders.

  We all squinted against the white. The air was sharp and smelled of cold and the smoke from the chimneys, not stale like the inside.

  “I make perfect eggs, Jacob.”

  “Yes, Cook, you do. I’ve never had one better.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Ayuh.”

  “You wouldn’t lie to an old woman?”

  “I don’t see one of those here.” Jacob released her hands and stepped back, his eyes widening as he spread his arms and fell straight back in the snow. He laughed, arms and legs sweeping round as he created an angel in a drift.

  “You’re too old for that, lad.”r />
  “Never too old, Cook. Never ever.”

  Cook ducked her chin and gave a quick shake of her head. And with a great swoop she landed beside him.

  I shrugged and joined them. Why not?

  Our arms and legs flailed with glee, kicking and throwing the snow. Cook laughed and laughed, looking like the little girl she no doubt forgot she’d ever been. Above us, the crystalline tree limbs burst scarlet—a flock of bandit-eyed cardinals gazed down at our lunatic selves.

  “Look.” I pointed.

  Cook’s chest heaved and slowed. “Will you look at that.”

  Jacob shook the snow from his hair and sat up, clasping his hands round his knees. “Don’t see that often.”

  “Get them a handful of millet, child.” She patted my knee.

  I rose carefully, not wanting to startle the birds or the angel I’d made. Rebecca waited at the door and followed me inside. The ceiling seemed even lower than usual, pressing my shoulders, competing with the sudden clutch of heat.

  “What about Mrs. Burton?” she asked.

  “Let her go hungry.” I shifted the lid of a bin and scooped the millet.

  “I’ll tell her you said that.”

  “She’s a spoiled thing, isn’t she?”

  Rebecca’s gaze flickered round the room, then settled on me, her eyes edged with a ring of something frantic, like a feral cat caught in a dark cellar. She spread her fingers then curled her hands into fists over and over, and I kenned that she, like us below, was confined by the snow, the never-ending white—and the whims of Mrs. Burton.

  “Will toast with molasses do,” I asked, “or should I bring down a deer for her?”

  “A bottle of tincture and spirits would please her best. But molasses and toast will do fine.”

  So. Mrs. Burton was fond of her laudanum. I didn’t blame her. Think of the house, Mr. LeRocque, and all the locks to keep her in. Nothing but the low gong of the clock and the rattle of the wind to occupy her mind.

  Later that night, as John Friday played the viol, the notes rolling both warm and melancholy round the table, my thoughts skimmed past Cook and her pile of mending, and Jacob’s boot blacking, and slipped instead up the stairs. I laid my sampler on the table and tapped the wood in time with the tune.