Without a Mother's Love

by Catherine King

  Miss Trent came to look over her shoulder as she drew.‘That’s good, Olivia,’ she said.

  Olivia put down her chalk.‘Why didn’t you beat me harder?’ she asked.

  ‘You said you hadn’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘But we all have to do what Uncle Hesley says. That’s what Mrs Cookson told me.’

  ‘I use beating for really wicked things.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Telling lies. Stealing.’

  ‘Not for talking to a gypsy? Or crying in the middle of the night?’ Olivia saw Miss Trent frown.

  ‘Is that why your uncle beats you?’

  ‘Yes, and he’ll beat you, too, if you don’t do as he says!’ Olivia gave a satisfied smirk as Miss Trent’s eyes widened in alarm.

  ‘It’s time to wash for tea,’ her governess said briskly. ‘I’ll fetch some hot water.’

  ‘Oh, I just rinse my hands in the scullery.’

  Miss Trent smiled at her. ‘Not now that I am your governess. Go and find your hairbrush and a clean pinafore.’

  Olivia picked up her slate and walked through the anteroom, where Miss Trent’s bag sat unopened on the narrow bed, and on into her own bedchamber. She treasured this room because it was her private place, like her wilderness in the walled garden where no one could find her. She leaned the slate against the small wooden cupboard that contained the chamber pot, went to the washstand and took off her cap. She was still trying to drag the brush through her tangled hair when Miss Trent came back with a ewer of water.

  ‘Here, let me.’ Miss Trent tackled the ends, holding Olivia’s hair firmly at the roots so that it did not tug and hurt. She tied it back with a piece of bonnet tape and replaced Olivia’s cap. ‘Have you a looking-glass?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or a small brush for your nails?’

  Olivia didn’t reply, and Miss Trent said, ‘At least you have soap. Give your hands and face a good wash while I unpack.’ She poured some water into the china basin and took the rest with her, closing the door behind her.

  Olivia swirled the water with a finger. It was still hot! She splashed it on her face and wiped it off with the cloth. Grey streaks appeared on the white linen and she grimaced. Mrs Cookson scolded her when this happened in the scullery.

  Hesitantly, she took up the soap and turned it over and over in her hands, watching the water become cloudy. She played with the creamy foam for a minute, then rubbed her palms over her face, enjoying the soft lather on her skin. She decided she didn’t mind washing when the water was warm.

  Harriet Trent took Olivia’s hand and went down for tea as soon as she heard the clock in the hall chime the hour. She had been hungry all day but the smell of baking bread when she had drawn water from the boiler in the kitchen range had increased her appetite. In the warm kitchen, one end of the table had been set for the three of them.

  ‘Is all this for us?’ she exclaimed, when she saw it. Tea at Blackstone School was usually bread and dripping.

  There was the crust end of a game pie cut into two pieces, a dish of beetroot and some garden radishes, a bowl of boiled eggs and a leg of mutton, which Mrs Cookson was slicing with a long, sharp knife.

  ‘Not much left on this now.Will you have a taste, Miss Trent?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Her eyes were drawn to the breadboard with the crusty loaf and the slab of butter, which still bore the marks of the wooden bats from the dairy. Butter! Her mouth watered at the thought of butter on her bread.

  Olivia stretched for an egg, tapped it on her plate and began to peel away its shell.

  ‘May I say grace, Mrs Cookson?’

  ‘If you must. I suppose that is the Blackstone way.’

  ‘Thank you. Put your egg down, Olivia.’ She waited patiently until her charge obeyed.

  ‘Lord, bless this food for our use and us to thy service. Amen.’

  Mrs Cookson reached for the beetroot, muttering, ‘I hope the master knows what he’s doing taking you on.’ She picked up a stoneware jug.‘There’s milk to drink. Or would you rather have some o’ this ale?’

  ‘I’ll take the same as Olivia. You keep a good table, Mrs Cookson.’

  ‘Aye, well, that’s my job here. The mutton leg and pie are leftovers from the master’s dining room. Miss Olivia will have some bread and butter with her eggs, if you’ll oblige.’

  Harriet sawed at the bread and understood why her pupil was so well grown for her age, and Mrs Cookson so rounded. But because she was used to having so little eat, it was difficult for her to do justice to the meal. She did her best, though, until her stomach felt uncomfortably full.

  ‘I see there is a fireplace in the schoolroom,’ she commented.

  ‘Aye, and the chimney’s swept. They were all done after Easter.’

  ‘Then may I light a fire during the winter months?’

  ‘You can have one now, if you want.You’ll need it if we get a north-easterly. But you’ll have to carry the coals yourself. I’ve no housemaids. Mind, with you taking the little ’un off me hands, I’ll be better off, make no mistake.’

  ‘How many buckets of coal may I have?’

  ‘As many as you want. The master owns Mexton Pit. Didn’t they tell you that at Blackstone? He sells ’em his slack, doesn’t he?’

  Harriet nodded. Slack was the cheapest coal found at the edges of the seams. It was poor quality and mixed with stones that left clinker in the grates when it had burned. The master would not be able to sell it to the furnaces and forges in the valley because it didn’t give out enough heat.

  ‘We allus have plenty of coal here,’ Mrs Cookson continued. ‘The pit sends it by the drayload wi’ a couple o’ men to shovel it in the coalhole across the yard.’

  Good food. Warm fires. And her own small bedchamber. Suddenly Harriet felt anxious that something dreadful might happen to take it all away. It was a strange feeling and it reminded her of how she had felt when she had first arrived at Blackstone School. Austere as it was, it was better than where she had come from. And now, more than ten years later, she was grateful to be gone from there.

  ‘What happened to your kinfolk, Miss Trent? All the girls at Blackstone are orphans, aren’t they?’

  ‘No, but I was. My mother and father died when I was seven.’ She remembered them as being old, with grey hair and bent backs. All three of them had been laid low by a fever and only she had survived. It was a long time ago now but she had not forgotten the fear when she had been taken away from the only home she had known in the back of a farm cart.

  ‘And you’ve been at Blackstone ever since?’

  ‘I was taken to a poorhouse first and stayed there for two years.’

  ‘We had a scullery-maid from a poorhouse once,’ Olivia exclaimed.

  ‘Aye, good little worker she were till she upped and left wi’ a passing tinker. Still, we got you now, Miss Trent.’

  ‘She isn’t a scullery-maid,’ Olivia stated loudly.

  I was in the poorhouse, Harriet recalled. And a laundry-maid. She said, ‘I have been luckier than most. My mother had a distant cousin in the clergy who heard of my misfortune. He applied to the trustees at Blackstone for a charity place there.’ When she’d arrived at the school, she had thought it wasn’t much better than the poorhouse, but at least she had had lessons for some of the time, instead of washing and scrubbing all day.

  ‘What did you do at Blackstone?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘I learned.’

  ‘Learned what?’

  ‘All the things I’m going to teach you.’ As she said this, she remembered how terrified she had been that she might be sent back to the poorhouse, and how hard she had studied to avoid that fate. She saw that now she felt the same about returning to Blackstone School, with its frugal ways and strict regime. She never wanted to go back to the humiliation of being a charity girl, walking with her head bowed and for ever beholden to her betters. She shivered at the memory of her attic dormitory, shared with more than a dozen others
, where the water in the washstand ewers turned to ice overnight.

  ‘Are you all right, Miss Trent?’ Mrs Cookson asked.

  ‘A little tired from the walk here. That’s all.’

  Even as a pupil teacher her only privilege had been the worn gown and boots given to the school by clergymen’s wives who passed on their servants’ clothing for the older girls.

  Many of the pupils went to be nursery-maids as soon as they were old enough. Harriet had been fortunate, she was told, for she read and wrote well: she could stay on as a pupil teacher. She had thought sometimes that the others were the lucky ones. They were paid for their work. As a charity girl she was taught to feel honoured that she could serve the school as a teacher and thereby repay her benefactors.The only money she had known was the few coppers they gave her each week to put in the church collection. She longed for escape, and when this opportunity to leave had come she had grasped it with both hands. And to the Mextons at Hill Top House!

  Fate had dealt her a good card. Here, there was hope, hope of finding answers to her questions about Olivia Copley and why she lived with the Mextons. Here, there were books and papers, and the freedom to read them. Now that she had left Blackstone she would make sure she never had to go back.

  ‘I’m surprised they let you go, you being a teacher there, like,’ Mrs Cookson commented. ‘Especially to here, where the master is well known for his . . .’ she glanced at the child ‘. . . his ways.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This is not a churchgoing household.’

  ‘Oh. I did not know that. But I wanted to come here and none of the other teachers did. The principal encouraged me. He told me the school would have free coal for the winter if I accepted.’

  ‘Did he? I hope the master will pay you as well.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Harriet was excited about her salary. ‘It goes to Blackstone until I come of age. But after I am one-and-twenty it will be mine. And the principal said that the master would provide me with boots and cloth for a gown at Michaelmas.’

  ‘Is that all you’ve got, then? What you stand up in?’

  ‘I have undergarments, a nightgown and an apron.’ Harriet thought of the work she would be doing.‘I should like another apron. Do you have a spare one, Mrs Cookson?’

  ‘I’ll see if I can find some old linen you can make up. And while you’re about it, the little ’un could do wi’ some more. You can show her how to sew ’em for herself.’

  ‘What about her gowns?’

  ‘There’s a draper’s shop in town.’

  ‘Is it far into town from here?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye, it is. Too far to walk there and back on a half-day.’

  ‘Oh.’ Harriet was disappointed. Still, she had no money to spend yet so perhaps it was just as well.

  ‘We don’t use fancy plates and silver forks ’ere, but we’re well provided for. What the farm can’t gi’ us we ’ave sent up on a cart.’

  ‘There must be a church that is nearer than town?’

  ‘I told you. We’re not church folk.’

  ‘What about the little one on the moor?’ Olivia squeaked.

  ‘Aye, there’s that. Not many goes, though. Most of the men have left to work in the pits and ironworks, and the cottages are falling down.’

  ‘Does it have a clergyman?’

  ‘Oh, aye. A curate comes from t’other side of the moor on a Sunday.’

  ‘Would you like to come to church with me, Olivia?’

  ‘Ooh, yes!’ Then her face fell. ‘Will Uncle Hesley let me?’

  Harriet raised her eyebrows questioningly at Mrs Cookson.

  ‘He’s not that bothered what she does, as long as she stays out o’ trouble.’

  The younger woman smiled at her charge. ‘I’m sure your uncle will not object if he sees how well you can behave.’

  ‘It might do her some good,’ Mrs Cookson shrugged. ‘But it’s not what she’s used to. Me and you should have a little talk, Miss Trent. Not now. Wait until the child is in bed, then come down for a nightcap.’

  After tea, Harriet helped to clear away and wash up while Olivia whooped around the yard outside the kitchen window. Harriet watched her scatter a handful of crumbs, then retreat to the barn while the doves came down to peck at them.Then she ran out and tried to catch one, chasing after the birds and jumping in the air as they flapped away. She stood with her head tilted back to watch them settle on the tiled roofs of the buildings surrounding the yard.

  Mrs Cookson was preparing a cooked meal of pig’s fry and onions for Matt and his lad who lived above the stables. They looked after the horses and livestock for the master, as well as working what was left of his land.They took bread and cheese out with them for their dinner.

  ‘Keep your eye on her,’ she warned Harriet. ‘If she runs off there’s no finding her. Look at her, like a wild animal, she is.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Harriet observed.‘She’s probably just lonely. And bored. I can see why she’s so grubby.’

  ‘I do me best with ’er.’

  ‘Of course you do, but you have enough with looking after this large house by yourself. Is the water hot again yet?’

  Half an hour later, she was carrying another ewer of hot water upstairs with some clean towels, nudging a reluctant child in front of her. ‘But it’s not dark yet and I washed before tea,’ Olivia whined.

  ‘I can see the bits you missed. And your hair needs a proper brushing. Besides, I want to read to you before the light goes. Has anyone read to you before?’

  ‘Mama used to when I was little. And we said prayers.’ She stopped abruptly on the landing. ‘I don’t want you to read to me.You’re not my mama.’

  Harriet did not argue and wondered how her pupil had occupied herself all day on her own. She blew out her cheeks as she thought of her outside with her drawers in her hand. The master was right to be worried. ‘Tell me what you do with your mornings,’ she said.

  The child shrugged.

  ‘Do’ you play on the moor?’ she persisted gently, untying the pinafore bow.

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Take off your boots now. Do you have friends out there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No one at all? What about the gypsy?’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘But he was your friend?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t,’ she replied indignantly.‘He said he was hungry so I took him a pie from the larder. And Uncle Hesley beat me. He said it was stealing, but it wasn’t! It was as much my pie as it was his. Mrs Cookson said so.’

  ‘Did you talk to the gypsy?’

  Olivia nodded as she struggled out of her boots and stockings.

  ‘When did you last wash your feet?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘I see. Now, take off your gown. Did you play games with the gypsy?’

  ‘No. He was old and dirty. Really dirty.’

  Harriet hid a smile and resolved to find a looking-glass. ‘Did he touch you?’

  ‘Ugh, no. I wouldn’t let him near me! I left the pie on a boulder.’

  She helped Olivia take off the grubby gown. Her chemise was clean but the drawers were decidedly muddy and torn.

  ‘Why did you take off your drawers out there, Miss Olivia?’

  ‘I didn’t!’

  ‘I know when you’re lying. Did someone take them off for you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is that the truth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you did take them off, didn’t you? Why?’

  ‘I’m not telling you. It’s a secret.’

  Harriet did not respond to this and continued getting Olivia ready for bed, insisting that she washed her ears, the back of her neck and her arms.

  ‘Now down there.’

  Olivia screwed up her nose. ‘It smells.’

  ‘I know.That’s why you must wash.You’ll feel more comfortable afterwards.’

  When the child made no further move, she squ
eezed out a cloth in the warm water and handed it over, adding firmly, ‘With soap.’

  The child obeyed reluctantly.

  ‘Has anyone touched you there?’ she asked.

  Olivia concentrated on her task silently.

  ‘You must tell me,’ she added. ‘Even if it is a secret.’

  ‘You’re horrible.’ She threw the cloth into the water.

  Harriet persisted: ‘When you took off your drawers, was anyone with you?’

  ‘No! Nobody knows about my—’ She stopped. ‘Go away. I hate you.’

  ‘Very well. No more questions.’ She wondered how she could persuade Olivia to talk to her. Beating the child would not get at the truth and would ensure that Olivia lost confidence in Harriet for ever. She said, ‘Tip that dirty water into the slop bucket next door and I’ll pour some more for your feet.’

  A few minutes later Harriet watched as the child wriggled her toes in the warm water and rubbed between them with a soapy cloth. ‘Would you like me to read the words in the book about your castle?’ she asked.

  The child looked at her sullenly.

  Harriet handed her a towel. ‘Put on your nightdress and cap. Tomorrow I shall start to teach you to read them for yourself.’

  Chapter 2

  As soon as Olivia was asleep, Harriet went down to the kitchen. She sat at the table. ‘What did you want to say to me?’

  Mrs Cookson yawned, reached for a stone bottle and poured some dark liquid into a metal tankard. ‘That life in this house is a bit different from Blackstone. Will you have a drop o’ this?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Rum. From the West Indies. You should try it.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Well, don’t expect no clean-living church ways from the master. Black sheep, he is. The Mextons used to be a respected family round ’ere. Samuel, Miss Olivia’s grandfather, was a real gentleman and his daughter, God rest her soul, was a proper lady.’

  ‘That would be Olivia’s mother?’

  ‘Aye. The master is Samuel’s younger brother and, if you ask me, he’s a bad lot.’

  ‘He is caring for his great-niece, and he has engaged me to look after her,’ Harriet reminded her.