Listen to the Moon

by Rose Lerner

  “So,” Mrs. Pengilly said with a grin. “How’s married life treating you, girl?”

  Why not make the old woman happy? Sukey put her arms around John’s neck and hopped up, aiming for his mouth. He caught her instinctively, as she knew he would, holding her steady against him with her toes off the ground. She pressed her mouth to his, and he kissed her back with fervor, until she grew too heavy and he had to set her down. “Oh, tol-lol,” Sukey said, draining her glass.

  Mrs. Pengilly cackled and her son whistled, and John flushed and beamed at her. “I bought us a bottle of brandy.” He pointed at a green glass bottle on the table, corked and sealed with red wax.

  Sukey wouldn’t have expected her upstanding husband to buy smuggled spirits, but Harry Pengilly in a selling mood was hard to resist. “Shall we save it for ourselves, or go snacks with the others?” Her instinct was to hoard it, sharing a glass before bed all through Christmas and making love in a warm, tipsy haze. But she found she liked the idea of sharing even better, hosting a late-night party in the kitchen and staying up late, laughing and talking with their new friends. High life belowstairs, indeed!

  His mouth curved mischievously. “I thought you might like to give it to Mrs. Humphrey as a Christmas gift.”

  Sukey made a startled noise. He’d bought a whole bottle of brandy just so she could lord it over her former mistress? Oh, but she wanted to do it!

  Mrs. Pengilly burst out laughing. “A fine idea! Did you know she’s gone through three maidservants in the last month? The new one’s a proper toady. Don’t trust her as far as I could throw her, myself.”

  “That’s no matter, Mum,” Mr. Pengilly said. “I told her not to come round anymore. I think Mr. Toogood has the right of it. It’s high time I found you a nice girl to live in.”

  “Pooh, it’s a waste of money. I do well enough on my own.”

  While the Pengillys argued among themselves, Sukey whispered, “Thank you.”

  “I generally strive to avoid pettiness, but a little gloating now and then is good for the spleen.” He handed her the bottle.

  She flushed, grateful all over again that he had taken her side so easily. “I didn’t mean that. Thanks for talking to Mr. Pengilly about his mother.”

  His fingers lingered on hers. “Of course. I know you’re fond of her. By the by, I believe the Dymonds mean to leave for Spain in a few days, should you desire to wish them a safe voyage.”

  “Do you want to come with me?” She remembered he’d been puzzled she considered Mrs. Dymond a friend of sorts. But he’d been with Mr. Dymond so long.

  He hesitated, then shook his head. “I’m foxed, and I’d only distract from his packing. I’ll give him good wishes in church tomorrow.”

  So they left Mrs. Pengilly’s together, but he went north towards the vicarage while she held the smooth curve of her brandy bottle in her hands and crossed the street.

  She nearly went round the back by force of habit—but she tripped right up to Mrs. Humphrey’s front door and boldly seized the knocker.

  Miss Starling answered the door. “Sukey!”

  The boarders were collected round the fire in the front parlor. “Where’s the spinet?” she asked, startled.

  Miss Starling sighed. “Mrs. Humphrey sold it. It’s all right, I still have my guitar.”

  Sukey was struck, as she never quite had been before, by how bare the room was—not only because the wallpaper was ancient and peeling, but because there was not a single attempt at decoration of any kind.

  Like my mother’s room, she thought, unsettled.

  Today it looked cheerful enough, bedecked with greenery she was sure the boarders themselves had gathered and hung, but there were no pictures on the wall, not even an old fashion plate put up with tacks. The mantel piled with pine boughs was ordinarily quite empty.

  Sukey had never thought much of it. Empty shelves and tables were easy to clean, and she wasn’t expected to fuss about with oil and wax for the furniture. But it struck her how much more like a home it might appear, with only a few minutes and a penny here and there.

  She supposed it didn’t matter much to the boarders. They had their own rooms, and gussied them up to their hearts’ content. Only she and Mrs. Humphrey had spent their lives keeping everything that mattered locked where no one could see it.

  “Come, come.” Miss Starling took her arm. “Happy Christmas! We’ve missed you on our musical evenings. Sing us a good Robin Hood song.”

  Sukey had meant to give the brandy to Mrs. Humphrey privately, ever so sweetly, with a poisoned barb or two about making up for any little thing she might have wasted. She’d wanted to rub Mrs. Humphrey’s nose in how well she’d done since she left, make her old mistress have to be grateful to her. But if she did that, the bottle would go in the locked cabinet and be stretched out over the next two years.

  She held out the bottle. “Happy Christmas! Shall we open it?”

  “Oh, we couldn’t,” Miss Starling said. “That’s yours.”

  “I brought it for you ladies.” Sukey grinned at her. “I’ve come up in the world, you know.”

  “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Iphigenia Lemmon called. “Shall I fetch glasses?”

  They looked at each other, thinking of going down to the kitchen to ask Mrs. Humphrey for the use of glasses. Sukey remembered now that breaking one of the set while washing it had been the pretext for omitting a Christmas box altogether on her first Christmas at the boarding house.

  Getting the sack here was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Why hadn’t she left on her own? Why had it been so easy to stay?

  “We shall drink from the bottle,” Miss Starling proposed to a chorus of agreement.

  “Songs I don’t mind, ladies, but shouting—” Mrs. Humphrey froze in the doorway of the room. “Sukey.”

  “Ma’am.” Sukey bobbed a curtsey from habit.

  Mrs. Humphrey drew herself up. “If you need to speak with me, you may come round to the back door.”

  Sukey drew herself up too. It was small and mean, but she hated her old mistress. She hoped her new toady of a maid was stealing.

  “She came to see us,” Miss Lemmon said. “She’s going to sing to us about Robin Hood.”

  “Happy Christmas, ma’am.” Sukey gave her a defiant smile. “Have a glass of brandy at my expense, if you like.”

  Mrs. Humphrey looked at Miss Lemmon, industriously opening with the bottle with a corkscrew she had produced from somewhere about her person. “I don’t drink smuggled brandy,” she said abruptly, “and neither should you. It’s unpatriotic. What would Lord Wellington say?” She went out and slammed the door.

  Sukey felt ashamed—of the smuggled brandy and her own unkindness.

  Miss Lemmon passed her the open bottle. “Never mind her,” she whispered. “What difference does it make?”

  Sukey took a swig. None. It made none at all.

  * * *

  After leaving the Pengillys’, John had meant to buy a secondhand book at Foley’s Folios, but as the proprietor was a mummer and had closed up shop for the day, he had spent a leisurely afternoon by the kitchen fire with one of Mr. Summers’s histories. He could wish for more stimulating reading matter, but it was nice to have nothing to do.

  Even if he had secretly hoped, as he had the Saturday before, that he and his wife might contrive to share more than a few moments of conversation. But no, this was her chance to get away from him.

  “Johnny?”

  There she was now, in the doorway of the kitchen. He smiled at her. “Mrs. Toogood.”

  A few steps into the kitchen made it obvious she was quite drunk. “Mr. Dymond hopes you’ll send over your recipe for curing headaches.” She spoke very loudly. John hoped the vicar couldn’t hear.

  “My father swore me to secrecy when he taught me that recipe, I’m afraid
. Mr. Dymond celebrated the birth of our Lord rather heavily, I take it?”

  “Hadn’t even shaved,” she confirmed, and laughed at his wince. “He and my poor mistress both were in a bad way. I left them to it pretty quick. I’d have felt sorry for them, only Mrs. Dymond said it was justice for how happy they’d been last night.”

  She smiled at him, evidently well pleased with him and the world in general. “Wake me up when it’s time for my bath, will you?” And she was off again, leaving him to his dull history.

  A half-holiday ought to leave one feeling rested, but when Sunday dawned, John only felt discontented and unready to begin another week. A morning spent in church made things worse. This was the first time regular church attendance had been positively required of John by an employer, and today he resented it, as nearly another half-holiday stolen from him. On returning to the vicarage, he was obliged to give himself a stern talking-to before he could go briskly about his duties.

  They had all left for the morning service too early to clear the breakfast things; he went to the dining room to make sure that Molly had since done so.

  She was rolling up the hearthrug, presumably to take it outside to shake it out. A task Thea ought to have performed that morning.

  “Molly?”

  She threw him an apprehensive glance before standing, the rolled rug under one arm, and attempting to look blank. A piece of folded paper poked out of the neckline of her gown. On drawing closer, John recognized his own handwriting. A terrible suspicion seized him, a hundred small indications from the last week, overlooked at the time.

  “What is that paper?”

  “It’s the list of chores you gave me, sir.” She stood as tall as she could, which wasn’t very.

  “May I see it?”

  There was no way to refuse. She handed it over with a defiant look. Unfolding it confirmed his worst fears. “This appears to be the list I gave Thea.” Thea had copied it out again on the back in block print, so Molly could read it.

  She frowned. “Is it? We must’ve got them swapped.”

  John felt very tired. So, no doubt, did she, attempting every day to accomplish two full days of work. On very little sleep, if his suspicions were correct. Had she taken Thea’s tasks in trade for answering the bell at night? It was an uneven bargain, if she had; and Molly had been at him to lighten Thea’s work from the moment he’d written the lists.

  “You’re a good friend, Molly. But one day you will learn that you do others no favors in doing their work for them, instead of encouraging them to do it themselves.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and he remembered that she had spent Boxing Day aiding a sick friend with her washing. “I’m just helping Thea out for half an hour,” she insisted stalwartly. “Mrs. Khaleel sent her into town for some onions.”

  There was nowhere to buy onions in town that would be open on Sunday, and the hearthrugs were meant to be shaken out in the early morning, when Thea had decidedly not been on an errand. This could not continue.

  Mr. Summers was presently at the church, leading the afternoon service. “Thea,” John called, loud enough to be heard all through the house. Thea did not appear. “Dorothea Maddocks, where are you?”

  He went through every room, opening cupboards and chests, and found her scrambling out from under the bed in one of the guest bedrooms. It was at least a credit to his staff’s work that she was not sneezing or covered in cobwebs. “Thea, I found this in Molly’s possession.” He showed her her list.

  She gave him a panicky glance and said nothing.

  “I know you are very young,” he said gently. “You are evidently in some distress as well. But that is no excuse for allowing others to do your work for you. Poor Molly has been run off her feet.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the other servants gathering in the doorway. He went to shut the door, and then reflected that perhaps privacy would not reassure Thea in the way he hoped. “Mrs. Toogood, kindly attend me.”

  Sukey stepped reluctantly into the room. “Go back to your duties,” he told the others. “I do not suppose you would like everyone gawking at you.” He shut the door, under no illusions that they would not still be there when he opened it again.

  “Thea,” he said, “if there is anything you would like to say in your own defense, I would be glad to hear it.”

  She shook her head hopelessly.

  “I was your age once, you know. I might understand.”

  She snorted.

  He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sink and vanish into her lethargy like a pebble dropped in a pond. “There have been plenty of times when I have not wished to do my work. But you and I were born into a station where we either work or starve. Do you wish to starve?”

  She sighed noisily.

  “Thea?”

  “Of course not, sir.”

  “Then you must work.”

  “Yes, sir.” The dull defiance that often underlay her monosyllabism was more pronounced than usual. She had never even thanked him for the new dress that she wore. He hoped she had thanked Mr. Summers.

  “Thea, you cannot collect wages indefinitely without earning them,” he said, more sharply than he meant to. “Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then from now on, Molly will go on errands and you will stay here where I can keep an eye on you.” He looked at Sukey, relieved to find that her face mirrored his own frustrated incomprehension. Without that, he couldn’t have said, “And if I find you hiding in a cupboard or under a bed again, I shall be obliged to bring the matter to Mr. Summers’s attention.”

  Her face twisted resentfully. “I can’t help it,” she said hotly, tears brimming in her eyes.

  “What do you mean?”

  “N-nothing. Never mind.”

  “You can help it.” If he could not make her see, she would be turned off by Epiphany. “You must try harder. Self-command is never easy, but it is always possible.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Then explain—”

  The door burst open and Molly barreled in. “You beast,” she said furiously to John. “You beast. Can’t you leave her alone? I don’t mind a spot of extra work. Just until she’s feeling better.” She put her arms round the crying girl, who clung trustingly to her in a manner both touching and maddening.

  “She will never feel better if you all coddle her like this. The only cure for malaise is exertion.” He realized the next moment that he ought to have objected to her tone instead of deigning to quarrel with her.

  Molly curled a hand around the girl’s head. “You’ve assigned her too much work with your bloody lists. You’ve given us all more work than there are hours in the day. We know how to do our jobs, but no, you think—”

  Sukey came forward and tugged at her arm. “We’ll all be calmer later. Let’s—”

  She was right. John was not calm in the least. “Good Christ,” he said in disbelief, “what is wrong with all of you? I told you to give it a month. A month! You will be used to it soon, and do it faster than you can at present imagine. But no, you are all so damned lazy—”

  “John,” Sukey said in as quietly reasonable a tone as one could manage through gritted teeth. “No one is lazy.”

  Why did she always take their part against him? He was no tyrant. He was the opposite. His father would have told Thea to get her things and go after that first nap in the cupboard, no matter what the girl had undergone.

  He turned on her. “Oh no? Then why, after a fortnight of being constantly reminded, do you still never look at anything in the light after cleaning it? The number of dishes I have had to polish streaks off does not bear thinking on.”

  She glared at him. “I’m trying. I’ve never cleaned such fine china before.”

  “There is lack of expertise and then there is lack of common s
ense. How much experience do you imagine one needs in order to open a shutter and tilt one’s head to catch the light?”

  “No one has ever complained of my work before,” she said passionately.

  It was low, he knew it was low—but he raised one eyebrow and let the silence stretch. Haven’t they? Her face flushed bright, bright red, and her mouth trembled.

  “Stop feeding her carp-pie.” Molly’s voice shook. “It’s low, to be nasty to your own wife.”

  John flushed with shame.

  Sukey forcibly shoved the two girls out the door, as if afraid of what John would do. “We’ll talk later, when we’re all calmer,” she said, not looking him in the eye, and shut the door.

  There was nothing pressing requiring John’s attention. He would occupy himself for a few hours in repairing Mr. Summers’s neglected wardrobe, and perhaps by evening he would have decided how to proceed. He strode to Mr. Summers’s room, jerked open the wardrobe, and began laying out coats and pantaloons with shaking hands.

  Chapter Ten

  Thea headed for the laundry, sniffling and wiping her streaming eyes and nose on her sleeve. Sukey and Molly followed, but she said, “You shouldn’t help me anymore. You’ll get me in trouble with Mr. Toogood.”

  Sukey thought this was the most sensible thing she’d ever heard the girl say, but Molly stopped as if she’d been shot. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

  “I told you to leave me alone. No one ever listens.” Thea stamped off to the laundry and began sloshing water about.

  “John’s just trying to keep her from getting the sack,” Sukey said.

  “So was I!”

  “Then you’re on the same side, aren’t you?”

  Molly went still, surprised. And then, to Sukey’s shock, her face trembled and tears brimmed in her eyes.

  “What’s the matter? What did I say?”

  Taking her by the arm, Molly dragged her through the kitchen past poor Mrs. Khaleel, who must be dying to know what had gone on upstairs but couldn’t leave her kettles and roasts, and shut the pantry door behind them. “If I tell you something, do you promise not to tell your husband?”