by Lou Kuenzler
“Yes, sir,” agreed James, nodding to his master. I saw a muscle twitch in the side of his cheek as he stared at his boots.
That’s what it is, I thought. He’s jealous.
“We’ll leave you to it,” said Mr Manly, heading off with the squire across the yard. “James will show you the ropes, Joe. You’re in good hands.”
“Thank you, Mr Manly. Thank you for the opportunity,” I said.
But, as I turned to face James again, he narrowed his flashing grey eyes and frowned.
“I don’t think it was great skill you showed, bringing the horse home like that, Joe Green. It was nothing but showing off and circus tricks,” he said.
“But—” I felt as if I had been slapped in the face. “I rode Black Beauty back safely. Isn’t that all that matters?” I asked.
“You were lucky. You took a gamble and it paid off,” said James. “But your silly stunt put the horse in danger.”
I blushed furiously and bit my lip. If he knew who I really was, he would never dare to scold me like that.
But what he said next sent me reeling.
“There was a master of a big house killed just a few weeks ago. Took a foolish leap in the hunting field. Too big for him. Too big for his horse.”
He was talking about Father…
“Luckily, the horse survived,” said James quietly. “But the idiot riding him died.”
“Idiot?” I felt my knees buckle. “How dare you say that? You didn’t even know him.”
“Don’t need to.” James shrugged. “I know his type. Gets himself a big new thoroughbred. Wants to show it off to the other gentry… All for the sake of killing a fox.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I spluttered. “Not really…”
“You knew him?” James looked surprised.
“Yes! I knew him. He was my…” I stopped barely able to swallow, let alone speak. “He was my … my master. Up at Summer’s Place.”
“I’m sorry.” James’s dark cheeks reddened. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, you do now,” I said, hearing my voice go high like a girl. But I didn’t care. “He was a fine horseman. At least he didn’t go around falling off all the time just because his saddle slipped.”
I had been going to tell James about the frayed strap, so he would know it really wasn’t his fault. But I wouldn’t bother. Not now.
“That reminds me,” he said. “You had no business leaving the saddle up there in the field. It’s French. Worth more than you’ll earn in a year. Five years on the pittance you’ll be paid. You should have brought it back with you.”
“How on earth was I supposed to do that?” I snapped. “I was riding bareback!”
“Exactly,” snorted James as if that proved a point. “Walk up there now and fetch it. When you come back, I hope you’ll have had time to cool off and improve your attitude, Joe Green. I don’t know what passed for manners at Summer’s Place but I am head stable boy at Birtwick Park and you’ll do as I say without fuss.”
The French saddle weighed a ton. I was still fuming as I staggered home with it. The stirrups clanged against my knees and I couldn’t even see my feet as I tripped back down the lane.
It was six o’clock by the stable clock when I finally reached the yard. My arms ached from carrying the saddle. My legs burned from clinging tight to Beauty. My head felt light and my stomach churned with hunger. I hadn’t had a crumb to eat since lunchtime the day before.
Two boys in garden smocks were dipping hunks of bread into deep white bowls as they stretched out in the sun against the low wall.
“Suppertime,” I gasped. “Thank goodness.”
“Not for you.” The first boy laughed. As they looked up I saw they both had shaggy blonde hair, big ears and sticky-out teeth. I couldn’t tell one from the other.
“You won’t get supper till you’ve dealt with that lot.” The second boy nodded his head towards the stables. “The horses will need oats and hay before you get your broth.”
He dipped his bread again.
“That’s the good thing about spuds and cauliflowers. They don’t kick and holler if you ignore ’em for a while,” added the first boy, glancing over his shoulder towards the kitchen garden. “I’m Wilf, by the way, and this is Sid,” he said, talking with his mouth full as he hungrily dipped his bread again.
“We’re twins, in case you hadn’t spotted.” Sid laughed. “We work in the garden.”
“I’m Joe,” I said, without even a blink. I was getting used to the sound of my new name. “Stable lad.”
“And circus rider, so we’ve heard,” said Wilf with a whistle. “Quite a commotion you caused.”
Oh no. I didn’t want to start all that again. Especially as I saw James coming across the yard towards us.
“I’d better get this put away,” I said, heaving the saddle into my arms again and trying not to groan. The heaviest thing I had ever carried up until now was my thick leather-bound book on the kings and queens of England. My old governess, Miss Witchell, was forever testing me on great long passages I was supposed to learn by heart.
“Best get those horses fed,” said one of the twins. I think it was Wilf but they had stood up and moved so I had no way of telling which was which. “James looks like he’s in a fit of fury.”
James was stomping back and forward across the yard with pitchforks of hay.
“Everything’s got late, on account of all that kerfuffle,” said Sid (or perhaps Wilf).
“Right.” I knew I ought to go, but watched hungrily as the twins tossed the end of their bread to the pretty white birds who flew down from the dovecote. My stomach rumbled as I staggered away with the saddle.
“See you tonight, Joe,” they called.
“Tonight?” I looked back over my shoulder.
“You’ll be sleeping in the loft with the rest of us lads.” The twin pointed to a row of narrow windows below the stable clock.
Bedtime? I hadn’t even thought about where a stable lad like me would sleep. But, of course, it would be with the other outdoor servant boys.
Where would I wash? What if I needed the lavatory? I had sneaked into the wood at the top field when I went to fetch the saddle … but I couldn’t do that every time.
Being a boy – a stable boy – was going to be much harder than I thought…
Chapter Twelve
The bread was thick and dry. I think the soup was potato, but it could have been turnip. I wasn’t sure. It was lumpy and cold by the time I came to eat it, sitting on the ground with my back against the wall as Wilf and Sid had done. By then, the sun was sinking and I had swept the yard and carried hay and water to each of the eighteen horses stabled there. I was so hungry I really think I would have stuck my head in Merrylegs’s manger and shared his oats if that was all there was.
Half an hour later, I fell exhausted on to the thin straw-stuffed mattress in the loft above the stables. The floorboards and rafters were bare and strips of sacking covered the window to keep out the draughts. But I could have been sinking into my own feather bed, the mattress felt so soft and welcoming.
The other boys wore their long johns and shirts to sleep in, so I did the same. There was no talk of washing and to my relief there was a tumbledown privy at the edge of the kitchen garden. It was dark and full of spiders’ webs and I had to perch with my bare bottom over a hole in a wooden board. But at least the little stone shed had a rickety door I could close to be alone and go to the lavatory like a girl.
All I wanted now was to shut my eyes and sleep.
“So Joe, tell us your story,” said one of the twins eagerly, as I laid my head on my lumpy pillow. “Tell us how you came to Birtwick Park.”
“Tomorrow,” I murmured, rolling over to face the rough whitewashed wall. Despite dozing all the way here in the hay cart, I had never been so exhausted in my whole life. After all, I’d had to be up before dawn to run away from Summer’s Place this morning.
“Goodnight.” I pulled the bristly bl
anket up around my shoulders and snuggled down for a long deep sleep.
“Joe! Joe Green! Get up.”
Someone was shouting.
“Who do you think you are? Queen Victoria in Windsor Castle? There’s horses to be fed.”
It seemed I had only been asleep for a moment, but as I sat up and rubbed my eyes, I saw the top of James’s dark head disappearing down the ladder from the loft.
“Hurry up!” he barked.
I crawled forward and lifted the sacking curtains on the narrow window above my bed. It was barely light outside. Surely we didn’t need to be up so soon?
I glanced around the loft, squinting in the grey light.
Wilf and Sid’s mattresses were empty too, their blankets left in a tangled mess. But James’s covers were pulled up neat and flat as if they had been smoothed with an iron.
“I’ll be with you … in just one minute,” I said, flopping back on to my bed and closing my eyes. It was only for a moment.
Splash! Something cold and wet hit me in the face.
“Help! What’s that?” I leapt to my feet and blinked.
An enormous, thick-set boy with small piggy eyes was standing over my bed. He had an empty metal pail in his hand and I was dripping from head to toe.
“You … you threw a bucket of water over me,” I gasped.
“Reckon I did.” The big youth snorted. “Is that why you screamed like a girl?”
“I didn’t!” I said, grabbing the blanket and trying to mop myself down. But I could hear that my voice was still high-pitched and screechy. Worse, my hands were shaking.
“Who are you anyway?” I said, trying to growl from deep in my chest. “I was fast asleep, you know.”
“Exactly!” The boy scratched his armpit. “I’m Caleb Trotter, carthorse groom. He pointed out of the window towards the back of the stable block where the working cobs and plough horses were kept. “His Majesty James the First said you needed waking.”
“James the First?” What was he talking about.
“King James, as I calls him.” Caleb snorted like a hog again, showing off a row of chipped yellow teeth. “I’m two years older than His Majesty. Yet he thinks he’s so high and mighty, just cos he’s looking after the fancy riding horses and I’ve got the heavy brutes instead.”
“James Howard, the stable boy?” I asked. “He told you to pour a bucket of water over me?” I grabbed my trousers, hopping on one foot as I pulled them up over my soaking long johns. “Well, we’ll see about that!” I grabbed my waistcoat from the wooden crate which served as both a table and a chair beside my bed. James wouldn’t get away with this. I would report him to Squire Gordon if I had to … I was sure the squire knew my father.
Then I remembered that I didn’t have a father. Not any more. And I don’t suppose the squire cared what went on amongst his stable boys so long as his tack was polished and his horses were kept fit.
“James didn’t actually tell me to throw the bucket of water.” said Caleb, laughing. “He just said to come and check you was up. Soaking you was my own idea!”
“Horrid brute!” I lunged at him. But the only person I’d ever had a fist fight with was Cousin Eustace when I was five years old. It turned out Caleb was a whole lot stronger than that.
“Quite the little weasel, aren’t you,” he hissed, grabbing my head under his arm and twisting my neck like a corkscrew.
“Ouch!” I stamped on his toes. But it was hopeless – I was still in my stocking feet. He had his huge heavy work boots on.
He picked me up under one arm as if I was no more than a bundle of hay and bumped me down the ladder from the loft.
“Hey, King James,” he called, throwing me over his shoulder now like a sack of oats. “I got your stinking boy for you. Reckon he needs to cool down!”
I was still kicking and squirming and fighting but it did no good.
Caleb heaved me off his shoulder and dumped me – splosh – right in the middle of the horses’ water trough.
“Ah!” It was freezing cold.
James stood with his hands on his hips looking furious. But he said nothing. It was hard to tell if he was cross with me or Caleb or both of us. The twins had come to see what the commotion was too.
“At least you’re nice and clean now, Joe,” said one of them. I think it was Sid – he had bigger ears.
“Saves you having a bath,” agreed Wilf, giggling.
That did it. I stood up in the trough and shook my dripping fists at them all, swearing like I’d once heard Billy do when a tearaway colt of Father’s kicked him in the knee.
“Control yourself, or you’ll have Mr Manly to answer to,” barked James.
“Fiery temper that one!” sneered Caleb. “It’s the red hair that does it!”
“Just like Ginger.” Sid sounded amused.
“Who’s Ginger?” Another stable boy who’d want to challenge me as well? “Bring him out here and I’ll fight him right now,” I roared.
“Steady on. Ginger’s a girl,” Wilf said, grinning.
“A girl?” I lowered my fists. I must have looked like an idiot, standing dripping wet in the water trough.
“Ginger is a horse.” Caleb sniggered. “You’ll meet her soon enough.”
Chapter Thirteen
I stood, wet as a drowned rat, in front of James, while Caleb sloped back off to the carthorses.
“Go to the laundry,” James said with a sigh. “Have them dry those soggy clothes and find you something else to wear meanwhile.”
Now all the fight was gone from me, I felt close to tears. I turned my back and walked away without a word.
“Wait, Joe!” James called after me. “Keep away from Caleb. The boy’s a brute. He broke our last stable lad’s arm in a fight.”
“Then you shouldn’t have sent him to wake me up, should you!” I snapped, almost running out of the arched carriage gate and away from the stable yard.
At least Sid had brought my boots from the loft.
I nearly stomped right up the steps to the front door of the big house. Then I remembered servants were not allowed in that way. I squelched around the side of the kitchens to the service yard with the laundry at the back.
If the stables were cold and draughty, the laundry room was like an oven. There were steaming tubs everywhere with fires blazing to keep the water hot and heat the heavy smoothing irons to flatten the sheets. No wonder us stable boys were only given blankets. I had never thought before of all the work it took to wash and press fresh linen for the master and his family to sleep in every night.
“Excuse me,” I shouted over the noise of a grinding mangle wringing water from a tablecloth. “James sent me from the stables…”
At the mention of his name, two rosy-faced girls began to giggle.
“James Howard sent you, did he?”
They bustled me into a side room, more like a cupboard full of folded sheets, but at least it was quiet enough to talk.
If it hadn’t been eight o’clock in the morning, I would have thought the girls had been in the cider press and were drunk already, the way they were giggling and nudging each other.
“Did James have his sleeves rolled up?” asked one of them.
“His sleeves?”
“I wish he’d come up ’ere ’imself. You tell ’im, Daisy is ’ere any time ’e needs ’er ’elp,” giggled the blonde.
“And Doris,” said the darker one. “In fact, you give him this and say it was from me.” She leant forward and smacked a big wet kiss right in the middle of my cheek.
Ugh. Whatever was the matter with them?
“If you’d smile a bit, you’re not so bad-looking yourself,” said Doris, crouching down in front of me. “Give it a couple of years and I might even dance with you at the harvest supper.”
“Listen, all I need is some dry clothes,” I said, sticking out my chin and scowling.
“All right, keep your shirt on… In fact, you better take it off before you die of cold.” Daisy gig
gled.
“Take it off? Here? In front of you?” I folded my arms tight across my chest. “I – I can’t do that.”
“What do think we are? A couple of peeping Toms?” said Doris scornfully. “Of course not here. Get behind that screen and we’ll have your long johns too.”
“Oh my lord! What have we here?” Wilf was halfway between the muck heap and the garden. He dropped his wheelbarrow and gaped at me with his mouth wide open.
I was not surprised he was staring. Daisy and Doris had dressed me up in a frilly white nightdress with my bare legs poking out of the bottom and my heavy working boots underneath.
“It’s – it’s one of Miss Jessie’s from the big house,” I blushed. “The girls in the laundry said there wasn’t anything else.”
“Hmm. Expect you rubbed them up the wrong way,” said Wilf, serious for a moment. “I reckon you’re a nice lad, Joe. Really I do. But you got to watch out for that. You can’t fight with everyone you meet.”
He was looking at me with his head on one side just like Nanny Clay used to when I threw a tantrum.
I was about to tell him to keep his nose out when his brother came down the path the other way.
“Good golly!” Sid giggled, grabbing me by the hand and waltzing me round and round Wilf’s wheelbarrow. “Ain’t you a pretty one, Joe lad?”
I knew he was only having fun but my cheeks burned bright red. If they carried on like this, I was worried they would find out I really was a girl…
I tried to pull free but Sid only let go when James appeared in the archway.
“Look at young Joe, here!” cried Wilf. “Doesn’t he look like a proper girl?”
James surveyed me in silence then nodded his head. “I suppose he does.”
He walked past us, heading in the direction of the laundry.
“Get up to the loft, Joe, and stay there till your own clothes are dry,” he said, over his shoulder. “We don’t need this kind of carnival in the stables.”
I scrambled up the ladder. Sitting on my straw mattress, all alone in the silly frilly nightdress, my cheeks still burned with shame. I wanted to cry. But I’d promised myself I wouldn’t.
