I shivered. I did not want to think of the hospital any more. I might not be living the life of my dreams, publishing my memoirs and providing for dear Mama – but my new life as a servant with Mrs Briskett and Sarah in Mr Monkey Buchanan’s house was so, so, so much better than being shut up in the cold, forbidding hospital. And my Sunday afternoons with Bertie were positively delightful.
I wondered whether to start a new memoir book now that Mr Buchanan had purloined my old one. His wastepaper basket was often stuffed with crumpled discarded pages. I could straighten them out, maybe even smooth them with Sarah’s flatiron. Then I could stitch them together, strike through every sentence of his spidery scribble, and start my own memoirs on the blank backs.
No, perhaps I would always be too sharply truthful for autobiography. I could attempt a work of fiction instead – a novel about a young girl with eyes as blue as sapphires – but she would be tall and shapely and have tumbling blonde curls. Perhaps she had been brought up in a strict and severe (unnamed) institution and cruelly treated by terrible matrons. She’d be sent off at the tender age of fourteen to earn her living as a maid, in spite of her intelligence and obvious potential, and feel cast down by the dreary routine of being a general servant. But then she meets her true sweetheart, a former workhouse inmate, now cheerily earning his living as … a baker’s boy …? I blushed in the darkness of the scullery, ashamed to have let myself get so carried away. I blew out my guttering candle and tried to settle.
I heard Mrs Briskett’s footsteps as she paced backwards and forwards across the scrubbed flags of the kitchen floor. Every now and then she muttered to herself and sighed. It was clear that Sarah was still not home.
Then I heard the clop of hooves outside in the road, anxious voices, and sudden footsteps. There was a knock on the back door, then Mrs Briskett’s sudden exclamation:
‘Oh my Lord, Sarah, whatever’s happened!’
I jumped out of bed and ran into the kitchen. There was Sarah, swaying in her purple Sunday best, her eyes rolling, her mouth open, propped up by Mr Brown and a cabbie. Good heavens, was she really drunk?
‘Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, look at the state of you!’ said Mrs Briskett, seizing hold of her and pushing her onto a kitchen chair.
‘She was certainly in no state to get herself home,’ said Mr Brown. ‘I had to take it upon myself to call a cab for her.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mr Brown. Oh, Sarah, you silly girl! I knew this would happen!’
‘She paid for a special materialization – and it worked, it worked tremendously. Sarah was ecstatic. There’s no other word to describe it; ecstatic! But then it all became too much for her, and she went into a swoon, quite overcome. She rendered herself incapable of getting out of the house, let alone coming all the way home. I had to practically carry her out of the cab – and she’s not a light woman,’ Mr Brown said ruefully.
‘Oh dear, I do hope you haven’t done yourself an injury, Mr Brown. Thank you so much for looking after our Sarah. Please allow me to pay for the cab,’ said Mrs Briskett.
‘No, no, I won’t hear of it. What’s a cab fare between friends? But I’m just giving you fair warning – on Sunday evenings Sarah really needs to be accompanied by a lady friend who can look after her, perhaps loosen her clothing if she’s overcome once more. I’ve tried my best, but there are limits to the attention I can decently pay her. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Clear as day, Mr Brown,’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘Thank you very much, gentlemen. I’ll take over now.’
She bustled about Sarah, undoing her bonnet and the collar of her dress. Mr Brown and the cabbie wiped the sweat off their brows and made a hasty retreat.
Mrs Briskett frowned at me. ‘Don’t just stand there gawping, Hetty. Run for the smelling salts – in the cupboard over there.’
I rummaged in the cupboard, while Mrs Briskett plunged her hand right inside Sarah’s bodice. There was a sudden snap, and Sarah breathed out and almost overflowed her Sunday dress.
‘There, I’ve got her stays undone – that should help,’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘Where are those salts, Hetty?’
I thrust a packet of Saxa salt at her and she sighed irritably.
‘Smelling salts, you stupid girl. The dark blue bottle in the corner!’
She grabbed the bottle from me, uncorked it, and waved it under Sarah’s nose. Sarah’s head jerked, her eyes blinked, and she let out a gasp.
‘There now, Sarah, take a deep breath. Oh my Lord, you’ve given us such a fright!’
‘Is she very drunk, Mrs Briskett?’ I asked.
‘Drunk?’ Mrs Briskett stared at me. ‘Hetty Feather, what a thing to say!’
‘Drunk!’ Sarah echoed. This accusation shocked her back to total consciousness. ‘The very idea! I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since Christmas, apart from a dribble of sherry in your trifle, Mrs B, and no one can count that against me.’
‘Now, now, take no notice of the stupid girl. Of course we know you’re not drunk. Don’t go upsetting yourself further. I’ll make a nice cup of tea to settle you. Come on now.’
Mrs Briskett nodded at me to put the kettle on the range, while she knelt down and unbuttoned Sarah’s boots. ‘There now, wiggle your tootsies.’
‘You’re ever so good to me, Mrs B.’
‘Well, you’re a dear girl, even if you get carried away by strange fancies. It’s not good for you, though, getting yourself in such a state. Look at you, swooning all the way home! These sessions are getting too much for you. You’ll do yourself a mischief. Plus you’re spending all your wretched savings! Promise me you won’t go any more.’
‘Oh, I have to go, Mrs B! Tonight was so wonderful, a true miracle! I saw her! I felt her hands upon me! My own dear mother!’ Sarah breathed, and then her eyes rolled as she swooned again.
‘Her mother?’ I said as Mrs Briskett wafted the smelling salts under her nose once more. The sharp stench made my own eyes water. ‘But I thought her mother was dead!’
‘Exactly. Dead and buried. And that’s where she should stay,’ said Mrs Briskett.
‘You mean … she’s a ghost?’ I whispered.
‘Something similar. I don’t think it’s right or Christian. We shouldn’t meddle with ghouls and ghosts. If we get them to pop out at us, how do we know we can ever be shot of them?’ Mrs Briskett looked all about her, as if an eerie spectral being were lurking in a corner of the kitchen.
‘She’s not a ghoul or a ghost!’ Sarah murmured, mopping her forehead. ‘She’s a beautiful spirit. She speaks to me through Madame Berenice.’
‘Is she a circus lady?’ I asked, thinking of dear Madame Adeline.
Sarah looked affronted, but Mrs Briskett nodded grimly.
‘She’s exactly like a circus lady, performing her tricks while Sarah and all her silly cronies sit around in a circle, marvelling. And paying through the nose for the experience,’ she said.
Sarah rose unsteadily to her feet. ‘I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself, Mrs B. You’ve been very kind, but I’ll not stop to hear you talk of Madame Berenice in such a manner. She’s a saint of a woman. She simply wants to comfort poor grieving souls by bringing us messages from the spirit world. It beats me why you won’t come too, and hear a few words from your own mother,’ she said.
‘I heard enough words from her when she was in this world – and few of them were kind ones,’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘Now sit down again, Sarah, or you’ll fall down.’
‘I’m going to my room,’ Sarah said, and staggered across the kitchen.
‘Oh, the obstinacy of the silly girl,’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘Come, Hetty, we’ll have to take hold of her or she’ll get halfway up those stairs and then tumble all the way down.’
So the two of us battled with the bulging bulk of poor Sarah, heaving her right up to her room at the top of the house. We were all three breathing very heavily by this time.
‘There now!’ Mrs Briskett panted, propelling Sarah towards her bed. ‘Light her candle,
Hetty, so we can see what we’re doing.’
I did as I was told. In the wavering light we all saw the image of Sarah’s mother on the wall.
‘Oh! Oh, Mother dear!’ said Sarah, sitting down heavily on her bed, weeping.
‘Now, now, don’t upset yourself,’ said Mrs Briskett, busily unbuttoning her.
‘These are tears of joy, Mrs B, tears of joy,’ Sarah murmured. ‘Joy that we’re reunited at last.’
I found Sarah’s white nightgown and put it over her head for decency while Mrs Briskett struggled with all her buttons and hooks and manoeuvred her lumpy body out of her bodice and stays. When her quivering flesh was entirely freed at last, Mrs Briskett pushed her gently back on her bed and pulled the covers up over her.
‘There now. Go to sleep, Sarah, there’s a good girl,’ she said, tucking her up as tenderly as if she were her mother herself.
Sarah obediently closed her eyes, and we backed out of the door.
Mrs Briskett breathed a great sigh of relief. ‘My Lord, it affected her badly this time!’
‘What did? How did she see her mother?’ I thought of the gravestones by the church. ‘She didn’t … she didn’t dig her up?’
Mrs Briskett shook her head at me. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Hetty. All right, I’ll tell you – not that I know much, mind. I’ll come down with you and have another cup of tea. It’s fearfully late but it’ll take me hours to get to sleep after this to-do.’
So we sat down together in the dark kitchen and sipped tea while Mrs Briskett explained properly.
‘Sarah goes to see Madame Berenice every Sunday. This Madame calls herself a spiritualist-medium. She says she’s in touch with the spirit world.’
‘Is she?’
‘Well, who’s to say? Sarah clearly believes so – and Mr Brown and all the other folk who go there and give Madame Berenice half their hard-earned wages. They’re all that desperate to see their long-departed loved ones. Mr Brown lost his only son to influenza years ago and wants to get in touch with him. Mrs Brown holds no truck with this kind of caper and neither do I. It’s not decent, nor Christian, trying to meddle with the Lord’s will. If you’re dead you’re dead, and you should jolly well stay dead, not come back and start haunting people. It doesn’t do any good. Look at the state of Sarah tonight. Oh, she’ll be that mortified in the morning!’
‘But what does this Madame Berenice do, Mrs B? How does she get in touch with the spirit world?’
‘Don’t ask me, Hetty. All Sarah will say is that they sit around in a ring in a darkened room, and then this Madame Berenice goes into a trance and starts talking in strange voices.’ Mrs Briskett shivered. ‘You wouldn’t get me in that circle for a million pounds!’
I lay awake thinking about it long after I’d gone back to bed. It seemed a very strange idea to me – but then everything seemed strange to me in this crazy outside world.
I was woken by the sound of crockery in the kitchen. When I ran in, I saw Sarah bustling about, laying breakfast, neat in her dark work dress and white cap and apron.
‘How do, Hetty,’ she said cheerily. ‘I thought I’d give Mrs B a little lie-in this morning, seeing as she was up till all hours on account of yours truly!’
She didn’t sound the slightest bit embarrassed. She danced about the kitchen, treating the stone flags like a polished ballroom floor. She looked comical, of course – a great lumpy parlourmaid waltzing around with the breadboard and the teapot – but I couldn’t laugh at her, not when she looked so wondrously happy. She buttered the good crust on the end of the loaf, spread it with Mrs Briskett’s deluxe strawberry jam specially kept for the master’s scones, and handed it to me.
‘Get that down you, you skinny little ha’p’orth,’ she said.
‘My mama always gave me special little treats when I was at the hospital,’ I said.
‘Mothers are the very best, aren’t they, Hetty!’ said Sarah.
Mrs Briskett was in a good mood too, having had an hour’s lie-in, so she decided to let me have a turn at baking, showing me how to make an apple pie. It was fresh out the oven when Bertie came with our meat delivery of mince and chops and a rib of beef.
He sniffed appreciatively at the sight of the big pie, its golden pastry oozing apples, cloves and cinnamon. ‘My, that looks a sight for sore eyes, Mrs B,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘You’re a wonderful cook, ma’am, especially in the pie department.’
‘It’s not my pie, Bertie. Young Hetty made it. She’s got a very light hand with her pastry. I doubt I could do better myself.’
‘Hetty baked it!’ said Bertie, looking astonished.
‘Don’t act so surprised!’ I said. ‘Can he have a tiny taste, Mrs Briskett?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ she said. ‘In fact we’ll all try a slice.’
She cut us a liberal piece each and ladled on a spoonful of cream too. ‘Here, Sarah, you need some good food inside you after all that swooning last night.’
‘You were swooning, Sarah?’ said Bertie. ‘Why’s that? Do you have a pash on some fine fellow? Ooh, was it the thought of meeting up with me today? Well, I’m very flattered, Sarah, but I’m afraid I’m already taken. You’d definitely be in with a chance, but I’m that feared of Hetty here I daren’t cross her.’
‘Stop your cheek and try her pie, lad. It’s very good,’ said Sarah, munching.
He took a large bite of pie, and then pretended to choke. He clutched his throat, eyes popping, staggering around the kitchen as if poisoned.
‘I’ll throw the pie at you if you don’t behave,’ I sniffed.
Bertie stopped playing the fool and took another big bite. ‘It’s actually absolutely delicious, Hetty! Total knockout! My, you’ll make someone a lovely little wife one day!’
‘No I won’t! I’m not going to be anyone’s wife, little or otherwise,’ I said, tasting my own portion of pie. It truly was delicious. ‘I shall make my own way in life,’ I declared indistinctly through a big mouthful.
‘Won’t you be lonely, Hetty?’ said Bertie.
‘Not at all. I shall set up home with my mama,’ I said.
‘Oh, bless the child,’ said Sarah. ‘Would that I could do the same.’
‘Now careful, Hetty, you’ll set her off again,’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘We don’t want her swooning all over the place.’
‘I am perfectly well, thank you, Mrs B,’ said Sarah with dignity.
‘Oh yes, it looked like it last night!’
‘I was overcome because I was so happy to be reunited with my beloved mother, to feel her own hands upon me, her lips kissing my brow! I am so very glad I met Madame Berenice!’
‘Oh, that spiritualist lady?’ said Bertie. ‘I deliver to her: fillet steak, crown of lamb, capons – even a goose, though it ain’t Christmas! Seeing all them ghosties must work up a grand appetite.’
‘Don’t you mock what you don’t understand,’ said Sarah, swatting him with a tea towel. ‘Madame Berenice is a true saint, working so hard to reunite us with our loved ones. Is your mother living, Bertie?’
‘No, she passed on when I was just a little lad,’ said Bertie.
‘You’re still a little lad now,’ said Sarah, tucking into the rest of her pie. ‘This is exceptionally good, Hetty. I think your cooking days are numbered, Mrs B.’
‘Hmph!’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘You watch your tongue, Sarah. Young Hetty’s got a long way to go yet.’
‘I’m just teasing, Mrs B,’ said Sarah. She turned back to Bertie. ‘So, Bertie, would you not like to hear your dear mother’s voice?’
‘I don’t think I’d recognize it, Sarah, so it would be a waste of time. But I’m pleased you get to hear your mother.’
‘She touched me last night! I asked for a special materialization, and she manifested herself right there in the room, before my very eyes.’
‘You thought you really saw her?’
‘I know I did! She touched me. She kissed me on the forehead!’ said Sarah.
‘Well, th
at’s grand, Sarah, simply grand,’ said Bertie. His eyes swivelled to me and his eyebrows shot up.
‘Do hush now, Sarah,’ Mrs Briskett begged. ‘You shouldn’t talk so much about such things.’
‘I want to tell the world, Mrs B! I am not the slightest bit embarrassed. It’s like a miracle. I’m a changed woman. Why won’t you be pleased for me?’
‘We’re all thrilled for you, Sarah,’ said Bertie. ‘Do you reckon you’re a changed woman too, Mrs B? If so, why don’t you let Hetty and me stay out walking a little later next Sunday evening? After all, you let Sarah stay out late with her dear departed mother, as it were. It’s only fair, don’t you see?’
‘I’m not a changed woman – and I’m not a stupid one either,’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘No one’s taking any liberties, especially not you! You’re to bring Hetty back at six sharp, do you hear me?’
‘But it won’t be long enough! I’ve got great plans. I want to take Hetty somewhere really special this time. She deserves to see a bit of London, Mrs B, seeing as she’s been a poor little foundling girl locked up in that hospital all those years. I’m intent on showing her the sights, all them historic buildings up London way – educating her.’
‘I know young lads’ intentions – and if you don’t stop this cheek, you won’t take her out at all,’ said Mrs Briskett, with such a note of finality that even Bertie saw there was no point in arguing.
I WONDERED HAPPILY on and off all week where Bertie would take me on Sunday. He was there waiting for me when we got home from church, but he didn’t have his ready smile. His shoulders were hunched. Even his hair lay limp upon his head without benefit of pomade.
‘Bertie? What’s the matter?’ I said as we walked away from Mrs Briskett and Sarah. ‘Where are we going today?’
‘I’m not sure we’re going anywhere, Hetty,’ he said flatly.
I looked at him. Oh goodness, didn’t he like me any more? Had he found another sweetheart? I was horrified. I wanted to be Bertie’s special one-and-only girl – although didn’t I have another sweetheart myself? I’d only known him a few weeks, but I realized he’d become important to me. I’d thought he was keen on me. He liked me: he liked me being small, he liked me being spirited, he liked my apple pie, he even liked my red hair.
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