Mermaids Singing

by Dilly Court

  Kitty didn’t move; she couldn’t take her eyes off the lady with her golden hair piled high beneath a wide-brimmed hat, her ruffled, ivory silk gown nipped at a tiny waist, a long-handled parasol clutched in her gloved hand. Sir Desmond was already at the top of the steps but, as Lady Mableton went to follow him, she appeared to stumble, dropping her parasol. Sprinting forward, dodging between a gentleman on horseback and a hansom cab, Kitty crossed the street and snatched up the parasol.

  Lady Mableton’s startled expression was replaced by a charming smile that lit her blue eyes and dimpled her cheeks. ‘Thank you, my dear! How kind of you.’

  If an angel had suddenly come down to earth and spoken to her, Kitty couldn’t have felt more tongue-tied. She bobbed a curtsey.

  Betty appeared at her elbow, breathless and red in the face. ‘Come away, Kitty.’

  ‘Kitty, that’s a pretty name. I’m indebted to you, Kitty, er …’

  ‘Kitty Cox, Ma’am. I come to be a scullery maid in your house.’

  Lady Mableton’s eyes clouded with concern. ‘Oh, you poor child.’ She turned to Betty, laying a gloved hand on her arm. ‘Madam, if you love your daughter, don’t make her do this. Take her home with you now, I beg you.’

  Chapter Two

  Kitty sat on the edge of her chair in the housekeeper’s office, gazing in amazement at the splendour of her surroundings. She had never seen anything so fine as the mantelshelf swathed in crimson velvet, trimmed with dangling gold tassels that reflected the flames from a coal fire, blazing up the chimney. They must be rich as kings, she thought, to afford such a luxury in September, when the weather had turned a bit nippy, but was nowhere near cold.

  Before she had time to study the details of the fancy wallpaper and the gas mantles with smoked-glass shades, the door opened and Mrs Brewster sailed into the room. She looked every bit as imposing as the picture of Queen Victoria that had hung on the classroom wall in Kitty’s school, where skinny, little Miss Draper, with squint eyes and a flat bosom, had taken a personal interest in Kitty’s natural ability to draw. Miss Draper had brought magazines into the classrooms so that the children could cut out pictures and paste them into scrapbooks. Amongst these Kitty had been quick to pounce upon copies of Milliner, Dress-maker and Draper, the Lady’s Pictorial and Queen, the Ladies’ Newspaper, all of which had been bought and discarded by the rich widow to whom Miss Draper’s sister was lady’s maid. And this house, Kitty thought, was much more grand than anything she had seen in the periodicals, and Mrs Brewster did look like the Queen. Dragging herself back to the present, Kitty stared at the housekeeper, wondering if she ought to curtsey. Casting a nervous glance at Betty, Kitty followed her example and stood up.

  Mrs Brewster went to sit behind a large, oak desk. ‘You may sit down.’ Hooking a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles over her ears, that were half hidden by swathes of iron-grey hair dragged back into a knot at the nape of her neck, Mrs Brewster shot Kitty a cursory glance. She turned to Betty. ‘So, Mrs Scully, you were formerly employed here as a housemaid?’

  Betty sat bolt upright, clearing her throat. ‘Yes, Mrs Brewster, more than twenty years ago. Me and Kitty’s mother worked under Mr Warner in those days.’

  ‘Before my time, of course,’ Mrs Brewster said, glaring over the top of her spectacles as if she expected Betty to argue.

  She didn’t.

  ‘And you think this girl would suit our strict requirements?’

  Betty nodded her head. ‘Like I told Mr Warner when I wrote him, Kitty is a good girl, clean and tidy.’

  Mrs Brewster turned her steely gaze on Kitty. ‘Are you willing to work hard, Kitty?’

  ‘Yes’m.’ Kitty felt herself blushing and she wriggled nervously on the hard wooden seat of the chair.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Brewster! And don’t fidget, girl.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Brewster.’ Kitty sat on her hands.

  Mrs Brewster turned back to Betty, as if Kitty weren’t capable of answering for herself. ‘She looks undersized for her age, and peaky.’

  ‘She may be small, Mrs Brewster, but she’s wiry and she’s used to hard work. Aren’t you, Kitty?’

  Before Kitty could answer, Mrs Brewster came in on the attack. ‘I don’t put up with shirking, Kitty Cox. Are you a shirker?’

  ‘No, Mrs Brewster.’

  ‘Are you an honest, God-fearing girl?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Brewster.’

  Mrs Brewster stared at Kitty for what seemed like an hour with cold eyes that reminded Kitty of the fish heads that Sid brought home from the market. ‘You might do,’ she said at last. ‘All right, Mrs Scully, I’m prepared to take the girl on for a trial period of one month. But if she doesn’t come up to scratch she’ll be sent back to you without a character, is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Brewster, Ma’am. Thank you.’

  ‘She’ll be paid ten pounds a year, all found. Have you anything to say, Kitty?’

  Kitty shook her head, tempted to tell this hard-faced old crow what she could do with her rotten job, but ten pounds a year was a fortune and, anyway, she couldn’t have spoken a word, not without bursting into tears.

  ‘I didn’t hear your answer,’ snapped Mrs Brewster, leaning across the desk. ‘Cat got your tongue, Kitty Cox?’

  The housemaid, summoned by Mrs Brewster to take Kitty down to the servants’ hall, bobbed a curtsey, shot Kitty a scornful glance and strode off. Following her through the maze of narrow passages, painted dark green at the bottom and a yellowed cream at the top, Kitty had to run to keep up. The housemaid barged through a baize door that led into the kitchen, letting it swing back, almost knocking Kitty off her feet.

  ‘Who’s this then, Dora?’ demanded the cook, wiping her floury hands on her apron.

  ‘It’s the new scullery maid,’ Dora said, giving Kitty a spiteful nudge in the ribs. ‘Tell Mrs Dixon your name, girl, if you’ve got a tongue in your head.’

  Kitty drew herself up to her full height, but even then she was only up to Dora’s shoulder. Everyone was staring at her and she wanted desperately to run back to Betty and beg her to take her home to Tanner’s Passage. Stifling the impulse, she took a deep breath. ‘Me name is Kitty Cox.’

  A housemaid with a sly, feline face, giggled behind her hand. ‘Don’t they know how to talk proper where you come from, Kitty Cox?’

  ‘That’ll do, Olive.’ Mrs Dixon shook a finger at her, frowning. ‘I hope you’re stronger than you look, Kitty, or you won’t last a day in my kitchen.’

  ‘Yes’m.’

  ‘I’ve seen bigger rats in the yard,’ Olive muttered, winking at Dora.

  ‘Get on with your work, all of you,’ Mrs Dixon said. ‘Kitty, you go with Florrie and she’ll show you what to do.’

  Dora and Olive went off giggling and Kitty followed Florrie into the scullery. A mountain of greasy pots and pans cluttered the wooden draining board. The clay sink looked big enough to bathe all Maggie’s little ones at one go.

  ‘That’s your job,’ Florrie said, handing Kitty a dishcloth. ‘That’s what you’ll do, day in and day out, until your hands are red raw. When you’ve finished that you come to me and I’ll tell you what to do next.’

  Wallowing all morning in a sea of greasy water, Kitty scrubbed pots and pans until her hands were more wrinkled than if she’d been sifting through the mud on the foreshore; her feet ached and the pain in her back was worse than toothache. She would have been left behind when the dinner gong sounded, if it hadn’t been for a boy, who struggled in from the yard, carrying a hod full of coal. Setting it down on the quarry tiles, he angled his head, staring at her. Kitty stared back.

  ‘Hello there, half-pint,’ he said, wiping his forehead on his shirtsleeve. ‘So you’re the new scullery maid.’

  ‘Me name’s Kitty, not half-pint.’

  ‘Ho there, spunky little thing, aren’t you?’

  Too tired to retaliate, Kitty shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘I’m George, the hall boy,’ he said, with a superior smile
. ‘I’m above you and you have to do as I say.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Here, are you all right?’ George peered anxiously into her face. ‘You’ve gone a funny colour.’

  The faint feeling was passing and Kitty managed a brief nod. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Lucky it’s dinner time ’cos you look like you could do with a good feed,’ George said, tossing her a glass cloth. ‘Tidy yourself up a bit and come with me. Do as I tell you and you’ll soon learn what’s what.’

  ‘I’ll not be here for long,’ Kitty said, wiping her hands. ‘I’m going to work in a dress shop.’

  ‘I’d keep quiet about that if I was you,’ George said, grinning. ‘Them tabby cats have got it in for you, so you’d better watch your step. Come on, or they’ll have gobbled up the lot.’

  Following George to the servants’ hall, Kitty found that they were expected to sit, on their own, at a table beneath the window that looked out onto the area and a blank brick wall. The rest of the servants sat in order of precedence at the big table, males on one side and females on the other, eating in silence unless spoken to by Mr Warner. Kitty couldn’t help peeking at him, as he presided over the table; with his black suit, stooped shoulders and hooded eyes, he reminded her of the ravens that she had once seen, on a rare excursion to the Tower of London.

  Although they were the last to be served, the best pieces of meat had been taken and the food was only just lukewarm, Kitty had never had such a good meal in her whole life. She ate everything on her plate and was about to pick it up and lick off the gravy when George kicked her shins, shaking his head. It was a crying shame to waste good gravy, but everyone else had placed their knives and forks neatly, side by side. Reluctantly, Kitty did the same. Mr Warner rose from the table and led the upper servants from the room which, George told Kitty in a whisper, was so that they could have their dessert in the butler’s parlour, away from us riffraff. As soon as the door closed on them, everyone began to talk at once.

  Florrie brought a steaming rice pudding from the kitchen and began spooning it into bowls. Following George’s example, Kitty stood in line to receive her portion and, if he hadn’t given her the nudge, she would have missed out on the dollop of Mrs Dixon’s homemade plum jam. Savouring every mouthful, Kitty felt as though her stomach was going to burst. When she thought no one was looking, she ran her finger round the inside of the bowl, again and again, until she had licked it clean. George eyed her severely; then, grinning, he did the same.

  A full belly made up for a lot, but before the day was out, Kitty realised that George had been right about one thing: the housemaids, Dora, Olive and Jane had it in for her. They reminded Kitty of witches from a storybook that Miss Draper had once read to the class and she had shown them the pictures too; one of them looked exactly like Dora. Spotting the likeness did nothing to make Kitty’s torment easier. The housemaids poked fun at the way she talked, her hand-me-down dress, her shabby, oversized boots and her curly, chestnut hair that simply refused to stay inside the mobcap that Mrs Dixon insisted she must wear. Worst of all, Olive had pinched her beautiful red satin ribbon and would not give it back. No matter how much she tried to avoid them, they seemed to pop up from nowhere to tug at her hair, administer a spiteful pinch or say something nasty. Florrie was not so cruel, but she seemed a bit scared of the other girls and didn’t say much at all. Every time Kitty finished one pile of pots and pans, Florrie found some more for her to wash. Stoking the fires was also part of her job and, although George fetched the coal, the iron hod had to be hefted in order to feed the insatiable mouth of the range.

  Although the kitchen and parlour maids were supposed to have time off between two thirty and four, things didn’t seem to work out that way. Luncheon in the dining room above stairs went on well into the afternoon and that entailed more washing up. When that was done, Kitty had to mop and scrub the kitchen and scullery floors. Then it was time to stoke the fires, ready for Mrs Dixon to begin preparing dinner, and the gruelling cycle of washing up began all over again. The tasks were endless and by eleven o’clock, when the final dish had been dried and put away, Kitty was so exhausted that she barely had the energy left to follow Florrie up the servants’ staircase to the top of the house. By now everything about her felt numb, from her brain to her feet. Her mind and heart were detached from her body. All emotion and feeling seemed to have been drained, leaving her dazed and confused.

  The attic rooms led off a windowless passage. Following the flickering light of Florrie’s candle, Kitty stumbled along in the dark; her feet were so swollen that she was barely able to put one in front of the other. Florrie opened a door at the far end.

  ‘Get a move on. I haven’t got all night and I’m dead on my feet.’

  Kitty hesitated, peering into the gloomy space beneath the eaves that was just big enough for an iron bedstead and a chest of drawers.

  ‘See that alarm clock on the chest? It’s set for six sharp. Up you get and make sure that the range is stoked up before Mrs Dixon gets down to do the breakfasts, otherwise she’ll skin you alive.’ Florrie walked away without waiting for an answer.

  Left alone in the dark, Kitty felt her way to the bed and sank down, tugging at the buttons on her boots. Kicking them off, she lay down. As her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, she could see a single star shining like a candle through the black rectangle of the skylight. Keeping her eyes focused on its friendly, twinkling light she tried not to listen to the soft scurrying sounds in the rafters. It was probably mice but, hopefully, not rats. No doubt there were spiders as big as sparrows lurking up there too, but Kitty tried not to think about that. She had never slept on her own in her whole life, but she was too exhausted to feel scared. She missed the warmth of Violet’s little body snuggling up to her in the dark, and the comforting sound of the boys’ rhythmic breathing. That bright star, she thought, must be shining on Maggie and the children, on Betty and Polly, and maybe on Jem too, wherever he was at this moment. Things were bad, very bad, but she was not going to let them get her down. She had survived her first day and, no matter how they bullied or tormented her below stairs, she would not let them see that she was hurt and frightened. Jem would have told her to keep her chin up; he wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone. Gradually, Kitty felt her eyelids becoming too heavy to keep them open and she tried to imagine the lumpy flock mattress was a soft, pink cloud floating in a summer blue sky.

  Having been awakened by the shrill ringing of the alarm clock, and still half asleep, Kitty felt her way down the staircase as the first grey shards of dawn filtered through the skylight. She must have taken a wrong turn at the foot of the stairs as, stumbling in the darkness, she walked into something hard, barking her shins. She fell onto something warm and soft that let out a yell and snapped upright, catapulting her onto the tiled floor.

  ‘Gawd’s strewth, Kitty!’ George said, pulling the blanket up to his chin. ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Kitty gasped, scrambling to her feet. ‘I thought this was the way to the scullery.’

  ‘It’s that way,’ George said, pointing down the corridor. ‘Better make a dash for it. You’ll be in real trouble if you’re caught in the men’s quarters.’

  Kitty ran. After taking another wrong turn and ending up in the boot room, she managed to find her way to the kitchen. She was struggling to get the range going, when Dora appeared, stopping in the middle of a yawn as she caught sight of Kitty.

  ‘Well, if it ain’t the guttersnipe.’

  ‘I ain’t no guttersnipe. I was a mudlark. That’s a respectable trade, I’ll have you know.’

  ‘Ho! A mudlark was you? Up to your waist in mud and stinking sewage – that sounds about right.’

  ‘And now I’m trying to get this here fire going, so I’ll thank you to leave me alone,’ Kitty said, riddling the coal and coughing as a backdraught blew soot and smoke into her face.

  ‘Here, let me help you then, mudlark,’ Dora said, baring h
er teeth in a smile.

  Kitty tried to sidestep her, but Dora was too quick. Still smiling, Dora ran her hand round the rim of the coal hod and, grabbing Kitty by the ear, she wiped the soot all over her face and down the front of her blouse.

  ‘That’ll teach you to cheek your betters,’ Dora said, tipping the contents of the ash pan onto the floor. ‘You’d better learn your place or you’ll suffer for it, and that’s a promise.’

  ‘I ain’t afraid of you.’ Fisting her hands, Kitty squared up to Dora.

  ‘Want to fight, do you, half-pint?’ Dodging sideways, Dora put out her foot. ‘Have a nice trip, ducks.’

  Kitty only just saved herself from falling by making a grab for the table.

  Crowing with laughter, Dora took off in the direction of the broom cupboard where the housemaids kept their cleaning materials. Biting her lip to hold back tears, Kitty threw herself down on her hands and knees in a frantic effort to brush the soot and grit into a dustpan, but it was too late, Florrie had come into the kitchen.

  ‘Gawd’s strewth, what’s going on?’ Staring in horror at the mess on the floor and noting Kitty’s filthy appearance, Florrie threw up her hands. ‘What will Mrs Dixon say?’

  Kitty pushed a lock of hair back from her forehead with a sooty hand. The temptation to snitch on Dora almost got the better of her, but she fought against it. ‘I’m doing me best.’

  ‘The fire isn’t hot enough to boil a kettle, let alone cook the breakfasts. You’ve got soot everywhere and you look like a chimney sweep,’ Florrie said, grabbing Kitty by the scruff of her neck and dragging her to her feet. ‘You’ll be for it if Mrs Dixon sees you looking like that.’

  Just then Mrs Dixon entered the kitchen. One look at her crumpled features and sour expression was enough to convince Kitty that Mrs Dixon was not in her best mood first thing in the morning.

  ‘What’s all this?’ Arms akimbo, Mrs Dixon glared at Kitty.