by Ann Swinfen
‘I have been to the manor,’ I said, when we were all seated.
‘And how were you received?’ Tom said.
‘Courteously enough,’ I lied, ‘and Sir John has made me his promise that he will write at once to his lawyer to move more quickly in the matter of the drainers.’
‘Do you think he will keep his promise?’
‘I think he would consider himself dishonoured if he did not keep it. That does not mean that his lawyer will indeed move more quickly.’
‘And did you seek employment?’
At that the others turned towards me in astonishment, for I had spoken of my intention only to Tom and Gideon.
‘Aye. I am to go tomorrow. To work in the kitchens.’
My mother drew in her breath with a hiss. ‘Have they forgotten that my grandmother was their kin?’
‘I reminded them, Mother. It will not be so difficult, merely doing what I do at home. I shall have board, and two shillings a month.’ I decided I could not lie about that.
‘Two shillings!’ Tom gave a scornful laugh. ‘What use is that?’
I flushed with anger. ‘More use than nothing. It was the best I could get.’
I pressed my lips together to keep back a sob. I would not tell them how I had been humiliated. Already Gideon was proved right.
Chapter Six
On my hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor with sand and lye, I could hear the other maids laughing as they picked up their tallow candles and headed up the narrow back staircase which led to the attic where we slept. As the least and last of the kitchen maids, it was my final task each evening to scrub the flagstones of all the mud and grease and spilt food of the day. And since everyone knew that I would scrub them until they gleamed, they were not overly careful about what they dropped as they went about the disciplined chaos that was the life of the manor kitchen.
I sat back on my heels and rested my wrists on my knees. I had been up since before dawn, when I had swept out the great kitchen hearth and built the fire for the day’s cooking, fetched four buckets of water from the well in the yard, hung a pot over the fire to boil, and made porridge for the servants’ breakfast. For a week now I had laboured in the manor kitchen, seeing daylight only when I fetched water or was sent for supplies from the storehouse across the yard, where the heavier barrels and sacks were kept. Much of my time was spent fetching and carrying, kneeling to tend fires or scraping pots of burnt residue to clean them. By evening, when I came to scrub the floor, my bones ached like those of an old woman. My knees were red and grazed, shooting pains ran along my spine, and the skin of my hands was raw and blistered. I had worked hard all my life, but at my own pace and in my own way. Now I knew how it must feel to be a packman’s donkey, lashed and helpless.
The other maids resented me. There was little to resent that I could see, since I occupied the lowliest position amongst the servants, but they knew who I was. Some may even have known of my kinship with the Dillingworths. I had not spoken of it. In fact I had spoken very little, but I suppose they may have assumed that if I was kin and employed in such a demeaning post, it must be meant as some kind of punishment. Myself, I did not give Lady Dillingworth the credit for so much calculated thinking. She needed an under kitchen maid. I asked for employment. The solution was obvious.
Whatever their reasons, the other girls made my life unpleasant. In our attic, they allocated me the cot nearest the door, which was swept by draughts and next to the alcove where the pisspots were kept. In winter it would be bitterly cold, especially as I had but one thin blanket. At present, in the heat of summer, the stink was worst where I slept. Still it meant that when I had to empty the pisspots in the morning – another of my tasks – I had not far to go. I performed this service also for the family, which required some careful timing, as it had to be done when they had left their bedchambers, but I must keep out of their sight as I came and went.
There was much casual cruelty amongst the servants too. Hot pans would be accidentally knocked against my arm. Buckets of water I had carried into kitchen and pantries would be overturned. We slept in our shifts, our working gowns laid over the boxes we were each given to hold our few possessions. Three times in the first week my gown was screwed into a ball and thrown on the floor. One morning when I arrived to light the fire, I found that hot fat had been deliberately poured over the floor I had scrubbed the night before and had set hard. I had not finished scraping it away when the cook arrived. He boxed my ears for that.
Through all this, I said nothing. I would not allow them to bait me, but set my mouth and carried on as if I had noticed nothing. I sighed now, as I wiped up the worst of the wet off the floor, then took the broom and swept the damp sand out of the door and into the yard. Even the thought of my hard cot, which was too short and too narrow, seemed like luxury as I climbed the steep stairs to the attic, shielding my candle with my hand against the draughts which always seemed to find their way under the eaves of the attic. I undressed and folded my gown carefully, then laid it under my pillow. This had been my practice for two days now. They could not throw it on the floor without waking me first.
My prayers were incoherent, for I was too tired to frame my thoughts clearly. I prayed for Father, imprisoned in Lincoln. I prayed for my family at home on the farm. I prayed in a confused way about my feelings for Gideon. I prayed to be given the strength to endure and keep my temper. And I prayed for Alice, whose baby was due at any moment now.
Halfway through the next morning, one of the undercooks poked me in the ribs as I was scouring the cooking pots from the family’s breakfast.
‘Someone asking for you at the door,’ he said, with a leer. ‘Lover, is it?’
I did not answer, but dried my hands hastily on my apron and went to the door. It was Alice’s brother Robin.
‘Alice bade me come,’ he said, looking nervously over my shoulder to the activity within. ‘The babe is near. She begs you to come and sit with her.’
I too looked behind me.
‘I’m not sure if I can come, Robin. I am to have but one day off a month, and I have not served a month yet.’
He nodded. ‘Alice knows this, but–’ he twisted his cap in his hands, ‘things do not look well with her. The midwife says the babe is coming feet first, and Alice is bleeding too much.’
I reached out impulsively and touched his arm. ‘I will come if they will give me leave. Tell Alice I am praying for her.’
He ducked his head, pulled on his cap and was gone.
I appealed first to the senior kitchen maid, Bess Whitelea, who gave me my orders.
‘No, you may not have leave. Not until you have served your month.’
‘But my dearest friend is having a difficult birth. She is like to die.’ Putting it into words frightened me, making the possibility loom closer.
The woman shrugged. She wore a hard face. If she had come up through the regime I was enduring, this was understandable enough, but I would not be put off.
‘Why should it matter when I take the day? I will still serve the month.’
‘You do not have leave.’
I then appealed to the cook, Elias Walton, who brushed me aside and would not even hear me. Greatly daring, I knocked on the door of the housekeeper’s room. When she called me in I stepped nervously through the doorway and explained my request.
‘Mistress Atwood, my friend might die. We have been like sisters all our lives.’
She was kinder than most of the servants and smiled at me sympathetically, so that I could no longer hold back my tears.
‘I am sorry, Mercy, but there is no way I can allow you to go. Neither Master Rogers nor her ladyship would permit it. I am truly sorry. I will pray for your friend and we must hope for the best. There is a midwife with her?’
‘Aye,’ I said dully, ‘but it was the midwife who said there was danger.’
She rose from her chair and patted my shoulder.
‘It is a danger all women must face. N
ow go back to your work. If you keep busy, the time will pass quickly and perhaps good news will come soon.’
I thanked her and dragged myself back to the kitchen. There was little danger than I would not be kept busy. Indeed my effrontery in asking for leave and even daring to speak to Mistress Atwood meant that I was driven harder than usual all day.
It was three days before I had news of Alice, then Tom sent a note by the carter who brought supplies to the manor.
Alice is delivered of a boy child, small but well enough. Hannah went also to attend on her, and matters were grave for a time. She lost much blood, but Hannah is sure she will recover. She is to keep to her bed for the next week. Gideon is away to Cambridge for the present, so the christening cannot be held until he returns. Alice sent word to ask that you take your day’s leave to attend the christening, as you have promised to stand godmother to the child. We have not been troubled further by the sheriff’s men and all is well with us. I saw Father last week and took him fresh clothes and food. He has caught a slight fever but says he is better now.
Your loving brother Thomas Bennington
I hoped that Tom was telling me the truth and not softening the news to spare me, hoped that Alice was indeed recovering and Father had no more than a touch of fever. All prisons are rampant with diseases of every kind, from those carried in by the prisoners themselves to those which breed in the damp stone and malicious airs of a gaol.
So Rafe had got his son. I smiled. That was something to be glad about. Old Master Cox would be satisfied and perhaps even Alice’s mother-in-law would unbend a little, now that Alice had provided an heir.
I had stolen a few minutes free of tasks and gone into the orchard beyond the kitchen outbuildings to read Tom’s letter. As I looked up from it, I saw someone approaching me from the back of the stable yard. He was too close for me to hurry away without seeming ill-mannered, so I stayed where I was, tucking the letter into my pocket. It was Edmund Dillingworth, heir to the manor and formerly Royalist soldier, though we did not speak of that in these dangerous days.
‘Mercy Bennington, is it not?’ He had stopped in front of me and was smiling easily, as if we were well known to each other. In fact I had not seen him up close since I had come to work at the manor. I had last spoken to him all those years ago, when I was twelve and he would have been about sixteen and very conscious of the difference in age.
I curtsied and lowered my eyes. ‘It is, sir.’
‘Come, cousin, no need to “sir” me. We are kin, are we not?’
I was so surprised I looked up. He was the first member of his family to acknowledge the kinship and in the present circumstances it was astonishing. Even more astonishing, given what I knew of Edmund Dillingworth’s reputation.
‘Kin of a sort, I suppose. But now I am the lowliest of your mother’s maids.’
‘That does not stop us being kin, though I do not understand why you are here.’
‘Perhaps you have heard of my family’s troubles.’
‘Many of us have troubles in these troubled times. I too have my troubles.’ He gave me a rueful smile. ‘Most of my friends and companions have fled to France. There would be a price on my head too, were it not for this distant cousinage with Cromwell, though I must lie low and keep out of sight.’
I could see that, for a man like Edmund Dillingworth, lying low must feel like being a hawk tethered in a cage.
‘What should we do without kinship, cousin?’ he said. ‘It binds us all together. Why, I suppose you too must be kin to Cromwell.’
‘I think not. Too many degrees separate us. I have no wish to be kin to him, if it is he who is bent on stealing our lands.’
‘And it is that which is at the root of your family’s troubles, is it? Come, walk with me, cousin Mercy, and tell me the whole of it.’
He held out his hand to me, but I shook my head.
‘I must return to my work, sir. I had but a few minutes to myself to read my brother’s letter.’
‘Have no fear. I will make amends to Mistress Atwood. Come.’
He took my hand and tucked it firmly under his arm. I was fearful of the consequences, but I let him lead me through the orchard to a grassy seat at the far side, which had been contrived as a place to sit and admire the stream which ran clear under sallows on its way to the greater rivers of the Fen. After my weeks of loneliness and silence, it was a relief to talk of my family and how the whole parish was suffering at the hands of the drainers.
‘And my father has done nothing to help?’
‘Sir John wrote some months ago to his lawyer in London, but there has been no news. He has promised to write again . . .’ My voice tailed off. I did not want to criticize Sir John to his son.
‘But you do not know if he has done so, or whether the lawyer has acted on your behalf?’ He read my answer in my face, and patted my hand, which he had kept tucked under his arm. ‘Fear not, I will challenge my father tonight.’
I was alarmed. ‘Please do not say that I . . .’
‘I will go about it carefully, cousin. I’ll say that I have observed the drainers and the damage they are causing, and ask what he has done about it.’
‘You’re very kind. But truly, I must go back to the kitchen. I must work out my month and be sure of my day of leave.’
‘It is important to you? This day of leave?’
‘My friend’s first child is to be christened, and I am to stand godmother.’
‘Your rector – Gideon Clarke? – still carries out christenings?’
With anyone else, I would have watched my tongue, but Edmund was a Royalist, had fought for the King. He would no more condone the Puritans’ banning of Christian baptism and weddings than Gideon himself did.
‘The Reverend Clarke continues to baptise and wed according to the traditional practices of our English Church,’ I said, with a note of defiant pride. ‘He believes any other form is wicked in the sight of God. As I do.’
The Dillingworths had their own chaplain and their own family chapel, where I worshipped on Sunday with the rest of the household. As far as I could tell, for he revealed little of his position, the chaplain too supported the traditional church, Queen Elizabeth’s compromise with Protestantism. If he had been a Puritan, he would surely have given himself away in his sermons.
‘Truly, I must go.’ I withdrew my hand and stood up, brushing grass from my skirts.
‘I will come with you and explain to Mistress Atwood that I delayed you.’
Later, I wished I had taken the punishment for the delay instead of allowing him to accompany me. Edmund returned with me through the servants’ door, nodding and smiling to the other girls, pausing to speak to the senior kitchen maid Bess and the cook Elias, before bowing a farewell to me and calling me ‘cousin’. As he disappeared in the direction of the housekeeper’s room, the maids and undercooks and scullions whispered amongst themselves and directed looks at me whose significance I understood and did not like. I found myself flushing as if I were guilty, then inwardly berating myself for talking to Edmund Dillingworth at all and for allowing the unfounded suspicions of the other servants to hurt me. I could not forget that other girl, whose place I had taken, and who might, by now, be begging pregnant on the streets of Lynn. But Edmund had called me cousin and treated me with affection and respect. I had nothing to fear.
At last the month was nearly over and Mistress Atwood confirmed that Lady Dillingworth had agreed to keep me on. It was little surprise. She would have found it difficult to find a stronger, harder worker in the parish to fill such a lowly position, which would normally be taken by a child of twelve or thirteen, not a grown woman nearly nineteen.
‘You may take your day of leave when you wish, provided you give me three days’ warning and it is not inconvenient.’
‘Thank you, Mistress Atwood. I will wait to hear from my family.’
I did not mention the christening to her. I did not know in which direction her religion lay. Even though s
he had worked for the manor all her life, she might tend towards the view of the Saints. Many, like the villagers of Crowthorne, inclined that way, either from true conviction or because it was expedient to do so in a world where the King was a helpless prisoner and Cromwell and his cronies ruled in his stead.
Since our first meeting, Edmund had sought me out several times, although I tried to avoid his attentions, for it soon became clear that he was paying me more court than merely cousinly affection would warrant. I could not avoid him altogether and although he took my hand more than was necessary, and laid his hand in the small of my back, he did also take pains to tell me that he had made sure that his father had written again to the lawyer in London and expected an answer any time soon.
‘Then we shall send these drainers packing, shall we not, Mercy?’ He laughed gaily and picked me up by the waist to swing me over a clump of nettles in the orchard. He favoured the orchard, for it was out of sight of the house. I extricated myself from his hands.
‘There is still the matter of my father’s imprisonment. How can the verdict of the court be overturned? Nothing can be as it was until that is settled.’
‘Oh, I am sure our lawyers have it in hand. But if your father is restored, you will leave us and go back home, so for my own part, I hope they will tally a long while.’
I could never be sure of him. He might call me cousin and appear to treat me with respect, but he touched me more than was right. Was he indeed courting me honourably? Lying on my lumpy straw mattress at night, I sometimes let myself toy with the idea of becoming mistress of the manor. That would be fair revenge for the way I had been treated here. Then I would take myself sternly to task. I did not wish to be wedded and bedded by Edmund Dillingworth. I certainly did not love him. And there came sometimes into his eyes a glint of something cruel, when I pulled away from him or ended our meetings abruptly. I even feared him a little.
Two days before the end of my trial month, word came from Alice that the christening was to take place on the following Sunday. It had been delayed further because Gideon had gone on from Cambridge to Canterbury about some church business and had but just come back to the village. Alice had been churched as soon as he returned, so she would be able to attend the christening herself. This was unusual, since the christening would normally have taken place within a few days of the birth and the churching later. I was glad Alice would be there to see her boy received into the Christian community with the proper rites.
