The Disgrace of Kitty Grey

by Mary Hooper

  Wanting to keep her occupied and entertained, I hit upon the idea of encouraging her to learn how to make the simplest of corn dollies from lengths of straw. These proved popular, and she gradually made them for all the children and then moved on to the adults. Pressing these on the other servants, she would wish them a good day and give them a solemn smile, and as a consequence became quite a favourite – everyone had a greeting or a sweetmeat for the poor little orphan girl who’d been abandoned first by her sister then by her brother.

  As for me, I feared that they just thought me a fool to have been taken in by him.

  September wore on and the whole family went to Bath to take the waters. They met Miss Sophia there, who, according to more scraps of news which fluttered down to us from Faith, begged to be allowed home, but was refused. To retaliate, and still pining for her lost love, she was rude to the man whom her father had particularly wanted her to meet. By way of contrast, Miss Alice had attended the Assembly Rooms every night and danced on several occasions with a man who was a literary figure as well as being, word had it, worth ten thousand a year. She was, apparently, quite besotted with him, and Lord and Lady Baysmith were said to be pleased with the match.

  Later in September, Miss Alice had two lady cousins staying with her, so the house seemed a merrier place. Betsy, very much admiring their gowns and their hair ornaments, took to watching their various comings and goings from the house and had soon made them all corn dollies, which she was too shy to present to them but which I passed on by means of their maids. Subsequently, these Misses – bored and, I think, seeking to do Good Works – asked to meet Betsy. They came to the dairy one afternoon and Mrs Bonny had me dress Betsy in a clean smock and present her as a poor little abandoned child – which, I suppose, was exactly what she was. Betsy curtseyed very prettily and the young ladies each gave her a silver coin. Though it was but an amusement for them, it made Betsy smile again.

  By the end of September everyone in the house owned at least one corn dolly, and Mrs Bonny professed to be anxious about them, saying that – seeing as they were fertility symbols – she hoped she wasn’t going to lose all her girls to motherhood.

  At the beginning of October the weather suddenly turned and I started to worry not only about what Betsy was going to do in the winter, but what she was going to wear, for she had no warm clothes, no outer garments or strong boots to wear when the rain was lashing down or it was snowing. I grew angry with Will again. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Why hadn’t he sent money from London or made some provision for Betsy before he went? She badly needed a set of winter clothes and, even more – the poor lamb – a kindly mother and father to nurture her, but clothes and foster families cost money and I had none. In all this time I had not heard a word from Betsy’s sister Kate, either, and wondered, if she ever came back, whether she would even know where to find the child.

  The cousins departed and Miss Alice returned to her books, now reading them in the drawing room in front of the fire or sometimes, if her mother was not at home, in the petit salon. One afternoon, with Faith on an errand somewhere and the other staff busy, I was asked to take in more clotted cream for Miss Alice’s afternoon scones, so I quickly found a clean smock for myself, scooped some cream into a dish and carried it up on a tray.

  She barely registered my presence at first, so engrossed was she in the book she was reading, but just pointed to the table and motioned for me to put the dish down. Suddenly, however – for she was not usually so ungracious – she seemed to realise what she was doing and spoke up quickly to thank me.

  ‘I fear my mind was elsewhere, Kitty,’ she added. ‘I have been thinking of nothing else but the book I’m reading.’

  I knew precious little about books, so merely waited to see if she was going to say anything else.

  ‘Sometimes, if I am engrossed in a book, I even forget to eat,’ she went on in a confiding and friendly manner. ‘The other night I read by candlelight until three in the morning!’

  ‘It must be a very good book to make you do that, miss,’ I said.

  ‘It is, and – what do you think? It is by a lady.’

  She sounded surprised by this and I pulled a surprised face, too, although I had no way of knowing whether this was unusual, good, bad or indifferent.

  ‘A new friend, a literary gentleman, told me about her, and I am most anxious to obtain her newest novel, but it has completely sold out. I’ve even tried to get hold of one second-hand, but no one wants to part with such a precious book. It is quite the most fashionable thing to be seen reading at the moment.’

  ‘Really, miss?’ Ah, I thought, the literary gentleman must be the new suitor I’d heard about.

  ‘They are reprinting it next month and I’ve begged my father to go to the publisher’s in London to secure a copy, but he’s told me he will be out of the country at that time.’ She sighed. ‘I’d ask for one to be sent in the mail, but I fear such valuable volumes would be stolen.’

  ‘Couldn’t you go to London yourself, miss?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh heavens, no. The roads are shocking at the moment and jolt one to pieces.’ She frowned. ‘I could send Faith but then she suffers dreadfully with travel-sickness.’ She sat up and spread a scone liberally with jam, then cream. ‘I fear that the book will sell out again immediately, for it is terribly à la mode.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Every stylish person will be speaking about it and I shall have nothing to say!’

  This did not seem such an awful dilemma, not compared to my own, but I tried to smile sympathetically before bobbing a curtsey and turning towards the door.

  Before I’d reached it, however, Miss Alice said, ‘Kitty, wait! I’ve just had a rather marvellous idea.’

  I turned back.

  ‘Perhaps you could go to London for me!’

  I stopped, my hand on the door handle. ‘Me, miss?’

  ‘Yes, why not? You could go to the publisher’s in Whitehall, and stay a day or so in a discreet guest house. It would be a great adventure for you. What do you think?’

  London! I thought. And then I thought of Will and what I would say to him as I handed over Betsy.

  ‘Yes, miss,’ I said. ‘I’d be happy to do that.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘You’re never!’ Patience said, gawping at me. ‘London?’

  ‘Yes, London,’ I said, as if I went there and back every day.

  ‘But where will you stay? And what have you got to do when you get there?’

  ‘I’m going to stay in a boarding house,’ I said. ‘Miss is arranging it herself. And all I have to do is go to a publisher’s office and buy a book for her.’

  ‘What book? The Bible or something?’

  ‘No, it’s a story published in three volumes,’ I said, Miss Alice having filled me in on the details. ‘It’s called Pride and Prejudice and it’s written by a lady. It’s completely sold out.’ I paused, then added, ‘Every fashionable person is reading it.’

  ‘But what did Mrs Bonny have to say about you going? Didn’t she mind?’

  ‘She couldn’t say much,’ I said, ‘because it was Lady Cecilia who told her about it.’

  Mrs Bonny had, in fact, been very good once she had known that Betsy wasn’t going to be left behind with her. She had suggested ways we could make ourselves more comfortable on the journey, told me what to do to prevent travel-sickness and promised to prepare a sleeping draught for me. The stagecoach to London would take near twenty-eight hours, with short stops to change the horses and take refreshment, and one overnight stop at an inn. The coach would take us to Charing Cross (the very centre of London, so Miss Alice had informed me) and a letter had been sent ahead to a respectable guest house to secure a room. When I got there, I intended that Betsy and I should sleep for a few hours, then walk to St Paul’s to find the cousins, wait for Will to appear and confront him with Betsy.

  I spent a considerable amount of time imagining this confrontation, thinking of
how shocked he would look to see us, of what I would say and how he would reply. I would remain calm, icy with disdain. I’d cry, ‘How dare you treat us so!’, ‘You have used me ill!’ and other noble and haughty utterances.

  The trouble was, I just couldn’t imagine myself saying those things, being contemptuous and all. I knew Betsy would probably fling herself into his arms and was concerned that I, being so thankful to see him again, might do that, too. What if I broke down and made a pathetic fool of myself, begged him to come back and said that I would forgive him everything? I sighed heartily when I considered this and tried to stiffen my resolve.

  It had been agreed that in my absence, Patience was going to work in the dairy. She would do all the basic tasks, the scouring and boiling of the pans and equipment, and would make butter and cream under Mrs Bonny’s supervision, but the actual milking of the cows would be done by one of the cow-keepers who worked at the big farm. Discovering this, I felt rather anxious about my dear animals having just anyone, maybe a different person every day, come and milk them, for I was used to them and their little ways and they were used to me. I knew that Buttercup liked to be sung to as she was milked, that Clover (the new Clover) was apt to kick out with her left foot, that Daisy did not like the sun and that Rose, who grew irritable and fidgety if kept waiting, should be milked before the others. I wondered how my cows would like waiting for the big herd of black-and-whites to be milked before they got their turn, and if they would give as much milk without me being there to coax it out of them. I was perfectly sure they would not.

  I was due to leave for London two weeks after my conversation with Miss Alice, and during that time Patience spent most days by my side learning my duties: how to set the milk in cream pans, heat it and then skim off the thick crust of clotted cream which formed; how to work the fresh butter on a board and decorate the breakfast rounds of it with Milord’s insignia. While we worked, she obliged me with her opinions on London and all the perils I’d face on the journey there.

  ‘Highwaymen are rife on the turnpike roads,’ she said. ‘They stop you practically every mile of the way. I’ve heard a story about someone whose carriage was held up three times. The first thief took his pocket watch, the second his money and the next his clothes. He arrived in London as naked as the day he was born.’

  ‘Ah well, I’ll take my chances,’ I said. ‘I don’t think a highwayman would be interested in wearing my petticoats.’

  ‘And don’t trust the maidservants at any inn you stop at along the way! I know an old lady who had a sleeping draught put in her hot milk at night and woke to find her wigs and all her hats had been taken. She had to continue her journey completely bald.’

  Will was another favourite topic of hers. ‘Suppose you can’t find him? Suppose he turns his back on you? Suppose he has another sweetheart now – a London girl? London girls are terrible forward, they say. He might not have been able to resist.’

  ‘It’s nothing to me if he has or hasn’t resisted,’ I lied. ‘I’m not going there to see him, but to get the book for Miss and then restore Betsy to her rightful family.’

  ‘I bet he had it planned all along,’ Patience said. ‘I daresay it was in his mind when he first started walking out with you. I fear you’ve been awful gullible.’

  I fumed but said nothing, and on my bad days thought she was probably right.

  I’d told Betsy where we were going, of course; explained that we were going to find Will so she could live with him again. I added that I would miss her very much, but said when she was a big girl she could come back and visit me whenever she liked. She seemed pleased about this and began to talk about what she would do in London, but then just before we left she found out that there was going to be a bonfire and fireworks on November the fifth and we were going to miss it.

  ‘The other children have been talking about it all day,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be the biggest bonfire in the world.’ She looked at me miserably. ‘And they’re going to have sugar cakes to eat.’

  ‘We can get sugar cakes in London,’ I said, ‘and ice cream and gingerbread and marchpane, too.’

  ‘We can’t get rides on the hay wagon.’

  ‘No, not those, but we’re going to travel to London on a big, big stagecoach and when we’re there you’ll see shops – oh, no end of shops – and carriages and sedan chairs and fine ladies and maybe even the King, with a golden crown!’ I was making up this last bit, for the King was mad again and was not to be seen anywhere, with or without his crown.

  ‘But there won’t be dancing in London.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ I said. ‘There’s always dancing in London.’ I remembered what the Misses had told me. ‘The milkmaids twirl down the road garlanded with flowers!’ I assured her. I had a sudden rush of inspiration. ‘And you must take Will and his family some corn dollies! They don’t have such things in London and they’ll be vastly pleased with them.’

  This last did the trick and she spent that day and the next few plaiting, weaving and tying in straws with her grubby little fingers for all she was worth.

  We were travelling on the top of the coach, for the inside seats were much more expensive. Besides, Miss Alice explained, only the gentry rode within and they would not take kindly at having to share their space with a servant. Because we were outside, Miss Alice had loaned me a thick fur rug to wrap about us and also a strong travelling bag made of leather called a portmanteau. This was so heavy and cumbersome that I tried to leave it behind and take my perfectly good cloth bag, but Miss Alice pointed out that it wasn’t merely for our spare clothes but to keep her precious new book safe and dry during the journey home.

  ‘Stow the money securely inside, and be sure to keep the address of the lodging house and the publisher’s safe there, too,’ she said the evening before we were to leave. ‘You must go there before you do anything else. And where are you to find him?’ she asked, testing me.

  ‘Whitehall,’ I responded. ‘A road off Trafalgar Square.’

  ‘Quite right. And insist that you must have the book after travelling so far, no matter how many advance orders they have for it. It’s in three volumes – I told you that, didn’t I?’

  ‘You did, miss.’

  ‘You may use my name, and Father’s name, in order to secure it.’

  ‘If you say so, Miss Alice,’ I said, rather nervous at this thought.

  ‘Once you have the volumes,’ she went on, ‘then you may go and do a little sightseeing.’ She began counting coins into a small drawstring bag. ‘The three volumes cost eighteen shillings,’ she said, ‘and here are another twenty shillings for your lodgings and food.’

  I thanked her, a little overwhelmed, for I had never seen so much money before.

  ‘Guard it well,’ she continued, ‘and don’t be led astray by London ways and London tricks. Remember there are card sharps on every corner and quacks selling miracles on every street.’

  ‘Yes, miss, I’ll remember,’ I said.

  ‘I am sure you won’t do anything silly, for Mrs Bonny has told me that you are sensible and resourceful. Now, I shall be simply desperate for my book, but the journey is arduous and you will need to rest after, so I won’t expect to see you for a week or so.’

  I bobbed a curtsey and went out, my pocket heavy but my heart light. I was about to have an adventure.

  In spite of all that I had heard against it, I was very excited to be going to London. I would have been even more excited if I’d been setting out on Will’s invitation and not because of his abandonment of us, but to be going at all was thrill enough, for this was something that few people in Bridgeford had ever done.

  At six o’clock the next morning, Betsy and I bade goodbye to the other servants (I also said farewell to my dear cows) and rode on one of the carts out of the farmyard, heading for the Stag and Hounds in Thorndyke, where we were to catch the stagecoach. As we left I looked down towards Will’s hut – just in case – but, of course, he wasn�
��t there, only his boat still pulled on to the opposite bank. Of the man who had taken over his ferry service there was no sign, and I had already heard that he was most unreliable compared to Will.

  Thinking of that, I felt a little bitter, for I had always assumed that Will was completely trustworthy, both to ferry a person across the river or to fall in love with. I vowed that when I found him I would tell him that he couldn’t just play around with people, pick them up and put them down as he saw fit, and that saying you loved someone wasn’t something that should be done lightly.

  Seeing the stagecoach waiting, with its six horses stamping their feet in eagerness to be off, thrilled us both, and I was mighty thankful that Betsy was a strong and resilient little girl, for some children of barely five years would have screamed to high heaven at being handed up to the top of a carriage and having to sit on a wavering, jolting seat, buffeted about by the wind and swaying this way and that. I climbed aloft after Betsy, and oh, how precarious it was up there, how shallow the seats, how vulnerable I felt! Gingerly, I made my way to the back and discovered that there were eight seats on the top, including those of the driver and groom. I put Miss Alice’s leather bag on the floor under my legs, tucked her fur rug around us and prepared myself, rather nervous now, for the journey.

  A large, plump man hauled himself up next and took the place beside me, and I lifted Betsy on to my lap to allow him a little more room. Two older men joined, and then a youth who, judging by the pile of books that he carried in a leather strap, was a student going back to school. There was one last man, wearing a dark suit with a clergyman’s collar, and when he was in his seat and a heap of luggage had been piled upon the roof in the middle, the three inside passengers came from within the tavern and climbed aboard. From what I could see from my insecure perch, they appeared to be three women of similar colouring but of different generations, perhaps grandmother, mother and daughter. They were in mourning and I thought to myself that, chances were, the grandfather of the family had died in London and they were going to his funeral but, of course, I never found out.