A dog wagged his tail next to her. It was a little brown dog composed mostly of ears and wrinkles. He made a soft boof sound at me, either a warning or a greeting, I couldn’t tell.
“Nobody goes through the green door unless they’re invited,” she added. Her matter-of-fact manner had cut through the song in my head and I felt, thankfully, like myself again. But also, again, tired. “I’m Poppy. This is Bartholomew. Who are you? You’re not a guest.”
“How do you know?” I bit back impertinently.
“I just do,” she said. “Did Granny find you?”
“Yes,” I replied. “She brought me from Malton. I’m to work here now. My name is Louisa.”
“Hello, Louisa,” she said, kneeling and taking the pup’s paw, waving it at me in greeting. “Bartholomew says hello, too. He likes you. He doesn’t just like anybody.”
“That’s very generous of him.” And very premature. “Do you work here, too?”
Poppy nodded, her pigtails bouncing off her shoulders. “I help Granny with whatever she needs. Some days it’s cooking, and sometimes I sweep or clean the chimneys or bring food ’round to the guests. My favorite days are when I get to help Chijioke.”
“And he works here also?”
“In the barn, he tends to all the animals and the grounds. You look so tired, you should sleep. Granny will want you to work as soon as you’re able. And we don’t call her Granny in front of the guests; it’s Mrs. Haylam instead.”
She had a point. My eyes were drooping and I’m sure I looked dreadful. “Mrs. Haylam it is then. Could you show me the way?”
Poppy sprang forward, obviously pleased to do so, and came to take my hand, tugging me away from the door and toward the stairs. The dog followed at her heels, wagging his slender tail and looking up at me with huge black eyes. He was an attractive creature, if perhaps of indistinguishable breeding. A bit like me, then.
The girl’s hand was cold and soft, and she tugged harder when I gave a single glance back toward the door. “Not unless you’re invited,” she reminded me. “And you don’t want to be invited. I hate going to see Mr. Morningside. He’s just a cross old man with too many birds.”
I chuckled and followed her obediently up to the landing. “Then I will hope to be spared an introduction.”
We stopped on the second floor and turned right, but I felt a cold prickle on the back of my neck. Having lived under the vigilant gaze of the teachers at Pitney, I knew the feeling well—someone was watching us. I dropped my chin and slid my eyes to the side, trying to find the source without letting them know I was keen to their presence. A shadow flitted across the corner of my vision, tall, too tall. Inhumanly tall.
“Don’t dawdle,” Poppy said, pulling me down the corridor. “And don’t speak above a whisper in the halls.”
“There are a lot of rules here,” I replied, trying to ignore the cold unease of being watched.
Poppy stopped suddenly outside a gray painted door and nodded, letting go of my hand. “Yes, there are, Louisa, and you should follow them.”
Chapter Seven
There was thunder at my door. The floor and bed rattled, shaking me out of a deep, dark slumber.
No, not thunder. A fist.
“I’m awake! One moment!” I called, scrambling to make sure I was decent, and to rub the sleep out of my eyes. It had been a long time—too long—since I had slept that well. At first, I’d worried that being alone would be intimidating, but the solitude proved blissful. Nobody fidgeted in a creaky bed next to me, nobody snored all through the night, and no teachers stalked the room, checking for naughtiness or truancy.
Now, the pounding at the door ceased, and I managed to pull my stained woolen dress over my head and rake both hands through snarled hair before the door opened on a tall figure, a young man of African descent with dazzling olive-green eyes and a furrowed brow.
Either he or someone else had hauled up a steaming basin of water and a bar of soap. Both sat next to the door, and my relief was palpable. After so much waterlogged travel, I smelled like the bottom of a foot.
“Ah!” he rumbled. “A new lamb for the slaughter!”
“I beg your pardon?” He wasn’t much older than I was, hale and strong. A soft paper package was tucked under one of his massive arms.
“Only jesting. You are the new scullery girl, aye?” he clarified. “Mrs. Haylam wanted me to fetch you. Ach, and to give you this.”
The package was warm, and it gave under my hands. Cloth. Probably freshly laundered, given its subtle heat. That made sense. I couldn’t begin my employment dressed in traveling clothes. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m certain she told you, but my name is Louisa.”
“Chijioke,” he said. His voice was deep and pleasant, with what sounded like a faint Scottish brogue. It reminded me of one of the students at Pitney. “I work the grounds.”
I nodded, emerging at last from the bleariness of a sudden jolt awake. “Poppy told me as much.”
“Ah, yes. She mentioned you. Several times, actually. I believe she’s quite enamored.” He chuckled and then pointed to the room behind me. “Why don’t you prepare for the day? Afterward I can show you to the kitchens.”
“You’re very kind, thank you.” I retreated to my quarters and unwrapped the package. Chijioke shoved the basin and soap in behind me and shut the door.
The package was not finery, obviously, and I had expected nothing but clean, simple garments. That’s precisely what they were: a long, charcoal-colored skirt; a homespun blouse the color of bone; a cap; an apron; and the sturdy, corseted undergarment to be worn underneath it all.
It was rude to speak through the door, but I wanted a distraction while I scrubbed myself and wrestled my bony frame into the corset. And I wanted to make a good impression, for once, and perhaps even stay in good standing with my fellow workers at the house. This was a new start, after all, and while I had no idea what the crone—Granny—truly thought of me, I could at least remain civil with this young man and Poppy.
“The Orkney Islands,” I said, loudly enough for him to hear in the hall.
“What was that?”
“Your accent. At my old school there was a girl from there, the Orkney Islands.” Of course, the teachers had made the girl suppress her natural brogue, encouraging instead a general English dialect that would be more pleasing to potential employers. The gentry had no interest in governesses who would impart a “low” voice to their children. “It’s quite distinct.”
I heard him laugh again. “It’s where my father settled after retiring from the navy.”
“What are you doing here, then?” My person decidedly sweeter smelling after the wash, I reached for the corset and laced it. Then I pulled on the skirts and then the blouse.
“You’re brimming with questions.”
“I didn’t mean to be rude,” I called back. “Might we discuss the house instead? Do you like being employed here?”
It was hard to gauge his responses without seeing his face, but he paused and then said, “I didn’t like the navy. No sea legs. The whole thing made me ill. I prefer fresh air when my feet are on solid ground.”
Now that I definitely understood. Sea travel always unbalanced me, too, and I had spent most of the voyage from Ireland bent over the railing, hurling my guts into the waves.
My hair, thin and black, never took to plaits very well, but I braided and pinned it the best I could and covered it with the simple white cap. A small, round looking glass sat on the table in the corner, and I checked my appearance in it—not a look that would win me accolades during the London season, but it more than sufficed for scullery work. I had never grown to be a great beauty like my mother, though I had inherited her large, dark eyes and black hair. In such garb, she would have looked voluptuous and even tempting, but not even the most artful corset could make a shape out of my spoon-handle figure.
Upon opening the door, I found Chijioke beaming down at me. He smiled as if I had just made some tremen
dously clever joke. “Dublin!”
“You can hear Ireland in my voice?” I asked, pulling the door shut behind me. “My tutors would be so disappointed.”
“Ah, you should embrace it. Nobody here will chastise you for your heritage,” he said. I followed him down the hall a half step behind, for the corridor felt narrow if we went two abreast. It was obvious that keeping the grounds was strenuous work; he had the build of other workmen I had met before leaving Ireland. “I don’t hide the Orkney in my voice one jot. It causes so much confusion. What is a Nigerian boy doing with that voice? Where does it come from? You should see their eyes cross.”
“I suppose it is rather disarming,” I admitted. In the kinder light of day, the corridor looked less foreboding, but still those odd bird sketches surrounded us. “Your father was Nigerian?”
“Aye, and he didn’t hide that, either,” he said. We reached the stairway and turned, descending. I could hear the muted chatter of guests in their rooms and similarly faint conversation from the kitchens below. “That’s why I like it here. Whatever you were or are, the master expects you to be nobody but yourself. The harder the work, the more honest the man; he said that to me once.”
“What a relief.” I didn’t mean for it to sound so sarcastic, but truly I had my doubts. Life with my mother in Dublin had begun well enough, and when she could no longer care for me and my grandparents took over, they appeared kindly at first. And then they, too, decided to give me up, and Pitney came into my life like a blessing.
All new beginnings, I’d learned, started off brightly and ended in shade. If something felt too good to be true, it invariably was.
“Mrs. Haylam will have tea for you in the kitchens,” he said, directing me to that door near the entrance.
“How long did I sleep?”
“Through the day and night and on to the next morning,” he replied.
“What?” Utterly impossible. I had slept for an entire day? Had I really been so exhausted? “Why did no one wake me sooner?”
Chijioke shrugged his great shoulders and grinned. “Ach, well, the work here is not easy. Mrs. Haylam took pity, mm?”
“That was gracious of her, but unnecessary. I’m accustomed to harsh living. Granny, I mean Mrs. Haylam, found me scrounging for pennies in the rain, doing low carnival tricks.” There was no use lying to him—the truth about me would certainly come out. He didn’t give any signs of revulsion. “Just about anything would be an improvement.”
He waved me off and nudged open the kitchen door with his hip. “You’ll be up at dawn to help bake from now on. I wouldn’t be too grateful.” Chijioke paused midway through the door and lowered his voice, saying with a wink, “And now you know you must show me some of those low tricks later.”
“Of course,” I said with a laugh. “I won’t even ask for your pennies.”
“Good, because I have none!” He chuckled with me and led the way into the kitchens. They were clean and stark, in perfect contrast to the overcrowded and colorful foyer. Immediately in front of me was a near floor-to-ceiling range with an old-fashioned oven. Several blackened pots bubbled away on the heat. Preparatory tables and a deep basin lined the opposite wall, and to the left of those was a door opened to the outside. A cool, soothing breeze swept in off the fields, cutting through the intense heat of the stove.
In the middle of the kitchen stood a large, tall table, white and unstained wood, where a china set with tea waited. I smelled scones laced with orange and cardamom, and my stomach tightened with hunger. A day since that roadside porridge. It took all of my physical restraint to keep from flying toward the food.
“Poppy, get out some of last night’s ham for the girl. Quickly, if you please, and steal none for yourself or that infernal hound.”
I knew the voice, even if it came with an unfamiliar accent and unfamiliar face. No, I knew the face, too, though it couldn’t be . . .
“Granny?” I blurted out, altogether forgetting Poppy’s instruction. My eyes had trained so intently on the food, I almost hadn’t noticed the others in the room: the little girl and her dog, and what looked like Granny, with two or three decades shaved off her presumptive age. Her one eye was still milky, but clearer than before. Her steel-gray hair had been combed and rolled into a neat bun tucked under a housekeeper’s cap. She wore a prim, clean blouse and skirt, with a flour-dusted apron tied around her trim waist. There was a sharpness to her stance, a rod in her spine, and the same withering intelligence in her gaze.
It was her, the crone, and the shock of her appearance nearly made me forget my hunger.
“Mrs. Haylam will do,” she corrected me. Her voice now was by no means elegant, but certainly not the same croak it had been on the road. She bustled toward the table and the tea set, pouring out a neat measure into one of the cups. “I trust you are adequately rested, Louisa?”
“More than adequately,” I said honestly. “Thank you. I . . . I confess I haven’t slept that soundly in years.” Or ever.
A thin smile spread across the crone’s—Mrs. Haylam’s—face. Even her skin looked less leathery, though it was still a rich ocher in color. “Guests and help alike find the deepest sleep here. It must be the positioning of the windows or the calming influence of the spring.”
“I need to see to that rickety old wagon,” Chijioke cut in, dodging around me and striding toward the door leading outside. “It won’t survive another trip to town.”
Mrs. Haylam nodded, and he turned just before leaving, studying me closely before giving a brief wave. The pigtailed girl Poppy had retrieved a plate with smoked ham from the pantry. Her head just barely reached above the table, and she went on tiptoes to slide the pork up next to the tea.
Her hound, Bartholomew, waited behind her, sitting, his tail wagging furiously as he anticipated any dropped morsels.
“Well? Tuck in, Louisa,” Mrs. Haylam said, exploding into a flurry of activity—seeing to the pots on the range, wiping her hands off on her apron, returning to the central table to turn the teapot just so. . . .
I approached the scones tentatively, still unnerved by the crone’s sudden change in appearance. The food tempted me, naturally, but it was all so strange, so off-balance. Poppy waited quietly, swinging her arms back and forth, gently coaxing me toward the table with her eyes, and then less subtly by mouthing, “Go ahead!”
“The scones smell lovely,” I said, a bit lamely.
“An old family recipe,” the housekeeper replied, coming at last to a standstill. I had not yet taken a bite of the food nor a sip of the tea. “Something the matter? Do you take your tea with more sugar?”
Did I dare broach the subject? Chijioke and Poppy had been kind enough. I pressed my luck, lifting the teacup with trembling fingers. “You obviously look different.”
She laughed, and the croak in her voice returned for but a moment. “Congratulations, girl, it appears you have eyes in your head.”
“I only meant—”
“I know what you meant,” she interrupted, wiping her hands yet again on her apron. “Sometimes it is best to look your worst. If everything was exactly as it seemed at all times, we would live in an awfully dull world, don’t you think? Now eat up, girl, and fast. The master fancies a word with you.”
At my side, Poppy gasped.
“Mr. Morningside wants to greet his newest employee.”
Chapter Eight
So I was to go beyond the green door. And so soon.
I felt Poppy’s eyes on me as I left the kitchens. The thought of meeting my employer—someone the girl had warned against—had made the scone in my mouth all but ash. Authority figures and I never quite got on, for obvious reasons. I chafed at their superiority and they likewise chafed at my insubordinate attitude. But adults never actually had it figured out, did they? My mother certainly hadn’t. And it could not be said of my grandparents that wisdom came with age; they had grown wizened but not wise.
The teachers at Pitney? I suppose they were adults in the sens
e that they were grown versions of us, former students who gorged themselves on power and self-righteousness, taking out their frustrations on the younger girls who could do nothing but shrink and obey.
Still, even if I had no intention of respecting Mr. Morningside, I didn’t like the uncertainty that surrounded him. Poppy had made his company sound cold, even frightening . . .
She’s just a little girl.
“Are you deaf?” Mrs. Haylam followed me out into the foyer and hurried me along, swatting at my backside with her apron. “He wants to see you. Now, girl, not later.”
“It won’t be so bad!” Poppy called from the kitchen. I could hear her cleaning up the tea, and most likely sneaking bits of ham to her hound.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the housekeeper said. She bustled me to the green door, and, with company and in the warm light of day, I didn’t hear the odd song coming from it that I’d heard before. “It’s just a formality. I expect you to be quick, yes? We have so many guests this week, I can’t imagine how we’re supposed to manage them all with this skeleton crew.”
Mrs. Haylam skirted around me and opened the door, ushering me through with now familiar impatience. What felt like a warm, tropical breath rushed out to meet me.
“Off you go, and show the master more respect than you show me, child.”
With that warning, I nodded and began down a set of stairs. I had expected an office right on the other side of the door, but instead I found a kind of cellar passage leading underground. It ought to be cold, I thought, taken aback by how overly warm the corridor felt. The green door shut behind me, and either I hadn’t noticed them burning before, or a series of candelabras lining the walls leapt to life. Yellow flames danced on either side of me, illuminating the gradual descent that turned, spiraling, leading me down into a kind of tall antechamber.