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And, of course, the stillroom that had been Tess Arnold’s particular province.
Je
“… a quantity of ash for the soap-making, and now’s all spoilt fra’ the rain. If another of they teacups goes missing, Sarah, ah’ll have it fra’ tha wages …”
The maid grasped my arm, and pulled me quickly through a doorway.
It was a surprisingly small space for the size of the household — a room perhaps twelve feet by ten, lined with shelves and marble counters. Jars of preserved vegetables and fruits, of jams and cordials and candied peel, winked brilliantly from those shelves with all the enticement of a jeweller’s cases. A large sink stood under a window, and an iron stove beside it; a scarred oak table ran the length of the stone floor, with fragrant bunches of herbs depending from the ceiling overhead. One hard wooden chair was tucked into a corner, perpetually unused from its neglected air; and a remarkable cabinet — at least as tall as myself, and filled with rank upon rank of square, iron-bound drawers — dominated the wall opposite to the door. Labels, pe
“Here it be,” Je
I held in my hands a quarto-sized ledger, bound serviceably in linen; most of the pages had already been cut.[11] She had kept her records in the same neat script as her labels, rather more crabbed due to the dearness of paper and a native economy. I turned the initial pages with care, and observed that the dates commenced in 1802.
“I thought your sister entered into service at the age of twelve,” I remarked to Je
She shook her head. “Tess only learnt her letters when she were seventeen. That’s when the Mistress coom to Penfolds, and set up her school.”
“The late Mrs. Danforth?”
“Aye. Full o’ ideas she were, ‘bout us and our letters. Those as wanted to learn, might. Our Tess was up until all hours, most nights, working on her copybook. She had the sharin’ of it with two others, and didn’t get the time of it she should; but happen she were quicker’n most.”
“I see. And so she commenced this ledger four years ago — when she would have been about twenty.”
“Our Tess knew the remedies Mam taught her by heart,” Je
“Did she, indeed?”
“T’were Tess got her the boy,” Je
“The boy?” I repeated.
“Little John d’Arcy. Him what died last spring. No more’n two he were, and a fine, strong lad afore the convulsives got ’im. Apple of Master’s eye.”
Charles Danforth must be called the Master now, though she had spoken of him so bitterly in the hills above Miller’s Dale. The boundaries of Je
“Your mistress bore a son because of Tess’s remedies?”
“‘Fore that, Mistress only had girls — two what miscarried, and two what lived. Fond as he was of ’em, Miss Emma and Miss Julia did the Master no good at’ all.”
“I see.” Simples and excessive faith had produced the coveted heir; illness and misfortune had claimed him again, and his stillborn brother. Perhaps Lydia Danforth had meddled too much in the ways of Providence.
I opened the heavy volume and began to leaf through its pages. “If the boy was but two when he died, the entry you speak of should be somewhere in 1803. And so it is—‘Remedy against miscarriage’ and one for conceiving a boy.”
“Mistress always were prone to losin’ her babes afore they time.”
“Indeed.” I sca
“Tess did ’er best,” Je
I stared at Je
A scream from the stillroom doorway brought both our heads around. Mrs. Haskell stood there, her face as white as a sheet, and her eyes fixed upon my companion’s face.
“Thought I’d seen a ghost,” the housekeeper said faintly, “but it’s Tha’, Je
“Good morning,” I said, stepping into the housekeeper’s line of vision. “You must be Mrs. Haskell. I am Miss Jane Austen. I believe my friend Lord Harold Trowbridge has arrived in search of me?”
“Lord Harold? In search of Tha’?” The good woman looked bewildered, as well she might. “And ‘ow did the lady come to be ’ere, wi’out my knowing of it?”
“I confess I encountered this young woman in the grounds. I had walked some distance in the heat of the day, and felt a faintness coming on. She was so kind as to offer a glass of angelica water. Most refreshing!”
“Oh, aye.” The housekeeper eyed Je
“Lady Harriot Cavendish sends her best respects, Mrs. Haskell, and begs that you might extend to her the Penfolds receipt for quince preserve?”
“Preserve?”
“Ah’ve been searchin’ it out fer her,” Je
At the sound of the maid’s voice, Mrs. Haskell’s eyes sought her face, then shifted uneasily away. The fear and dislike that had dogged the housekeeper at the Inquest was not entirely fled. Mrs. Haskell crossed the stillroom swiftly and snatched the quarto volume from Je
“Take it to Lady Harriot an’ welcome — and ajar o’ the preserve by way of a present,” she said hurriedly.
“You are too good,” I returned, with an inward exulting. Now I might peruse the stillroom book at my leisure.
“Did’na tell Tha’ to be off?” the housekeeper snapped furiously at Je
“But—”
“Mr. Wickham!” Augusta Haskell screamed at the top of her lungs. “The constables, if you please!”
Je
“T’were a black day for Derbyshire when that family crawled out of the hills,” Mrs. Haskell whispered. “I don’t say no word against Old Arnold, mind — him what’s done fer garden afore I were born — but I don’t have to tell the miss what that Tess was. Out for all she could get, and no better than she should be.”
“My dear Miss Austen,” observed Lord Harold placidly from the doorway. “I thought I heard you scream.”
“How very kind of you to come to my aid! I was merely remarking upon the excellence of the Penfolds cordials.” I reached for a clear glass bottle filled with a liquid like clouded brandy. “Angelica water, Lord Harold — most refreshing on such a heated day. I am sure it will do you a world of good.”
11
A quarto volume was one in which a sheet of paper was folded in four leaves, or eight pages, each of which was cut with a knife when read — or in this case, inscribed. It was roughly nine by twelve inches in size. — Editor’s note.