A Girl Called Foote

  Is that really me? she couldn’t help but wonder. Outlined by an elaborate and gilt frame, her reflection looked like one of the paintings hanging from the walls, but instead of a smug, well-dressed man looking out from a canvas there was only her, small, pale and dressed in a strange uniform. The clothes were clean, the fabric crisp and devoid of holes and tears. Beatrice nearly smiled as she traced the stiff collar with her finger. Reaching up higher she tugged at a lock of her ginger hair as if to lengthen it.

  “It’s long enough now that no one’s likely to guess you had the sickness,” her mother had said, peering down at Beatrice while gently smoothing the hair into place. “Yes, you’re ready to go into service now.”

  Beatrice had cried when her locks had been shorn off, doubting it would make any difference anyway. Benny had died from the sickness and his hair had been short to begin with. Still, off the hair had come, chunks of it falling down around her feet and littering the floor like leaves at the foot of a tree at Michaelmas.

  Now the tresses had grown long enough to brush the top of her collar, a suitable length for a girl in service. Over her head was a limp white cap, much like the one atop Ploughman’s head.

  “Wells?” Ploughman said from within the room, arresting Beatrice in her quiet examination of her altered self.

  Wells? Ah, yes, the Lady says I’m to be called ‘Wells’.

  “Yes?”

  “Come here and I’ll show you how to check these windows to make sure they’re shut tight. They got different clasps from the rest.”

  Into the room Beatrice went to stand next to Ploughman, who was bent over rubbing her calves. Once all the windows and the fire had been checked, they continued down the hall to other rooms. Beatrice curbed her own pace to stay behind the slow-moving Ploughman as they descended the stairs.

  “Truth be told, this is my favorite chore of the day,” Ploughman said absentmindedly. “When I’m walking the house I know the day’s almost done. Now it’s back to the kitchen to fetch a couple of stones from the oven to warm our…what’s that?”

  A loud knocking on the front door had startled them both.

  “Who would be wanting in at this time of night?” Ploughman wondered aloud, moving toward the tall, white door.

  Her heart thumping, Beatrice stepped back against the wall.

  “Hullo?” A masculine voice called from the other side as the pounding continued. “Hullo? It’s me! Unbolt the door!”

  “Why, I believe it’s Sir Jonathan!” Ploughman murmured, throwing the door open wide.

  Beatrice’s breath caught in her throat as an unfamiliar young man in a riding coat and top hat spilled into the foyer.

  “Ploughman! You dear old girl!” he exulted, lifting his hat from his head and tossing it onto a nearby bench. He held his hands out to her as if beholding a magnificent sight. “Ah, I could kiss you!”

  The jarring loudness of his voice boomed through the formerly silent entryway.

  “Sir!” Ploughman covered her mouth, shyly chuckling, and then bobbed a clumsy curtsey as if it was an after-thought. “The Lady said we could expect you today, but when you weren’t here by supper I…” she broke off, still looking embarrassed and pleased.

  “Ah, yes. Well, sometimes the same journey takes longer than others. It is good to be home!”

  Grinning largely, Sir Jonathan stood in the center of the foyer, staring for a moment down each darkened hallway that branched off of it, his eyes glowing in the dim candlelight.

  His eyes fell on Beatrice, whose heart jumped to her throat.

  She’d seen people like this before. Sometimes they raced sleek horses past her home on the village street, laughing and calling coarse things to one another, the tails of their riding coats whipping out behind them.

  “Who are they, Mumma?” she had asked her mother as she watched them through the rag-hung window.

  “They’re fine gentlemen, Bea. You must stay out of their way,” her mother had replied, her eyes large and serious.

  And now, here was one before her, examining her.

  “I see Whitehall has a new inhabitant.” The fellow winked at her as he pulled off his gloves. “Hullo, what’s this?”

  Looking intently down at his hands and the gloves he held in them, he furrowed his brow. “Slashed right through the leather. You’d think I’d have noticed when that occurred!”

  A drop of blood fell heavily from one of his fingertips to the black and white floor below.

  Grabbing the candle from Beatrice, Ploughman drew close to him and homed in on the sight, clucking like women do when minor injuries are involved.

  “Ah sir, you’d better follow me to the kitchen,” she said, her shyness replaced by something approaching authority.

  “Ha! You’re going to patch me up just as you’ve always done, are you?” The voice boomed on as the fellow fell into step behind the aging servant.

  “I tended to a skinned knee of Master Elliott’s just this afternoon,” Ploughman said, then called over her shoulder, “Wells, see to the blood on the floor there.”

  Looking around, Beatrice saw nothing to clean it with. The light was disappearing down the hallway with Ploughman so the girl hurriedly knelt just above the spot and used the inside hem of her skirt to wipe the floor.

  Then she rushed after the others to the warmth of the kitchen and its lingering odor of fresh, warm bread.

 

  Recognizing a Ridiculous Notion

  ~ Sally

  Hillcrest Farm

  “Thank you, Widow Smythe and Miss Lydia, for a delicious dinner,” the whiskered man called as he walked out the door, winking knowingly at Sally.

  She nodded demurely, hoping to appear polite in spite of her raging thoughts.

  Well, that was the worst idea I’ve ever had!

  She shut the door behind Farmer Stone and his daughter, Barbara, and turned back to the dinner table which was littered with dirty plates and platters. Barbara’s plate held nearly a full serving of roast beef.

  Doesn’t that girl know how much that piece of meat cost us? What waste!

  “I must warn you, Mama,” Lydia’s voice cut through Sally’s remorse, “that if the banns are called on Sunday, I shall disappear by Monday.”

  Startled, Sally looked into her daughter’s smiling eyes.

  “Wha…?” The query caught in Sally’s throat.

  “You were hoping the sight of him spooning peas into his mouth would inspire me to marry him, weren’t you?”

  Such a smart girl! Of course she saw everything!

  “Only if…you want…” Sally began, haltingly.

  She doesn’t want to! How could she possibly want to?

  Peals of easy laughter spilled from Lydia’s mouth.

  The knot in Sally’s gut loosened a little.

  She hasn’t laughed like that since John died.

  Though Sally knew Lydia to be capable and wise beyond her years, the girl suddenly looked so young with her plaits hanging down either side of her face, her smooth complexion softly lit in the candlelight as laughter died on her lips. The reality of what marriage to Farmer Stone would actually mean to the girl rushed into Sally’s head. Though she knew him to be a good man, Sally bristled at the thought of his work roughened hands touching her daughter’s lithe, unaccustomed body. It turned her stomach and she was filled with shame over the lengths she had gone for such a stupid, unacceptable notion. She crossed the small room to her daughter and sat down on the bench beside her, her cheeks burning.

  “My dear, forgive me.” Her arm extended protectively around the girl. “I know you can’t marry that old man. I just worry for you and what your future holds. Since your father died, and the direction Jack is going, I…I just want you to be taken care of.” Tears stung at the corners of her eyes.

  “Mama, don’t cry!”

  Sally bit her lip and tightened her hold around her daughter’s shoulders.

  “It’s quite amusing, really.” Lydia lau
ghed again. “When you first said the Stones were coming to dinner, I thought he was to be courting you, but he kept staring at me over his plate and then the thought struck me, ‘He’s here for me!’”

  “I thought you grew suddenly quiet halfway through dinner. He…he expressed interest in you when I last saw him in town and it occurred to me that you would be safe and fed in his house, but…”

  “Imagine me as Barbara’s step-mother!” Lydia’s voice grew shrill as she continued, “‘Eat your beef, Barbie, or there’ll be no pudding for you!’”

  Sally let out a shaky laugh and shook her head. “Sorry, dearest. Let’s wash up and forget this ever happened.”

  We need to be done and asleep in bed before Jack stumbles in or he may brag to Liddy about the coins I gave him to assure his absence.

  Yet more waste!

 

 

  Weeping Before Being Choked in the Dark

  ~ Lydia, age 18

  Hillcrest Farm

  Did he kiss her in the barn?

  Tears welled out of the corners of Lydia’s eyes, slipping warmly down the sides of her face and into her ears. She laid in bed, staring into the darkness, her chest aching with emotion.

  She is prettier than me.

  Stop it. If Paul is stupid enough to prefer Anne Triver then he’s not worth moaning over. He never did read that book I loaned him, though he promised he would. Ugh, this ridiculous emotion. How could I even care about someone who had The Hunchback of Notre Dame in their possession and didn’t bother to read it? Oh! How can I get that back to Mr. Farington?

  Her stomach protested at its emptiness. Lydia thought of the eggs on the kitchen table.

  I could go down and cook one…no, that would be one less to sell tomorrow and I’d have to light a candle to see by. More waste!

  She sniffed and dried her eyes with the edge of her pillowcase as she heard the scrape of the front door opening.

  Ugh. Jack’s home.

  “Lydia?” Jack’s voice drifted up as he ascended the stairs. There was the familiar sound of his clumsy gait as he lumbered down the hall. Thump. Scrape. Thump. Scrape. It was always worse when he was intoxicated.

  “Liddy?”

  Closing her eyes and letting her mouth fall open, she feigned sleep, breathing as deeply and evenly as possible.

  Leave me alone. I can’t possibly handle you right now.

  Peering through the tiniest of slits, Lydia saw his frame in her bedroom’s doorway.

  No! Don’t come in! Go away!

  “I know you’re awake, Lydia. You’d wake up if a mouse farted in the kitchen.” He laughed drunkenly.

  Lydia remained still.

  He stumbled toward the bed and knelt beside it, breathing his wreaking gin breath into her face.

  “Lydia.” An edge of anger crept into his voice. He clumsily tapped on her forehead with his finger. “Ly-di-a.”

  “Stop it!” Lydia pushed his hand away and sat up.

  Jack crossed his arms, an empty bottle in his hand, assuming the air of someone wronged by a child. “Where is it, Lydia?”

  “What? Can’t you just leave me alone?” She dragged the sleeve of her nightgown over her swollen eyes.

  “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what, Jack? What’s so important that you have to wake me up in the middle of the night?”

  “I finished this bottle.” He tipped the empty bottle above her bed, the faint moonlight spilling through the window glinted off its rim. A single drop of liquid fell from its down-turned mouth. “And now…I want the other one. “

  He belched.

  “What makes you think I know where it is?” Lydia asked, waving the foul air away from her face.

  “I know you move my bottles around.”

  Lydia’s mind flew back several hours to when she had come across a bottle poorly hidden in some hay in the barn. It was true that she often re-hid them, but that was not what she had done with the one she found that day.

  “Hmmm? Where is it?”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” she said fiercely.

  “I am the man on this farm!” Jack’s rising voice filled the room. “I bought that gin! You’ve no right to keep it from me!”

  Lydia gaped into the darkness, astounded.

  “You bought it? You bought it with what? The money I earned by selling eggs and butter?”

  Jack crumpled into a pathetic, inebriated mess. His hands clutched at her bed covers.

  “Please, Lydia. Please! Have you no heart? You’ve no idea what it’s like.”

  Lydia choked on bitter laughter as she sprang from the bed.

  “I’ve no idea what it’s like? What? To have a shortened leg? Yes, you’re right!” Crouching before him, she stuck her face into his, angry beyond wisdom. “But I do know what it’s like to watch my dead father’s farm fall to ruin because my brother does nothing but drink himself stupid!”

  His hands gripped her shoulders painfully and his face leered into her own.

  “Give me what is mine.” He breathed the words through gritted teeth. “Where is it, you thieving kitchen slut?”

  The insult stung like a slap to the face, spurring Lydia on to fearlessness.

  “Ha! Would you like to hear what this slut did with your beloved gin?” She pushed at the steely grip of his hands. “She poured it out in the yard so…go lick the cobblestones.”

  Jack gasped with fury and his fingers bit deeper into his sister’s shoulders.

  “It’s gone? Altogether?” he roared. His hands flew to her throat, gripping at the soft flesh.

  “Jack,” Lydia wheezed as his grip tightened. Colored spots appeared before her eyes. “Jack…”

  As quickly as it began, his grasp loosened and he fled from the room, shoving past Sally who was rushing in through the doorway.

  Falling onto her bed, Lydia began to cry, clutching at her throat as if the fingers were still there.

  Her mother was beside her, groping to hold her, weeping.

  “He’s getting…worse,” Lydia coughed. “He nearly…strangled me…over some gin.”

  “You can’t stay here, Liddy. I’ve thought it before, and now I know.”

  Lydia raggedly gulped in the night air, leaning against her mother’s bony frame.

  “Jack’s drinking himself to death and…there’s so little food…and now…Jack might…“ Sally broke off, sobbing as she clutched at her daughter. “You’ve got to get out of here.”

  Leave home?

  “Where would I go?”

  “You could…you could…go into service.”

  “Service?”

  “Yes. You’re a hard working girl. You could help some nice family. It would only be for a time. You would do well and there would be plenty to eat. You’ve grown so thin.”

  Maybe. Maybe that would be best. But for how long a time?

  Suddenly a new horrific thought struck Lydia.

  “But…” she turned to face her mother, “what if he hurts you?”

  “He won’t.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  The moon shone in and fell across the older woman’s face. She looked defeated in her tattered nightclothes, perched on the edge of the bed. Sighing heavily, she tightened her grip around Lydia’s shoulders and replied, “Because I don’t dump out his gin.”

 

  Looking for Placement

  ~ Mr. Farington

  Hawthorne House

  Lucas Farington opened his front door.

  “Ah, Miss Lydia! Please come in. You haven’t finished Bunyan already, have you?”

  She looks a bit tired today.

  “Oh no, sir, though I am close. I was wondering if you had any recent newspapers.”

  “Come to the table.” He beckoned her in through the door and motioned toward the kitchen. “So you’ve a new interest in current events, have you?”

  “If you must know,” Lydia said, settling herself into a chair, “I wa
s hoping to peruse the employment section.”

  The words hung in the air, ripe with multiple meanings, some dire.

  How to preserve her dignity? The elderly man thought quickly. Ah, it’s beyond that. Might as well acknowledge it for what it is.

  “Ah, so it’s come to that, has it?” he asked, sadly. “Well, let me get the papers and a bit of tea for us.”

  I wondered how they had survived the previous four or so years since Smythe’s death, he pondered as he filled the tray with tea things. Of course I’d heard in town that some of the land had been sold. Once a farm’s land starts getting parceled off, it’s only a matter of time.

  Of course, the lamed brother is of no help, too busy staggering around Shinford with a bottle in his hand.

  In the past, Farington had considered asking Lydia to do some housekeeping at Hawthorne House, but Old Betty did just fine and there wasn’t enough work for two. He lifted the tray with a somber air and returned to the table.

  After pouring Lydia a cup of hot tea, Farington handed her a newspaper saying, “I got this in London, two weeks ago, so I question the currency of its advertisements, but please yourself to look at it.”

  “Hmmm…” Lydia’s eyes scanned the large unfolded pages. “There is only one that looks as if it might be appropriate.”

  She cleared her throat and read aloud:

  “Wanted: In a baronet’s family, a parlor maid who is tidy in her person and habits. She must be a respectable, trustworthy sort of woman who is ready to serve in the household of a Great Family with devotion and efficiency. An age of thirty-five years or older is preferred. To apply, send name, location, situation and references to Dorothea Smith at Whitehall, Plimbridge, Bevelshire

  “Oh, dear me, I am not close to 35 and the ‘Great Family’ says I need references. Will one from my impartial mother be acceptable, do you suppose?” She laughed and took a sip of tea.

  Farington looked at the young woman before him.

  What a shame that a lovely, intelligent girl such as this is forced into dusting bookshelves just to stay alive. This baronet’s family ought to be giving her their references to prove they’re worthy of her presence in their home.

  “I’ll write something up for you, dear.” He rose from the table and soon returned with paper and a plume.