Terribly Lottey

  Chapter Two

  I sit in deafening dread. I don’t even really know how this is all happening to me. One moment my life is only slightly dreadful, but near perfect, and now this– it’s like a burning living hell, in which I have been cast into. What do they say in books? A pit of despair. I am a basket of desolateness. And no one even cares.

  I don’t meet eyes with any of the servants when they come in to clean my room and ready it to be made into a guest bedroom. I’ll soon join their ranks.

  I’ve been told I can take only limited things with me.

  I look no one in the eye, and speak to no one. Especially not her. By that I mean Terre, my not-sister. I hate her more than I have ever hated Jyne, or anyone. It’s all because of her.

  I still cannot get over this shock. It’s hard to realize what is going on. I want to think they will change their minds, but I know… I know this is for real.

  And I don’t know what to make of it. I mean, I have no friends, no one in this world who cares about me.

  And obviously everyone else knew before I did. It’s why Lady Jyssel was here. It’s why Dich gave me the tiger pelt. It’s why Willy came and said he couldn’t court me.

  Because I am NOBODY!

  Forgive me if these inkblots are unreadable. But sometimes tears are actually uncontrollable.

  I can’t even bring myself to say anything I normally do, such as heavens, or awful, dreadful, or horrid. Everything seems so foreign.

  Even me.

  I feel dead. And so, so meaningless. Why was I created if everything was just going to be taken from me? I would rather be dead. But I am too much of wimp to kill myself.

  The wagon has arrived to take me away. Yes, a wagon. This will be like a funeral procession.

  I will write down what happens– if I live.

  And the worst part is that I have no one to miss me.

  The trip to the Perr Mansion was awkward, deadly and the silence was deafening. Not a bird chirped, nor a cricket. There were no clouds in the whitish-gray sky. The wind didn’t even blow. And the person driving me (I can no longer say servant– for I share the title) didn’t make a single noise the whole time. That really killed me.

  The things I brought with me: my tiger pelt, two changes which I regret to inform are peasant dresses, this book and a sulfur pencil which is hard to read, but who cares now? And a handkerchief and I think that may be it. I have never owned so little.

  For some reason, this feels like only a trip. As if in a week or so I will be allowed to come back home and the horror will be over. All I can do is to pray.

  When the wagon pulled into the stables I caught my breath. It wasn’t beautiful or scenic– it reeked. But I couldn’t complain. For how did I even know my room would be any nicer? The thought pricked my eyelids with frozen tears.

  Once the horse was put away I was led to a door around the side of the Mansion, something I had never even seen before. But I suppose my mansion, or now it is Terre’s mansion, I suppose it has one too. It was the only door the servants were allowed to enter and exit from, I was told. Unless otherwise directed by the master or mistress. I was taken to the Freniar, which I am told is the same as a butler-type servant. The Freniar is in charge of everything, and makes sure everyone stays in their place.

  I had always thought that was my job.

  My poor little measly sack of my only belongings was set in the kitchen to wait on me.

  This is the scary part. I had to face Lady Jyssel and Lady Jyne, and they would tell me what my position was in this dreadful play of life.

  “I’ll take her,” said a plump woman, wiping her hands on a dirty apron. She then took the apron off and tossed it aside. “I’m Clessle, Sharlotte.” She extended her hand, and I assumed she meant for me to shake it.

  I hesitated, but I knew I had to… touch her. She probably hadn’t washed her hands in hours, or days, and Lord knows what she had been touching. But I had to get used to this formality, even though I found it most revolting.

  “Hi– hi. You can call me Lottey. Only my…” I was about to tell her only my mother had called me by my whole first name, but then I remembered. She wasn’t my mother.

  The torture I was first shown was the ten flights of stairs that separated the servants from the nobles. I was out of breath before we even started trekking.

  On the way to whatever room both Lady J’s were in I just knew I was going to be one of Jyne’s ladies maids. And that would be the end of my life. But as we turned the corner–

  “No, mother. I didn’t want her to be one of my ladies in waiting. That’s not what I meant for.”

  “Then–?”

  “I meant for her to be a scullery maid.”

  I turned milk white all over and almost tripped over my own foot. Scullery maid. What a word to hear ringing in my ears. Wasn’t that the most incredibly low job one could possibly have?

  They– she – obviously meant for this to teach me a lesson.

  As we entered the room, I kept my eyes low as I could without tripping. I did not want to meet either of them in they eye, especially not Jyne. Or Lady Jyne, I suppose I should write, should someone of importance find this book.

  I felt my white turn to red in an instant as Lady Jyne laid eyes upon me. I wanted to charge at her and scream every insulting word I knew of. I wanted to shake her silly, make her mental. But I stood, just as I had with Terre.

  This was my place.

  “Servant’s do not usually confront the mistress to be told their position, but we both know your situation is different, Sharlotte.” Lady Jyssel’s was odd with coldness, and sternness. Was there a side to her I didn’t know of?

  “You are to take the place as scullery maid. You will do as you’re told. No questions asked. I believe you know that?”

  I knew I wasn’t supposed to actually answer that question. I stayed silent.

  “Good. Clessle will show you to your quarters.”

  I swallowed the word quarters. I knew I wouldn’t get much room to sleep, and I suppose I knew it would be quarters, but it was still a shock. I have always gotten just as much room as I want– and now this. It’s so menacingly shocking, and I barely even realize what is happening around me. Or that I am even alive.

  But I am.

  I could feel Lady Jyne smiling fiendishly down on me as I followed Clessle out of the room and back down the rickety wooden stairs to the servant’s quarters, where the kitchen and everything low and dirt was kept.

  Clessle showed me my room, which is separated by curtains from the rest of the servant girls. When she left I collapsed the little cot, and held my breath. It smelled mildew-y.

  But what could I do?

  Oh, if I had the courage, I would run away in a blink of an eye.

  But I am a coward. And I fall prey to my own helpless mind.

  After about ten minutes a girl poked her head around the corner of my curtain. “I have time to show you your duties.”

  I sat up and stared at her. I wanted to scream now?? Instead, I just stated it. “Now?”

  She gave a weak nod.

  I rolled myself off of the cot which is not very far from the ground, and stood up. I wanted to sigh, but I felt frozen inside.

  “I’m Keelei,” she offered. Her voice was very quiet and subtle.

  “I’m… I’m Lottey.” Why bother with the whole thing.

  She didn’t offer her hand for me to shake. I didn’t know if it was rude of me not to offer it first, as if she expected it, but I was too dazed to really care.

  I followed her out of the curtain-sectioned rooms and into the kitchen. It was steamy and hot and reeked of fish and boiling water. There was a skinny woman– not to mention extremely tall– standing at the stove, poking the flames provokingly. The stove was tall and black with a tarnished green look to it, and there was three or so large pots steaming. I didn’t want to ask what they were; I feared they would be my meal, and they did not smell good. (I learned later that the dis
hes were for the family, and they turned out smelling much nicer than when I first saw them.)

  “That is Ursula,” Keelei said, pointing to the skinny and tall lady at the stove.

  I swallowed hard and nodded. Ursula didn’t take notice of me.

  “That is Fredoi, the cook. He is originally from ParKesh, and used to cook for an unbelievably rich family there. Or so he says.”

  Fredoi was a stern looking sort of fellow, a bit of mustache under his nose that stopped before it touched his lip, and that looks like a bloodied nose, if you ask me. He is tall and thin, though not as thin as Ursula, and wears a big pink hat on his dark black hair. The hat looks like a rotten mushroom.

  “You’ve met Freniar,” Keelei continued. “He’s instructed me on what you should do. Ursula has many a pot needing scrubbing, and I’m sure that’ll take at least a good three hours. After that…”

  Keelei kept talking, and talking, and talking, and my head spun at an incredible rate. I felt tears choking me, but I was afraid of being beaten. I held my breath and waited for her to be done instructing me. Then a boy entered the kitchen from outside, looking to be about two or three years my senior. He looked so very familiar, but I just couldn’t place it. I wasn’t sure if it was because I felt to poor to think, or because Keelei was talking to me.

  “…Oh, that’s Ryse the hall boy.”

  Hall boy! Then I remembered. The scum who opened my door when I came for tea about a month or two ago. He certainly was out of his place then. But… scum? How could I call him scum when he and I were on the exact same ranks now!? We had the lowest jobs in the world!

  “Now, Lottey, I have to get to work. It’s about time for Lady Jyne’s bath. But the sinks over there, and–”

  She didn’t even have time to finish. Another ladies maid came rushing in, yelping at her to get the lilies out of the garden so they could sprinkle them in the water before Jyne saw they weren’t there.

  I used to have baths with lily sprinkled water.

  I walked over to the sink. And I didn’t know the last thing about washing dishes. Where was the water? Where was the soap? I broke into sobs. This was all so stupid!! I hated everything and everyone around me. And I was stupid. I didn’t even know where to find hot water.

  But then an image flashed through my head: a flying whip. And I bit my lip to stop my bawling.

  “Do you have any clue what you’re doing?” asked a good-natured, but almost teasing voice. I turned and saw it was Ryse.

  I wanted to speak, but didn’t want to speak, for reasons I needed to forget. But why should I forget who I am? Perhaps if I were bad and were thrown out I could run away to ParKesh or someone and feign a kidnapping and–

  “That big pot over there over the fire is your water. It has to be warm to clean the dishes. There’s a little bit of lye left, but you’ll need to make some more tomorrow.” Ryse took my silence as a no.

  But he was the last person I’d want help from. A hall boy? “How do I get the water from… there to here?” I asked uneasily.

  Ryse stared at my funny for a few moments. Then he went over to the fire, took the pot by the handle, and dumped it in the big basin known as the sink.

  “You have to do it next time.” He sounded as if we had made a deal.

  I stared at the water. It looked scalding. And I had to put my hands in it.

  Oh, my hands would be dry and red and I’d be lucky if I didn’t get blisters!

  “What is lye?” I asked. I tried to keep my haughtiness toned down, but I felt utterly barmy.

  Ryse stared at me again. I don’t like his stare.

  Lye is a toughing, spiny sort of soap used by servants. It’s made out of– oh, should I write it? I felt on the verge when I asked Ryse–

  “Animal fat. And different herbs and flowers so it can do its job properly.”

  So I washed the filthy, stinky dishes in scalding hot water using animal fat to scrub off the dried potatoes and burnt fish off the bottoms.

  It makes no sense! And it makes me so… I don’t know how to explain.

  Maybe I can find the courage, so I can leave this place. It’s so horrid and wretched and dirty. I am too good, and I know it. Everyone else around may not, but I do.

  Besides the foul pots and pans, I scrubbed numerous things today. I don’t want to mention them; it simply sounds to low, so horribly low, and that is something I am not. I was forced from my status and this is only temporary. I know it. It has to be!

  I cannot go on scrubbing things.

  I know I am just jabbering absolute nonsense about absolutely nothing that makes sense, but I have dirt under my nails!!

  I try to keep my dignity as I write these loathed words. But it’s so hard– oh it’s so, so hard. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to.

  But I am.

  And this cot is rather hard.

  This house is a revolting pail of muck.

  For everyone who lives above the servant quarters, it is even– might I say it– nicer than the Devingrole mansion. People bouncing around, ordering dresses and having teas, having their picture painted on a sheet white canvas.

  So why can’t it be like that down here?

  Today I was awakened by Keelei. Rather reluctantly, I might add.

  “Lottey, you should have been in the kitchen an hour ago.”

  I opened my eyes and glared. There was no light in my room.

  “How I am supposed to know what time it is if I can’t even see the bloody sun?” I demanded, rather harshly.

  Keelei didn’t answer. She looked almost… well, I wouldn’t say offended, but displeased. Her head went down as she spoke. “Ryse is waiting to teach you how to make lye.”

  I threw the thin blanket onto the floor in a huff. “Where’s the wash basin?” I asked impatiently.

  “We are allowed one bath a week. If you would like to wash your face in the mornings you will have to get up an hour early and go to the stream behind the mansion.”

  Astonishment hit me like a heavy brick, and I didn’t dare to ask any more questions. I had slept in my first shift, and even though it was wrinkled… if no one care if my face was clean, who would care about my dress?

  “Thank you, Keelei, you can go now,” I said sharply. The girl had a funny look about her– cannot figure it out. And she left.

  Glad to be alone for a few moments before my treacherous day began, I stood and closed my eyes and realized just how much the genuine shock of everything was hitting me so hard… my situation, and my future…

  …and I felt dizzy.

  My name is Sharlotte Marish Rose Devingrole! Not scullery maid, not servant, but future lady. I tried to swallow but choked. I bit my tongue and swallowed the blood. I was suddenly scared and weak, but at the same time I felt so defiant I wanted to run up to Lady Jyne’s quarters and drag her from her satiny bed and throw her out of the window. I didn’t know what to do.

  Me? Make a sort of makeshift soap?

  And then scrub dishes with it.

  I had to figure a way out of it. Had to. Have to.

  I ran out into the hall and caught Keelei by the arm. She spun and looked apprehensive.

  “Keelei– I cannot work today. I have a dreadful pounding head and my–”

  Suddenly I heard a scoffing laugh. I turned and saw a small pallet in the corner of the hall, and a trunk with breeches slung over it. And I saw Ryse sitting on it, next to all the worn rubbish.

  “Of course, Lady Lottey, you can have a day off– if you want a lashing that will sting and throb so bad your stomach will turn out, and will make work seem worse than death.”

  I wrinkled my nose and bit uncouth words. What a boorish, awful and coarse person. And I had to have him as an instructor.

  I’d rather take Horrace back.

  Keelei kept walking after Ryse had explained to me why I couldn’t stay in bed for the day. “But that’s unjust!” I advocated ominously.

  Ryse looked up at me, lacing his boots. He stood up and t
ook a few steps towards me, closer than I favored. “Tell me, Lottey, would you have given any of your servants a day off?”

  He left me with my knees locked. I heard him go outside, stepping nonchalantly onto the cracked tiles.

  Would I have given any of my servants a day off?

  I knew the answer. Of course not.

  But– there was a reason behind my reasoning. Servants were used to being treated as servants, but I was not. And so, when servants or hall boys or scullery maids had a throbbing head and swimmy stomach… they should just work. Like normal. Doesn’t that reasoning sound– correct?

  I unglued my feet from the floor and forced myself out the cracked doorframe. Ryse was about two hundred feet away with a big cauldron sort of pot, and it was over a fire. He had a mixture of items around him. I could tell what some were, but most of them were totally foreign. Such as the white gloopy stuff, and the black liquid in a bowl next to a sponge. Not to mention the florescent powders.

  “What are… these things?” I asked him when I reached him.

  He glanced up at me, busy cracking the shells of nuts and grinding their powders. “The white is animal fat– a lion’s fat. Jyssel wouldn’t have any other than the best. The black is liquid berry sulfur, which is a complicated process to explain to a close-minded person.”

  Close-minded indeed.

  “The different colors are the grounds of Ger and Hud, ParKeshan nuts. They weaken the potency of the black coloring from the berry sulfur, and change it to a lighter tint. I don’t know what Fredoi or Freniar would do if Jyne or Jyssel came down and saw someone scrubbing their pots with black water–”

  “Jyne visits the servant quarters?” I blurted, quickly remembering that the quarters weren’t as close to hell as I’d always imagined.

  Ryse ignored my question. “I’m going to show you this once, only. I have my own duties, you know, and don’t get to sleep ‘till they’re through. You’re just lucky one of us volunteered to put up with you.”

  “Put up with me?” I blanched.

  “Watch closely.”

  I bent down, as much as I hated to, onto the juicy grass. Ryse added two parts lion fat, one part berry sulfur liquid, and three half parts of the nut grounds.

  “Remember that,” he told me, as if he had explained the whole thing to me out loud.

  I nodded, though I didn’t know how I would. Next he stirred it, twenty times to the right and nineteen times to the left. When I asked why it mattered which it was stirred, he simply ignored me. He had an awful habit of ignoring the questions he didn’t want to answer.

  “Now, if it bubbles because of the heat, then you have an absolute, ruined batch. You can’t have air in the soap. After you stir it in the correct proportions, you must leave it set for fifteen minutes. If it sets for a second longer, it will bubble from over-exposure to the air. If you don’t let it set long enough, it will never harden.

  “After its fifteen minutes you are to take this stone– ParKeshan marble– and place it over. Take note not to hover over it.”

  “How will I know when it’s done?”

  “Don’t worry about that. You’ll know.”

  So Ryse left me to do his hall boy duties while I was left to the rest of the lye making. I waited fifteen minutes, and I knew for a fact that I was correct. I counted on my own– and never once was confused. I set the marble on top of the soap mixture, and–

  I wailed.

  It had sunk. The brew was a light purple, and it had completely engulfed the ParKeshan stone. And no one had heard my wail, so I supposed that I was left to deal with this dreadful problem on my own. I knew the soap was too hot for my delicate skin, but… there was no way I was going to dump it out and start again. Someone would have my neck.

  I rolled my sleeves back and dunked my hands in.

  It sizzled for a moment or two, and my hands went numb. I grasped the stone, but it was heavy. And it was wedged funny. I pulled, and thought I had it, but it smashed my finger against the side of the cauldron. I yelped. Pain surged through my fingers on up to my shoulders. I pulled again, and slung it out and onto the grass. There was a crackle and a hiss, and then silence.

  My hands panged and I looked down at them. Blisters. And maybe even a boil or two. I wanted the heave all the bile from my stomach but I was too afraid. I saw the stone lying there in the grass. Keelei had something about a stream that ran behind the mansion; most likely the same one near the Devingrole Mansion.

  I knew what I had to do.

  I yanked the stone from the grass and dashed in the direction of the stream. I could use the excuse of washing off the stone, and I could soothe my hands. Oh, I was so foolish. Who cared about wasting a few measly ingredients? Next time I would know better.

  The stream, oh where was it? I closed my eyes while I ran helplessly and pictured it in my mind: clear and shallow, tulips growing from the bottom, swaying under the water. Heart and star shaped stones, just perfect for jacks. And– oh! I could already hear my hands sizzling in the water.

  “Iyahh!” I opened my eyes and found that they were. I had found the stream and tumbled in. I had smashed some daisies, but my hands felt a bit better. Not relieved, but a livable state. And the stone– oh. I felt sick all over again.

  I stared at the stone– no, I glared at it. It laid there at the bottom of the stream, and it was cracked. Straight down the middle. I reached forward warily and touched the crack. But when I touched it, it moved. The crack moved. I pushed it off.

  It was only a bit of river kelp.

  That relieved me a little, but it didn’t prepare me for the relief I would need when I saw the cauldron of lye I had left.

  Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere!

  It took me three tries after that to get it right.

  After I had succeeded, and Ryse helped me cut it into bars, I thought it was time for me to retire for the night. But he laughed.

  “It’s not our fault it took you all day to finish your first task.”

  My first task?

  I still had the whole days’ worth of dishes to scrub with the new lye I had made. Freniar allowed me to wait until morning to do the kitchen floors, and that was only because of my ‘past situation’.

  I did not get to my spiting cot until at least three in the morning. And, you little evil book, you are extremely lucky I took the time to account all of this!

  Sweat dripped off my brow in the size of walnuts. The lye soap mixed with hot water and slung all over the floor– it smelled something awful. One could tell it was of animal origins. It was early morning, before the sun; I figure the sooner I was finished the sooner I could get to bed. I slept soundly, no matter how unpleasant and rigid the makeshift bed was. If I didn’t sleep soundly, I wouldn’t get enough sleep in, and the day would be twice as bad– if at all possible.

  Grime had wedged itself in the most impossible corners and creases of the floor. And the mop I was to work with, well, it was, as well, impossible. I tried to scrub the horrible tile as best as I could, but the color of it didn’t look clean even when it was. That only made things worse.

  I heard someone coming down the hall. It was about time they had been up and about. I felt glamorous almost, the first one to their chores.

  Slip, thud.

  My neck spun around. I saw a girl on the floor with a stunned look on her face.

  “If you’re going to be a-moppin’, you have to hang up the sign!” She howled at me.

  I hadn’t the slightest what she was talking about. Then I saw Freniar and Fredoi and Ursula running from their rooms. And they stopped, rather suddenly. Ursula and Fredoi tended to the girl who was still on the floor, and Freniar carefully made his way over to me.

  “Girl, I don’t care what mansion you’re from. God gave everyone common sense.” He pointed to the wall, where there was a sign that said dry. Freniar took it violently in his aged hands and flipped to over, and it said damp. He gave me a good stare and went on his way.

  It turned
out the girl, Diin, whom ‘I’ had caused an injury to was a ladies maid to Lady Jyne. And she had twisted her ankle.

  “It’s swollen,” Ursula had told me, “and it needs to be up for at least today. We are going to have to expect you to do her duties in addition to your own.”

  It was bad enough to have to face Jyne, but it would mean another night with not enough sleep. A two-person load would take me even longer than yesterday. I wanted to spit and say, “Make me!!” but I kept seeing a whip in my head. That was the only reason I had to stay where I was put.

  One good thing came from being a ladies maid for a day: nicer dress and frock. Although it was a little snug (too many ruffleberry-tarts in the past) and I was strictly instructed not to wear it when I did my own duties. I said I didn’t think it would be much of a problem.

  I carried a silver tray and followed a line of three girls, with me in the middle, through the house, up the stairs and into Lady Jyne’s room. And there she was, lying in her silky, fluffy, nice smelling bed. A full night’s rest was on her face, and a black satin nightgown clothed her. We maids set our things down on her gilded tables.

  “Leave me,” she waved her hand, as if shooing us.

  I wanted to wave something at her.

  “Except you,” she looked at me. My knees locked and I could feel the dread on my face.

  The other two left, left me alone with the brutal Jyne. She didn’t seem to really notice me; she went on with her breakfast, taking a browned biffle wheat crack with a heap of orange jiggly stuff.

  “Mmm,” with a lick of the fingers. “That must be the absolute best marmalade I’ve ever had.”

  I thought, “From ParKesh, no doubt?” But apparently I had said it aloud.

  “Yes, as a matter a fact. Miss-witty, I see. Nothing breaks you, then?”

  Everything breaks me. I was sore all over. But I kept silent.

  “I’ve heard about your double duties for today. But you know, I think I sort of like the sight of you. Maybe it can be a permanent situation.”

  “A higher ranking could be nice.” I didn’t want to meet her eyes; for she’d she the hatred I had icing inside for her.

  “Oh, no,” she laughed. “You’d still be a scullery maid.”

  My knees buckled, but I caught myself. Oh, what a cruel heart. Someone needed to lie to her and make her a servant.

  “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t keep you. You probably have a mile of work loading up as we both waste breath.”

  I turned to leave and put my hand on the cold doorhook.

  “I haven’t dismissed you!” She smiled evilly.

  I stood and waited.

  “Okay, you may leave. But I may want you later. Be on the lookout.”

  I heard her laughing still as I scurried down the corridor. What a horrid, nasty person. And I had never liked her! Never, far before the day we sat in her garden, when she was whacking her maids every which way. Oh…

  Would that be me? Would she beat me? She hated me enough to. I feared, though, that I’d wallop her back. It would be simply a reflex, though she’d probably reflex right back at me again. And then I’d see that dreadful picture that served as my conscious: the whip.

  Oh, to serve the unworthy. What torture.

  Altogether that day, I emptied twenty-four chamber pots, re-mopped the kitchen floor and down the hall, dusted thirteen armoires and five china cabinets, helped the stable boy muck the stalls, and, oh… I can’t remember what else. But on top of that, I had to tend to Diin’s ankle. Jyne allowed her ice, precious ice– and only for a swollen body part! Wouldn’t it be put to more use in our warm, daily water?