The carriage deposited us in a courtyard so spotless you could’ve eaten supper off the cobbles, and I was ravenous enough to do just that, had anyone offered. In amongst the sweet smell of horses and hay was a saltiness I knew all too well. It made me glad and homesick all at once.
‘We are on the coast?’ I asked. On the drive here I must’ve lost my bearings, because I had been sure we were still some way inland.
‘Right by the sea,’ Mr Spicer confirmed. ‘We’re eight miles north of Bridgwater.’
I realised I was further from home than I’d ever been in my life. Though I didn’t get to dwell on it as Mr Spicer hurried me around to the back of the house, through a walled garden, under an archway and up some steps to a low studded door that was clearly the entrance for household servants. As we walked, I wondered what Master Spicer would be like – not ill-tempered like his sister, I hoped, for it was dawning on me that I knew nothing of the ways of daily bathing or keeping clothes fresh, or whatever a rich boy might require. In fact, it troubled me enough to say so.
‘Not wishing to speak out of turn, sir,’ I said, as Mr Spicer strode ahead. ‘But wouldn’t a boy like your son be better with a proper trained servant?’
‘Aha!’ Mr Spicer spun round, his handsome face lit up. ‘You’ve hit upon it! My son is of an age where he needs more male influence.’
I gulped.
‘A proper, rough-at-the-edges sort of boy, to help him become more …’ He paused, ‘… manly.’
‘Manly,’ I repeated in my best deep voice.
So my position here was to teach the young Master Spicer how to become a better man? I, who’d been raised by strong women, and who, despite my short hair and flat, skinny body, was a girl. It was a job not to laugh at the craziness of it.
‘Well?’ Mr Spicer stopped on the threshold. ‘Is everything clear?’
As clear as sea fog, I thought, though I nodded yet again, like the good servant I was trying to be.
*
Inside, I was taken to an enormous kitchen. The fireplace was so big Jem and me could’ve stood in it, and the ceiling went up and up to the heavens like a church roof. All the maids chopping, banging pans, scrubbing vegetables, talking, filled the room with a deafening buzz.
The moment they saw us – or rather Mr Spicer – everything stopped. Like puppets, the maids turned their faces to whichever wall was nearest, and an eerie hush fell. Just one woman, so red-cheeked she looked parboiled, came forward. She was the same person I’d seen earlier handing the baby to Susannah.
‘Ah, Mistress Bagwell,’ Mr Spicer greeted her.
‘Good day to you, sir,’ she said, bobbing stiffly. ‘The surgeon is already here. He made swift time from Glastonbury.’
‘Excellent.’ Mr Spicer nodded. ‘And remember, my son mustn’t have anything for the pain.’
Mistress Bagwell sucked in her cheeks. ‘Not afterwards? Nothing at all?’
‘Nothing. I forbid it. We mustn’t pander to his weaknesses. Fortune has been hired to tend Master Ellis from now on. No doubt he’ll toughen the boy up.’
And I was promptly handed over to the woman who seemed to be both housekeeper and nursemaid, rolled into one.
Once Mr Spicer had gone, the whole room seemed to let out a breath.
‘Back to it, girls!’ Mistress Bagwell clapped her hands, then looked me up and down, and properly too, like those housekeepers at the hiring fair.
She sniffed. ‘You haven’t seen water for a while, have you, lad?’
‘I got wet in the sea yesterday,’ I reassured her.
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Soap, that’s what you need.’
She yelled to a kitchen maid to follow us to the washroom with a pail of warm water, then took me down a passageway, past a stillroom full of jars and bottles and the meat room where whole lambs and sides of pig hung from the ceiling hooks. There was so much to see, my eyes were jumping out of my head. Mistress Bagwell threw open a door on a tiled chamber and told me to strip off.
I didn’t move.
The maid put down her bucket. From her apron pocket, she produced a cake of soap. She’d also brought a clean shirt and breeches, which she hung on the back of the door. She wasn’t in any hurry to leave, either.
‘Go on, lad, get washing,’ Mistress Bagwell urged.
There wasn’t a chance in hell I could risk getting undressed in front of these two.
‘You don’t need to stay,’ I insisted, thinking of what my nakedness would reveal.
The maid snorted. Mistress Bagwell rolled her eyes.
‘Would you at least mind not staring, then?’ I asked.
That set them off into gales of laughter.
‘Oh, bless him, he’s a shy one!’
‘Must have something to hide, mustn’t he, eh?’
Too right I did.
I was on the verge of point-blank refusing to wash when another maid came running in, shrieking about the bread having burnt and could the missus come quick before the whole kitchen went up in smoke.
They went, thank goodness, though I didn’t trust them not to come back again. I splashed the water over myself so fast it was more of a dampening than a proper wash. The clothes they’d left me, though too big, were of good cloth and clean. With a bit of tucking in and rolling up sleeves, I managed to look half decent.
‘You’ll do,’ Mistress Bagwell observed, when I appeared back in the kitchen.
My stomach made a yowling sound.
‘Any chance of a bite to eat, missus?’ I begged.
She shoved me on to a stool at the kitchen table, before pushing a plate of burnt bread and butter in front of me. I ate the lot.
‘Anything else?’ Mistress Bagwell asked, eyeing my empty plate. ‘Roast swan? Pigeon pie? A cup of mead for the young gent?’
I wiped my mouth and shook my head.
‘At least you’ve got a strong stomach. That’s something. Let’s go and meet Master Ellis, then, shall we?’ She said it as if the two things were connected.