Chapter Thirty

“I don’t know what your game is,” said Doris, “but something is going on!”

She had invited me round to the back of the kitchen to share a hot roll left over from the hotel guests.

“Yesterday you had ’em,” she said. “And now they’re gone!”

She was staring at my chest.

“Had what . . . exactly?” I could feel myself blushing like a furnace as her eyes bored into me.

“Titties!” She squealed with delight. “Little ones.

Like this.” She dug into her apron pocket, pulled out two more bread rolls and held them up in front of her own enormous breasts. “Plain as molehills in a garden,” she said, giggling. “Me and Daisy always said you was a pretty one. Well, of course you was! I’ve figured it out now.” She poked her finger at me. “Because you, Joe Green, are a girl!”

“A girl?” My heart was beating so fast, I thought it was going to leap right out of my bandaged chest. “What nonsense!” I tried to snort in the gruffest voice I could find.

Doris just smiled. “What I want to know is what you done with ’em!” Before I could stop her, she lunged forward, pulled down the front of my shirt and peeped inside.

“Oh . . . that’s clever, that is!” She whistled. “Bandages!”

“Please don’t tell anyone. I’ll lose my job,” I begged, pulling my shirt straight.

“Chambermaid’s honour,” Doris nodded. “But you’ll have to tell me the truth.”

“I – I’m not Joe Green,” I whispered. What else could I say? It was over. “My name is Josephine. . . I’m a girl.”

Then, taking both of us completely by surprise, I burst into floods of tears. “And I’m . . . bleeding too . . . down there.” I pointed to my breeches.

“Your monthlies! Oh, Josie, you poor thing.” She scooped me up into a big warm hug. “You don’t mind if I call you Josie, do you?”

“No.” I tried to smile, but it only made me cry even more. Nobody had called me Josie since Nanny Clay.

That evening Doris came up to the loft with a cold lamb chop, three potatoes and a dish of rice pudding with two spoons.

She also had some strips of thick cotton for me to stuff into my knickers.

“Thank you.” I took the cotton gratefully.

“Tough work being a girl, ain’t it?” Doris winked. “Not that you’d know much about that eh, Joe Green? You’re a dark horse, you are.”

Her big eyes were sparkling with excitement and I saw now why James had said she was pretty. Her whole face lit up and there was something so cheeky about her, I couldn’t help but smile.

“Go on then,” she said, taking a bite out of the lamb chop and passing it on to me. “I want to hear the whole story.”

So I told her everything. About Father dying. Even about Mother running off to London when I was just a tiny baby. I told her how beautiful Mother had been and described the picture hanging in the nursery.

“You must miss her something terrible,” said Doris.

“I just wish I’d had the chance to get to know her,” I said and Doris squeezed my hand. I had never said that out loud to anyone before.

Then I told her about Aunt Lavinia and The Slug. About how they got rid of Nanny Clay and tried to send me off as a companion to Lady Hexham. How they sold all the horses. And how I escaped with Merrylegs and become a boy.

“That’s how I came to Birtwick and met Black Beauty,” I said. “He’s all that matters to me now. He’s the nearest thing to family that I have.”

“I know what you mean.” Doris had been quiet most of the time I was talking – only nodding her head and gasping now and then. “My old dad had this lurcher once,” she said. “Terrible smelly dog it was, always farting, but. . . Oh my goodness!” Suddenly she leapt to her feet, her face as white as her apron.

“What is it?” I said, leaping up too and looking round. “Did you see a rat?”

Doris shook her head. “Here’s me talking to you about a farting dog . . . and me hands are all greasy – and . . . and I’m chattin’ away as if you was Daisy in the laundry. But you’re not Daisy, are you? You’re gentry. . .”

“No, I’m not,” I said, with a grin. “Not any more anyway. Look, my fingers are just as greasy as yours.” To prove my point I picked up a cold potato, took a huge bite out of it and wiped my mouth on the back of my sleeve. The only trouble was, the bite I took was so big I began to choke on it.

“Huuh!” I spluttered and coughed, sending a shower of half-chewed potato flying through the air. A big wet chunk hit poor Doris right on the nose.

“Eww!” she squealed. But, as my spluttering turned to laughter, we both collapsed in a heap of giggles on the floor.

“I’ll tell you something,” Doris panted. “You ain’t nothing like me and Daisy. You’re common as muck you are, Lady Josephine.”

“Exactly!” I giggled and we burst into fits of laughter all over again.

“Seriously, though,” she said when we finally managed to calm down. “You can’t go on pretending to be a lad for much longer, Josie. You’re just too . . . well, you just don’t look like a boy no more.”

“But . . . but I have to be a boy,” I said. “I have to work in stables . . . with horses. It’s the only way I’ll ever have the chance to be near Black Beauty.”

“Well, I don’t see how that follows.” Doris shrugged in her matter-of-fact way. “You ain’t near him now. You might as well pull on a frilly bonnet and get yourself back to Earlspark Hall. . .”

“Earlshall Park?”

“Exactly. Get yourself back up there and see if they’ve got a job going in the laundry or the dairy. Then you don’t have to bother with all this,” she nodded at my bandaged chest. “You can nip out and see your Beauty in the stables whenever you want.”

“Doris, you’re brilliant!” I stared at her. Why hadn’t I ever thought of that? “Although . . . won’t they recognize me?”

“Ha!” Doris laughed. “Believe me, Josie, nobody sees a laundry girl or a dairy maid. Not properly.”

“But the servants will recognize me. Mr York. . .”

Doris made a dismissive noise. “He won’t think twice. Not if you’re in a dress.”

“But James . . . he’ll definitely recognize me.”

“Then why don’t you just tell him?”

“I suppose I could. . .” I thought it over. If I really was going back to Earlshall, James would have to know my secret. If he knew the truth, he could help me out. “Maybe I could tell him tomorrow – he’s going to be here for the horse fair.”

“Is that so?” Doris sat up and pushed her hair behind her ears.

“Yes!” I felt a leap of excitement as I thought of all the different horses that would be arriving in Riverside. “He’s bringing Linnet, a hunter with a big white blaze. Sir George rode her too fast, now he wants James to sell her at the fair. She’s about fifteen hands high with. . .”

“Blimey! You really do natter on about nags, don’t you?” Doris laughed. “What I want to know is what time you are meeting our gorgeous James Howard?”

“James? Gorgeous?” I raised my eyebrows. “If you say so.” But I felt suddenly nervous. “I should be able to slip out for a bit around noon,” I explained. “But Doris . . . please don’t tell James I’m a girl. Not yet. I’ll have to see if the moment is right – he’ll be busy with the horses and – well, I think I ought to break it to him myself.”

“All right!” Doris dug her spoon into the rice pudding. “Put a bit of soot on your chin, it’ll look like you’re growing a beard. You be Joe Green for one more day if you like. Then we’ll turn you back into a girl for good.”

“Doris!” I shouted up the stairs to the maids’ rooms at the back of the hotel. “Hurry! – we’re going to be late. . .” I glanced over my shoulder at the stable clock.

“All right, all right, I’m coming.” Doris clattered down the steps in a pair of pointy-heeled shoes and her best Sunday frock. “You might not want to dress like a girl for James Howard, but some of us thought we might make a little effort.”

“You look lovely,” I said, trying not to giggle as I stared at her enormous hat, which was tied with an even bigger yellow ribbon.

“You don’t think it’s too much do you, Josie?”

“No.” I stretched up and pushed the ribbons flat at the back. “There. That’s perfect. But just remember, you have to call me Joe.” I pulled my stable lad’s cap firmly down on my own head. “I’m not Josie. Not yet.”

“Got it.” Doris smiled. “Come on then, J—”

“Joe!” Someone was shouting my name from the courtyard. “Joe!”

“It’s James,” I said. “Something’s the matter.”