Never a Road Without a Turning (3 page)

He stayed there, surveying his kingdom, until the sun was high enough in the sky that he couldn’t put off returning to the cottage any longer. Mrs. Applethwaite might have difficulty finding someone to replace him so close to their master’s return, but if Pip pushed his luck too far, the woman could and would send him packing. He had no doubts about that. With a long-suffering sigh, Pip turned the horse around and headed back the way he’d come.

New tracks rutted the muddy road leading to the cottage. And when he reached the yard, he found a carriage waiting in front of the stone archway by the front door. Pip’s stomach dropped in dread. He could already feel the loss of his only pleasure, even as his breath quickened in anticipation of meeting his new master. Two men were unloading trunks from the back and top of the carriage while Mrs. Applethwaite directed them with fluttering hands. Pip dismounted reluctantly and led the horse through the open gate as quietly as he could, but it was no use. Mrs. Applethwaite spotted him before he could disappear into the barn.

“Where have you been?” she all but screeched.

“I were only seeing to me duties, Missus,” Pip replied meekly, with the best northern accent he could manage. He’d learned early that neither the cant of his youth, nor the polish of Vicar Halford’s schooling would earn him any friends in the lake country, so he did his best to ape the locals wherever he went.

“Well put that animal away and ’urry back as fast as ye can,” she ordered urgently, a hint of her Yorkshire birth creeping into her own usually proper British in her distress. “The master has sent his trunks on ahead while ’e rests from ’is journey, but he’s only a few miles away, and we expect him tonight!”

Some of the tightness in Pip’s chest eased, even as he felt a pang of disappointment. His curiosity about his new master wouldn’t be satisfied that day. But that also meant he might have another opportunity to ride the horse tomorrow before the man had fully recovered from his travels.

Despite the desperation in her tone, Pip noted that Mrs.
Applethwaite’s husband was nowhere to be found while there were heavy trunks and crates to be unloaded. But Pip kept that observation to himself. With her nerves so obviously frayed, the housekeeper wouldn’t thank him for calling her attention to it. He simply put the horse into the stall built specially for it and returned to help the men unload.

When they’d placed all the trunks and boxes safely inside, stacked along either side of the front hall, Mrs. Applethwaite paid the coachmen from a small purse she always kept in her apron pocket. The men tipped their caps in thanks and climbed back into the coach. After they passed through the gate, Mrs. Applethwaite turned to Pip. “These all need to be carried up to the master’s rooms,” she said casually, pointing to the six trunks on the left side of the door as if she were talking about a few baskets of flowers or something equally small and easy to carry.

Pip looked between her and the disappearing coachmen for a few moments in disbelief. “Y’ want
me
to do it?”

The old woman’s already severe countenance pinched even more in disapproval. “Who else?”

Pip ground his teeth together before trying again. “Pardon, ma’am, but ye said I weren’t to set foot in the ’ouse. Now I’m t’ carry all ’is things up to ’is rooms? Ye said ye and Mr. Applethwaite were the only ones allowed—”

Mrs. Applethwaite sliced her hand through the air to cut him off and straightened to her full height, scowling at him. “Mr. Applethwaite is unwell today. This once, you will be allowed in the rest of the house to carry the master’s trunks to his rooms upstairs.” The hints of her accent disappeared as her haughtiness returned, and she looked down her pointed nose at him. Pip sighed in resignation and went to pick up the first trunk. “Take off those dirty boots first before you ruin the carpets!” she snapped at him.

Pip bit his tongue to keep from blistering her ears with a few choice words from his childhood. He removed his boots by the door, and then, in his stocking feet, he began lugging the heavy trunks up the stairs to where she directed. Although he grumbled a bit under his breath, Pip’s temper didn’t actually last long.

He’d never been allowed beyond the kitchen and the yard before, so his curiosity soon won out over his pique. Mrs. Applethwaite had opened all the doors and windows to air the rooms upstairs for their master’s arrival, and Pip was able to see into each as he followed her to the master’s bedchamber at the end of the hall.

None of the rooms were large, but they were all well-appointed. Each had a bed, a dresser, a chair, a washstand, and night tables. All three had been put together in similar fashion and with little imagination—Mrs. Appplethwaite’s doing, Pip supposed—but they were a lot finer than Pip’s little closet behind the kitchen, and they all had one very important luxury Pip’s room lacked: a hearth.

When he set the last trunk down in the small dressing room at the far end of the master’s bedchamber, the housekeeper shooed him out with instructions to carry the remaining crates into the library downstairs.

Pip hovered near the sturdy dark wood bedframe, reluctant to leave at first. He was dying of curiosity over what was inside their master’s trunks. According to what little the housekeeper had told him and the village gossip he’d heard, Major McNalty had not only been all over the world, but he’d spent the last couple of months in London and had probably purchased the newest fashions from some of the finest tailors in the country. Pip dearly wished to see the silks and fine linens as well as any exotic apparel the man might have brought back from his travels. But once he was shooed out of the room and out of sight of those tempting trunks, the housekeeper’s instructions sunk in, and Pip’s reluctance fled in lieu of a greater prize. He was finally going to be allowed into the library, and without anyone looking over his shoulder. He grinned at his luck and hurried down the stairs.

What did a glimpse of clothes he would never be allowed to wear matter when the possibility of trunks and shelves full of books awaited him? Those at least he had a chance at borrowing, if only in the dark of night, without the master knowing he’d done it.

Pip fell upon the crates with alacrity, carrying them into the library as fast as he could, cracking each one open, and digging through the packing materials to see what treasures they held. He needed to be fast. He wouldn’t have long before the housekeeper finished unpacking the master’s things, and she’d be sure to order him out of the house the moment she discovered him still in the library.

Pip would be the first to admit he couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d cracked open a book to read for his own pleasure. He’d read to some of the children on Master Carey and Master Carruthers’s farm from time to time, but thus far, the pleasures of the country had proved to be distraction enough. But ever since moving to the cottage, so far removed from the village, Pip had been lonely and anxious for some distraction when the sun went down. And now just looking at the shelves lined with books and the crates heavy with more had him suddenly starving for a good novel or a bit of poetry. The smell of the leather bindings and the feel of the smooth vellum pages beneath his touch almost had his cock stirring to life, he was so enthralled.

The sound of the housekeeper’s footsteps on the stairs broke the spell all too soon. Pip quickly palmed a small slender volume from the crate at his feet and slipped it into the lining of his jacket before the old woman discovered him. He’d find a way to return it somehow, but it probably wouldn’t be missed, not with so many others to choose from.

“What are you doing in here?” Mrs. Applethwaite demanded, her hands on her hips.

Pip widened his eyes, all innocence and country simplicity. “I brought in the crates like ye said, Missus. I thought ye might need ’elp opening ’em is all.”

She scowled suspiciously at him for a moment before she sniffed. “Well, that will be all, Pip. You mustn’t ever touch the master’s fine books. You’ll ruin them with those dirty hands. They’ll all need to be catalogued and placed in particular order on the shelves. You won’t be any help with that, so go on with you. Go and fill the coal scuttles and leave them by the door. Mr. Applethwaite and I will see to the rest.”

Pip took one last longing look at the shelves and crates before tugging his cap and scurrying from the room like the good, ignorant country drudge he was supposed to be. As he pulled on his boots at the door and headed across the yard to fetch the coal, Pip had one consolation at least. If he wasn’t to be allowed back in the house proper,
Mr.
Applethwaite would at long last have to earn his keep tending the fires and doing the heavy work for the master. Pip whistled merrily to himself as he shoveled hard black lumps into the scuttles from the pile that was delivered once every fortnight. And he had a spring in his step as he carried them back to the house.

When the task she set him was completed, Pip took advantage of the housekeeper’s distraction and stole a few hours to read the book he’d borrowed. Stretched out comfortably in a soft pile of straw in the barn, Pip lost himself in the most unusual world of Percy Shelley’s poetry, only returning when Mrs. Applethwaite’s strident call shook him out his fantasies.

“There you are,” she shrilled from the kitchen door when Pip poked his head out of the barn. “I need you to take the cart to Mr. Cooper’s shop before dark. The master has sent a list of his requirements with his trunks. Here.” She handed over the small slip of paper. “Don’t lose it.”

“Yes, Missus,” he replied, ducking his head so she wouldn’t see him roll his eyes.

He strode across the yard, snatched the paper from her hand, and then happily ran to fetch the cart. He didn’t have to be told twice. The cart was heavy and the walk long—and he’d never understand why Mrs. Applethwaite wouldn’t allow him to hitch the horse to it, especially when the master wasn’t there to complain—but any opportunity for him to be allowed into the village and away from her frowning face was to be treasured, and he wouldn’t waste a moment of it arguing with the woman.

Maud may have only chosen to recommend him for this position because of its distance from the village, thus limiting the amount of mischief he could get into. But Pip could find mischief at the bottom of a well if need be, and a little distance hadn’t stopped him thus far, only slowed him down a bit.

When he reached the village, Pip went straight to the shop to rid himself of the cart. Mr. Cooper, the owner, lumbered outside, his great girth barely contained within a pinstriped apron, his ginger mustache bristling like an angry hedgehog. From the very first, the shopkeeper had taken a dislike to Pip, though Pip had given him no reason for it. Mr. Cooper took the slip of paper from Pip without a word or a look of acknowledgement, but as always he was certain to place his considerable bulk between Pip and one of his two daughters, now peering shyly at Pip through the window from behind the shop counter.

A few years ago, Pip might have given the little ginger chit a saucy wink behind her father’s back. He was tempted to even now, if only to answer Cooper’s rudeness. But that was the only temptation Pip felt so he didn’t bother. The girl was fifteen if she was a day, and Pip had no patience for hunting the chaste and timid anymore. He’d lost interest in that not long after leaving London, preferring more experienced partners to dally with. Just the thought of having to put that much effort into wooing a girl made him feel tired. The girl’s grumpy walrus of a father had nothing to fear from Pip, even if Pip would probably never convince him of that.

Instead of wasting his time, Pip simply gave the man a polite tip of his cap and pretended he hadn’t seen the girl. He wandered off, leaving Cooper to put the master’s order together without fear for his daughter’s virtue. Pip didn’t need to oversee the process anyway. The housekeeper would check everything for the tiniest mistake when he brought the cart home, and she still didn’t know Pip could read, so Pip would only blame the shopkeeper if something were missing. The world believed him ignorant and dull-witted, and Pip was more than content to keep it that way.

As he walked away from Mr. Cooper, the tailor’s shop window called to him first, like always. The russet waistcoat was still in the window, waiting to be fitted to some lucky fellow, and Pip took a few moments to stare at it longingly. Eventually, he tore his eyes away and considered moving on to the shoemaker’s to see what it would cost to have some house slippers made, but he swore under his breath when he suddenly realized he’d forgotten his purse in his haste to leave the cottage. Without it, he couldn’t buy anything or even place an order. He supposed he could tell the man to put it on the cottage’s account, but he wasn’t certain how Mrs. Applethwaite would react to that.

Pip pondered his options for a few moments until a reflection in the shop window caught his attention and his face split into a wide grin, his frustrations forgotten. Agnes Foster, the eldest daughter of the neighboring dairy farmer, was watching him from across the lane, her two little sisters in tow. The girls were all giggling as they fussed with their bonnets and fluttered their eyelashes in his direction. Never one to turn his back on a bit of attention, Pip doffed his cap and gave the girls his most charming, cocksure smile as he strutted across the street and stopped a few paces away from them.

“’Allo, doves. What brings such pretty birds out o’ their nests on a fine day like today?” He let a bit of London creep back into his speech because, unlike the older generations in the country, the village chits actually seemed to appreciate a bit of the exotic from him.

“It’s Agnes’s birthday,” the youngest sister, Mary, twittered. “Father let us come into the village to buy new ribbons as a treat.”

Pip clapped a hand to his chest. “If only I ’ad known,” Pip bemoaned dramatically, making the two younger girls giggle. He winked at Agnes above her sister’s heads. “I fear I ’ave no means of wishing you a proper birthday, Agnes.”

Agnes smirked back at him, and her eyes raked him boldly from foot to crown. “Another time per’aps?”