The House of Dead Maids (4 page)

“Oh, we don’t need churches or churchmen
around here,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Every man his own priest these days, isn’t that right? Look here, love, don’t be so down in the mouth. I’ll walk you back up the path. And master’ll be here maybe today, that’ll be grand, eh?”

As he set down his spade, he tipped the handle slightly so that the metal grip touched my arm, with a casual expression on his face, as if it were only an accident; but I knew it was more than that. I should have demanded what he meant by it, and what the village woman had meant by it, too, taking care to touch me with metal as though I were a witch or a fairy. But I was nothing but half grown then, and shy, and thought it impertinence to pry into the affairs of my elders.

We came to the front door, and I looked at the letters above it; many fine letters there were. “What does it say?” I asked.

“It says ‘Seldom House’—that’s the name of the place,” he answered. “You’ll excuse my leaving, young maid. I’ve work to finish before the master returns.” And he set off whistling along the way we had come.

I stayed to scrutinize the letters above the door; some few of them I knew, and I thought I could tell
“House” plain enough, but it seemed to me that other words were carved there besides. Not for the first time did I wish I could read as I scanned the letters for shapes I knew, but though I worked on the puzzle for some time, none of it could I make out.

Not wishing to lose the good of that rare pleasant weather, and not wanting to go back into that dark house, I skirted the barnyard and climbed up into the pasture beneath the green ridge. There my spirits rose as the glorious day unfolded around me, and larks and lapwings darted and tumbled in the sky. And, remembering my friend the curate in the shadowless beyond, I held church on the hillside and sang with the birds as many joyful hymns as I could recall.

In a little hollow where the gusts didn’t blow so strongly, I ate my bread and cheese and pillowed my head on a tuft to look for shapes in the slow-moving clouds. The monotonous bleating of the sheep, mixed with the higher-pitched cry of the lambs, and the rush of wind in the meadow grasses soon lulled me to sleep.

I did not wake until late afternoon, when the westering sun dropped behind the rocky crest, and it cast its cool shadow over me. Then I started up in confusion, thinking I had been remiss, and
reproaching myself for making so free with my time, more like I had been gentry than servant.

When I opened the kitchen door, I found that I had been missed. Miss Winter came sweeping around the bare wooden table, demanding to know where I had been. She was in a state of high excitement, with color in her cheeks, and a tall, good-looking gentleman stood beside her.

“So this is the young maid,” he exclaimed, bending down to greet me. “Flora, I can’t tell if you’re doing God’s work or the devil’s.”

Miss Winter turned pink, then went pale. “That’s not funny, Jack,” she said.

He introduced himself as Jack Ketch; however, I learned soon enough that this was not his name, but rather the sort of joke he liked best. He had yellow hair and a yellow curling beard, and his eyes were large and gray. He was past his first youth and had reached an age when men are expected to act with dignity, but he seemed to me all the more agreeable for being so full of high spirits. I felt in my heart that his teasing comment had not been kind, but such was his charm that I found myself grinning all the same and shaking his hand gladly when he offered it.

“Are you ready to meet the master?” he asked me, eyebrows raised.

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” I returned timidly.

This brought a howl of dismay from the hearth. “He’s not the master—I am!”

A small boy hurtled out of a corner by the fire, where Mrs. Sexton had been working to undress him. He was perhaps six, but his face looked older, touched with hunger; he was sallow-skinned, with a shock of black hair hanging over his eyes. A dirtier child could not be imagined, and I drew away, mindful of my new dress.

“I’m the master!” yelped the little imp, his dark eyes daring me to disagree, while Mr. Ketch traded glances with Miss Winter, on the verge of laughter.

“Indeed you are,” said Mr. Ketch, clapping the boy on the shoulder. “All that I have is yours, little man, and this house is only the beginning. And you’re my shaggy godless devil, aren’t you, you little heathen git?”

I blinked at the vulgarity, which tarnished Mr. Ketch’s charm, but the little boy tilted his head back to view his hero and showed his sharp teeth in a smile. “I’m a heathen git!” he confirmed with vigor.

“And a little soap won’t do you any harm,” said Mr. Ketch, holding his neophyte off at arm’s length.
“I’ll thank you not to go smirching my clean breeches. Young master, this is your very own young maid, so shake hands. She’s here to be your playmate. Now, go to Mrs. Sexton and let her make you presentable.”

With that, he and Miss Winter left the kitchen, talking easily like old friends.

Mrs. Sexton set me stirring a turpentine concoction while she bathed the little boy in a tub. We had to change the water several times, lugging the tub between us, and I was vexed that the urchin splashed my new dress. “I’m master of this kitchen,” he proclaimed when I scolded him. “Master of you, and you, and them in the other room.”

“Is that gentleman his father?” I inquired of Mrs. Sexton, nodding towards the door through which Mr. Ketch had gone.

“You mean the old master?” she said. “I doubt it.” And she dabbed the turpentine mixture on the boy to kill his lice.

“See here,” I said to the little boy next, “is the old master your dad?”

“Him? Not likely,” he answered, enduring the stinging concoction without complaint. “Old Jack paid a pretty penny to get me.”

“Then you’re nobody’s master,” I concluded
triumphantly. “Nobody makes a stranger’s son the master of his land. He’s just having you on.”

He opened his eyes wide enough at that intelligence and made a swipe to get me. I dodged, and he upset the turpentine over the hearthstones, where it raised a stink to make all our eyes water. A soapy sponge came hurtling through the air next and slapped me on the side of the head. Only the arrival of Arnby at the kitchen door prevented further combat.

“Where’s the young master?” he inquired respectfully, removing his hat. “Oh, there you are, young sir. Allow me to bid you welcome to your new home. I’m here to get you measured.”

After Arnby left, Mrs. Sexton sat us down to our supper. The little boy crammed food into his mouth with both hands, glaring at me all the while like a famished dog.

“What’s your name?” I asked, hoping to recall him to good manners, but my tactic didn’t work. He only muttered gibberish, or some savage tongue, and leered at me when I looked baffled.

“My name’s Tabby,” I said, “and you’ll have to call me that; I’ll not answer otherwise. Now, this time tell me your name.”

For answer, he said the same gibberish as before
and repeated it so readily and so often that I was forced to conclude it must be a designation of some sort; but on no account could I say it or remember it, no matter how often he jabbered it out.

“Don’t you have a Christian name?” I asked. “What does Mr. Ketch call you?”

“He calls me his rogue, or his little heathen git,” answered the boy, snatching my last crust of bread from me.

“Well, I won’t call you any such thing,” I asserted, resigning the crumb with dignity. “You’ll have to have a decent Christian name.” But this sent my companion into a torrent of gibberish, laughing all the while over my annoyance.

“Bed,” grunted Mrs. Sexton, rising from her bench and laying aside her pipe. That put me in mind of the cold dead girl who waited to share my bed with me.

Before I could speak, my problem settled itself. “I want to sleep with her,” clamored the little boy with the heathen name. “Her room is mine, isn’t it, so she has to let me.”

I acquiesced at once.

Almost immediately, I repented my decision. Upon reaching our room, the little boy skinned up a bedpost and swarmed about in the curtains,
shouting commands to himself about rigging and sails. I expected Mrs. Sexton to order him down, but she went about her work at the hearth as if she were deaf and dumb.

“Come down from there before you tear the fabric,” I demanded in as imperious a manner as I knew, but he hung upside down from the canopy frame and laughed at my attempt at authority.

“I don’t do what you want,” he replied. “I’m master here.”

“Then act like one. Masters don’t go climbing about in the bed curtains.”

To my surprise, that remark worked on him like magic. “What do masters do?” he asked soberly, dropping to the floor. When I informed him that masters lay down, said their prayers, and went to sleep, he surprised me again by his compliance. “No prayers, though,” he told me. “Old Master Jack don’t say them.”

We soon were tucked in as well as could be expected, though he stank horribly of turpentine and squirmed like a litter of puppies. The phlegmatic Mrs. Sexton took her leave, locking the door behind her.

I had been afraid of the coming night, but this night was nothing like before. My companion played
noisy games with the shadows on the curtains, narrating pretend combats. I had no thought to spare for ghosts then; it took all my ingenuity to deal with the living. But I hit upon the strategy of asking my charge to name all the things of which he was master. The result was an exhaustive reckoning, and a capital soporific: I held on through a long list of pots, pans, crockery, and fire irons, but dozed off while he was naming the butter churn, the back stairs, and all the jam in the pantry.

When he jerked upright, he startled me. I opened my eyes to find the firelight gone and the room completely dark.

“Get away!” he cried. “We don’t want you here. You can’t come in!”

“What is the matter?” I asked in confusion, reaching out to quiet him. “Wisht now, you’re having a nightmare.”

“No nightmare,” he said decisively. “It was some girl sneaking into bed. I sent her away. Lucky for
you
I let you stay here,” he added, snuggling close to me.

In an instant, he was asleep again, breathing deeply and evenly, while I lay awake and wondered if I had imagined the sound of footsteps running away.

Lively disarray met my gaze when I climbed out of bed in the morning: my companion had discovered the childish treasure in the bottom of the clothes press and had scattered it across the floor. The papers were trodden on, a sampler was covered in ashes, and most of the feathers were spoiled, for he was using them as swords to fight a duel, stabbing the air, with shouts and curses.

“Hush your noise,” I said, gathering up the items to restore them to their hiding place. He paused to watch me, chest heaving, probably considering the
best way to run me through. Then his sword became a feather again, and he dropped it to the floor for me to tidy up with the others.

“What did you wrap the mirror for?” I wanted to know. He had draped it with a pillowcase.

“It’s no good,” he answered, heaping the buttons into a pile. “When I look in, other faces look out.”

“It’s old,” I said. “It needs new silver.” But all the same, I didn’t unwrap it.

“It’s where the other girl lives,” he said, sitting on the floor and setting the coins on their edges like wheels. “She can’t live in the chimney, her fingers wouldn’t be so cold then.”

“She’s dead,” I told him. “She can pass through the locked door.”

He rolled one of the coins into his pile of buttons. “Dead people creep into the house at night,” he said, “to hunt for crumbs under the table.”

I shuddered, then pretended it was due to the chilly morning and dragged a blanket from the press to pull around my shoulders. “That’s a foolish, pagan idea,” I said, sitting down beside him. “The dead do no such thing. The bad dead go to hell and roast in flames, and the good dead go to the kingdom of heaven and sing songs with the Lord Jesus.”

“
She
didn’t go anywhere,” he said, aiming another coin at his stack.

“Maybe she did,” I rejoined virtuously. “Maybe she’s come visiting. She’ll do us no harm. A curate told me the dead can’t harm the living.”

“What’s a curate?” he wanted to know.

I was deeply shocked. “How could you not know that? They preach, and christen babies, and marry people, and when you die they follow your casket and pray over the grave.”