The Lady's Maid (3 page)

Robert Coggins opened the farmhouse door and his eyes widened in surprise at the sight of a gypsy woman standing on the step. In her arms she carried a baby swaddled in a coarse woollen shawl. He had not slept that night and he blinked against the bright sunlight. ‘What d’you want, woman?’

Zolfina looked him straight in the eye. ‘I heard that your good lady was about to give birth, master.’

‘Get away from here. I don’t hold with your sort.’ Robert tried to shut the door but Zolfina was too quick for him and she stuck her booted foot over the sill.

She angled her head. ‘I can tell that you’ve had a bereavement, master.’

‘I don’t want nothing to do with your black arts. Get away from my door, witch.’

‘I’m a true Romany woman, not a witch. But I can help you, if you’ll let me.’

‘You’ll get nothing from me, so be on your way.’

‘But I have something for you, master.’ Zolfina held the baby out for him to see more clearly. ‘I can tell by your face that the birthing did not go well. Am I right?’

The hairs on the back of Robert’s neck prickled and he swallowed hard. ‘Yes,’ he murmured, his voice breaking on a suppressed sob. Exhaustion was making him weak. He had been up all night and had just left his wife semi-conscious after a dose of laudanum administered by Dr Smith. Bertha’s labour had lasted for two days and the baby when it finally arrived had
been
stillborn. She did not know it yet, and he dreaded telling her that their much longed for child had not drawn a single breath. ‘Say what you have to say and then leave me to my grief.’

‘Your infant is dead, master. This baby girl needs a mother and a father. You are a good man, I can tell. Take her. She is yours.’

Robert stared at her blankly – was he still in the middle of the nightmare? ‘What are you saying, gypsy?’

‘This child’s mother died giving birth to her. I came upon her by chance and did what I could, but I could not save her. She entrusted her baby to me, begging me to find her a good home.’

‘This is madness,’ Robert said, shaking his head. ‘You cannot trade in human life.’

Zolfina bit back a sharp retort, forcing herself to speak calmly. ‘I want nothing for the babe. All I ask is that you take her in and bring her up as your own. God will reward you.’ She drew the shawl gently back from the baby’s face. ‘Look at her, master. She is a beautiful little girl, and she has fair hair and blue eyes, just like yours. Would your good lady know any different if you were to put this babe in place of the dead child? Would it not be a kindness to let her think that this was her baby girl?’

He blinked hard. He was not dreaming; this woman was real and so was the child. His dazed brain grappled against the temptation to snatch the baby from the gypsy and place her in the wooden crib that he had made with his own hands. ‘I don’t know. It don’t seem right.’

Zolfina saw that he was weakening. ‘Think about it, master. If a lamb loses its mother, would you not put the orphan to another ewe that has lost her own offspring?’

‘My wife is a woman and not a sheep.’

‘But she would have been a mother, and I hear tell that you had almost given up hope of having a child, just like her ladyship at the big house.’

Robert frowned; he could not rid himself of suspicion. ‘What would a gypsy woman know of the happenings at the big house?’

‘Am I not supposed to have second sight, master?’ Zolfina thrust the infant into his arms. ‘Her name is Katherine. Her mother was a lady who had fallen on hard times. Her father was a gallant soldier, killed in the Crimea. She has no one else in the world to care for her. Would you deny her a chance in life? And will you stand by and watch your poor wife die of a broken heart?’

Katherine opened her eyes, staring up into Robert’s face. It seemed to him that she smiled, and he was lost. ‘I will have to speak to the doctor. I am not sure I can take this decision on my own.’ He looked up, but Zolfina had seized her chance and departed.

Hickson arrived at the home farm just as the doctor was leaving. ‘Good morning, Dr Smith.’

‘Miss Hickson.’ He tipped his top hat as he untethered his pony’s reins from the hitching post.

‘Has all gone well with Mrs Coggins and her baby?’

‘She is safely delivered of a daughter, Miss Hickson.
It
must be close to Lady Damerell’s time too?’ Dr Smith bridled, unable to conceal the anger and affront simmering in his breast. ‘I suppose that she has her London physician in attendance?’

Hickson was quick to note his displeasure, but she had never liked Dr Smith and it gave her grim satisfaction to see his nose put out of joint. She smiled. ‘Her ladyship gave birth last night. All she needs now is a wet nurse for her daughter.’

‘I don’t know about that, Miss Hickson,’ he said icily. ‘Mrs Coggins is very weak and must stay in bed for the lying-in period. I have advised her not to exert herself unduly.’ He climbed onto the driving seat of the trap.

‘Don’t worry, doctor. I am sure that Mrs Coggins will be honoured to suckle the heiress to the Damerell fortune.’

Chapter Two

Tavistock Mews, London, January 1873

IT WAS ALMOST
dark, with only the dim flicker of lantern light emanating from the stables in the mews. The smell of horseflesh, leather and saddle soap mingled with the stench of rotting manure from the dung heaps at either end of the narrow street. Snowflakes fell from an inky sky, settling in white lace crystals on the cobblestones and frosting the detritus lying in the stagnant gutters. Kate hurried homeward as fast as the iron-clad pattens strapped to her shoes would allow, and the clink of metal striking stone echoed off the tightly packed buildings. She wrapped her thin shawl a little tighter around her head and shoulders as she picked her way towards the stables and coach house which belonged to the Damerells’ grand home in Bedford Square. Having just come from the big house, where she was employed as a housemaid, Kate was even more conscious of the squalor in which the coachmen, grooms and their families were forced to live, tucked away out of sight of the Georgian terraces in the elegant residential squares. She stepped over the carcass of a dead rat, suppressing a shudder although vermin were common enough in the city streets, and thrived in the warm conditions of the stables where food was plentiful.

She let herself into the coach house, and taking care not to wake the stable lads who slept on beds of straw in one of the empty stalls she made for the narrow flight of wooden stairs which led to the room she occupied with her father. She found him, as usual, slumped on his bed, snoring loudly, with an empty gin bottle clutched in his hand. His clay pipe was still clenched between his teeth but it had long since gone out. She removed it gently so as not to disturb him and prised the bottle from his fingers. Having suffered in the past from his drunken rages, she did not want to wake him before he had time to sleep off the effects of jigger gin. She sighed, gazing down at his unshaven face and slack jaw with a dribble of saliva running down his chin. Pa was not a bad man, but he was weak. When sober he was quiet, kind and conscientious, which was how he had managed to keep his job with the Damerells for so many years, but in drink he became a completely different man. He had been like this since her mother died of the lung fever ten years ago when Kate was just eight, and she had kept house for him ever since. Not that there was much she could do to improve their living conditions in the small room beneath the eaves. She swept the floorboards daily and dusted the dresser on which were displayed the plates, cups and saucers that had been a wedding present to her parents and were now prized family heirlooms. Kate handled them with as much care as she did the bone china dinner and tea services owned by the Damerells.

She raked the coals in the grate in an attempt to rekindle the fire, resorting in the end to the bellows.
When
the flames licked up the chimney she rose to her feet, holding her hand to her aching back. She had been at the big house since six o’clock that morning and a quick glance at the mantel clock told her that it was getting on for half past ten at night. The family had dined at home that evening and Sir Hector was unlikely to need her father’s services until morning when he went to the office in the City where he held an important position, although she was not quite clear exactly what he did there every day.

Kate picked up the smoke-blackened kettle but it was empty, and although she would have loved a cup of tea the communal pump was at the far end of the mews and she could not face braving the bitter cold again. She sat down on the only chair in the room and began unbuttoning her boots. It had been a particularly busy day in the Damerell household and Miss Hickson had been on the warpath, although it was not her business to oversee the maidservants, as Mrs Evans the housekeeper had pointed out to her in no uncertain terms. There was always tension between the two of them and Mr Toop, the butler, had his work cut out to keep the peace. Kate sometimes wondered why the rest of the staff put up with Miss Hickson, but the mistress would not have a word said against her. She pulled the second boot off with a sigh of relief. They were too small for her and worn down at the heel but Pa said he could not afford to waste money on new shoe leather when she had a pair that would go on for years. She rubbed a blister on the back of her heel and grimaced with pain. Perhaps Grandpa would buy her
some
new boots when the Damerell family removed to their country home for Christmas. Grandpa Coggins liked to spoil her as much as he was able, and she looked forward to the brief period in the winter when they went to Dorset and the long summers when Sir Hector insisted that the whole household decamped to Damerell Manor, despite his wife’s pleas for them to stay in town for the London season.

Kate stretched her feet out towards the fire, wriggling her toes and frowning when she realised that there was a hole in one of her black woollen stockings. She would have to darn that before she went to bed. She sighed. She had grown up knowing that there were two worlds, sharply divided. The Damerells lived a life of pampered ease, waited on hand and foot by a small army of servants. Then there was her world, one of servitude and relative poverty. She lived in the rat-infested stables with the smell of horses clinging to her hair and clothes, while Josephine Damerell, the spoilt, petted and over-indulged daughter of the house, dwelt in luxury. It was hard not to envy her and resent the manner in which she took her good fortune for granted, but then Kate remembered Josie’s good points: her generous, fun-loving nature and her wicked sense of humour. Josie was a rebel and had always ignored the rules set down for her by her parents, her succession of governesses and the indomitable Miss Hickson. Josie cocked a snook at all of them, and it had been through her that Kate had received a good education.

Friends from childhood, they had played together in the woods surrounding the Damerells’ country house,
and
Josie had insisted that Kate shared her lessons, refusing to study anything unless her friend was present in the schoolroom. Kate had to smile when she recalled those days which now seemed so far off. Josie had been the torment of many a young governess and tutor. She was quick and intelligent but also wayward and argumentative. Kate had been the studious one and it was she who wrote the lines that had been meted out as a punishment to Josie for whatever indiscretions or misdemeanours had occurred during lessons. It was Kate who learned long poems by heart and prompted Josie when she was compelled to stand up and recite them. It was Kate who wrote the essays that Josie could not be bothered to pen, and it was Kate who copied out her own mathematical workings in a fair imitation of Josie’s hand so that it appeared as though she had paid attention in class. Her reward for all her efforts was to be embroiled in Josie’s wild adventures, which quite often involved Sam and his younger sister Molly, two orphans found abandoned in Dorchester market by Kate’s grandfather, who had taken them in and raised them as his own children. She smiled as she thought of Sam and Molly, Sam with his dark hair and blue eyes the colour of speedwell and his strong muscular body, honed by hard work on the farm. Then there was sweet-natured Molly, her baby sister in all but name. She missed them both when they were separated by her return to London.

She was startled from her reverie as her father groaned in his sleep. She thought for a moment that he was going to wake up and demand another drink, but to her relief
he
sank back into the arms of Morpheus. She was safe until morning, when he would be sober, but morose and complaining of a headache. She took off her stockings and rose from the chair to find the rush workbox that her grandfather had given her for her twelfth birthday. She darned the hole and made everything tidy before turning down the wick in the paraffin lamp and undressing in the glow of the fire. She laid her grey uniform dress neatly over the chair back and slipped her flannelette nightgown over her head. Her bare feet pitter-pattered on the floorboards as she went to her narrow wooden bed in the far corner of the room. She unrolled the straw palliasse and lay down, pulling the old horse blanket up to cover herself. It still smelt of the stables and there were bits of straw interwoven with the coarse material, but it was thick and heavy and if she curled up in a ball she would soon be warm enough to sleep. She closed her eyes, fixing her thoughts on Christmas which would be spent with Grandpa, Sam and Molly, if Mrs Vance, the housekeeper at Damerell Manor, allowed her to live at home instead of occupying one of the attic rooms in the main house. She longed for her comfortable featherbed in the farmhouse and awaking to the smell of roasting goose wafting up from the kitchen below on Christmas day.

Next morning she was up and about before either her father or the stable boys had stirred. Outside the street was covered in a thin layer of pristine snow, and even the steaming dung heaps had a crusting of white, like thick cream on a plum pudding. She grimaced at the thought as she hurried on her way to
work
, where her first duty of the day was to make tea for the housekeeper and Miss Hickson.