At the House of the Magician (2 page)

When I remembered this, the notion came to me that I might go and be hired as a maid by Milady. It would be a way of getting out of my father’s clutches – and besides, I knew I couldn’t stay at home for ever. Could I leave my ma, though? How would she manage without me there to do the close-up work? We made gloves for the gentry, and it looked to me as if Lady
Ashe might be wearing a pair of ours, for they were of finest soft blue leather and had smocking around the wrist in a pattern well known to me. If they were of our making, then Ma would have done the cutting out and the tacking together, and I’d have spent any number of hours sewing the slender fingers with stitches so fine and dainty you’d think a faery had worked them.

Perhaps I wouldn’t go for hiring this year, but would nevertheless go to Brownlow’s Field to see how things proceeded there, to study who got hired and who didn’t, for it would be sure to stand me in good stead in the future.

I’d sold all my lavender wands within the hour and, stowing my money carefully in my pocket, folded up Ma’s best tablecloth and put it in my basket. Before I went to the hiring, however, I couldn’t resist having a look around the stalls to see if there was anything among the trinkets and the gee-gaws and the singing birds that I fell in love with. It was a wonderful feeling to have coins in my pocket, coins that were all mine for the spending, and it only happened once a year, for the money Ma and I earned making gloves went straight to Father. Of course, there were many precious and lovely things on the stalls and many more being carried about by the peddlers, and I went round the field twice and was unable to decide between an embroidered bodice, a canary bird in a wire cage or a thin silvery chain that I could thread my groat on to, for at present it was only
hanging round my neck on a length of cord.

I’d think about each of these things, I decided, and in the meantime go to see how the choosing was done at the hiring fair.

Brownlow’s Field used to be common land where we could graze animals, but had been enclosed recently with tall brushwood fencing by Squire Brownlow, who owns a big house nearby. There had been some hostility about this enclosing, and one of the village men had tried to lead a protest, but it had come to nothing because Squire Brownlow is rich, owns many acres and employs a lot of villagers, so folk had been reluctant to make a stand against him.

There was a considerable number of people on the field, in the centre of which a rough awning had been erected as shelter from the sun. Under this a fellow was standing playing a violin, and several girls were dancing a jig to its merry refrain. Also under the awning’s shelter, standing on boxes, were the folk still waiting to be hired. These were young, mostly, for older folk tend to settle in their jobs for the long term (so Ma had told me) – and besides, are not so good to hire, for the older they are then the less healthy and more like they are to have days off sick.

There was a fair number of servants waiting there, and a greater number of masters, and these intermingled with peddlers crying up refreshments: posset-drinks, rose water, Rhenish wine and raspberry mead. People
came from far and near to the hiring fair, for it was only held once a year, and all trades carried something of their line of work about them so they might be easily recognised: the maids had mops; the dairymaids, pails; and cooks carried a wooden spoon or ladle. I also saw thatchers with stooks of corn, a wool-carder with a hank of coloured wool and various ploughmen and other workers of the land.

Their potential employers stood around, sizing them up, talking between themselves and no doubt passing on many a sly word on the virtues – or otherwise – of a certain servant. Now and again an employer would approach one standing on a box and look at their teeth to see if they were healthy, or feel a labourer’s muscles to see if he had the strength to manage a carthorse or drive a plough. One burly fellow – a blacksmith, judging by the horseshoe tucked into his hatband – had stripped to the waist to show off his muscles and was drawing approving glances from many of the women there. He was too old for me to admire, however (and besides, seemed to be of a type that Ma oft described as all brawn and no brains). Now and then a deal would be struck along the line; the master would shake hands with the servant and a silver shilling placed in the latter’s hand to seal the bargain.

I waited until the fellow with the violin took a pause and the maids had ceased dancing, then asked them if they had already been hired.

‘Indeed we have,’ said one, retying the ribbons of
her cap and picking up her pail – for she was a dairymaid. ‘I was hired straightaway by a very nice gent’man farmer.’ She smiled at me and was very pretty, with deep blue eyes and fair curls, so I knew why she’d been taken so readily.

‘And because we are sisters, I was hired too!’ said the girl with her.

‘Although some poor girls have been standing there an hour or more,’ the first whispered, and we glanced at the girls still standing on boxes, some of whom were looking rather discomforted. I couldn’t help but notice, however, that those who remained standing were either dull and weak looking, or plump and thus likely to eat a lot and be costly to keep.

‘But you don’t carry anything with you. What’s your trade?’ asked the pretty one.

‘I’m a glove-maker,’ I said, ‘but I don’t want to do that all my life.’ I looked along the line of girls wistfully. ‘Perhaps I could be a seamstress, though – or a maid of all work.’

‘I fear the best places are gone,’ said the other.

‘Has Lady Ashe been in?’ I asked.

They nodded. ‘She took three girls!’

‘Oh.’ I nodded ruefully. I’d not been prepared, though. Not thought enough about it beforehand, or asked Ma’s opinion on the subject.

‘The thing to do is get here early,’ said the first, ‘and then you can have your pick. If someone you don’t like the look of wants to hire you, you can say no and wait
for someone better.’

‘And if no one better comes along, you can tell the first gent’man you’ve changed your mind!’ said her sister.

I thanked them for their advice and went back to the field where the stalls were, for I’d quite made up my mind to buy the silver chain. As I crossed the field the Morris men were dancing and I watched them a while, laughing and clapping their antics. It was then that I felt a hand clasp my shoulder.

There was something in the landing of it: ’twas not a friendly clasp, as between friends, but a heavy grip, every finger pressing into my flesh, and I knew immediately who it must be.

I wheeled around to face him. ‘Father!’

‘Ah. You might well look affrighted, you devious jade,’ said he, swaying slightly on his feet, ‘for I hear that unbeknown to me you’ve taken up as a stallholder.’

I couldn’t speak for fear, knowing someone must have seen me and told him about it.

‘And what’s more, that you have been a-selling of the family property.’

I shook my head. ‘’Twas hardly that – ’twas just some lavender I rooted and planted myself.’

He shook me, his hand in an iron grip on my left shoulder so that it already felt bruised. ‘Planted in
my
ground. And tended in
my
time, when you should have been working with your ma at your gloves.’

I could tell that he’d been at the ale from the slurring of his words and wished with all my heart that I’d
already spent the money I’d earned, for I well knew what was coming next.

‘But give me what you’ve made today and I’ll say no more about it.’

I considered this. Perhaps if I gave him some of the coins he’d be content – but this would be near-impossible, for the moment he saw the contents of my pocket, he’d be sure to take the lot.

His grip on me tightened. ‘I am the head of the house and your lord and master. Remember, anything earned by a member of my house is mine.’

I wasn’t brave enough to speak, but I shook my head slightly. This was enough to make him growl in anger.

‘Give me what you’ve got or I’ll take it from you, and give you a leathering into the bargain.’

I looked beyond him, measuring the distance to the field gate. I could certainly outrun him – but then my reckoning would come later, at home, and upset Ma. It would be best to hand the money over now and be done with it. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to.

His other hand gripped my right shoulder and he shook me backwards and forwards, making my head judder and causing me to bite my tongue. ‘Dare you defy me, you little wretch?’

Frightened now, for he was a big man, I actually moved my hand towards my pocket to give up what I’d earned – but something made me stop. To tend my lavender bushes all year, carefully choose the colours of the ribbands, make the wands and then have my
precious earnings taken away from me in a moment – it wasn’t fair! No, I could not,
would
not do it.

‘Do you dare defy me?’ he asked. He lifted his hand and gave me a blow across the face which brought tears to my eyes, and suddenly I felt exceeding angry. Was I just going to stand there and be beaten in front of half the village? No, I was not! As he brought his hand back to land me another blow, I wrenched myself from his grip and pushed him away. Dodging clear of his flailing arms I began to run away from him across the field, just avoiding the Morris men and earning myself several curses as a number of them faltered in their dance.

At the field gate I stopped and looked back. My father had not attempted to run after me, but was surveying me, hands on hips, with a sneering, scornful expression. This meant, I knew, that he was not going to bother to expend energy on running after me but would see to me later, at home.

I sped across the village green and down the lane which led to our cottage, impelled to run but wondering what good it would do me. In the end Father would take the money, that was certain. He would take the money and I would have a beating, and whether it came today or tomorrow hardly mattered.

This was my life, and I did not think much of it.

‘You must flee this place,’ said Ma, after listening to my tale with a worried frown. ‘You must go quickly before he comes back, and I’ll say I’ve not seen you since you left for the Fair this morning.’

I felt tears spring to my eyes and saw responding ones in her own.

‘’Tis not that I want you to go, Lucy.’ She put down the piece of maroon leather she was working on and pulled me close. ‘But I fear for you. His temper is such that I’m in terror for your life. I’d stand up to him and protect you if I could…’

I shook my head. ‘That wouldn’t do any good,’ I said, for Ma was small and slight. She had also, the previous evening, been subjected to a blow from my father which had been so violent that it had knocked her to the floor, where he’d kicked her like a dog. Not only that, but she also still wore a blossoming purple
bruise to the right side of her face where, last week, he’d thrown a wooden trencher at her.

I buried my face in her blouse. She smelled of soap scented with camomile, of woodsmoke and home. ‘I’m frightened, Ma…’

‘Of him? Of course you are.’

I nodded. ‘Of him – and of leaving. Where would I go?’

She thought for a moment. ‘Best not to stay around here,’ she said. ‘Why not try London? They say jobs aplenty can be found there.’

‘But what would I do?’

‘You could do any one of a hundred different things, Lucy, for you’ve always been a canny child. You could work as a housemaid, do plain cooking or serve at table. You could take a milch-cow round at doors, cry food in the streets or make potions and simples for an apothecary. There’s always work in the city for those who want it.’

‘But how would you manage without me?’

Ma stroked my hair. ‘I’d be all right, sweeting. And ’twould be enough for me to know that you were out of his way. It’s been nothing but bad discourse between you for months now.’

She spoke the truth. Father was a man who wanted his own way – and if he had to bully, cuss or even strike people to get it, then he would. When I was younger his manner had hardly troubled me, for he’d worked long hours on the land and we’d not seen much of him. Two
years ago, however, he’d lost his labouring job and was now at home a good deal of the time, where he sat, morbid and complaining, jeering at my tardiness in glove-making (when I was not in the least bit slow) and saying that he’d be lumbered with me for life, for I was too plain to find a husband. When he got a few days’ labour and came by money, things got worse, for he’d go straight from the fields to the tavern and arrive home spoiling for a fight.