Fairchild (3 page)

“Euphemia!” he called. Her approach was silent as always, yet she answered his summons with suspicious haste.
 

“What do you need, Horace?”

“Ask John to bring Sophy Prescott to me.”

Chewing a sliver of chicken, Horace reached for his next specimen.

Sophy came two hours later with Bertha a step behind. Mr. Lynchem lowered his magnifying glass to look at her.
 
Her hair had been damped down and tied back with a ribbon, but the drying strands were already regaining their unruly shape. Her cheeks were flushed and Bertha was puffing heavily.
 

“Thank-you for the message, sir,” Bertha said, dipping into a curtsy. “Your John said the letter’s come?”

“Indeed it has,” Horace said, using his pulpit voice, at slightly lower volume. He had never liked Fanny Prescott. She was too pretty for a widow—smiled too much. Now he congratulated himself on his instincts.
 

“Lord Fairchild has acknowledged Sophy. He is sending for her. The house is to be sold. You will be required to make Sophy and the house ready,” he told Bertha.
 

Turning to Sophy, he added, “Unbeknownst to you, child, you have lived on Lord Fairchild’s charity and sufferance. You must prepare yourself to meet him, and to show him the gratitude, meekness, and obedience that is proper. Try him too much, and he may cast you off at any moment.”
 

“Where does he live?” Sophy asked.

Horace blinked, annoyed to be interrupted just as he was finding his stride. “Suffolk. Lord’s Fairchild’s seat is Cordell Hall.”

Bertha took Sophy’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “And don’t they say Suffolk’s a pretty place? Not so rolling as Herefordshire, but very nice.”

“That is immaterial,” Horace said.
 

“Not to me,” Sophy said.

“You will likely go from Cordell Hall to school,” he warned. “And you had best take every advantage of the education that Lord Fairchild chooses to give you. Children like yourself must be prepared to earn their own bread. There is little place in society for your kind, black-blooded and born in sin.”

He delivered his prepared sermon, but instead of reducing Sophy to tears as he had envisioned, she stared at him with stony, dry eyes, finally unsettling him. He stopped, faltering mid sentence like a wound-down clockwork.
 

“I shall make sure Sophy is ready, sir,” Bertha said.

“See that you do,” he said, trying to recover his dignity, but Sophy had already curtseyed and turned for the door.

Bertha fitted Sophy’s things into her mother’s battered old trunk. It was a small box, Sophy thought, to carry her whole life in. Together they lugged it downstairs and out to the front gate. Leaving Sophy in the garden to get her fidgets out, Bertha returned to the kitchen.
 

“The removers are coming!” Sophy called after her. “Who cares about crumbs?”

Bertha’s mumbled response was indecipherable except for the words, ‘properly clean.’

Sophy watched the ants scurrying across the flagstone path cutting through her mother’s overgrown flowerbeds until her feet went numb from crouching. When Bertha brought out buns and tea, they ate together in silence under the climbing rose, now bare of blooms. Exhausted by her cleaning marathon, Bertha soon fell asleep and Sophy drifted through the garden, swinging a stick through the flower beds, decapitating drying poppy heads. Every few minutes, she went to peer through the gate and down the road. Bertha had predicted the coach would arrive this afternoon. Bored, Sophy finally sat down on her corded trunk, occupying herself by scraping a rut in the dirt with her shoe.
 

Leaving home frightened her, yet she was anxious to go. Grief and the preparations for departure had drained her like a bloodletting. She hadn’t told a soul that she had thrown the chestnut that lodged in her mother’s throat. Every so often, the sickening guilt lifted enough for Sophy to feel fear.
 
She wasn’t certain they could accuse her of murder, but she knew it was her fault her mother was dead.
 

“Oy! Sophy!”
 

Startled, Sophy turned to see Fred loping through the garden, entering through the gap in the hedge. The loose hem of his smocked shirt was gathered in one hand, the front of his shirt weighted down with apples.
 

“Hello, Fred.”
 

He had the last remains of an apple in his free hand, nibbled down to its’ bones. Tossing the core into the lane, he handed an apple to Sophy and sat down beside her on the trunk.

“So – you get to ride – in a – Lord’s carriage,” he said, between mouthfuls.
 

“Yes,” Sophy said, chewing slowly.

“Wonder what the horses will be like.”

“Dunno.” Her mother had hated it when she spoke like a farm girl. Sophy realized that wherever she was going, she ought to be more careful with her speech. Glancing guiltily at her dust-covered shoes and greying stockings, she straightened her back.

“How long will it take to get to Suffolk?” Fred asked.

“Mr. Lynchem said about three days.”

Fred lifted his eyebrows, impressed.
 

“Will you thank your mother and father again for me?” Sophy asked.
 

“Sure. They heard you yesterday, though. And Mam’s coming with a basket. Some pies you can eat on the way.”
 

“Where is she?”

“Went to see Bertha. We’ll miss you. I’ll miss you.” Fred wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. His tone was matter of fact, but Sophy was surprised Fred had admitted so much.
 

“I will miss you, Fred,” she said, horrified when her voice turned high and squeaky at the end.

Fred leaned away from her, his eyes going wide.
 

“Yes, well, I might write you a letter. Every now and then.”

Sophy didn’t cry and Fred relaxed. Hurling another apple core into the road, he asked, “What do you think he’ll be like?” He didn’t need to specify who. Lord Fairchild starred in both their imaginations.

“He’s probably all stiff in fancy clothes with a pointy nose and a disappearing chin,” said Sophy, revealing her own inventions. Speculation had filled her thoughts in recent days.
 

“Like the villain in the traveling farce last year?”
 

Sophy scowled, realizing the resemblance. “Mr. Lynchem says I must be good and quiet. On the journey and after, too.”

“Hmmph.” Fred’s frown told her he doubted she was capable of this feat.

“He gave me this to read on the journey,” Sophy said, drawing a thin booklet from the drawstring bag beside her. She passed the flimsy sheets to Fred, who flipped through them.

“Matilda Ann,” he read. “The tale of a wicked girl cursed with the sin of ingratitude who became a match seller.” He erupted into laughter. “Think you’ll end up a match girl?”
 

Occasionally, in Sophy’s dire imaginings, she ended up a starving figure huddled in a ditch, prompting brief storms of weeping over her own fate. A match girl sounded much worse. Sophy had heard some talk of cities; rife with disease, they were filled with thieves and disreputables who preyed on the unwary and weak.
 

Seeing the fear in Sophy’s face, Fred tried to reassure her by punching her in the arm. “Come on. Da says you’ll be looked after proper. Lord Fairchild’s sending his own carriage for you. Why would he go to such expense just to throw you out on your ear?”
 

Sophy swallowed. This circumstance had given her some confidence, but still . . .
 

“There you are,” Bertha said, bustling down the walk with ferocious brightness. Mrs. Wilkes walked beside her. “Mrs. Wilkes has brung a hamper for you, love.” Sophy stood and curtsied her thanks.
 

“What’s this?” Mrs. Wilkes asked, plucking the booklet from Fred’s hands. She turned it over and read the title, annoyance flashing across her face. “Take this instead,” she said, handing Sophy a green cloth-covered book from the basket on her arm. “You’ll like it better.”

‘Nursery Tales’ was printed across the front in black letters.
 

“Thank-you, Ma’am,” Sophy curtseyed again. She had seen this book at the shop in the village; it was a handsome present, and one which Fred watched her tuck into the basket with reluctance.

Blinking and turning red around the eyes, Bertha launched into a list of instructions: Sophy was not to speak to strange persons at wayside inns or pester the maid and coachman who were escorting her with questions. She must always wear her flannel petticoat and keep a clean handkerchief about her. “I’ve tucked two spare ones in the top of your basket, dear.”

Four heads swiveled at the sound of wheels jolting down the rough road. Waiting with stopped breath, they saw a handsome, if dusty, carriage appear beneath the trees.
 

“They’ve come,” Bertha breathed, her sigh of relief a strange contrast to her paling face. Fastening her eyes on Sophy and lifting her face in her hands, she instructed: “You write to me, Miss Sophy. Master Fred will read to me. I’ll expect to hear from you regular.” Voice a-tremble, she swept Sophy into a bone-cracking embrace.

“How I’ll miss you, child,” she whispered, low enough for Sophy’s ears alone.

“Good-bye Berfa,” returned Sophy, reverting to her baby’s lisp and blinking furiously.

With unaccustomed brusqueness, Bertha set Sophy aside, questioning the coachman as he fastened Sophy’s trunk to the back of the coach. Fred gave Sophy another punch to boost her confidence, and Sophy returned the gesture with a hug that made him color and shuffle his feet. Then the coachman handed Sophy into the carriage.
 

Sophy froze, surprised. Surely the elegant woman seated inside wasn’t a maid.
 

The coach lurched forward and Sophy returned to immediate concerns, tugging down the window and leaning her head outside, blowing desperate kisses to Fred and Bertha, who were running behind the coach. Bertha’s trot was heavy, her arms and bosom jiggling as she ran. The sight of her waving and running, cap askew, was too much and Sophy burst into tears.
 

“Goodbye!” she called, and ducked into the coach.
 

*****

Silently, the haughty woman handed Sophy a handkerchief, her face marred with a frown of distaste. Sophy lapsed into cowed silence.
 

“Finished, miss?”
 

She was the maid then, despite her fine wool dress and her bonnet with a single purple plume. Her raised eyebrow and belated ‘miss’ told Sophy that though she was a servant, she was a superior one and not pleased with her current assignment.
 

“My name is Liza Pritchard,” she said. “I’m to escort you to Cordell Hall. And you are Miss Prescott.”

“My mother called me Sophy.”

“I dare say she did,” Liza smiled. “But I’m certain Lady Fairchild won’t countenance that. You’ll be Miss Prescott to the servants, and if the family calls you by your given name, I expect they’ll prefer Sophia. It sounds better.”
 

Flushing, Sophy turned her face aside, finding oblivion in the changing leaves of the trees as they swept past the window. The coach seemed luxurious to her, with its soft brown velvet squabs and glass windows that could slide open and shut. She had even glimpsed a crest on the door before being helped inside. She was not to know that this was the oldest of Lord Fairchild’s traveling coaches.
 

When the passing scenery lost its charm, Sophy brought out Mrs. Wilkes’s book. She shut it in disgust after the first tale. ‘The Princess and the Pea’ was not a real fairy story. It had no magic, only a nameless girl whose quality was evident in her easy bruises. Offended by the absurdity of the Queen’s test, Sophy slammed the book shut and sank into memories of her mother’s stories: corsairs and sorcerers and houses of gingerbread. Her mysterious father had figured in many of these, always a hero, taken from his family by duty or tragic death.
 

Sophy glared out the window, her throat tight. Her mother’s stories were rubbish, all of them. Her father was a lecher, not a valiant, who had sent her mother away and never troubled to find her.
 

It was a bewildering journey, the anticipated three days lasting an age. Sophy asked no questions, merely watching the succession of villages, rivers, fields, and towns. Tom Coachman, despite his friendly smile, gave Liza a wide berth whenever they stopped, and so hardly exchanged a word with Sophy. The inns where they rested were noisy and frightening, and Sophy derived no comfort from Liza, sleeping noisily on the nearby trundle bed. Though she denied herself the refuge of remembering her mother’s stories, each night Sophy fell into dreams of dark forests, lumbering bears, and twinkling fairy lights.
 

At last the land stretched out broad and flat. Sophy had counted seventeen windmills when Liza announced they were only two miles from Cordell Hall.

They stopped a short time later. “Is this it?” Sophy asked, scowling to hide her fear. She could only see one small house through the window. It didn’t look anything like the hall she had imagined.
 

Liza’s lip curled. “This is the lodge.”

The keeper stepped outside, swinging aside a wide iron gate and waving them on their way. Driving down an avenue lined with giant trees, Sophy saw a lake and spreading lawns. The park, she thought. The carriage swung around sharply, and Sophy saw the house.
 

She had never seen such a large edifice. Two wings of warm, weathered brick receded on either side, each boasting a tower that stretched above the chimneys standing like soldiers along the steeply slanted roof. Though it was too late to hide her amazement, Sophy snapped her mouth shut.
 

The carriage stopped. Quaking, Sophy leaned back into the velvet cushions as the crunch of feet on gravel drew near. The door opened and a white-gloved hand materialized in front of her.