Longbourn (5 page)

“Just fill that trug with them nice Broad-eyed Pippins, they’re good cookers and they’re ripe. They’ll do just fine.”

Sarah undid her apron, and grabbed the gallon trug from the low shelf by the door. She was half in, half out when Mrs. Hill called out to her, “And thank you, lovey. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”

Basket on her arm, Sarah was out of the fug and fluster of the kitchen, and into the autumn cool. She dawdled past the stable door; dust motes hung in the air, along with the limey smell of whitewash. The top half of the door was open. Inside, it looked warm; she got a glimpse of the chestnut mare’s glossy flank, and sun shafting through a high window. Of the new manservant, still no sign.

Every step she took was as slow as a step could possibly be. And still he did not come out.

The ladder had been left against the pippin tree. Head and shoulders amongst the leaves, she stretched out for the heavy blushed fruit, taking whatever was within easiest reach, with little thought to size or ripeness. As soon as she had filled the trug, she scrambled straight down the ladder, skirts gathered. She hurried up to the house, the basket handle hooked over her folded arms. The apples might bruise a little, knocking about like that, but they’d hardly have time to spoil.

As she strode along the side of the stable block, the basket bumping against her thighs, feeling bright with possibility, the new manservant was at the same moment striding along the front of the stables, pushing a heavily laden wheelbarrow before him. The two met as they swung round the corner from opposite directions: the corner of the wheelbarrow hacked into Sarah’s shin; she grabbed at her basket; he stumbled to a halt, clutching the barrow handles.

They stood face to face. She was wide-eyed, lips parted; he was a mess of loosened hair. The barrowload of ripe and stinking stable-muck steamed faintly in the autumn cool between them.

“Sorry!” she said.

He pulled the barrow back, then pushed the hair out of his eyes. His skin was the colour of tea; his eyes were light hazel and caught the sun. He peered down at her skirts, where he’d hit her.

“Does it hurt?”

She bit her lip, shook her head. It really did.

“I didn’t see you—”

“You should be more careful.” She could feel the trickle of heat where her shin bled. “I nearly dropped my apples.”

“Oh yes,” he said. “I see that. Apples.”

“Yes. Well, you should really—”

“So, if you’re all right—” He jerked his head: “Kitchen garden down this way?”

She nodded. He wheeled the barrow back another step and swerved past her.

“Right, then. Thanks.”

Then he was away, rattling down the track and round the bend, his waistcoat hanging loose around him, britches gathered in at his middle like a flour sack, one boot sole flapping half off. So this was the fine upstanding young man. This was the great addition to the household. As far as Sarah could see, he was no great addition to anything at all.

“And a good afternoon to you, too!” she yelled after him.

Sarah’s shin was bloodied, red seeping through her black worsted stocking. Not really a cut, more a split in the skin, all blue with bruise and oozing blood. Her stocking was not torn, however, and for that she was not entirely grateful. If it had been ruined too, then she could have allowed herself to be proportionately more cross. She shook down her skirts.

“I finally met the new man, missus,” she said.

“Oh yes?” Mrs. Hill, her forehead beaded, was rubbing lard into flour, but paused at this. “Pleasant lad, I think.”

“He ran smack into me. With a barrowload of dung.”

“And were you running too, by any chance?”

“You needed the apples, so I was, perhaps.” She looked pointedly down at her shin. “He hurt my leg.”

“Could you get on with the peeling, do you think?”

“It’s really sore.”

“Oh dear.” Mrs. Hill still did not look round.

“I think my leg’s going to fall off altogether.”

“What a shame.”

“It’s only hanging on by a bit of gristle.”

“Well, never mind.”

Sarah got up from her seat and limped emphatically to the kitchen table. She took up a paring knife. Mrs. Hill glanced up at her then; she ran the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving behind a fine dusting of flour.

“Are you all right, though, Sarah, love?”

“No. And he’s not either. Not in the head. I’ll bet that’s the only reason we could get him. That’s why he’s not in the service of some earl or away fighting in the war. Because nobody else would have him.
Nobody wants him because he’s a cack-handed lummox who’s a danger to everyone around him.”

Mrs. Hill gave Sarah a warning look.

“Well—”

“Sarah. Don’t you dare go blaming others for what you’ve brung upon yourself.”

Sarah lifted an apple and chunked her knife into it. She peeled away a ragged strip of skin and watched it coil onto the scrubbed tabletop, her lips pressed tight. Everything was wrong. This was not how things were supposed to be at all.

“I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country for my part
 …”

James Smith had presented himself in the kitchen for Mrs. Hill’s inspection some hours previously, as Mr. Bennet had required him to do. Mrs. Hill took one long assessing look at him. He was thin. He was very thin. You could see his skull through his skin, at the edge of his eye sockets; you could see the ridge of his jawbone and its joint by the ear. And he was dirty: his fingernails were black, his hair filthy, there was a rime of grey about the skin and clothes. And the clothes themselves looked as though they’d been stolen off half-a-dozen different washing lines. He had a beard. It was straggly and unkempt, but it was certainly a beard. He had been on the tramp a while.

“What’s first to do, then, ma’am?”

She lifted the kettle from the range, and jerked her head towards the scullery.

“Let’s get you sorted out.”

She poured him hot water from the kettle into the scullery sink and let it down with water from the tap; she gave him a slip of soap and a linen towel and a comb, then fetched Mr. Hill’s razor and stropped it for him. She left her scissors on the drainer, for his nails.

In the kitchen, she scrubbed down the table with salt, and set out the bread, and butter, and cheese, and listened to him huff and splash. When he had rolled back his sleeves at the sink, his arms had been twisted rope, just bone and muscle. These were hard days indeed, to be between employments.

The table laid, she sat and waited. He came up the step from the scullery, his hair still damp and dripping around his ears. His beard was
gone, and his skin was pale and soft where it had been. He was ill at ease, moving awkwardly in the confined space of the kitchen, with its obstacles and hurdles, its clutter of stools and chairs, tubs and fire-irons and skillets. He was one of those men, it seemed, who are not quite at home indoors.

“So, what’s to be done now, ma’am?”

She drew out a chair for him at the kitchen table. He looked down at it.

“Sit.”

She poured him a cup of tea, set the milk jug beside it, and placed a bit of sugar on the edge of the saucer. She cut the bread and the cheese, then went to the pantry to shave a few slices off the ham. When she had set all this down in front of him, he was still just looking at the cup; the drink itself was untouched. His lips—he rolled them in, bit down on them—were cracked and peeling.

She sat down opposite him. “You don’t drink tea?”

“No, I—”

“Would you prefer milk?” She pushed her chair back. “Or we have beer. Would you like a mug of beer?”

“I do drink tea, it’s not that.” His gaze was uneasy; it scudded around the room.

“What is it, then?”

“To earn it. I should work first.”

“No,” she said. “Not here. You eat first here.”

He looked at her then, with his clear eyes.

“There will always be food for you here. Breakfast, dinner and tea. You eat, and then you work,” she said. “You don’t need to worry about that any more.”

He smiled then, and it was a transformation; all unease gone, he softened and seemed young. He picked up the sugar lump and set it aside, then lifted the cup and sipped.

“It’s good,” he said. “Thank you.”

“But you don’t like sugar?”

“I do, I suppose. But I don’t take it.”

She shunted the plate of ham a little closer, watched his Adam’s apple roll down, then back up his throat. She dug a knife into the butter, slid it towards him too. He smeared the bread with butter, laid on ham and cheese, folded it in half and bit. When he had finished, she was ready
with a broad wedge of gooseberry tart, and a dish of thick yellow cream with the little silver spoon stuck in it.

“Go on,” she said.

He looked up at her. Then he shook his head, and softly laughed.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just. Thank you.”

He dug a spoon into the fruit, and ate. When he had finished the first slice, she gave him a second. And when, after that, she thought he still looked hungry, she just shunted the pie dish towards him and let him get on with it.

“I wonder …” she began, as he picked up the pastry crumbs from the tabletop with a fingertip. “Mr. B. didn’t mention where you’ve worked before.”

“Oh, here and there.”

“Have you come far?”

“Not very far. Been all over, really.”

“Always in domestic service?”

“That kind of thing. And horses. I do know horses.”

“Well,” she said, after a moment, when nothing more was offered. “You’re here now.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s all to the good.”

“Yes,” he said. “And thank you, ma’am, for that fine meal.”

“ ‘Missus’ will do. I hope you will be happy here.”

She took his empty cup, with its thin strewing of leaves at the bottom, and his cleaned plate, and stacked them all on top of the empty pie dish. She pushed back her chair.

“We are glad to have you.”

“What now, though, missus? What shall I be getting on with?”

“You could go and sort that room out for yourself, above the stable.”

He wiped his mouth, and was on his feet.

“You’ll hear the church clock strike,” she said. “Come back over at four. You’ll be waiting on table with Mr. Hill at dinner.”

He nodded.

“Oh, and—do you have any other clothes?”

He glanced down at his loose waistcoat and hitched-in britches, and then up at her; a smile. He shook his head.

“I’ll sort something out for you.”

“You are very kind.”

“Mrs. B. will have you kitted out in due course, but you’ll need something decent for everyday; can’t be mucking out the horses in livery.”

“Livery?”

She nodded. He pulled a face. It made her smile.

“Well then,” she said. “Get along with you.”

When he had gone, Mrs. Hill climbed heavily up to the attics. She picked her way through old banded trunks and chests and boxes that were labelled with long-lost maiden names and the careful print of young boys heading off to school. She swept off dust and brushed away cobwebs, teased straps out of buckles, and flung back lids, making the dust roil away in billows. She lifted out long-outgrown shirts and nightshirts, narrow and unfashionable suits of gentlemen’s clothes, and held these up to the light, assessing their size and degree of decrepitude, remembering the long years ago when they had still fitted, had been fashionable, and had still been worn.

The kitchen was hot, the new pie baking and the fish bubbling gently in its copper kettle, the door standing open to let out the stour. Polly clambered on and off her stool, lifting down the china; Sarah filled a tray with glasses while Mr. Hill scrutinized the silverware, brow furrowed, lifting one fork and then another to the light. He held one out for Sarah’s notice; there was a crust of something stuck between the tines.

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Hill. It won’t happen again.”

He shook his head at her, then spat on the fork and polished it up to a satisfactory shine with a corner of his waistcoat.

“Where’s the new fellow, then?” Polly asked.

Mrs. Hill looked up, over towards the window. “Here he comes right now.”

He slipped in quietly through the kitchen door. Dark hair combed and tied back, he was rigged out in a narrow brown coat, black knee-britches and worsted stockings. His appearance was very decent and neat, but the clothes were antique in cut, like in a portrait of a gentleman made thirty years before.

“Coo,” said Polly. “You look like a ghost.”

He rippled ghostly fingers at her; she giggled. Mr. Hill came to look him over; he brushed a lapel, nodded.

“Well,” said Mrs. Hill. “You’ll do.”

It was to be a simple family dinner, Mr. Hill informed him, an easy introduction into the proper arrangement of knives and forks, plates, platters, decanters and glasses, so that by the time that company were invited, James would be able to set these items upon a tablecloth in a manner that would not offend the neighbourhood.

He was as silent as one of the candlesticks. He shadowed Mr. Hill, watching every move of his white-gloved hands, nodding whenever the old fellow looked round at him to check he had been understood. Between them they laid the table, so that all was in readiness for when the family sat down.