At the House of the Magician (4 page)

The back door of the dark house was of heavy wood, curved at the top, with rusty iron hinges and a ring handle. Beth pushed this open and went into the room beyond and I followed her, not knowing and rather fearing what I might find.

It was merely a kitchen, however, as dimly lit as the passageway, with a wood-planked floor scattered with stale and ill-smelling rushes. A large table stood in the centre of the room and this was covered with piles of unwashed trenchers, bowls and pewter in such disarray that Ma would have been horrified to see, for she believed – and had certainly taught me and my sisters – that to keep a clean and orderly kitchen was a woman’s most important duty in life. A huge cooking range dominated one side of the room, and above this were long wooden boards with all the articles of cooking upon them: saucepans, chafing dishes, skimmers,
ladles, cauldrons and pipkins, all piled this way and that. In spite of all these utensils, however, and the vast array of copper moulds which hung on the opposite wall, there was precious little sign of any food being prepared; no enticing smells and nothing turning on the spit over the fire – which, anyway, looked to be nearly out.

‘Where’s your nurse?’ I asked Beth. ‘
Have
you a nurse?’

She shrugged.

‘Gone!’ said Merryl.

I sat Merryl upon a stool and looked at both children, puzzled. This seemed to be a wealthy household, yet the children were strangely uncared for. ‘Your mother, then. Where’s your mother?’

For a while neither of them replied, and I wondered for a moment if I’d stumbled across a deserted house which had been abandoned by all apart from these two. Beth then said, ‘I told you. She’s lying-in.’

‘She’s just had a child?’ ‘

Our brother,’ said Merryl, and added very properly, ‘he is my father’s heir and his name is Arthur.’

‘That’s right,’ Beth said. ‘And he’s
very
small and red.’

Suddenly the monkey took a leap from her shoulder and landed with a clatter on the wooden table, making several trenchers and two pewter mugs fall on to the floor and adding to the general chaos.

‘But who’s looking out for you?’ I asked.

‘Anyone,’ Merryl said vaguely.

‘Mistress Midge, our cook,’ said Beth.

As she spoke I heard a-running on the stairs elsewhere in the house and a woman’s voice scolding and muttering, as if someone was being chastised for a whole legion of sins. The voice drew closer, and then its owner came into the kitchen, stopped dead and screamed at the sight of us.

‘Oh my Lord and Master!’ said the woman. ‘What is it but three creatures from the swamp?’

Merryl – who had stopped weeping some moments before – now began to giggle. ‘No, it’s just us,’ she said. ‘Me and Beth.’

‘We were playing on the riverside…’

‘And then I got stuck in the mud and couldn’t get out and nearly drowned!’

‘And our friend rescued us,’ Beth finished.

Mistress Midge pulled out a stool from the ashes in the fireplace and sank on to it. She was a tall woman with a dishevelled look about her, grubby of dress and red of face – and stout, of course, for I’ve never seen a cook who wasn’t as hearty as a hog. Her apron was stained, her cap ribbands frayed at the ends and her hair, grey and wiry, hung around her face. Her appearance well suited the state of the kitchen. ‘My Lord, my Lord,’ she said, wringing her hands as she looked the children up and down. ‘However am I going to get you clean?’

‘We must go in the tub and be washed!’ Merryl said
joyfully. ‘Set the water on the fire now!’

‘But the tub has a hole in it,’ said Beth.

Mistress Midge frowned. ‘You must be washed in the big wine cooler, then,’ she said, ‘for you’ll never get clean otherwise.’

‘What about our friend,’ Beth said. ‘Must she go in the wine cooler too?’

The cook looked me up and down and tutted. ‘I cannot see to her bathing as well as your own.’

I felt very indignant at hearing this, for I’d been waiting all this time to be noticed and even, perhaps, graciously thanked for rescuing the children. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I know I present a shocking muddy aspect at the moment, but I’m in this state because I went into the river to rescue Merryl.’

‘Hmm,’ said Mistress Midge, pressing her lips together.

My indignation rose. ‘Would you rather I had left her to drown? They were playing all alone down there with no one to mind them, and if I hadn’t been walking past they would have come to grief.’

‘That’s right,’ said Beth, and then she made a leap to scoop up the monkey, causing several trenchers and a copper bowl to fall to the floor. The monkey ran off, chattering, leaped on to the topmost board above the fireplace and threw down a ladle, which only just missed Mistress Midge’s head.

‘Lord, Lord above,’ she said. ‘That damned animal!’

Ignoring the monkey, I made an effort to brush at
my arms, which were caked with mud, lamenting the state of my apple-green skirts as I did so. ‘I was perfectly respectable when I set out this morning,’ I said in as haughty a voice as I could manage, ‘but now I am all in disarray. I thought I might at least be due some thanks for saving…’ I stopped of a sudden and gave a gasp, for I’d only just remembered that, intent on rescuing Merryl, I’d dropped my basket and hadn’t thought to pick it up again.

Remembering this I straightaway ran out of the kitchen, down the long passageway and on to the river path, but it wasn’t to be seen.

I burst into tears, unable to believe my stupidity in not keeping it within my sight. Sure enough, I had my money safe in my pocket, but what was now my only clothing was covered with mud and not fit to be seen. I had no shoes to speak of, and no smock, shawl nor even a kerchief to my name.

Mistress Midge, holding a candle, appeared at the back door. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘My basket’s gone!’ I said. ‘And my second-best skirt and bodice and some other possessions dear to me. I left them on the river path…’

‘Oh my Lord,’ said the cook, and she came outside, lifting her candle so that it illuminated a little of the pathway ahead of us. ‘Some villainous puttock has made away with it,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘and will no doubt be presenting his sweetheart with a fine basket of stuffs this evening.’

I fought to hold back my tears. I’d only left home a few hours ago and already I’d lost the few things of any value that I’d ever owned. It did not bode well for my new life in London.

‘Come back into the kitchen, dearie,’ said Mistress Midge, her voice softening. ‘I shouldn’t have been so harsh with you. Indeed, I should have thanked you kindly for saving Merryl, but I’ve been that mithered these past days that I’ve hardly known my own name.’

I sighed and tried to look sympathetic, although could not help thinking that my own problems were more pressing.

‘It’s the mistress, you see,’ she went on. ‘What with her being so long in labour and calling for a little bit of tender meat and a nourishing caudle at every moment, what with the gathering of green rushes to strew the lying-in room, the midwives to prepare hot drinks for and the visitors calling to drink the health of the new arrival, I fair forgot my manners.’

I nodded and, having no kerchief to my name, dabbed at my nose with the only piece of my sleeve which was not muddy.

‘The housekeeper left after a row with the master, and to cap it all, Jane the nursery maid disappeared with the footman,’ Mistress Midge continued as we went back into the kitchen. ‘I should have known; I kept coming across them whispering in corners and looking coy at each other, but could scarce believe it would come to that.’

‘So the children have no nursemaid to mind them?’ I asked, and it was then, I believe, that I began to think that there might be a place for me in this house.

She shook her head. ‘It’s always the way. Servants won’t stay here, you see.’

I was about to ask why this was, when Beth, having poked at the fire, touched the grid of the hot coal basket and screamed. The monkey screamed too and Mistress Midge gave a cry of exasperation. ‘You see,’ she said, ‘’tis all harum-scarum mad… ’tis too much for a body.’

‘Then why do you stay?’

‘These babes,’ she said, indicating the children. ‘If I left, who would mind them? Besides, I’ve looked out for their mother since she was born – I couldn’t abandon her. And where else might I be taken on at my age? I’m too old to prink myself up for a hiring fair.’

I wanted to know more about the household, but a plan had begun to form in my head. ‘Shall I put some water on to heat?’ I asked. ‘And then, perhaps, I could stay and help you get the children clean.’

‘You’ll not get anything out of it!’ she said straightaway. ‘For this house isn’t as rich as it was, and Master is as mean as the Devil when it comes to the laying out of money.’

‘That’s no matter.’

‘And don’t think that you can steal away with a couple of silver porringers under your gown, for Master has a big dog which will chase you down and –’

‘Father does
not
have a big dog,’ Beth corrected her.

‘Hush, child!’ said Mistress Midge.

‘Or any dog at all,’ put in Merryl. ‘For Mother says they are nasty, smelly creatures.’

I hid a smile, hoping very much that I could stay there for the night at least, for I was fair exhausted and felt I hardly had the strength to go on further. ‘I can assure you that I won’t steal your possessions,’ I said, and added mildly, ‘even though it was through helping you that I lost my own.’

‘Well, now…’

‘But if I help you bathe the children, then maybe I can wash myself when they’ve finished with the water – and endeavour to clean my gown at the same time.’

‘Oh, do let her,’ Beth said. She appealed to her little sister, saying, ‘We want her to stay, don’t we?’ But Merryl’s eyelids had dropped and her head had slumped forward.

Mistress Midge shrugged and her lips twitched as, talking crossly to herself, she considered what to do. After a moment she reached up to take a cauldron from above the fire. ‘You’d better take this, then – ’tis the largest,’ she said to me, half-cross, half-resigned to the matter. ‘There’s a well in the courtyard; you can fill it there.’ She raddled at the dying fire with a poker. ‘I’ll get the big wine cooler, and some logs from the shed to get the fire going… maybe between us we can get the children clean enough to say goodnight to their mother.’

‘Is she in good health after her confinement?’ I asked. ‘

Aye, she’s come through the ordeal well enough – but ’twould set the poor creature back a seven-night to see the girls in the state they’re in now.’

I took the cauldron from her. ‘Perhaps, after the children are clean, I could sleep here in the kitchen. Just for one night!’ I quickly assured her. ‘’Twill be too late to go elsewhere by then and I could sleep on a stool here by the fire. No one would find out.’

‘Lord, oh Lord,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know. If Master discovered that I was putting up strangers and strays…’

‘I’ll be off straight in the morning before anyone sees me,’ I said, and thinking it wisest not to hang around while she deliberated, I carried the cauldron to the door and asked where the courtyard was.

‘Across the passage, through the green door on the left and along the corridor,’ came the reply. ‘You’ll come upon it through the gate at the end. But wait!’ she said as I reached the door. ‘Go on your way swiftly, disregard any strange sounds and don’t open any doors, for what goes on behind them does not concern servants. If the master should pass, mind you keep your head low.’

I stared at her. ‘Who
is
the master here?’

She pursed her lips again as if she was not going to reveal this, then, after a moment, seemed to relent. ‘I will tell you that, for where’s the harm? ’Tis Dr John Dee.’

I looked at her curiously. ‘I think I’ve heard that name.’

‘Aye, you may have,’ she nodded. ‘He’s a learned man who works for our good queen.’

‘Works for our queen…’ I repeated, awestruck. ‘What does he do?’

She hesitated again. ‘He’s the queen’s magician,’ she said quite briskly. ‘Now fetch the water and be quick about it.’