Wasp (12 page)

‘Why? What is going to happen?’

‘You’re going to earn your place, and quickly. The House can’t afford to give freely of its favours. More training awaits.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Me? I’m going down for breakfast. If I receive a day Assignment I doubt you’ll see me again before dusk. Be of stout heart, Kitten. Your new life is just beginning.’

An hour later Beth is with the Fixer.

‘I’m going to teach you to eat properly,’ he says.

‘What’s wrong with the way I eat?’

‘You stuff meals down your throat as if they’re about to leap off the trencher and run for the door.’

‘When you haven’t had a decent meal for weeks you want food in your belly just as fast as you can shove it there.’

The Fixer doesn’t answer. Instead he wheels in a trolley laden with plates and glasses and sets up a table by one of the mirror doors. At his prompting, Beth seats herself. The table heaves under silver cutlery of all sizes. A fancy-looking bowl features birds etched around the rim. Beside that is a glass goblet that’s so clear it could’ve been made of air.

The Fixer serves all kinds of food in tiny portions. Beth doesn’t know what half of it is. At home Mother often flung vegetables and meat scraps into one big pot and boiled it up. Sometimes a rabbit would be roasted over the kitchen hearth and the bones used for soup. Everything here is offered in bowls or covered trays. Potatoes appear in a big metal dish with a knob of melting butter on top. Mutton and beef are carved into slices no thicker than parchment. There are lumps that look like small dead birds, and fish with eyes that stare up at Beth from the plate. Oily things slick her tongue and churn her belly. Spices send her into a coughing fit. She doesn’t know the proper way to eat or drink this strange fare. Everything she does is wrong. She uses fingers when a fork is required. Or she uses a fork when she’s supposed to use her fingers. There’s even a little bowl of scented water to dip her fingertips in. And small bites. Always she is told to take small bites.

‘Your stomach isn’t ready for rich food,’ he explains.

This goes on for hours. Rehearsals for breakfast, lunch and supper.

‘Pick up that knife
 . . . 
No, not that one, the other
 . . . 
That’s right, let’s try again.’

And that’s not the half of it. The Fixer sets Beth walking around the room, staring at her as if she was an old nag barely worth a bent coin. A few circles around the polished floor and Beth is told that she moves too fast, that she’s all arms and hips. She thinks if her tormentor were ever chased by an angry dog across a farmer’s field he’d feel no urge to tarry either. But no, Beth has to take measured steps, hands clasped in front, eyes demure. She keeps this up for the fat part of an hour until her feet ache.

When she finally brews enough courage to ask questions, the Fixer goes deaf. Beth gives up and plays the games. As the light outside begins to fade, the Fixer points to the big spread of cutlery and asks for the umpteenth time if Beth knows what fork is for sticking into what fish or meat. Again Beth goes through all the spoons and knives. She shows what she would do with the napkins and how she is going to pick up her wine glass.

‘Don’t curl your hand around it like a fist. You’re not going to hit anyone. Use your fingertips. Clasp the stem.’

‘What d’you want with me?’ Beth demands. ‘Haven’t I done enough?’

A smile flickers at the corners of the Fixer’s mouth. ‘Perhaps.’

‘I was furious.’ Beth frowns at her companion seated on the bed beside her. ‘Wouldn’t you have been?’

‘Nothing to be ashamed of,’ Hummingbird says.

‘I felt clumsy. And small. In the end I felt like throwing everything on the floor. And you were gone all night. I was sure I’d see you before turning in.’

Hummingbird shrugs. ‘These things aren’t done to torment you, Kitten. Not long from now you’ll be dining in high company. This training will ensure you’re a credit to yourself and your guests. Now, I’m afraid you have to see the Fixer again. A mite more discomfort, then you can have breakfast and meet the other girls.’

Beth wonders how many more mites of discomfort she can bear. After draining her tea dish she follows Hummingbird downstairs and across the hall.

‘When I first saw the Fixer’s razor I squealed like a snared rabbit,’ Hummingbird confides. ‘I had to be dosed to the gills on laudanum before I would let him shave me.’

At least the Fixer’s potions have soothed her injuries. That, coupled with the bath, makes her feel reborn. Her shaved body gives an odd sensation of cleanliness, and the catch-up on sleep has lifted the tiredness from her eyes.

The Fixer’s examination is brief. ‘A new woman already,’ he says, grinning. ‘A little fresh ointment on your injuries and you’ll be ready for breakfast. I take it your belly stood up to the rigours of yesterday’s training?’

‘It was the best food ever forced on me.’

He shakes his head. ‘You’ve had the best of nothing yet.’

Back in the hallway, Hummingbird takes Beth through a burnished walnut door trimmed with gold leaf. Beyond is a long table with six high-backed chairs. Two other tables at right angles stretch the length of the room, all shrouded in milk-white tablecloths and set with glittering silver. It’s easily as elegant as the briefly glimpsed dining room at Russell Hall.

Hummingbird nudges Beth’s arm. ‘Don’t look so awestruck. It’s not a palace.’

Their feet are silent on the rich carpet. Lace curtains turn the daytime into a moonglow that makes everything shine. Above, a host of round-faced cherubs and trumpet-blowing archangels beam from the curved, frescoed ceiling. An iron chandelier, studded with crystal and a hundred candles, hangs in splendour over everything. A fireplace opens a black mouth in the far wall, the metal grate ringed by soot-charred bricks.

Beth runs fingers along the back of one of the chairs. ‘I am to breakfast in here?’

Hummingbird catches her arm. ‘No touching, Kitten. You haven’t earned this place setting. Instead you’ll dine at the low table with the other new girl.’

‘Low table?’

A square of oak set near the hearth and partly covered with a grey linen cloth. Hummingbird gestures at one of two squat stools. ‘Wait there and don’t touch anything. I’ll be back shortly.’

‘You’re not staying?’

‘I have to enter with the other Sisters. It’s all part of the game.’

Beth can’t quell the fluttering in her stomach. Unsure of what to do with herself, she sits down. The stool is an unforgiving lump beneath her. A lot of places are set at those tables. In the Comfort Home no one could afford to make friends. Newcomers were pestered for anything of worth then left to fade into the grey walls. During her first week the ribbons had been plucked from her hair and lace snatched from the sleeves of her gown. Two weeks later she stole them back. That was the way of it.

But food, real food, was something her near worthless possessions couldn’t buy. Now here she is, in a dining room fit for a squire, waiting for breakfast. What would Lord Russell say to that? What would her mama?

Trouble is what you are, Bethany Harris. You’ll bring ruin on us all.
Beth has been so lost in her thoughts she hasn’t noticed someone else slip into the room. Clad in a linen smock, the newcomer has a fuzz of hair darkening her scalp. Round cheeks are cut by a long, straight nose. Eyes are mahogany dark and settle instantly on Beth.

‘So I’m to share this table with someone at last,’ the girl says in a voice that seems to loop around itself. ‘Sometimes I feel quite forgotten tucked away here.’

‘Who are you?’

She sits opposite. ‘I’m Moth. A Kitten like you.’

‘Moth? Is that your real name?’

‘No, I got it from my father. He said I was always flitting about the house like a moth around a candle. I don’t mind. I always thought “Sarah” a bit dull.’

‘I’m Bethany.’

‘You’ll get another name. Supposedly there’s a test that helps decide it, but I don’t know any more than that.’

‘Who is looking after you?’

‘Red Orchid. Do you know her?’

‘A girl with a flower on her cheek?’

‘That’s right.’

‘She helped bathe me the other night.’

‘Oh, she’s nice enough but I think I’m taken care of out of duty, not fondness. Perhaps she’s meant to stop me stealing something or hurling myself out of an upstairs window. Her eyes are never off me.’

‘You share her room?’

‘Yes, but not her bed. She makes me sleep on the floor by the window. To learn my place, I think. But I’m not complaining. I have a pillow, a nice soft rug for a mattress and all the blankets I want. Compared to snatching a nap in a draughty barn it’s paradise. You’re with Hummingbird, yes?’

‘How did you know?’

‘I saw you in the hall together. She’d be a sweet girl if she could manage to stop gossiping for more than a minute at a time. I hope for your sake she doesn’t talk in her sleep.’

Beth chokes back a giggle. ‘Not that I noticed, but I was so tired you could’ve lit a gunpowder keg under me and I doubt I would’ve stirred.’

‘Did she put you on the floor too?’

‘No, I slept in the big bed, with her.’

The ghost of a frown flickers across the other girl’s forehead. ‘The Abbess doesn’t like the Masques to have favourites. You might find yourself moved before long. Not everyone is so free with their bed space, I’ve heard.’

Beth leans forward. ‘Moth, how long have you been here? I thought I’d been brought to some kind of bawdy house but the Abbess says that’s not so.’

‘I don’t know much about it myself. I only arrived two weeks ago and I slept a lot of the time. Girls of all ages live in the House. They are given Assignments, sometimes during the day, mostly in the evening. They go out and they come back. I tried asking Red Orchid if there’s anything more to it than being paid to keep people company but she says I’ll find out soon enough. All I’ve done so far is change bed linen and let the Fixer feed me his witchy potions. He’s happy because my hair is growing back but it seems to be taking a long time. I had dark hair, long and beautiful. I spent hours just brushing it. Look at me now. I resemble a farm boy. You too.’

A bell sounds in the hallway. Women dressed in identical white linen file into the room and take up places behind the chairs. Each face is fresh, each tumble of hair tied at the neck with a plain ribbon. Beth spies Hummingbird but fails to catch her attention.

‘What now?’ Beth whispers. ‘Are we supposed to stand?’

‘No, sit there and try not to fidget. They don’t usually pay attention to us.’

Four more girls in linen gowns, this time trimmed with gold, sweep into the room. Each sports a coloured emblem on both cheeks. They stand at the top table, hands resting on the chair backs. Among them is Nightingale. Her face is so delicate it could have been cut from pearl-coloured glass. She sees Beth sitting at the low table and a tiny knot creases her forehead.

Finally the Abbess appears in a dress of glittering scarlet. At her side is the dark man, Kingfisher, in jacket and breeches of deep blue embroidered with silver. Both seat themselves. In a sigh of rustling linen, everyone follows suit. Beth wonders if the Abbess is a Lady of Quality. Certainly she carries herself like one, but Beth can’t believe it of the dark man. The fact that he’s allowed to sit with everyone else, let alone at the top table, makes her suspect some form of twisted charade.

Conversation ripples up and down the long tables. Maids with scarred cheeks wheel in trolleys buried under tureens and dishes of food. Meals are served with whispering swiftness. Top table first, then the others. Beth’s stomach cramps at the smell of meat and freshly baked bread. She spies fish and bacon, bread streaming with butter and layered with strawberry jam. Dishes of tea are poured and passed. Laughter punctuates the chatter.

The Kittens are served last. ‘If you’re wondering what you’ve got,’ Moth says, already tackling her food, ‘it’s liver, kidneys, fresh vegetables and some fruit juice. New girls who gorge themselves are often sick, apparently. One arrived last autumn, thin as a stick and on the run. She’d been found eating grass on the heath. She stuffed herself on leftovers from the kitchen and spent the rest of the day casting into a bucket.’