Wasp (13 page)

Beth prods the food with her fingers.

‘Can’t use a knife and fork? What were you? A tinker girl?’

‘I was a companion to two beautiful children and my father was a respected member of the community.’ She gestures at the table. ‘Why have we been given wooden cutlery? This so-called knife wouldn’t slice butter.’

‘Kittens aren’t allowed metal cutlery unless supervised.’

‘Why?’

‘Weren’t you told? They get all kinds in here. A few weeks in prison can turn even the most wilting bloom into a spitting wildcat. If you want to tame a beast you don’t leave it with sharp claws, that’s what the Abbess said. Despite the table training we’re both on trial.’

‘Is everyone from prison?’

‘Or worse, so I’ve heard.’

Beth tries a forkful of food. It’s tender on her tongue. The fruit juice has a cool, sweet taste. Orange and lemon mixed with sugar, possibly. A comfortable feeling spreads through her belly.

At the end of the meal a red box trimmed with brass is set before the Abbess. Chatter dies away.

‘She’s going to give out the Assignments,’ Moth whispers.

Names are announced. Girls rise and approach the top table where the Abbess hands each a parchment bound in red. Every face is a study in beauty, every movement elegant and considered. Even the most breathless heartbreakers of Beth’s village are milkmaids by comparison. Ten minutes later the box is closed and whisked away. Not everyone has received a parchment, Beth notes.

‘Look at Ebony Mare,’ Moth whispers. ‘She didn’t get one again.’

Beth remembers the dark-haired girl from the night of the bath. She is staring bleakly at her empty breakfast plate. ‘Why?’

‘Her looks are fading. She is becoming very bitter about it.’

‘She seems comely enough to me. ’

‘But she’s old inside her head, and that’s made her ugly. She believes she deserves to be a Harlequin, but the Abbess only assigns her the older clients.’

‘Harlequin?’

‘Senior girls who get the best jobs. They have the diamond pattern on their left cheek.’

Before Beth can ask anything else the Abbess claps her hands. Everyone rises and files from the room. The maids begin clearing away plates.

Moth stands.

‘What do I do now?’ Beth asks.

‘Find your Masque. She won’t be far away.’

Hummingbird is waiting in the entrance hall, ribboned parchment twirling in her fingers. She hurries over, small feet pattering on the marble floor. ‘Well, Kitten, were you impressed with our dining arrangements?’

‘I’ve seen naught like it.’

‘You’ll get used to such luxuries once you begin moving in the right circles.’

‘Do you eat there every meal?’

‘Only in the mornings. Most evenings the room is set aside to entertain callers. We usually take supper in our bedchambers.’

‘What’s in the parchment?’

‘Perhaps an opera, perhaps a Ball. And you? D’you feel better for something in your belly?’

‘A little, yes. The other new girl, Moth, put me at my ease.’

‘Hmm, she’s learned a lot.’

‘She seemed put out that you let me share your bed when Red Orchid makes her sleep on the floor.’

‘On the floor, is it? She’s lucky not to find herself thrown into the corridor. Moth cries in her sleep. You can hear her halfway along the landing.’

Beth thinks about those rounded cheeks, the fuzz of hair already growing back. Moth had seemed confident but, on reflection, every gesture, every word had a fluttering of nerves behind it.

‘I’ve already met one of the girls at the top table. Nightingale. She spoke to me as if I were a beggar.’

‘Nightingale’s one of the House’s most favoured Masques. She enjoys a grand room, has the services of her own maid and usually only escorts the most high-born clients. I daresay she’s never known aught but the touch of silk against her skin and the favour of princes. Come, Kitten, we both have work to do today.’

Eloise stands outside their room, an empty canvas sack grasped in one hand and a small brush and shovel in the other. How plump she looks. Every woman in the house except the Abbess seems fleshed out.

‘Now,’ Eloise says, handing the sack to Beth, ‘time for you to earn your bread,
enfant
. I served you, now you serve me,
oui
?’

‘Go easy on her, you mad Frenchie,’ Hummingbird says. ‘I have an Assignment later this evening and won’t be here to look after her.’

‘So it is fine for me to sweat blood and crack my backbone to provide your little comforts, my precious, but I must not break your new toy, non? Well, do not trouble your sweet brow. She will get her hands dirty but come back to you in one piece. You can tuck her into your pretty bed and smother her in rose petals while I, who work my fingers till they bleed, fetch your supper. In my grave I shall find peace at last,
oui?
’Tis as well you are bound for hell else I’d fear you would come haunt me in heaven.’

Hummingbird pats Beth on the shoulder then slips into the room, closing the door. Eloise flaps her free hand. ‘She is laughing at me in there, you know that? All the time she laughs, like this is some game I play for her amusement. Pray God you have some sense in that bare head of yours. Now we must get started. We are already late.’

Beth examines the empty sack dangling in her hand. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘Do? Why, we are going to clean fireplaces, that is what we shall do. What did you hope for,
enfant
? Some flower arranging? A little crochet perhaps? Sew a sampler for a young beau? Not under this roof. Ashes and embers, those are our business, and you’d better get used to their smell before you can think about dabbing sweet scent behind those little-girl ears. We shall do your bedchamber last. I cannot go in there and suffer that idle creature braying at me. Here, we shall start in here.’

Hours of work leave Bethany’s back and legs aching. Each bedchamber, though a near mirror of Hummingbird’s, is infinitely tidier. Apart from some hairbrushes and the odd trinket box there’s little in the way of personal effects. It’s impossible to glean anything about the occupants.

Along the whispering corridors of this huge house she sometimes hears voices and odd snatches of laughter. Ghost women clean and polish, remove chamber pots, deal with the laundry. They are everywhere and as barely glimpsed as mice.

‘Where are all the tattooed girls?’ Beth asks.

‘Your Sisters-to-be are either out working or in the Mirror Room practising their skills. No one other than Hummingbird sits idle in this house for long.’

One more room, one more hearth. After clearing it out, Beth collapses into a sooty heap on the floor. ‘Finished at last. I’m exhausted.’

‘What are you doing,
enfant
, taking a nap? A little beauty sleep to put some rosebuds on your cheeks? Our work is only half done.’

‘Half done? What do you mean? There can’t be a grate I haven’t cleaned.’

‘Cleaned the grates, yes, but now we have to fetch fuel and kindling. Our brave princesses will want something to warm their pretty hands by. The walls of this house are thick and it has a cold heart, whatever the time of year. A room without a flame is a dread place. We must work some warmth into its bones.’

Beth tries to get up but tumbles back.

‘I can’t do it.’

‘Can’t do it? Of course you can do it.’

She tries again. Her legs won’t move. Both arms feel as if they are floating six inches out of their sockets. Her hands are two ash gloves and soot smears her face. ‘I can’t.’

Eloise stands over her. ‘Must I take a stick to you? Will you be beaten like a stubborn donkey?’

‘I’ll kill you if you touch me, I swear it.’

‘Brave words,
enfant.
You claim you cannot fetch a scrap of kindling yet in the same breath threaten my life. Look at you, trembling like a rabbit in a snare. I fear for my safety, I truly do.’

‘Don’t mock. I’ve been beaten enough, you French cow.’

Eloise claps her hands.
‘Mon dieu,
now you sound like Hummingbird. Come,
enfant
, let me help you up. No, don’t flinch, I shall take you to a place you can rest awhile. You have a stout heart and have worked hard today. I doubt the House of Masques will be any poorer for sparing you half an hour.’

Eloise guides her down the passage and into an alcove. ‘Here we are, our little day palace.’

A plain varnished door opens into a parlour dotted with armchairs. Thick curtains are bunched at the windows. A coffee table, scattered with newspapers, sprouts from the polished floorboards.

Eloise lowers her into a leather armchair. Opposite, a figure lies snoring on a sofa. A woman in breeches and long leather apron. Her face is grubby, and she smells of manure and old rope.

‘Don’t pay any heed to her,’ Eloise says, filling two cups with steaming liquid from a pot over the fire. ‘This is where we come for respite. Our own parlour, though few of us have time to make much use of it.’

The rich smell of coffee warms Beth’s nostrils. She lifts one of the cups and takes a sip. ‘I’ve not had coffee in weeks.’

‘Then it will taste all the better. I take pity on you, new girl, because you are so weak and wrung out, but do not think I shall treat you like this every day.’

‘I’m grateful just the same.’

‘What did you do before your life turned bad?’

‘Bad? How would you know what happened to me?’

‘We are all people who have had something happen to them,
enfant.
Only the details differ.’

Beth stares into her coffee cup. ‘I looked after children.’

‘Ah, little ones,’ Eloise’s face softens, ‘they are our future, oui?’

‘Who is the girl on the couch?’

‘Another hard-working member of our family.’

‘Why is she asleep at this time of the day?’

‘She has spent all morning helping the dwarf with the horses.’

‘Couldn’t the stable boys see to them?’

‘Stable boys?’ Eloise laughs. ‘We don’t keep stable boys. Not with a house full of pretty girls,
enfant
. Men are pigs, don’t you know that? They get ideas above their place. They drink and wag their fat tongues into the wrong kind of ears. They fight among themselves because they all want to be king over any pile of straw they find. And they would not suffer a woman as their master. They are not bred for it, you see? The poorest farmer in the country can sire six daughters and hold them dear to his heart, but as soon as he spits a boy from his loins then that son inherits whatever patch of mud his papa possesses. This is what all men are brought up to believe. And it is the men who make the laws.’

Beth settles back in the chair. It feels like sinking into a soft glove. ‘My mother never saw a future for me beyond the walls of the squire’s house. Father didn’t object. Sometimes I hated him for that, sitting like a straw puppet agreeing with all her opinions as though he never had a single thought of his own. As it turned out, I was wrong. But what about Kingfisher? And the dwarf is a man of sorts.’

‘Ah, but those fellows are cut from a different cloth. I doubt you will hear Leonardo bemoaning his lot. Kingfisher enjoys a high place here and, darkie or not, he is not so witless as to send himself back to the slavers. He claims he was a leader in his own country who was tricked into captivity. The Abbess bought the collar off his neck and exchanged it for a cravat. He can knock the wits out of any so-called bruiser and still flourish a silver fork with the grace of a dandy. Yet he never touches the girls, not in that way. He jests that they are pale and horsy, with the fire drained out of their veins. The women of his own country are seemingly rich and exotic, like a strong spice, yet the humour leaves his face when he talks of them.’ She takes a mouthful of coffee. ‘Nevertheless he is a hunter. He sniffs out girls — good ones, not common trash. Everyone under this roof is well educated. He knows all the shut-away places families hide their black sheep. His net is huge and he caught you, my little minnow.’

‘Why did you become a maid here, Eloise?’

‘Maid?’ She taps her cheek. ‘You see this scar? I was once a Masque, a girl not much different to you, enjoying the company of landed gentlemen. However, rules are in place, and if rules are broken there should be consequences, no? My Emblem was taken from me and now I spend my days running after little
mesdames
like Hummingbird. I tell you, some days when she is difficult I wonder if working the streets would not be kinder.’