The Emperor by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Read Free Book Online Page B

of Morland Place had ordered, and thought, this is my home for the rest of my life. I must make something of my situation, carve contentment out of the materials to hand: that is the Christian way. It was a philosophy which owed as much to her father as to the nuns who had educated her, a restless energy which despised weakness and could not be content merely to endure. I will make myself useful to Lady Morland, and take some of the burdens from her shoulders; I will learn to he mistress of this great estate, and then teach my daughter all I have learnt. With these resolutions, she pushed back the bedclothes and slipped out of bed between the curtains.
    A shriek and a more prolonged clattering greeted her, and she gained her feet to find herself facing a diminutive housemaid whose clothing had evidently been designed for someone better-nourished, and who had just dropped the box in which she carried around her rags and brushes. Her eyes were wide, and her hands were clasped where her bosom would he in a few years' time.
    ‘ Oh, you startled me!' the child exclaimed, and then, remembering herself, curtseyed and said, 'I beg your pardon, m'lady. I'm very sorry, m'lady.'
    ‘ Not my lady,' Mary Ann said automatically. 'You address me as ma'am.’
    The child reddened and curtseyed again. 'Beg pardon, ma'am,' she mumbled, but seemed too paralysed with embarrassment to move. Mary Ann looked her over with the interest a mistress always accords to new servants, to find what they are good for.
    ‘ I haven't seen you before, have I? What's your name?’
    ‘ Betsey, ma'am.'
    ‘Are you happy here, Betsey?'
    ‘ Oh, yes, ma'am!' she cried fervently; then, 'Only there's such a lot to remember all at once, and all them different stairs an' corridors. I'm sorry I woke you, ma'am.’
    She looked subdued now, and Mary Ann reflected that most mistresses would complain to Mrs Mappin about being woken by a clumsy housemaid. She felt an unexpected sympathy with this skinny child, and to her own surprise heard herself saying, 'It doesn't matter. I was awake anyway.' Betsey curtseyed again and knelt down to pick up her spilled brushes, and Mary Ann, watching her curiously, said, 'Where do you come from, Betsey? You are new, aren't you?’
    She looked up with a glowing face. 'Yes, ma'am, I came up on Monday from St Edward's.'
    ‘St Edward's? Oh, you mean the orphan asylum.'
    ‘ Yes, ma'am. Me an' my brother Timmy, we're orphans, ma'am. We've lived there all our lives, until Mrs Mappin brought me up to the house to train for a housemaid, on account of the master's plan, and your father's, ma'am, begging your pardon. Such kind gentlemen, ma'am, as ever could be, and I'm that grateful, you can't imagine.'
    ‘My father? What plan?'
    ‘ The plan they have, ma'am, the master and your father, to send the boys from St Edward's to Manchester, to be 'prenticed to your father's mill. The master came hisself to explain it all, so they shouldn't be afraid, and he told how they should be made 'prentices and learn a trade so that they could keep themselves respectable-like all their lives, and never come to be beggars. My Timmy was to be one of them, and we didn't like above half to be parted, ma'am, until master said I was to come up to the house. And Mrs Mappin told as how her ladyship once went to visit a spinning-mill, and how it were a lovely green place, and how the 'prentices lived in a lovely house, all white and clean, and so I were pretty well pleased, ma'am, to think of Timmy so well provided for. And one day Timmy might come back, when he's learned to be a weaver, and we might set up house together, for weavers earn a deal o' money, ma'am, and then I might keep house for him, just as I've learned here.’
    The rapid and breathless stream ceased, and the child beamed up at Mary Ann in artless delight and gratitude, so that she could not find it in herself to rebuke the freedom her question had provoked. She was pleased with what she had heard