Untitled by Unknown Author Read Free Book Online

Elsie goes to carry the bread to the pantry, but Mrs Johnson clucks her tongue at her. "Put it on the table where I can see it. Haven't had a chance to write it down. You're going to mess up my accounts, you are."
       Even after Elsie has pushed the door closed a coldness lingers in small currents that curl around the room, making Jane shiver, swaying the laundry above her head. Mrs. Johnson glances up at the clock, then lifts the lid on a pan. Soon the air is thick and warm again and filled with the smell of hot kippers. "Get a move on," she tells Sarah. "They'll be down before long. It'll be your hard luck if you're not finished."
       Mr. Cartwright opens the door and glances in. "Let's be having you," he says.
       And so Sarah stands, adjusts her cap, smoothes her apron. Then the silver domes that have added a touch of brightness to the room are gone, and Jane is left staring at the dull gleam of copper pans hanging from the racks along the walls.
       At the stove Mrs. Johnson bangs her spoon against the edge of a pot. "You've got the bedrooms to do, love," she tells Jane. Love . Yet coming out of Mrs. Johnson's mouth it is a hard word, empty as a husk. "Up the stairs to the first floor. Quick now."
       From outside Jane hears the rattle of a carriage and the cries of a costermonger, though what he is selling she can't make out. The world outside is large as the sea, and that at least is something she is familiar with: the English Channel that can turn grey as stone, that can heave and crash and blur into the clouds or settle into a sharp line against the sky. As she brushes crumbs off her apron she remembers the smell of it, that mix of fish, brine, and wet sand. Her eyes prickle and her throat tightens. Stupid, she tells herself, to feel sad about leaving Teignton. She forces herself to remember the way Mrs. Saunders would call her up to her sitting room to read to her from a book called The Servants' Friend, would read from it as though she were in a pulpit, instructions on keeping oneself clean, and scorning pomps and vanities because they were the road to ruin. Jane would sit there, sewing and listening, glancing at the bottom of Mrs. Saunders's silk dress, the full skirt of it that must have taken yards and yards to make, at the slim waist she had thanks to a corset, at the lace she wore around her neck, at her hair coiled up all fancy on top of her head. It was all she could do not to jump out of her chair and throw the socks she was darning into Mrs. Saunders's face.
       Even the memory of such humiliation is not enough to stop her tears now. She gets up quickly and rushes out of the kitchen before Mrs. Johnson sees her lips trembling—if nothing else, the orphanage taught her not to show weakness, because others will use it against you, whether they mean to or not.
       Out of the kitchen and into the stairwell she hurries, straight into a woman carrying a tray. A spoon clatters onto the tiles, and she reaches for it. This woman is not Sarah, not Mrs. Johnson or Elsie. It's a large-nosed woman in a dark dress. Jane places the spoon back on the tray, says, "Excuse me, ma'am, I'm so sorry."
       The woman laughs, not all held-in like Mrs. Saunders but like a crow. " 'Ma'am'? " she says. " 'Ma'am'? That's a fine one." She goes cawing into the kitchen. "Oh, Mrs. Johnson," she calls, "did you hear that? I must be looking my best today, that's for sure."
       Jane doesn't wait to hear what follows. She lifts her skirts and runs up the stairs, tears cold against her face here where the air is chilly. Of course that wasn't the mistress—carrying a tray downstairs, and at this time of the morning—what was she thinking? She retrieves the box from where she left it on the landing and carries it upstairs, though it bumps, bumps, bumps against her knee and the weight of it pulls at her sore ribs. Up through the dim light she goes—for who uses this staircase except the servants?—out into the