Читать книгу Coram Boy - Jamila Gavin - Страница 13

The first day was an ordeal for Thomas. The meeting on the steps of Ashbrook was just the start of it. How he wished he had never come; how he wished that the ground could have opened and swallowed him up. Why, even the servants were better dressed than he, even when he wore his uncle’s clothes. Never was he more ashamed than when he saw their eyes scan his heavy jacket and breeches, his hob-nailed boots and cotton shirt – and these were his best clothes. How would he get through four weeks? He was spared meeting Sir William Ashbrook, who had had to go to Bristol to see one of his ships, late in from Barbados.

Lady Ashbrook had been solemnly kind and enquiring and tried to put him at his ease, but it was the bowing and bobbing and intricate details of the pecking order that existed in the household which left him clumsily bewildered. The arrogance of the butler, the superciliousness of the footmen and the whispered jibes of the servants, scullery maids and housemaids made him feel like a piece of clod from the farmyard which should be swept out of this elegant house.

At that first dinner, he could almost sense the sneering laughter at his elbow as he tried to serve himself from the platters, and he was sure that the way he was always a little after everyone else in picking up a piece of cutlery, glancing round first just to ensure that he lifted the correct knife, fork or spoon, did not go unnoticed. But this time, unlike when he first arrived at the cathedral school, he was comforted by the reassuring kick he got from Alexander sitting next to him and Isobel’s sympathetic glances.

The food was borne in on silver platters by white-gloved manservants; food he had never even seen before: venison pie, partridge breasts, grilled trout, slivers of ham, trifle with cream and jam, cheese and little biscuits. Too nervous to eat, he had taken tiny portions. But Lady Ashbrook had noticed and said in a kindly way, ‘Ah, Thomas dear, don’t hold back. You’re a thin sort of youth and need building up. Take more, take more.’ So he did and, tentatively, began to enjoy it.

That night would be the first of his life that Thomas had ever slept on his own, and in a proper bed rather than a mattress on the floor which had to be cleared away by day. Mrs Morris, the assistant housekeeper, showed him up to his bedroom, leading the way with a candlestick which held three blazing candles. Huge shadows swung round the well of the broad winding staircase as they climbed, and he was aware of being under the gaze of all the family ancestors, whose portraits stared down at him from the walls. They went up and along a broad corridor and then turned right into another, all flickering with candles. He couldn’t believe such extravagance. Oh, Mam, he thought to himself, if you could but see the number of candles they use. Why, just a quarter of them would last us a lifetime!

They reached an elegant door with a brass lock. She opened it with one of the keys which hung in a huge bunch dangling from her waist. He entered a room so big he was sure it could have contained him and his mother and father and all of his thirteen brothers and sisters with ease. A log fire was burning in the grate, throwing a warm pink glow round the high walls. A four-poster bed was partly hidden behind thick velvet curtains and made up with pillows and cushions and blankets. There were two oak cabinets and between them was his small cloth bag of clothes.

‘Lady Ashbrook said I was to tell you that everything in the cabinets is for your use,’ said Mrs Morris. Suddenly, she turned and looked at him in a motherly sort of way. ‘They do go in for a number of changes in this household, depending on the time of day, who they have to a meal, what the weather is like, what they intend to do and who they intend to visit. It could be confusing. Hmm?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ agreed Thomas miserably.

‘You not being a gentleman and all that – if you don’t mind me saying, young man – allow me to be of help in advising you what to wear. Hmm?’ She tipped her head to one side.

‘Yes, ma’am! Indeed. I would be most grateful,’ cried Thomas.

She opened the cabinet in which were hung a number of jackets and cloaks; folded neatly on shelves were woollen undershirts, pure white cotton shirts, velvet and brocade waistcoats and broadcloth breeches. She took out a complete day outfit and laid it on the couch. ‘I suggest you wear these for breakfast. You can try them on in the morning. If it’s to your liking, of course.’

‘Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am,’ murmured Thomas, awe-struck as he gazed at the gentleman’s clothes.

Before she left him, Mrs Morris toured the room, checking to see that everything was in order. ‘Here is a nightshirt for your use.’ She shook it out and draped it on a chair where the heat of the fire could reach it. She put her hand into the bed. ‘Yes, you’ll be cosy and dry. Becky has used the warming pan on your sheets.’ She peeped under the bed and pulled out the chamber pot to make sure he saw it, then pushed it back again. She went over to a side table on which stood a large china jug and bowl. She noted that the towel was clean, then dipped her fingers into the jug and commented, ‘You have warm water. You’ll be able to wash.’ She poked the fire and threw on an extra log. ‘Becky will be here in the morning to build up the fire again, but this will last well into the night, I’ve no doubt. There’s a bell pull there if you need assistance, and one of the servants will attend you. Sleep well, lad.’

‘Goodnight, ma’am, and thank you kindly,’ replied Thomas gratefully as she closed the door behind her.

Thomas stood for a long time in the middle of the room, just where Mrs Morris had left him, pondering his situation. Then he undressed and put on the nightshirt. ‘What would me mam say if she could see me now?’ he murmured.

He heard a light but insistent tapping on his door. ‘Who is it?’ he whispered, pressing his mouth to the wood.

‘Me. Alexander. Open up!’

Thomas opened it with a big grin.

There stood Alexander also in his nightshirt. ‘Come, come, come. No one will go to sleep until you’ve done some of your funny imitations and sung us some songs.’ He grabbed Thomas’s arm and raced him along the corridor. They stopped before a small door which looked like a cupboard, but when he opened it they stared into the pitch darkness of a narrow stairwell. It was the servants’ stairway which took them up through the stomach of the house. Alexander didn’t hesitate; he dragged Thomas in. Then he opened another door and, suddenly, they were in a fully candlelit corridor, just like the one lower down.

‘Here he is!’ announced Alexander, throwing open a double door at the end of the corridor. Thomas stood, blinking, on the threshold of a large nursery. There were puzzles and toys and a wooden doll’s house, small chairs and tables and a sofa. Before a blazing fire knelt Isobel and Melissa and Edward and Alice all in their night robes, their hair brushed out and gleaming in the firelight. Their eyes shone merrily at the sight of him.

‘Oh come in, do! We’re so glad you’re here!’ cried Isobel, jumping to her feet. ‘Alexander has told us so much about you and how funny you are.’

‘Show us, show us, Thomas!’ yelled the little ones, rolling around like puppies.

In an instant, all the shyness and doubt he had had about having come to Ashbrook vanished in front of their eager friendly faces.

‘Welllummum . . . now then, Ashbrook ummummumm . . . will you umm kindly lead us in the ummum introit . . . ’

‘Why certainly, sir,’ said Alexander solemnly.

Thomas grabbed a drumstick from the toy drum nearby and held it up as a baton. He squinted and blinked, and began waving the stick in the air. ‘Da dee dum da di da . . . ’ he imitated an organ.

‘That’s Dr Smith! He’s exactly like that,’ chortled Alexander, and he began to sing.

‘No no no no . . . my boy . . . ’ Thomas rapped the baton like Dr Smith did. ‘That’s no way to sing to Almighty God. No no nonnno. With love, with feeling, with . . . ’ he waved his arms around dramatically, ‘with . . . rev . . . er . . . ence . . . Remember! You are speaking to God. Almighty God.’ He moaned it out in a mournful way.

‘That’s just how he speaks!’ Alexander shook his head in amazement.

‘I want to be a choir boy,’ shouted Edward, as everyone laughed.

‘Me too,’ echoed Alice, and they lined up next to Alexander.

Melissa and Isobel looked at each other and both leapt to their feet to stand in line before Thomas.

‘Well . . . ummum. Whatumm can you sing, my little onesummm? How about um . . . A frog he wouldum a wooing go ummmummum.’

‘Yes, yes, yes! We know that!’ they shouted.

‘Oneummmum . . . two . . . mmum . . . er . . . what comes after two, eh ummummum?’

‘Three!’ shrieked Alice.

‘Ummummumer . . . three, four . . . ’ and Thomas waved the baton and brought them in on the fourth beat.

‘A frog he would a wooing go, Hey ho said Rowley!’

They sang it rowdily. ‘I’m deeeeeply impressed,’ commented Thomas in his Dr Smith voice when it ended.

‘I want a story, Thomas. Story now,’ demanded Edward once the laughter had died down. ‘Alex says you know lots of funny stories.’

‘Well,’ said Thomas, as they gathered round. ‘I could tell you the story of old Dawdley Dan, the peg-leg man.’

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ The children flopped eagerly to the floor beside the fire, while Thomas stood on one leg and began hopping about.

‘I need a crutch,’ he said, looking around.

‘Will this do?’ cried Melissa, leaping up to get the hobby horse which was propped in a corner.

‘Just the job!’ said Thomas, propping the head of the horse under his armpit. ‘Now then see you here, old Dawdley Dan,’ began Thomas in his broadest Gloucestershire, “im was called Dawdley ’cos ’e did dawdle, see? Not surprising what with ‘is wooden leg an’ all that . . . An’ ’im did like ‘is rum, yer see . . . and I tell you, a man with a wooden leg wot can’t hold ‘is liquor is quite somethin’ to behold.’ Thomas went reeling round the room, while Edward and Alice shrieked with laughter, and Thomas glimpsed Melissa out of the corner of his eye losing all her shyness. She threw back her auburn hair and chuckled like a baby, while Isobel gazed encouragingly at him with the same dark eyes as her brother.

‘An’ then one day old Dawdley Dan, after ‘e’d ‘ad quite a lot to drink, ’e says, “When I was a lad an’ ‘ad two legs, I dived from the bridge an’ swam all the way across to Over.”

‘“You never did,” challenged one of ’is equally drunk mates.

‘“I could do it now,” retorts Dawdley Dan. “I’ll show yer-”

‘“Not now, you couldn’t, Dawdley,” says ‘is mate, “not with that peg leg of yours an’ all that.”

‘“No? I’ll show yer!” roared Dawdley. “Goddamn your eyes, I’ll show yer. Come on, let’s go to the bridge . . . and then . . . ”’

Thomas by this time had hauled himself up on to the table, pretending it was the bridge, and was reeling around, almost falling off.

‘ ’E slung first his good leg over the side, then ‘is peg leg – an’ there ’e was, sittin’ on the bridge, starin’ down into the dark swirlin’ waters . . . and-’

‘What in heaven’s name is going on here?’ Mrs Milcote stood in the doorway. Her body was rigid with indignation.

The laughing stopped instantly. Five startled faces turned.

Melissa, who had been laughing the loudest, stopped dead at the sight of her mother and thrust her hand to her mouth to stifle the sound. She pulled her gown round her tightly and stared speechlessly.

Isobel recovered enough to say, ‘Oh, Mrs Milcote! Do watch Thomas telling his story about-’

‘Miss Ashbrook,’ Miss Milcote spoke, her words freezing like icicles as they left her pursed lips, ‘I hardly think it is fit for young ladies to be seen in their night-time attire before gentlemen – least of all a . . . ’ For a moment, Thomas wondered whether she would say it: ‘a common working fellow’. But she paused and completed her sentence: ‘least of all a vis-it-or.’ She stretched out the last word meaningfully. ‘I think, sir,’ she looked hard at Alexander, ‘you’d better accompany your young friend back to his chamber now. It is rather late.’

Alexander raised an eyebrow as if he was going to refuse to be told what to do by a governess, even if she was a distant relative, but Melissa had gone to her mother’s side and was looking so humiliated that, for her sake, he swallowed his anger. Instead, he hugged the little ones, Edward and Alice. ‘We’ll hear the rest of the story in the morning,’ he reassured them. ‘Now, goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Alex,’ they chorused bleakly. Isobel ran forward and embraced her brother fiercely. ‘It’s so good to have you home, Alex! So very good.’ Then she turned and bobbed to Thomas. ‘Goodnight, Thomas. I do hope your chamber is to your liking. We want you to enjoy your stay at Ashbrook.’

Thomas gave a short bow, ‘Thank you, Miss Isobel,’ and he followed Alexander out of the room.

Mrs Lynch patrolled the corridors of Ashbrook. Her last duties were to ensure that there were sufficient candles burning outside the bedchambers to get through the night. As she passed the quarters of Mrs Milcote and her daughter, she heard raised voices and paused to listen.

‘How could you speak to us like that in front of Alexander and Thomas!’ protested Melissa. ‘I felt so humiliated.’

‘Dear girl . . . ’ Mrs Milcote’s voice was so low that Mrs Lynch had to press her ear to the door to hear her. It was clear that Mrs Milcote had ambitions for her daughter. Marriage, perhaps? Mrs Lynch had noticed how Mrs Milcote had been grooming Melissa, paying extra attention to her education and, in particular, her music. Was this to make her eligible – for Alexander? Mrs Lynch smiled to herself as she heard Mrs Milcote chastising her daughter for her lack of decorum. She was as sure as she could be that Sir William would not consider a penniless, minor relative to be a suitable match for Alexander, his elder son and heir, no matter how pretty and talented she was.