Jane lifted her head in surprise and turned to Louisa. “Is that where you learned glamour?”
“No, madam! I learned from Miss Sarah. Greycroft is a large estate, so there are coldmongers enough that Mr. Frank can even hire them out.” Louisa gave no hint that Frank was her father or Miss Sarah her grandmother. “The coldmongers are part of the great house staff, and his management of them has made the coldmongers a significant income for the estate.”
“Yeah, until Mr. Pridmore—” Amey cut off abruptly with a brief glance at Louisa. “It was an interesting education. My nephew, Winter, just come back and might have some more information for you.”
Jane’s interest in coldmonger training faded. Vincent had been concerned that Mr. Pridmore was misusing estate funds, though at this point only a sense of responsibility to Frank impelled him to take any action for the estate. This sounded like something he would be very much interested in. She frowned and wiped the excess ink from her pen. “Louisa, might I ask you to go to the counting house and ask Mr. Hamilton to come here?”
Though clearly knowing exactly what Jane was about, Louisa curtsied promptly. “Of course, madam.”
As Louisa left the room, Nkiruka’s hands dipped into the ether. Jane watched them fixedly. She could just look. Surely it would take no energy to look. Yet she could not walk from the bedroom to the blue room without being a little out of breath. Jane ground her teeth in frustration as the weave took shape around her. Sounds outside their immediate sphere became indistinct. It must be different from Vincent’s technique, as it did not cut out all sound but merely made it garbled.
Jane cleared her throat and turned her attention to Amey. “Now. We have a few moments, so allow me to say that if you are holding your tongue because of fear that I will report your words to Mr. Pridmore … I am no admirer of his.”
Gnawing on her lower lip, Amey turned to her mother. Nkiruka spoke in that unfathomable language, and Amey answered, although her speech was awkward. She made a face and asked a question. Nkiruka patted her on the hand. Amey repeated whatever the question had been.
Nkiruka gave a sharp nod, then finished in English. “Talk.”
She sighed. “Mr. Pridmore used to turn out the slaves that get damage. Field accidents. People born ben’ up. That sorta thing. Mr. Frank take them, and somehow talk his lordship into sending them for training instead. Sort of. He get permission to send them, but had to use his own money.”
“And now, if I am to understand you correctly, Mr. Pridmore wants to take the income from trained coldmongers without having put forth the expense of training them?”
Amey nodded, and Jane drummed her fingers on the table in thought. Given the signs of neglect on the estate that Vincent reported, she had to wonder where the money was going. And then she recalled Mrs. Pridmore’s tea—“imported from China at great expense”—her harp, and the printing of her book of poetry. This would be something to discuss with Vincent at the first opportunity.
“Thank you for your candour. I shall speak to my husband about this, but not where I learned of it. If there is anything similar, please let me know at once.”
“Just…” Amey turned her glass in the circle of condensation it had left on the table. “Just, Mr. Frank, he let the coldmonger an’ dem keep some of the money they get for being hired out. An inducement, he call it. For working extra. Mr. Pridmore, he said that’s wan waste ah estate resources.” She did not actually ask if that practise could remain in place, but the question was clear enough.
Jane had heard that masters sometimes let their slaves earn some money by hiring themselves out or making handicrafts, but she had not realised that Verbury’s estate did so as well. “That seems like a sound practise to me. I have always favoured the carrot rather than the stick.” Jane sighed again, more fatigued than she should have been from such a short visit.
“You tired?”
Not from exertion, but tired nonetheless. Still, she straightened her shoulders and returned the smile to her face. “I have not asked half the questions I had about glamour.” The conversation then turned to one of craft, which saw some of the tension ease out of Amey’s figure. They were encumbered somewhat by vocabulary, since even though Amey spoke Igbo, she did not have sufficient foundation to be able to translate some of her mother’s terms into European terms. They wound up returning to Jane’s original plan of discussing the rudiments of technique.
At one point, Jane found herself using a cat’s cradle made of ribbon to try to show a tordre le fil hook. They passed the ribbon back and forth with the learning verse that went with it.
Chasing a rat
Came a little cat
Over the table
Underneath the cradle,
Around, around
Upside and down
There goes the rat
Running from the cat.