Now that I definitely understood. Sea travel always unbalanced me, too, and I had spent most of the voyage from Ireland bent over the railing, hurling my guts into the waves.
My hair, thin and black, never took to plaits very well, but I braided and pinned it the best I could and covered it with the simple white cap. A small, round looking glass sat on the table in the corner, and I checked my appearance in it—not a look that would win me accolades during the London season, but it more than sufficed for scullery work. I had never grown to be a great beauty like my mother, though I had inherited her large, dark eyes and black hair. In such garb, she would have looked voluptuous and even tempting, but not even the most artful corset could make a shape out of my spoon-handle figure.
Upon opening the door, I found Chijioke beaming down at me. He smiled as if I had just made some tremendously clever joke. “Dublin!”
“You can hear Ireland in my voice?” I asked, pulling the door shut behind me. “My tutors would be so disappointed.”
“Ah, you should embrace it. Nobody here will chastise you for your heritage,” he said. I followed him down the hall a half step behind, for the corridor felt narrow if we went two abreast. It was obvious that keeping the grounds was strenuous work; he had the build of other workmen I had met before leaving Ireland. “I don’t hide the Orkney in my voice one jot. It causes so much confusion. What is a Nigerian boy doing with that voice? Where does it come from? You should see their eyes cross.”
“I suppose it is rather disarming,” I admitted. In the kinder light of day, the corridor looked less foreboding, but still those odd bird sketches surrounded us. “Your father was Nigerian?”
“Aye, and he didn’t hide that, either,” he said. We reached the stairway and turned, descending. I could hear the muted chatter of guests in their rooms and similarly faint conversation from the kitchens below. “That’s why I like it here. Whatever you were or are, the master expects you to be nobody but yourself. The harder the work, the more honest the man; he said that to me once.”
“What a relief.” I didn’t mean for it to sound so sarcastic, but truly I had my doubts. Life with my mother in Dublin had begun well enough, and when she could no longer care for me and my grandparents took over, they appeared kindly at first. And then they, too, decided to give me up, and Pitney came into my life like a blessing.
All new beginnings, I’d learned, started off brightly and ended in shade. If something felt too good to be true, it invariably was.
“Mrs. Haylam will have tea for you in the kitchens,” he said, directing me to that door near the entrance.
“How long did I sleep?”
“Through the day and night and on to the next morning,” he replied.
“What?” Utterly impossible. I had slept for an entire day? Had I really been so exhausted? “Why did no one wake me sooner?”
Chijioke shrugged his great shoulders and grinned. “Ach, well, the work here is not easy. Mrs. Haylam took pity, mm?”
“That was gracious of her, but unnecessary. I’m accustomed to harsh living. Granny, I mean Mrs. Haylam, found me scrounging for pennies in the rain, doing low carnival tricks.” There was no use lying to him—the truth about me would certainly come out. He didn’t give any signs of revulsion. “Just about anything would be an improvement.”
He waved me off and nudged open the kitchen door with his hip. “You’ll be up at dawn to help bake from now on. I wouldn’t be too grateful.” Chijioke paused midway through the door and lowered his voice, saying with a wink, “And now you know you must show me some of those low tricks later.”
“Of course,” I said with a laugh. “I won’t even ask for your pennies.”
“Good, because I have none!” He chuckled with me and led the way into the kitchens. They were clean and stark, in perfect contrast to the overcrowded and colorful foyer. Immediately in front of me was a near floor-to-ceiling range with an old-fashioned oven. Several blackened pots bubbled away on the heat. Preparatory tables and a deep basin lined the opposite wall, and to the left of those was a door opened to the outside. A cool, soothing breeze swept in off the fields, cutting through the intense heat of the stove.
In the middle of the kitchen stood a large, tall table, white and unstained wood, where a china set with tea waited. I smelled scones laced with orange and cardamom, and my stomach tightened with hunger. A day since that roadside porridge. It took all of my physical restraint to keep from flying toward the food.
“Poppy, get out some of last night’s ham for the girl. Quickly, if you please, and steal none for yourself or that infernal hound.”
I knew the voice, even if it came with an unfamiliar accent and unfamiliar face. No, I knew the face, too, though it couldn’t be . . .
“Granny?” I blurted out, altogether forgetting Poppy’s instruction. My eyes had trained so intently on the food, I almost hadn’t noticed the others in the room: the little girl and her dog, and what looked like Granny, with two or three decades shaved off her presumptive age. Her one eye was still milky, but clearer than before. Her steel-gray hair had been combed and rolled into a neat bun tucked under a housekeeper’s cap. She wore a prim, clean blouse and skirt, with a flour-dusted apron tied around her trim waist. There was a sharpness to her stance, a rod in her spine, and the same withering intelligence in her gaze.
It was her, the crone, and the shock of her appearance nearly made me forget my hunger.
“Mrs. Haylam will do,” she corrected me. Her voice now was by no means elegant, but certainly not the same croak it had been on the road. She bustled toward the table and the tea set, pouring out a neat measure into one of the cups. “I trust you are adequately rested, Louisa?”
“More than adequately,” I said honestly. “Thank you. I . . . I confess I haven’t slept that soundly in years.” Or ever.
A thin smile spread across the crone’s—Mrs. Haylam’s—face. Even her skin looked less leathery, though it was still a rich ocher in color. “Guests and help alike find the deepest sleep here. It must be the positioning of the windows or the calming influence of the spring.”
“I need to see to that rickety old wagon,” Chijioke cut in, dodging around me and striding toward the door leading outside. “It won’t survive another trip to town.”
Mrs. Haylam nodded, and he turned just before leaving, studying me closely before giving a brief wave. The pigtailed girl Poppy had retrieved a plate with smoked ham from the pantry. Her head just barely reached above the table, and she went on tiptoes to slide the pork up next to the tea.
Her hound, Bartholomew, waited behind her, sitting, his tail wagging furiously as he anticipated any dropped morsels.