Read Online By Royal Command by Mary Hooper - Free Book Online

nor would I ever have cause to ask for help from a lady such as she . . .

Chapter Six

    I had barely one hour’s sleep that night and wished I had not bothered to lay my head down at all, for I’m sure I felt the worse for it. Rising reluctantly, I went about my early morning duties in the usual way: cleaning the grates, lighting the fires, heating the washing water and simmering a pottage for Merryl and Beth’s breakfast, wondering all the time what was happening at the Mucklow household and thinking how overjoyed Miss Charity’s mother and father must be to have her home. My reveries about this happy scene, however, were tempered with the thought of how Dr Dee and Mr Kelly would react when they discovered that their little bird had flown the nest. How often they had checked on Miss Mucklow I didn’t know, but seeing as the trapdoor to the secret passage was in such a prominent position, I thought it likely to have only been once a day – and then probably when the household was a bed. If this was so, then they might not discover her disappearance until much later that night.
    When I went in to light the fire in the library I had a close look about me and discovered some dried herbs in a pestle and mortar, ready for crushing. I sniffed these and thought they were the flowers of scented mayweed, which, made into an infusion, is a well-known sleeping draught. These, I supposed, together with some poppy juice, would have ensured that Charity was always too sleepy to try to escape.
    It was a particularly trying morning, for Tom-fool the monkey started a high-pitched screeching which went right through our heads, this noise being accompanied by him leaping along the cupboards in the kitchen and dislodging dishes and platters. Merryl suggested that he might be feeling the cold – for there had been another very hard frost – and, thinking this the case, we found some old baby clothes and dressed him in them, which only maddened him the more, so much so that he bit me on the arm and drew blood. We shut him in the kitchen cellar as punishment for this, where he continued to squawk, scream, rattle at the latch and generally show his temper, so that when Mistress Midge announced that she had started thinking of our Christmas fare and dictated a list of provisions she needed from the market, I was only too pleased at the thought of getting out of the house.
    I dressed Merryl and Beth in their warmest clothes and we’d just set off when a maidservant wearing a thick knitted hood, bundled in shawls against the cold, came hurrying along the river path towards us.
    ‘Can you tell me where the magician’s house is?’ she asked, and then gave a start of surprise. ‘You are his servant, are you not?’
    I nodded that I was, and when she pushed back her hood a little to reveal her face, I realised it was the maid I’d spoken to at the Mucklow house. ‘You came to my master’s house to deliver a letter, and now I’m bringing you the reply,’ she said.
    I regarded her rather warily, wondering what the letter might contain and hoping that Miss Charity had not given any hints to her father of where she’d been.
    I pointed behind us. ‘There. Dr Dee’s house is the one we’ve just left.’
    She brought out a parchment from under her shawl. ‘Would you be good enough to take this in for me?’ she asked, and added in a low voice, ‘For I’ve heard many tales about what goes on inside that place, and to tell the truth I’m afeared to cross its threshold.’
    I smiled. ‘I can assure you that nothing will happen if you go in,’ I said. ‘You won’t be changed into a Christmas goose!’
    ‘That’s what you say.’ She bit her lip nervously. ‘I would go, indeed I would, but I’m in a hurry, for my young lady’s returned and there’s much to do.’
    ‘Miss Charity’s back?’ I asked, assuming surprise.
    ‘She is – and because of it the whole household is set to make merry. Which is not the habitual state of