Read Online Tattycoram by Audrey Thomas - Free Book Online Page A

course, love. I’ll ’elp yer make the best cake you’ve never seen.”
    In the end, Mrs. Dickens said she wanted to help as well. And oh, what fun we had, with Cook’s big aprons tied around our middles, our arms dusty with flour. Carefully we measured out the cloves, the cinnamon, the currants and sultanas. Carefully we whisked together the eggs, sugar and butter. Oh so carefully we poured half the mixture into the tin, laid a circle of marzipan on the top, added the remaining batter.
    â€œIf you make a shallow well in the centre, Hattie, your cake will rise evenly.”
    As we waited for the cake to bake, Mrs. Dickens sat down at the big kitchen table, just as though she were one of us, drank a cup of tea from a kitchen mug and helped herself to the tarts Cook had baked that morning.
    â€œI shouldn’t,” she said. “I’ll get thick in the waist.”
    There was the lovely smell of cake and the sound of rain falling outside the kitchen window. Mrs. Hogarth had come early to supervise in the nursery, and Mr. Dickens and Fred had gone out on some family business. The three of us sat together in a little island of peace.
    â€œWhat is she like, Hattie, your foster mother?”
    â€œSmall,” I said, smiling. “I am now much taller than she is. She has grey hair, although she is still not old, and freckled skin. When we were little and grew restless, she would sit us down and ask us to try and count the freckles on one arm. Since we could never count beyond ten, we would have to begin all over again.”
    â€œWe?”
    â€œHer son Jonnie, ma’am, my foster brother. And then there was an older brother as well, Samuel.”
    I was still smiling as I said this, but the tears stood in my eyes as I thought of Sam and Jonnie.
    She laid her hand upon my arm.
    â€œMr. Brownlow told Mr. Dickens something of your brothers’ history. I’m sorry, I had forgotten. Perhaps it will all come right in the end.”
    â€œPerhaps.”
    â€œYou were very happy there?”
    I nodded. “Very.”
    When the cake was done, tested with a straw and declared to be perfect — the whole kitchen full of its fragrance — we put it in the larder to cool, and Mrs. Dickens and I went up to relieve her mother of the children. Miss Georgina was coming to tea, alas, but since her mother would be there, and her older sister Helen, I did not expect any pert remarks when I brought the children down to the parlour. I was to leave the next morning for Shere, and what with the lovely interlude of cake-baking and the thought of my coming journey, I was in the happiest of moods.
    Charley, at fourteen months, was a wriggler and hated being confined in fussy clothes. He would lie on his face on the nursery rug and refuse to sit up. It was all a game, really, and I had learned that if I ignored him and started to dress Mamie, muttering, “Oh dear, what a pity Charley isn’t going down, and there are butter tarts for tea,” he soon came round. Mamie was different right from the start — a smiler. You could do anything with Mamie.
    Charley did not want to hold on to me as we went downstairs, but the stairs were steep and I insisted, muttering, “Ohdear, oh dear, butter tarts and jam sponge,” and refusing to go on until he did as he was told.
    Miss Georgina had arrived; I could hear her voice as we descended the last flight.
    â€œYou spoil her!”
    My mistress’s voice was low, so I could not hear her reply.
    Then Miss Georgy again: “She is a
servant
, Kate. You have no notion of how to treat servants.”
    My mistress laughed. I knocked and brought the children in just as she said, “Well, you’ll have some of your own one day, and then you can play the lady.”
    Charley headed straight for his mother and claimed her lap so there would be no room for Baby. I went over and, placing Mamie on the sofa, whispered in Charley’s ear,