Read Online The Crimson Ribbon by Katherine Clements - Free Book Online Page A

understand you have nothing of your own. Clothes and the like.’
    ‘Very little, sir.’
    ‘Lizzie will give you what you need. We keep an orderly house, which is good for business. Mind you keep out of the customers’ way.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    He nods at me and leaves us, crossing into a room beyond the passageway and closing the door behind him.
    As soon as he is gone, Lizzie jumps up from her stool. She comes to me and places her hand on my head for a moment, as though giving benediction. ‘Do not worry about my father,’ she says. ‘All will be well. You’ll see.’
    I am placed in Margaret’s care and spend the rest of that day in the kitchen, learning the tasks and rhythms of the house. At first she is churlish with me, but when she sees that I’m good for the work, she softens. Her distrust gives way to grudging acceptance as I prove to be useful and free from plague, against which, she says, we must be on constant guard.
    I have taken Master Poole’s warning to heart and when Charlotte, the maidservant, asks me questions, I fumble my way through an invented history while she and Margaret exchange doubting looks.
    Margaret is easy to make out. I know that if I work hard and keep my own counsel, I will win her over in the end. She is mistress of the kitchen, and set in her ways, but sentimental loyalty spills from her eyes whenever she speaks of our mistress.
    Charlotte must be only a few years my elder and I hope at first that she might be an ally, but she treats me with suspicion. She is stout and rounded, with fair natural curls, and must have been pretty once, before the pox scarred her.
    The three of us servants are in the kitchen, Charlotte and I taking the first rest of the day, while Margaret kneads the dough for tomorrow’s bread.
    ‘Will we see the mistress tonight?’ I ask, thinking of Lizzie settled before the hearth, as I had first seen her.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Margaret says. ‘Oftentimes she spends her evenings here, but sometimes her father wants her with him.’
    ‘Have you known her long?’ I ask.
    ‘Her whole life, since she was a babe.’
    ‘You like it here?’
    ‘Aye, ’tis a good enough place. The master don’t interfere and Mistress Lizzie, well, I could not leave her now even if I had some other place to go.’ She wipes the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a dusting of flour.
    ‘She seems kind,’ I say.
    ‘Oh, yes, she was the kindest, sweetest child, and she has grown into a fair mistress.’
    Charlotte snorts.
    ‘There’ll be no cheek from you,’ Margaret says.
    There is one question that I must ask, for I have been wondering about it all day.
    ‘Where is her mother? Where is Mistress Poole?’
    Margaret does not answer but pummels the dough. I look to Charlotte, who chews her lip. ‘Shall I tell her?’ she says.
    Margaret sighs. ‘I don’t doubt she’ll hear the story soon enough. It may as well be from you.’
    ‘Your answer is, nobody knows,’ Charlotte says, eyes glittering. ‘It is a famous mystery hereabouts. Mistress Poole was a great beauty and came from a rich family, so they say, but she ran away to marry the master and was cast off without a penny. They say she could only manage the one child – Mistress Lizzie ruined her for good – and after that she became sickly and unstable in her mind.’ Charlotte taps a finger to her skull. ‘Then, one night, she disappeared. She was ill and took to her bed, and the next morning she was nowhere to be found. No one knows what happened. No one heard a sound, all her things were here, just as she left them, and all the doors were bolted on the inside. It was like she was spirited clean away. Some people blamed Mistress Lizzie, said she was peculiar, that she had strange powers. There was talk of witchcraft—’
    ‘That’s enough,’ Margaret snaps. ‘You can gossip all you like outside this house, but I’ll not have you speak ill of the mistress in my kitchen.’ She has coloured, a