Read Online The Queen's Dollmaker by Christine Trent - Free Book Online
Authors: Christine Trent
Tags: Fiction, Historical
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“As is my friend.”
Mrs. Ashby rolled her eyes. “I suppose I don’t have much choice, or else next Sunday we’ll be getting a sermon on ‘Helping the Poor’ or ‘Loving Your Neighbor.’ Worse yet, the good reverend may ask us to give up the Ashby pew at the front of the church, and I have worked entirely too hard and long to get that location to have it taken from me now. How the Harrisons would love to see us lose it so that they could buy it.” Another sigh. “Very well, I’ll take you on, temporarily, but any trouble from you and I’ll toss you back to Reverend Daniels and tell him you are unmanageable. And try not to be so French. You’re in England, for heaven’s sake, not that godless country of iniquity.”
Mrs. Lundy showed them to their living quarters—narrow rooms in the attic painted pale green, smelling strongly of rancid oil, each with a cot and small washstand—and were immediately put to work. Claudette was placed in the kitchen as a serving maid, and Béatrice requested assignment in the laundry. By serving in the laundry, Béatrice could keep out of sight and have Marguerite close to her. But Béatrice’s work was hot and grimy, and utterly ill-suited to her stamina. Her hands quickly became chapped, then swollen, and even sometimes bled from the breaking of her dry skin. She cried often in private, clenching and rubbing together her painful fingers. How did one family create so much dirty linen?
The Ashby family was comprised of James Ashby, his wife Maude, and two twin children, Nathaniel and Nicholas, age twelve. Mr. Ashby was abnormally pot-bellied, with a receding hairline that seemed to belong to a man much older. Years of iron-fisted rule by his wife had resulted in a small stoop, and with his extended abdomen, gave him the appearance of a wispy-haired, hard-boiled egg.
Maude Ashby had come from a modest family whose star had begun to ascend when one of her aunts became the mistress of George II earlier in the century. Maude’s aunt was one in a series of mistresses the king enjoyed following the death of his stoic wife, Queen Caroline. George had presented his lovely mistress with fine gifts of jewels, wine, and silken fabrics, and she in turn presented him with an illegitimate son. At that moment, the king decided he was through with the lovely Matilda Carter, and settled upon her a Yorkshire estate and £500 a year from the privy purse, considering himself especially generous since he had not yet decided to publicly claim the child as his own.
Maude’s mother had drilled into her repeatedly that it was her duty to learn from her aunt Matilda and reject a mistress situation: marry well, and bring prestige—but more importantly, additional wealth—into the Carter family. James Ashby had seemed a good match: a £20,000 inheritance from a recently deceased distant relative, shares in a new shipping company trading with the American colonies, and a family with a spotless reputation. But the colonists had gone to war against Britain, and the shipping company was dissolved. James had spent most of his inheritance—what was left after the purchase of their large town house in St. Marylebone—trying to keep the company buoyed, but when two ships were captured and stripped of all their goods by the rebellious British subjects in New York harbor, the last of James’s fortune was washed away.
Maude, who now had two boys for whom she also wanted to make advantageous marriages, did not meet his unfortunate run of luck with sympathy. Who wanted to marry a man whose father had lost his money in a failed business venture? Maude would periodically snort to herself and wonder how she could have married such a dolt. And now it was up to her to maintain the illusion of a family fortune, while scrimping and saving behind the scenes, going through her own inheritance from her aunt, until one day a suitable investment could be found that would once again raise her to her deserved social
Mrs. Ashby rolled her eyes. “I suppose I don’t have much choice, or else next Sunday we’ll be getting a sermon on ‘Helping the Poor’ or ‘Loving Your Neighbor.’ Worse yet, the good reverend may ask us to give up the Ashby pew at the front of the church, and I have worked entirely too hard and long to get that location to have it taken from me now. How the Harrisons would love to see us lose it so that they could buy it.” Another sigh. “Very well, I’ll take you on, temporarily, but any trouble from you and I’ll toss you back to Reverend Daniels and tell him you are unmanageable. And try not to be so French. You’re in England, for heaven’s sake, not that godless country of iniquity.”
Mrs. Lundy showed them to their living quarters—narrow rooms in the attic painted pale green, smelling strongly of rancid oil, each with a cot and small washstand—and were immediately put to work. Claudette was placed in the kitchen as a serving maid, and Béatrice requested assignment in the laundry. By serving in the laundry, Béatrice could keep out of sight and have Marguerite close to her. But Béatrice’s work was hot and grimy, and utterly ill-suited to her stamina. Her hands quickly became chapped, then swollen, and even sometimes bled from the breaking of her dry skin. She cried often in private, clenching and rubbing together her painful fingers. How did one family create so much dirty linen?
The Ashby family was comprised of James Ashby, his wife Maude, and two twin children, Nathaniel and Nicholas, age twelve. Mr. Ashby was abnormally pot-bellied, with a receding hairline that seemed to belong to a man much older. Years of iron-fisted rule by his wife had resulted in a small stoop, and with his extended abdomen, gave him the appearance of a wispy-haired, hard-boiled egg.
Maude Ashby had come from a modest family whose star had begun to ascend when one of her aunts became the mistress of George II earlier in the century. Maude’s aunt was one in a series of mistresses the king enjoyed following the death of his stoic wife, Queen Caroline. George had presented his lovely mistress with fine gifts of jewels, wine, and silken fabrics, and she in turn presented him with an illegitimate son. At that moment, the king decided he was through with the lovely Matilda Carter, and settled upon her a Yorkshire estate and £500 a year from the privy purse, considering himself especially generous since he had not yet decided to publicly claim the child as his own.
Maude’s mother had drilled into her repeatedly that it was her duty to learn from her aunt Matilda and reject a mistress situation: marry well, and bring prestige—but more importantly, additional wealth—into the Carter family. James Ashby had seemed a good match: a £20,000 inheritance from a recently deceased distant relative, shares in a new shipping company trading with the American colonies, and a family with a spotless reputation. But the colonists had gone to war against Britain, and the shipping company was dissolved. James had spent most of his inheritance—what was left after the purchase of their large town house in St. Marylebone—trying to keep the company buoyed, but when two ships were captured and stripped of all their goods by the rebellious British subjects in New York harbor, the last of James’s fortune was washed away.
Maude, who now had two boys for whom she also wanted to make advantageous marriages, did not meet his unfortunate run of luck with sympathy. Who wanted to marry a man whose father had lost his money in a failed business venture? Maude would periodically snort to herself and wonder how she could have married such a dolt. And now it was up to her to maintain the illusion of a family fortune, while scrimping and saving behind the scenes, going through her own inheritance from her aunt, until one day a suitable investment could be found that would once again raise her to her deserved social
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