Page 17 of Burying Venus
With all his hatred for the man, Dermot grasped the roller and rammed it onto the dough so the thing was flattened in mere moments. Will solemnly took this moment’s labour in hand and put it on top of the pie, cutting the remains and flinging them so they neatly landed on Dermot’s trousers.
‘God sent me William and the devil gave me Dermot,’ Béchard said. ‘Now to cook the thing. Will, stay with me and observe. Dermot, Stephen, off with you. I’m sure Mrs Aisling has some need.’
‘Where did Stephen come from?’ Will said slyly.
‘His mother’s arse and back to front at that. Sorry bitch was probably torn open, size of the great lummox.’
Dermot turned away and left without another word, only stopping as he signalled Stephen to walk beside him so they could make their way to Mrs Aisling without incident. She was the housekeeper and kept to her quarters, preferring to conduct business inside, and every meeting with her was a terror. Certainly she plotted with Béchard against them, instigating miseries on the staff with aplomb.
‘Dermot,’ Stephen said, his childlike voice unnatural when paired with his massive shadow. ‘Something’s not right.’
Dermot turned to him, incredulous. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘It’s ever since you put that in the food, then when Will went to the dungeons,’ Stephen said.
Hoping to move out of step with him, Dermot hurried ahead and turned to another corridor, flinching when Stephen’s heavy feet crashed against stone in an effort to keep pace. He did not know how Stephen guessed when both Béchard and Will remained ignorant. It seemed a cruel injustice; that a man who hadn’t the sense to act against him should understand so soundly.
He stopped outside Mrs Aisling’s quarters. It was well known that the woman took pride in her proximity to upstairs. Heart quickening, Dermot opened the door before Stephen could say anything more.
Mrs Aisling sat neatly at her desk, furiously penning some sort of missive. The quill screeched as she beat it on the page, two young women flinching as they stood huddled together by the wall.
‘Men,’ one of the girls said, a thin-faced blonde Dermot recognised as one of Will’s companions.
‘Men!’ cried Mrs Aisling, turning so the ink soared across her desk, near obscuring half the page. ‘Wretched girl, look what you’ve done!’ Hurrying to her feet, she dusted off her matronly garb and adjusted herself as she gawked at them, acting as though she had never before seen their like.
The blonde grabbed a cloth and raced where Mrs Aisling directed, crying out when the housekeeper’s wrinkled hands lashed across her own.
‘Is that Dermot, Béchard’s boy? Do you see what I have to deal with?’ She squinted at him as if to leer, wrinkles etching further into leathered skin. ‘And myself with such eyesight that I can hardly write, all my work come to naught.’
‘I can pen another for you, Mrs Aisling, were you to dictate it,’ the brunette said. She, unlike her friend, had a more curvaceous form that spoke of a generous upbringing.
‘What nonsense! Were I in charge of this whole sorry island, I would make it so maids and scullery boys weren’t permitted to write. What, after all, is the point? Are you going to become a novelist, Noelle? Why, of course not,’ Mrs Aisling said, her shrill voice resembling the cry of quill on paper.
The woman, Noelle, who Dermot recognised as the maid who chastised him for throwing clothes onto the ground, scowledbehind the woman’s back and started scrubbing as the blonde’s sobs became audible.
‘Now, why has Béchard sent you to me? Does he have need for my thread, perhaps? But usually the blond boy comes to get it, darling that he is. Why are you here?’ Mrs Aisling asked.
‘Our work is finished in the kitchen. Béchard sent us to see if you needed assistance preparing for the dinner,’ Dermot mustered. He saw the woman’s lips tremble and felt keenly for the maids.
‘The dinner, my word!’ Mrs Aisling said. ‘Lord Stanley’s important meeting concerning some very improper behaviour, I’ll have you know, with two important guests visiting from overseas, gentlemen and our betters. And Béchard, really, is that what he permits you to call him? That really is unseemly.’ She pretended to think before stomping her foot at the two girls, still stood by the desk. ‘Useless creatures. Yes, boys, there is something you could do for me. These two harlots refuse to bring our handmade handkerchiefs upstairs. They are intended as gifts for Lord Stanley, his sons, and our visitors. Take them to the dining room, that is what I ask of you.’
The blonde hurried over to Dermot after retrieving the aforementioned handkerchiefs, holding them like a holy relic and bowing her head as he took them in hand.
‘They are of beautiful quality and stitched well, not that I expect you men to be aware of such things,’ Mrs Aisling said.
He could say nothing to either maid with Mrs Aisling in the room. Nodding his head, Dermot fled with a burgeoning respect for the women. He recognised they’d have been at the task for weeks, if not months, and the culmination of their work would be slung across a man’s lips to catch specks of sauce.
‘What’s wrong with Will?’ Stephen said, his voice quaking with the threat of an oncoming tantrum.
‘The dungeons are enough to disturb any man. It is not worth thinking on,’ Dermot said, leading them to the dining room. He was sure Tristan was keeping them downstairs, lecherous bastard that he was, and he cursed himself for not thinking of the women beforehand.
As they entered, Dermot marvelled at the tastelessness of the purple fabric juxtaposed with lime green frame. The walls on the opposite side were coated with paltry white paint. Chairs littered every angle of the table, so Dermot had to scrape them back a few inches to place each handkerchief beside the fine porcelain.
Turning back as if set to a great task, Dermot again ambled downstairs, Stephen hurrying after. ‘You do know that when you trip in the kitchen, it’s because Will intentionally puts his foot where you’re going to make you fall, don’t you?’ Dermot said cruelly.
Close to Mrs Aisling’s door, Dermot hesitated, realising he might’ve kicked the stool from under him. ‘You know, maybe I saw it wrong.’
‘No,’ Stephen said. ‘I know he does, but I like it when he laughs.’