Page 5 of The Twelve Days of Christmas

STAVE II.

The Christmas Box

T WO T URTLE D OVES

‘S’not fair.’

‘Fair?’

‘Fair!’ repeated Lowdie Lucas, who hissed the word from between her teeth, but not so quietly that the other servants could not hear her. ‘’Tis not one bit fair at all that we should be working our fingers to the bone when the little misses upstairs have Christmastime off.’

‘Off from what?’ came her companion’s rejoinder in tones proportionate to wry amusement. ‘Sewing? Idle chitter chatter? Playing the pianoforte monstrously ill?’

‘Exactly!’

Katherine Allen lowered the gravy pan she was scouring, and levelled the girl next to her with a look that Lowdie (had she been paying attention), would have studiously ignored.

‘And what would you be doing otherwise?’ said Katherine.

‘You would be bored witless without your chores. It’s not as if there is much to entertain the likes of us around here anyway, not with our families so far distant.

We can hardly traipse about the countryside all day in the cold and there’s nothing to do upstairs in our room, is there, beyond darning our linen. ’

This perfectly reasonable point did not seem to have an effect on Lowdie. The girl merely sniffed, and applied herself with half-hearted enthusiasm to the soiled breakfast plates in the Belfast sink.

‘I should be happy enough sleeping for the next two weeks,’ Lowdie countered.

‘No getting up at dawn, no fires to light or benches to scrub.’ In a defiant manner she jutted her dimpled chin in the direction of Mrs Denby, who at that precise moment was preparing a goose for that evening’s dinner, its downy white feathers fluttering in the air like errant snowflakes.

‘No listening to her bark out orders. Right bee in her bonnet, that one,’ Lowdie muttered.

‘She’s getting as grumpy as Old Hag Mulligrub. ’

Katherine attempted to hide a smile but duly failed.

Mrs Wilson – the recipient of such an uncharitable nickname – was not in earshot (upstairs, she supposed, giving one of the uppers an earful on account of some imagined indiscretion).

Still, it was not fair to Mrs Denby for her to smile so, and therefore Katherine wiped it clean from her face, transforming it instead to a mildly scolding downward turn of the mouth.

‘Be kind,’ Katherine said, lowering her voice. ‘You know perfectly well why she is in bad spirits.’

Lowdie pulled a face.

‘But it is Christmas.’

‘Precisely.’

‘But, Kate—’

‘Lowdie, hush. Consider your own words – it is Christmas, and it does you no good to be peevish. This is the natural order of things. We have it far better here than most others in service.’

‘ Hmph! ’ came the uncharitable reply, but no word further was declared, and so Katherine resumed her scouring.

The pair fell into silence, though it could not be said to be a companionable one.

Lowdie had been working for the Pépin household just shy of a twelvemonth, but had struggled in that time to form any meaningful attachments to her fellow servants.

It was in Katherine that the younger maid confided (or, rather, complained) for they shared a bedroom, but if truth were to be told Katherine – like the others – found Lowdie Lucas rather trying.

She glanced at her; the scullery maid had upon her round face a rather comical look of deep vexation as she attempted to prise a globule of dried scrambled egg off a pretty china plate of periwinkle pattern, becoming increasingly ham-handed as the seconds drew on, and Katherine grimaced.

The periwinkle service was a favourite of the viscountess, and she would be very upset if there was yet another casualty.

Lowdie had broken one of the bowls from its set not two months before, and been scolded something terrible by Mrs Wilson …

but it seemed the girl did not care. Indeed, much of what the housekeeper said to Lowdie (in fact, what most people said to her) went in one ear and out the other.

Lowdie grunted as the egg scrap detached itself from the porcelain. Katherine let out a relieved sigh.

Unfortunately, that was the way of it with Lowdie – always the first to complain, always the first to make trouble, never caring what she did or said to upset a person.

In Katherine’s opinion Mrs Wilson had the right view of her: churlish and ungrateful were the words she used in one of her more rigorous scoldings.

The only reason Lowdie had not been dismissed was because her work was adequate, and (more notably), Viscountess Pépin would not hear of it, though heaven (and the lady herself, of course) only knew why.

Lowdie placed now the plate on the rack, and sank her arms back into the soap suds to wash another, a grumble upon her chapped lips.

Churlish. Ungrateful. One might not have thought such disobliging things of a girl in possession of such a lovely name – Lowdie (so she proudly told Katherine the first evening she arrived at Wakely Hall) was a pet form of Loveday, and Katherine had thought it so unusual, so singularly pretty.

Alas, the moniker did not suit the girl at all; ‘Loveday’ matched her neither in looks nor in character, for Lowdie was a plain little thing with a habit of sulking over the silliest consequence.

Such as not having Christmastime off.

Katherine wiped the gravy pan clean of excess sand and ground oyster shells, and picked up another, wiping her perspiring forehead with the sleeve of her elbow as she did, then set to work once more.

There was something to be said for Lowdie’s chagrin – Christmas at the Pépin household was always so fearfully tiring.

Every year the hall became home to guests as early as the Feast of St Nicholas, with many staying on until Twelfth Day, and so with one full month of entertaining to be had the servants at Wakely Hall were hard-pressed to find a moment alone to themselves, for there were almost triple the number of sheets to launder and chamber pots to empty …

and, of course, a continuous tower of plates to clean and pots to scour.

By rights – as kitchen maid – Katherine should not have been helping Lowdie at all, but with so much to do and not enough time to do it in, there was simply no help for it.

Katherine glanced again at Mrs Denby, absently pressing the hard grit beneath her fingernails.

No one, it seemed, worked as tirelessly as she did.

So many dishes to prepare, with only Katherine to assist her, nor would the cook hear of Mrs Wilson hiring in more help.

Absolutely not! said she vehemently when the notion had been broached earlier that month; no one but she could be trusted to broil a haddock or roast a potato or steam a plum pudding.

And to be perfectly fair to the woman, her dishes were never anything less than complete perfection.

Mrs Denby was always kind enough to ensure the servants were served a sumptuous feast in keeping with their stations, and there were always leftovers to be had, no matter how many guests there might be in attendance at the hall.

Still. Mrs Denby had been barking out orders in tones decidedly unlike her usually cheerful chatter, and Katherine knew that it could not be accounted for simply by the taxing busyness of the season.

The cook was slathering the now featherless waterfowl with butter, its pink-pimpled skin slick and glistening in the candlelight, but she was almost violent in her ministrations, causing Katherine to frown.

Did Mrs Denby think particularly of her missing son in that moment?

Or was she simply applying more effort to the task as a means to distract herself from thinking about him at all?

It was difficult not to think of Phillip Denby at this time of year.

Katherine remembered him to be a shy, quiet boy, always so happy (or so they all thought) playing his tin whistle by the fire.

Even Mrs Wilson had doted on him, she who doted on no one.

What a shock it had been when, at barely sixteen, Phillip chose to take the king’s shilling.

He had already spent five Christmases away from Merrywake, and then, two years ago …

Well, there could be no further thought to be spared on the matter, for next to Katherine there was an almighty clatter, a sharp intake of breath.

All of a sudden a rush of soapy water sloshed over the sink, drenching Lowdie’s apron and Katherine’s pattens with suds, turning the flagstone floor into a rather large and filthy puddle.

‘Oh, lawds!’ Lowdie spat, looking down at her soiled garments as if they themselves were at fault.

‘What happened?’ cried Katherine, shaking her feet in an effort to rid herself of drips. ‘Not another periwinkle?’

In answer Lowdie sucked her finger, where blood had bloomed at its tip and was running down to her knuckle in a single crimson thread.

‘There was a chip,’ she said meekly, and it should be noted that Lowdie Lucas had never been heard to speak in so meek a manner before. ‘I did not mean to drop it.’

‘Is it broken?’

Both maids spun about as fast as a wink. Lowdie’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach, for there she was, Old Hag Mulligrub herself, standing hard as brass with those bony arms of hers folded tight across her chest.

Mrs Wilson was a rather terrifying creature. Ask any of Wakely Hall’s servants and they would affirm that the housekeeper was a woman of most stern and unsympathetic nature with a tongue as sharp as knives, a tongue which she turned on Lowdie with as much force as a redcoat at arms.

‘I hope for your sake that it is not broken, as the value of it shall be docked from your pay.’

The housekeeper stepped forwards then in a manner greatly intimidating. Lowdie tried not to flinch, sticking fast as tar to Katherine who stood equally still at her side.

‘Such a plate would cost at least six months of your salary, I am quite certain.’

Six months?