Page 6 of The Twelve Days of Christmas

Well! This seemed hardly fair, to be punished so severely for a mere accident.

It was not she who caused the chip in the porcelain that cut her finger and caused her to drop the plate.

Lowdie would bet her finest mobcap on the culprit being none other than Miss Louisa who was considered to be the clumsiest chit in all of Merrywake.

Such a truth was common knowledge – did not the second to youngest Pépin daughter spill her soup all down the front of Lord Heysten’s waistcoat on Thursday last?

She should know, too; it was Lowdie who was tasked to clean said waistcoat, and no amount of white vinegar would serve to rescue it.

Such were Lowdie’s thoughts at that particular moment, and so her prior meekness dissipated (the pain which caused it being presently discounted in favour of embracing her ire), and ignoring the growing clutch of Wakely Hall’s servants which had begun to form behind the housekeeper she drew herself up as tall as she might be prevailed upon to manage.

‘You would dock me six months’ pay, all for a piece of flimsy china?’

Mrs Wilson blinked. Her pockmarked face shone.

‘You would be best served to mind that tongue of yours, my girl,’ came the answer, smooth as cream. ‘Your last mistress might have suffered it but here at Wakely things are done differently.’

‘So they must be, if maids are punished for dropping plates. ’Tis not as if her ladyship can’t afford another to replace it.’

Katherine sucked in her breath. Such mode of talking would surely lose Lowdie her place.

At the very least such impudence should be punished with a cuff of the ear, but the housekeeper stood unmoving.

Still, if Lowdie were not afraid of Mrs Wilson Katherine was , and so too the rest of the servants – Prudence Brown was positively cowering behind Ralph Hornby, and even her dear Nash (usually such a strong-willed man) was wincing into his neckcloth.

‘Well, Miss Lucas,’ was, finally, the icy response.

‘You are to go now up to your room. For your insolent tongue you shall receive no dinner or supper, and as for the plate … I shall speak to the viscountess and make the point, once again, how unsuitable you are to hold a position in this household.’

The implication was clear – immediate dismissal – and the breath Katherine sucked in had stoppered her throat.

Please, she thought of the girl standing stiff-backed next to her, please do not make this worse for yourself, and to her relief Lowdie did not, though her face had turned a rather unsavoury colour of puce.

Instead she tugged at her wet apron and, having untied the strings, proceeded to throw it on the floor (oh, Katherine tsked inwardly, right in the puddle!), then stomped from the scullery, pushing past the servants hovering in the kitchen with her snub nose upturned.

The silence that followed was loud enough to break glass. Katherine swallowed, shifted wetly in her pattens, and seeing the way her feet sloshed in the puddle Mrs Wilson raised one thinning eyebrow.

‘Get that cleaned up,’ she snapped. ‘You are a bad influence on that girl, Miss Allen, for you allow her too much leave to let her mouth run.’ Mrs Wilson paused then, gave her a brusque look up and down, narrowed her eyes at the grit that still dusted Katherine’s red fingertips.

‘Those pans should have been finished over an hour ago. Make haste,’ she added, clapping her thin hands so hard her palms must have stung.

‘’Tis bad enough I have one lazy maid in this household. I won’t stand for two.’

It was all Katherine could do not to cry out in affront.

Such censure was hardly just – she worked mighty hard; had she not helped Lowdie with the dishes on top of her own role in assisting Mrs Denby?

Over the housekeeper’s shoulder Katherine met Nash’s gaze.

His blue eyes held in them an expression of both sympathy and annoyance, for he never did like it when his sweetheart was scolded, especially at the expense of Lowdie Lucas.

‘Yes, Mrs Wilson.’

The housekeeper sniffed, turned a haughty head. The movement was carried out in so speedy a fashion that Wakely’s servants had no chance to disperse, and seeing them crowded so tight together in the doorway of the scullery necessitated Mrs Wilson to clap her hands sharply again.

‘Get back to work, all of you. There shall be no dilly-dallying. The Busgroves arrive this evening and we have no time to waste.’

Mrs Wilson then departed. It was only when the door of the housekeeper’s room shut with a pronounced thump that the servants’ hall seemed able once more to breathe, and the sounds of discordant hustle and bustle returned to fill the air.

Almost immediately, Nash was at Katherine’s side.

‘For the love of God, Kate,’ he murmured, crouching to help her clean the flagstones. He picked up Lowdie’s discarded apron and proceeded to use it to mop the floor. ‘I do wish you would not draw attention to yourself.’

‘Why, Richard Marmery,’ Katherine replied, sucking in her breath. ‘You know I do no such thing.’

‘But you do,’ said Nash, wringing out the apron into the bucket Katherine had pulled from under the workbench.

‘I know for some unfathomable reason you feel sorry for Lowdie, but the more you allow her to take advantage of your kindness the more you shall find yourself on the receiving end of Wilson’s bite. ’

Katherine blew a stray strand of hair away from her face. Gently Nash tucked it back into her mobcap, and the sweetness of the gesture caused her lips to twist.

‘Would you have me be as unfeeling as the rest of you? I am kind to Lowdie because no one else is.’

Nash gave her a peevish look. ‘I am not unkind, nor am I unfeeling. But you know as well as I do – as well as the rest of us – that Lowdie is extremely un likeable. She makes things so damn difficult. You know she made poor Prudence cry the other week, all because she took objection to the way the girl breathed! It was not Prue’s fault she had a blazing cold and Wilson refused to let her spend the day in bed. ’

Katherine did know. Prudence had been maudlin the rest of the day, and it irritated Mrs Wilson so much that she reprimanded her for (as the housekeeper put it) having the face of a whipped dog, which made Prudence cry once more for that was the second animal she had been likened to in the space of six hours.

What had set her off in the first place was Lowdie scolding her for (as she put it) sounding like a winded donkey.

Which – to Katherine’s shame – had actually made her laugh.

‘Nash,’ she said tiredly, standing up, bucket in hand. ‘I know how you feel. How you all feel. But my conscience simply will not allow me to treat her poorly.’

‘Yet you find her as vexing as the rest of us.’

‘So I do. But since we share a bedroom I would much rather keep the peace than make myself uncomfortable. Besides,’ said Katherine, dipping her hands into the sink to search for the plate that was the cause of the whole sorry business. ‘You would not love me if I was not kind.’

At this Nash blinked, then let out a low chuckle.

‘I suppose I have no argument to that,’ he said softly. ‘But please be careful. If Wilson dismisses you too, you shall have to go to Heysten Park, and I truly do not think my heart could stand it.’

It was a lovely thing to say – Katherine had always felt so safe in Nash’s affections when he shewed them in so warm a manner, and she was about to turn to him and say so when her fingers brushed against …

Her heart sank, and from the basin Katherine brought forth one half of what used to be an expensive periwinkle plate.

She and Nash stared down at it and he grinned.

‘Well,’ he said, a little laugh catching in his throat. ‘It looks like my warning is no longer of purpose. Lowdie Lucas has no hope in hell’s chance of keeping her position now.’

‘Nash, you are beastly. It was an accident – whatever you think of Lowdie, she did not break it deliberately. To lose her position because of it is most unfair. What a witch Mrs Wilson is!’

If her words were not enough to make Nash pause and reconsider his own, then the mode of Katherine’s declaration was, and so the footman moved closer, snaked his hand about his lover’s waist.

‘Oh, come now,’ said he, planting a tender kiss behind her ear.

‘I am sorry, I suppose, for Lowdie, that she should lose her place for such a trifling thing. You’re right, Wilson is an old rusty guts, but Kate, you know I only care for your well-being.

I would be quite lost without you, and it is to our future we must think, not hers.

You know I’m saving every penny I can so we can marry.

Please, do not jeopardise what could soon be ours. ’

Katherine in that moment felt perfectly wretched.

She desperately wanted to take comfort in Nash’s words but the injustice of it all prevented her from doing so.

She had a mind to go directly to Viscountess Pépin herself since she had always been such a sympathetic voice to Lowdie’s indiscretions.

But such an action would surely ensure her own downfall for Mrs Wilson would be the first to hear of it, and Katherine had no wish to find herself too without a position, especially at Christmastime.

The only other house of consequence in the immediate vicinity was Heysten Park, and oh, such stories she had heard!

The old lord had been renowned for treating his servants abominably ill; improper dalliances with housemaids, offensively poor pay, only one day of rest for the whole twelvemonth …

Katherine had no notion of how the current lord ran the estate but she had no wish to find out, nor allow Lowdie to be subjected to such a fate as being forced to do the same.

How could she allow the housekeeper’s threat of dismissal to go unquestioned?