Jane and the Stillroom Maid Read Online Free PDF Page A

He wiped blackened palms on hisleather apron and studied our faces. “What’s so great a matter, George Hemming, that it warrants a summons on market day? Tha’ knows I’m not my own man of a Tuesday.”
    Mr. Hemming jumped down from his gig, and the crowd parted to permit his passage. He spoke in a lowered tone to Michael Tivey, while the men standing nearest did not attempt to conceal their interest. However bent upon discretion Mr. Hemming might be, however, it appeared that Mr. Tivey did not share his inclination. He turned away from the solicitor’s urgent intelligence, and whistled appreciatively, his eyes on the shrouded burden in the miller’s waggon. “If no one claims ’im, ah’ll be wanting the body for study, mind.”
    “He will certainly be claimed,” Mr. Hemming said sternly. “This is no itinerant labourer you might anatomise, Tivey. You have a gentleman in your hands.”
    “That’s as may be. Tha’d best take him along to the Snake and Hind. Jacob Patter will give me the use of his scullery.”
    A murmur of debate and excitement swelled around us. No one present could be in doubt as to the nature of the blacksmith’s direction; the Snake and Hind was a coaching inn at the head of Water Street, and Jacob Patter its proprietor. Mr. Tivey intended the use of the scullery as a resting place for the dead. It was there he would examine the corpse, with the curious of Bakewell struggling for a view through the chinks in the publican’s shutters. We were, I thought drily, rather remote from civilisation in the depths of Derbyshire.
    “Damn Tivey and his love of sensation,” Mr. Hemming muttered. He had returned to the gig and now offered his hand. “I might have passed the matter off with credit, but for his indiscretion. Pray forgive me, Miss Austen, for deserting you at such a time. Have you courage enough to attempt the town on foot, or shall I send Mr. Cooper as escort?”
    “Mr. Cooper had far better attend you to the Snakeand Hind,” I replied. “The offices of a clergyman must be in greater demand
there
than at The Rutland Arms. I shall be quite all right, I assure you.”
    My cousin did not look as though he appreciated my sacrifice.

Dr. Bascomb’s Water to Strengthen a Woman after Travel
     
    teep equal parts pomegranate buds, oak bark, and rose leaves in boiling spring water until very strong. Then add to each pint of the tea a quarter-pint of red wine. Dip clean cotton in the posset and apply hot to the Sufferer’s forehead, or anywhere on the body that is pained. Applications in evening are most beneficial.
    —
From the Stillroom Book
of Tess Arnold,
Penfolds Hall, Derbyshire
,
1802–1806

Chapter 3
A Turn at Fancy Dress
     
    26 August 1806, cont.
∼
    A CRUSH OF THE POPULACE MILLED ABOUT THE STREETS of Bakewell in happy confusion: farm women and domestic servants bustling with purpose and large twig baskets; young boys singing the praises of tin and soap and bristle brushes made of boar. There were cheese sellers and egg sellers and a man who held a pair of squealing piglets high for inspection; and I should have enjoyed the hurly-burly of market day, were it not for the picture of horror that still lingered in my mind. A profusion of odours mingled in the August heat—the sweat of men and of horses, the deep mustiness of sheep’s wool. Roasting sausage and spoiling hay. Bruised peaches. And the smell of butcher’s blood.
    It was everywhere in the folds of my light muslin gown and the damp curls of my hair, that warm, sweet, engulfing odour from the heights of Miller’s Dale. I felt a wretched desire to be sick, and steadied myself against a hitching post.
    There is a madman loose in the hills
. Only this couldexplain the savagery visited upon the poor fellow lying among the rocks. The attack seemed very nearly inhuman, as though a wild beast had come upon the gentleman unawares, and torn him asunder.
    That he
was
a gentleman, I had no doubt. His clothing was well-made, and