At the top, more stones were set together in a small terrace, and there were empty flowerpots near the small inset of the front door. Mr. Dariloo turned the knob, and Amber entered behind him. Once inside she came to a stop and then blinked desperately so her eyes would adjust to the dim interior, lit only by a few candles set into sconces on the wall.
Surely the furniture and upholstery looked so dark and heavy because of the lighting. Certainly it was not a braided rug at her feet, or burlap hung as curtains over the windows in the room on her left meant to be a parlor; it was no bigger than a closet.
In front of them was a narrow stairway heading to the second level, while to the right was a corridor that led straight back into what looked like a kitchen—there was no door to hide the functional part of the house from that of the common space. The area directly left of the front door was complete with a foot bench, umbrella stand, and shelves she imagined were meant for hats and things. There was one other doorway framed by heavy dark wood further down the hall past the parlor.
“It is so small,” she said under her breath. It could hardly be called an estate, and she wondered for a brief moment if this were a joke. Perhaps this was Mr. Dariloo’s cottage and the finer house was some ways off.
“Is
this
Step Cottage?” she asked in a frightened voice. “It is not a cottage at all.”
“Aye, ’tis a clever title to be callin’ it a cottage.” He laughed as though there were any humor in this situation. “But it’s a fine ’ouse and tight as a drum. Not many ’ouses have timber supports on the inside like this’un. You be findin’ the library an’ parlor ’ere on the first level an’ the kitchen to the back.”
No dining room?
Amber had never been to a house without a well-appointed dining room, let alone lived in such a place.
Mr. Dariloo continued, “The sleepin’ rooms be upstairs. Jus’ the two though the one ain’t properly set up.”
Two bedrooms!
Mr. Dariloo rocked back on his heels and grinned widely. “An that smell you be savorin’ is Mrs. Dariloo’s mutton stew—good hearty tuck for ya at the end of yer journey. ’Ead on down to the kitchen, an’ I’ll see about ’aving yer trunks brought up before them grooms put up the horses in the stable. It’s a bit down the road—not so ’igh on the ’ill o’course.” He waved them toward the kitchen.
Suzanne gave Amber a look that prompted Amber to follow her despite wanting to run back to the carriage and insist there was another destination in mind.
When they entered the primitive kitchen, Amber felt her mouth fall open. A short, round woman stood over a cooking pot that swung out from the fireplace on a hook. She smiled at Amber and Suzanne, showing teeth the same shade of brown and gray as her husband’s. She began to jabber to Suzanne, but Amber was too overwhelmed to hear much of it and sat on one of the benches set at a small, rough-hewn table in the corner. The servants’ quarters of Hampton Grove were better turned out than this
cottage
, and Amber felt a fire in her stomach at the thought of living here.
This is where my parents sent me?
A bowl of stew was set before her, and she stared at the brown gravy mixed with chunks of meat and vegetables and thought of the four-course meals that had been standard at Hampton Grove and of the even finer meals the chef prepared for them at the London town house. Pheasant, creamed potatoes, asparagus with hollandaise sauce.
She had never sat in the kitchen for a meal in her life, and she had never eaten such rustic food as mutton stew, which was decidedly peasants’ fare. She looked up from the bowl to see Mrs. Dariloo open a door off the kitchen that she showed to Suzanne. A single room for servant quarters? Where would the housekeeper stay? What about the chambermaid?
Amber’s heart began to race as she realized how the life she’d known had slipped away during the miles they’d traveled. The plaster on the walls wasn’t smooth and colored, but a thick rough white, with bits of straw forever stuck within it. She closed her eyes. This could not be right. There must be a mistake. But when she opened her eyes again, she still saw the atrocious stew in a lopsided wooden bowl.
“Yer mistress cun take off th’ bonnet,” Mrs. Dariloo said to Suzanne though she looked at Amber. She clasped her hands together below her ample bosom, which was covered in an apron no servant at Hampton Grove would see fit to wear for the stained dinginess of it. “No need t’ go oot tonight.”
The horrid accent grated upon Amber’s sensibilities even further, and she came to her feet quick enough that the bench scraped against the floor. “Show me to my room,” she said, her voice quivering as she attempted to contain the level of emotion rising within her.
“But, yer stew, Miss.”
“Show me to my room!” she yelled, then clamped her mouth shut. Suzanne looked at her with a tight expression, and Amber narrowed her eyes defiantly. Suzanne was used to such poverty and could not possibly understand the feelings rushing through Amber’s head. She felt as though she had toppled from the top of a mountain peak and landed in a heap of broken bones. Perhaps that was exactly what had happened when she’d fallen down the stairs at Carlton House.
Suzanne whispered something to Mrs. Dariloo, who nodded and led them out of the kitchen corridor and up the narrow stairs Amber had seen when she first entered the cottage. She removed a candle from one of the foyer sconces before heading up the stairway, moving far too slowly for Amber’s tastes and casting dark shadows on the narrow walls as they ascended. Amber dug her nails into the palm of her hand to keep from pushing the woman to move faster.
At the top of the stairs, they entered a small alcove with a door straight back and two doors facing one another across the hallway. Mrs. Dariloo moved to the right-hand door, turned the knob, and pushed open the heavy door. Amber followed her inside and let her eyes scan the room. It was long and narrow and very close in style to the horrid room at the inn she had barely survived the night before.
The ceiling pitched in line with the roof, leaving only space enough for a dresser, a bed, and a chair. There was a single window at the far end. A washbasin was set on the dresser, and Amber could see the edge of a chamber pot beneath the bed. The fireplace set against the interior wall was shared with the next room. A row of hooks on the wall served in place of a wardrobe.
It was unlike anything Amber had ever seen before, and she closed her eyes as though she could forget the image of it entirely. “Leave me,” she said curtly.
“Miss, doncha want—”
“Leave me!” Amber shouted at the top of her lungs. Her hands were balled into fists at her side. “This is my room and my house, and when I ask you to leave, you will do as I say!”
“Miss.”
This time it was Suzanne’s voice, and Amber opened her eyes to glare at the servant who would abandon her in a few days’ time.
“If the servant’s quarters are in line with what I have found here, you have reason to be as outraged as I. Leave me.”
Mrs. Dariloo scurried through the doorway after lighting the candle in the lamp on the dresser.
Suzanne’s expression was chastising, but Amber did not care.
“I shall help you undress,” Suzanne said.
“There is nothing for you to attend to,” Amber said. She pointed to the door. “Leave me alone.”
Suzanne’s expression did not soften, but she nodded once, then bobbed a curtsy and backed out of the door, pulling it closed behind her.
Amber stood in the middle of the unpolished wooden floor and looked around at the disgraceful furnishings of the horrible room.
My parents sent me to this place,
she said to herself again. She had already acknowledged their lack of compassion toward her but had not imagined that their disregard could extend to this. Her father had said she would be comfortable here. Did he feel that losing her hair equated to losing all respectability?
She ripped off her bonnet and cap, throwing them against the pitched wall and then ran a hand over her gruesome head, not needing to see it to know how disgusting it was. She grasped two of the remaining tufts of hair and pulled at them, not expecting them to come away from her head so easily. She began to cry and grabbed another portion and pulled . . . and pulled . . . and pulled some more, her body racked with sobs as she threw the last of her hair onto the floor around her. She sank to her knees on the braided rug, covered her face with her hands and cried as she had never cried in her life.
It was clear to her now that she had not been sent simply to Yorkshire; she’d been cast into hell. Was she truly so terrible to deserve such punishment?
Chapter 17
Amber had been lying in bed and staring at the single window of her new bedchamber—though she found the term overstated—for well over an hour the next morning when there was a tapping at the door. She didn’t respond and instead pulled the quilt higher to her chin, knowing Suzanne would come in without an invitation.
Suzanne let herself into the room, and Amber turned to face the wall. The bed was large enough to be comfortable, but the pitched roof above her felt confining, especially when compared against the four-poster bed in the London house and the equally grand bed at Hampton Grove; her room there was the size of the entire upper floor of Step Cottage.
Amber listened as Suzanne picked up the discarded clothing from the floor, shaking out each piece. Amber refused to watch Suzanne’s movements as she went about the room, folding clothing and pulling out drawers in order to put everything away. The last thing Suzanne did was fetch the chamber pot from beneath Amber’s bed, then she left the room as silently as she’d entered, pulling the door closed behind her.
Imagining Suzanne taking the chamber pot to the privy—wherever that might be—reminded Amber of the discussion they’d had before departing for London regarding Suzanne performing tasks meant for housemaids. And she would be leaving.
The thought of Suzanne’s departure terrified Amber. Not only would she be responsible for herself, she would be alone in this house—this prison. Though she’d told both Suzanne and Lady Marchent that she could be without a personal maid, now that she had a fuller grasp of the situation and realized there were no other servants here, it was impossible. Perhaps she could find a new maid, but how? She had never hired anyone. How would a new maid react to her situation? Her father had said he was sending correspondence to people in town—who? Would he outfit the house with servants? Even if he did, where would they stay? With only one room for a servant, the cottage could not accommodate the attendants Amber needed. Her father had to know that.
The questions finally drove her out of bed. She picked up the dressing gown from the chair where Suzanne had left it, adjusted the cap on her head without surveying the damage she’d done last night, and tied the gown about her waist. She exited her room and took a fresh look at the house in the daylight.
The plaster looked no better in the day than it had the night before; the swirls of the trowel used to shape it were reflected in the texture, and the dark wooden beams that ran through the ceiling and walls were rustic and stark.
She peeked into the second bedroom, the same size as her own, and found it furnished equal to her own but cluttered with discarded household items and dusty trunks and crates. As it was the only other bedchamber, Lady Marchent would stay there upon her visit in July, but Amber could not imagine her mother tolerating such accommodations. If not for her father’s assurance of familiarity with Step Cottage, Amber would think he had never seen it.
The third door, directly across from the top of the stairs, led to a closet, dark and narrow, which ran the width of the top floor with shelves stuffed with all manner of linens and crockery. It smelled of musty dirt. She pulled the door closed without further inspection.
Amber descended the narrow staircase that creaked beneath her feet and found herself in the foyer she had entered the night before. From where she stood she could see into the small parlor, and she ventured further down the hall to an equally confining library. The leather settee and chair that flanked the empty fireplace were dark and heavy, but improved somewhat by the daylight coming through a window set above a small desk. The day was quite bright for what Amber had imagined the North Country would be.
Amber followed the hall to the kitchen where she could smell something baking. She inhaled deeply, her stomach tight with hunger. She stopped just over the threshold and looked around the room. So primitive. So small. There was no water pump for the basin set within the counter that ran along one full side of the room. Beneath the counter were shelves filled with simple dishes and pans, but nothing of the quality at Hampton Grove. Nothing fit for someone of her station. A bricked hearth, blackened from use, sat against the interior wall it shared with the servant’s quarters. The impoverished room was barely fit for servants, let alone women of genteel birth.
She must be expected to take her meals beside the fire but could scarce believe it. She wondered if she should insist on returning to London, but Amber would choose this exile above having to withstand her mother should she go back begging for consideration.
An outer door opened, and Amber startled until she saw it was Suzanne returning from outside, chamber pot in her hand. The maid met Amber’s eyes quickly but said nothing as she headed toward the corridor that led to the rest of the house. Amber heard Suzanne’s steps creak upon the stairs, cross the ceiling, and then come back again.
When Suzanne reentered the kitchen, she went to a washbasin set up on a table against the wall nearest the door and washed her hands. She dried her hands on a dishcloth and moved to the cooking fire where she used a crooked metal hook to pull the heavy iron pan from the coals. With the same hook, she lifted the lid, intensifying the smell of fresh-baked bread, which further tightened Amber’s stomach. She was not used to feeling hungry and could not remember ever having wanted food so badly.
“I’m afraid it might be a bit burnt on the bottom,” Suzanne said without looking at Amber still standing in the corner. “I suspect the coals were too hot when I set the pot upon them. I don’t often apply myself to baking.” She placed the lid on the hearth and then removed two wooden plates from one of the shelves beneath the counter. “Mrs. Dariloo was kind enough to stock some things in the larder.” She nodded toward a cupboard set within the back of the house. “There’s a smokehouse out back too, and a cellar space that will be good for vegetables once there’s a harvest.”