Magic Below Stairs (4 page)

Frederick felt embarrassed. “That's what they said at the orphanage. Did Fan do something to him? Did he do something to Fan?”

“Nothing like that. Fat Georgie stole a silver teaspoon from the dining room.”

“So Mr. Kimball sacked him?”

“No, Georgie ran away before they could dismiss him. Left his livery, or they'd have claimed he stole that as well.” Bess sounded bored. “Just as well he left it, or you wouldn't be wearing it now. It looks better on you than it did on him. Strange, when you're so much skinnier.”

Frederick tried to look down at himself but bumped his bucket and almost overturned it. Bess steadied it for him. “Don't worry about your looks, Frederick. It's just a matter of time. You'll have to go on working hard until Fan notices you aren't a thief.”

“That I can do.” With satisfaction, Frederick gazed at the expanse of freshly scrubbed floor all around them. “We're nearly finished.”

“Finished here, maybe. We are to clean the still room next.” Bess pointed to the far corner of the laundry. “Clarence, you've missed a spot.”

Something cold seemed to squeeze Frederick's stomach as memories of darkness and hunger returned. “The still room? You have one here?”

“Of course we do. Every proper household has a still room,” Bess declared. “Where else do you make potions and lotions and things that smell good?”

“What do you mean?” Frederick could not conceal his confusion. “The still room is where you have to be still. That's where they lock you up for punishment.”

Bess and Clarence regarded Frederick in silence. They exchanged a wordless look of concern. Then Clarence took Frederick's hand as Bess said, “I'll show you.”

Still holding his scrub brush, Frederick let Clarence lead him as they trailed after Bess. Down the corridor and around a corner, they came to a spacious, well-lit room furnished with shelves and a worktable. In every corner hung bunches of dried herbs. Fascinating smells came from the bottles and crocks, all neatly ranked and labeled, on every side.

“This is a proper still room,” said Bess. “I don't know what sort of carryings-on there were at that orphanage of yours, but in a proper still room, things are distilled and preserved.”

Frederick looked around, marveling. “No beetles.”

“I should hope not!” Bess's sharp eyes were already measuring the task before them. “Clarence, fetch us the bucket.”

Working hard came easily to Frederick. He did as he was told. He used his head about the things he wasn't told. Before long, Frederick's readiness to work wore Fan's suspicions away. The laundress grew used to Frederick and began to give him orders. Lots of orders. Frederick ran upstairs and down with folded stacks of clean linen and armfuls of dirty linen. He carried messages and delivered orders for supplies. Fan needed not just soap but starch and washing blue to do her work properly.

One day when Frederick was sent to the chemist's to fetch an order, he was kept waiting a long time—long enough to notice a sheet almanac posted on the wall. By the time the order was ready, Frederick had worked out from the calendar that it must be the twentieth of April. That meant it was the day after his eleventh birthday. He was sure about the date because it had been listed in the orphanage registry. Vardle had helped him find it out. The cook had taken great pride in telling Frederick all about his adventures back in 1809, feeding the Royal Navy when Frederick was only a squalling infant.

“I'm eleven,” Frederick told Bess, on his return with the washing blue he'd been sent for. “I was eleven years old yesterday.”

“Many happy returns,” said Bess. “Fan, yesterday was Frederick's birthday.”

At first, Fan only grumbled over the quality of the washing blue he had brought her, but when she had it put safely away among her supplies, Fan told Frederick, “When Kimball lets you have your next change of linen, give me that shirt and I'll clean and press it for you. I'll show you how to tie your cravat properly as well. It's a disgrace the way you wear it now. You might as well tie a great bandage around your neck.”

A few days later, Mr. Kimball gave Frederick a second shirt and two more white cravats along with an advance on his first quarter's wages. Frederick took Fan up on her offer, and she washed and ironed his shirt for him.

“You want to use the smoothing iron like this,” Fan instructed as Frederick watched her press his clean cravat. She folded the crisp fabric so that only the center section was the full width. Each end was made long and narrow when she folded the fabric in thirds and pressed the edges sharp.

“Now, stand up straight.” Fan stood behind Frederick and placed the center of the cravat against his Adam's apple, wrapping the cravat ends around so they crossed at the back of his neck, and then draping them so they hung down in front of him. “Hold it in place for me. One finger will do. Now, look at the ceiling.”

Fan showed Frederick how she wanted him to keep the cloth still while she walked around in front of him and studied the fall of the fabric. “Keep your chin up, no matter what happens. This is the tricky bit,” she told him. Then, without fumbling or hesitation, she seized the two ends and knotted them deftly under Frederick's chin. She did something to the ends to tuck them in neatly, then stood back and studied the result.

“Drop your chin,” Fan ordered. “That's right. Look at me.”

Frederick brought his gaze down from the ceiling to Fan's critical inspection. He felt as if he might be choking.

“You'll do,” said Fan at last. “Mind, if I had to adjust it, I'd take the whole thing off and start again with a fresh cravat. You can't make a bad sauce good by adding more eggs. Once they curdle, you must throw the whole lot out and start fresh.”

“Is this thing supposed to be strangling me?” Frederick managed to ask.

“Are you suffering for fashion? You'll get used to it,” Fan said heartlessly. “Next time you're upstairs, use a looking glass. Once you see how fine it makes you look, you'll be after me for lessons.”

Frederick knew better than to argue. The next opportunity that came, he looked himself over in the first mirror he found. The cravat did make him look more elegant, but he didn't think it could be quite right, wearing so much fabric wrapped around his neck. It looked like someone had tried to cut off his head and then fasten it back on with bandages.

That night, when Frederick unwound his cravat and readied the clean one he would put on next morning, he used the smoothing iron to duplicate the folds Fan had made. He did his best to copy her work, but next morning, somehow it looked different. The ends were a trifle more narrow, the edges a trifle more crisp.

Frederick tied his cravat with care, and even though it was not quite a duplicate of the fashion Fan had shown him, it felt better around his neck and looked far neater. He could breathe and turn his head freely. When next he studied himself in the looking glass, he discovered that he looked as elegant as any footman, not bandaged at all.

Frederick's first glimpse of his employer came when he was scrubbing floors near the forbidden workroom. He was scraping at a stubborn spot when the door opened behind him and slammed shut.

“Confound it! Kate, have you seen my sealing wax?”

Frederick turned to look and froze in place so he wouldn't be noticed. He knew without being told that he was looking at his employer. Who else would dare use the workroom?

The wizard marched away, but even from behind Frederick could see the man was stocky, and much too short to be a stately butler or even a fashionable footman. He didn't look a bit like a wizard. He was mumbling to himself wildly and running his hands through his hair, making it stand on end, as if he were some sort of a madman.

As Frederick watched him go, the wizard called out again. “Kate!”

From around the corner, a lady in a beautiful pink gown joined him. Her dark hair was twisted up in a complex knot at the back of her head, but the smudge of ink on her nose rather spoiled the elegant effect. She took the wizard's arm as if joining him for a stroll. “Of course I haven't, Thomas. I have my own, after all. Would you care to use some of mine?”

“I don't know. Is it red?” The pair of them turned the corner and Frederick went back to work. It was a great relief. Wizards were nothing like what he'd expected. His employer was just like anyone else, only rich.

Nearly every day, Frederick learned a new skill as he went about his work. Under the watchful eyes of Mr. Kimball and of Mrs. Dutton the housekeeper, Frederick had learned how to dust. The very first thing to know about dusting turned out to be
wash your hands
.

“Use plenty of soap when you scrub your hands,” Mrs. Dutton commanded. “I won't have nice things made nasty by prints from greasy fingers. Clean and trim your fingernails while you are about it. You're not a gardener, after all. Let the dirt go.”

Mrs. Dutton ordered Frederick to start at the top and work downward, told him when to use the duster and when to employ the whisk broom, and set him to work.

Frederick's favorite part of his job was dusting and waxing and polishing the furniture. The wood carvings seemed almost grateful for the beeswax polish he rubbed in with fingertips and cloth. The beeswax was scented with lavender, and in the quiet of the drawing room, the clean smell of it filled Frederick with peace.

Sometimes it was so quiet, all Frederick heard was the ticking of the tall clock in the corner, the one it was Mr. Kimball's duty to wind.

Sometimes it was so peaceful, Frederick felt he might be dreaming. Sometimes his ears buzzed a little, so that he almost thought he heard dry leaves rustling. There were no leaves to be found, of course, nor anything else in the room to explain the noise, but when Frederick heard that sound, he felt an odd sense of companionship, as if someone friendly was nearby, just out of sight. Sometimes, at his dreamiest, Frederick even thought he detected a low humming, as if there were bees about. Embroidered bees to go with the embroidered flowers, he told himself, and laughed.

After polishing furniture, Frederick's favorite task was cleaning knives. Sometimes he was even permitted to sharpen a few of the knives Mr. Grant the cook used. Mr. Grant was as different from Vardle as the food he prepared was different from orphanage food. At the orphanage, what little they were given to eat was usually cold and often tasted bad. At Schofield House, even in the servants' hall, the food was so good that sometimes Frederick wanted to sing.

Jolly round Vardle had taken pride in everything he cooked. Even if it could scarcely be scraped out of the pot, he was pleased with his work. “Fit for the Royal Navy,” he would say. Skinny Mr. Grant, on the other hand, was as stern as a judge about what came out of his kitchen. Often grumpy over flaws no one else could find in the food he prepared, Mr. Grant made sure everything he cooked was the best he could make it. When he praised Frederick for the way he sharpened the knives, Frederick was proud. He knew he must have done his work perfectly.

The only tasks Frederick truly disliked were emptying chamber pots and blacking boots. Even though he disliked blacking boots, he did it beautifully, for Frederick knew the first rule of polishing. It worked for boots just as it did for anything else. Before one could even begin, the boots must be clean. Handling the blacking was a dirty job, and it always took a long time to buff the leather to the proper perfect shine.

One wet night, Frederick sat by the laundry room fire, cleaning mud off a pair of Lord Schofield's leather boots. Lord Schofield must have visited a very low part of town, for the filth caked on the leather smelled dreadful. Frederick knew that the best way to deal with mud was to wait for it to dry, but this mud would not be dry by morning, when the boots would be called for. No, it was scrub and oil for him.