Sapphire Battersea (8 page)

I trudged along in my strips of withered cow, breathing more freely as we left the tannery and crossed a large green field. The grass felt soft and springy, so different from the hard pavement. I remembered stamping across fields barefoot when I lived in the country. I felt a pang again, thinking of Jem.

I was distracted by a beautiful grey building with a tall spire and lots of little archways and a grand gothic door. It looked very much like a palace I’d seen pictured in my precious fairy-tale book, a gift from Mama. It had a curious garden, planted with weathered grey slabs of stones instead of flowers and fruit and vegetables.

Mrs Briskett saw me staring, and this time seemed pleased by my interest. ‘Yes, Hetty, you will be attending St John’s on Sunday afternoon. There’s a splendid vicar there. Sarah and I find his sermons very uplifting.’

It wasn’t a palace at all. It was a
church
. I had attended chapel every Sunday of my hospital life, but it had looked very different to this.

‘Why does the vicar have such a strange stone garden?’ I asked

‘What?’ Mrs Briskett stopped in her tracks. ‘Are you being disrespectful, child?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Oh dear Lord, have you never heard of a graveyard? Those stones mark the graves of all the dead people in this parish.’

‘
Dead
people?’ I echoed, shocked.

‘Don’t you know
anything
, Hetty Feather? When you die, you’re put in a coffin and buried in a graveyard.’

This was the answer to a long-time puzzle of mine. From time to time children at the hospital had died. My own foster brother Saul had died from influenza. He had simply disappeared overnight. Nurse Winnie told me he’d gone up to Heaven, but I wasn’t so sure. Saul had a poorly leg and couldn’t walk properly. How could he have journeyed all the way up to Heaven? I’d seen his bony little back enough times when we were bathed together as small children. I knew there were no wings folded away for future use. Besides, I wasn’t so sure they’d let Saul into Heaven. He’d certainly never behaved remotely like a little angel.

So
this
is what happened to dead people! They were planted in the garden like potatoes. I stared over the churchyard fearfully. I did not care for this
new
world at all, with dead animals on my feet and dead people lying all around me. I hoped they stayed safely underground. We had frightened each other at the hospital, telling ghost stories when we went to bed at night. In fact I had done most of the frightening – recycling tales of murder and mayhem from the
Police Gazette
. I’d thoroughly enjoyed myself whispering about poor Minnie who stalked the corridors, a knife stuck in her heart, leaving bloody footprints across the linoleum. What if the dead didn’t
stay
dead? They might start growing in the night, heads bursting through the earth, then shoulders, arms, till they were free of earthly clay and could walk the world again.

‘Is Mr Buchanan’s house near the churchyard?’ I asked fearfully.

‘We have several streets to go. So come along, child, step out briskly.’

I was happy to do that, even though my arms were aching from holding my box and I was longing to set it down. A boy ran up to us, whistling loudly, carrying an immense laden basket with seeming ease. He was very small, barely my own height, but there was a knowing glint in his brown eyes, and I guessed he was about my age.

‘Watcha, Mrs B!’ he cried out, walking along with us.

‘Mrs Briskett to you, lad,’ said Mrs Briskett.

‘Who’s this, then?’ he said, ogling me.

‘Don’t you be so nosy,’ said Mrs Briskett.

‘Is she your long-lost daughter, then?’ the boy said, chuckling.

‘Stop that nonsense! She’s Hetty Feather, our new maid. Master thought it time Sarah and I had a little help, seeing as we’re getting older and creakier. We were hoping for a big strapping lass – but look at the size of this one!’

‘She’s little all right,’ said the boy. ‘I hope you got her half price because she’s only half size!’

‘Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!’ I said, sticking out my chin. ‘You’re a little runt yourself.’

‘Oooh, she speaks – and with a temper to match her flaming hair!’ he said, grinning at me.

I pulled a hideous face at him. He stuck out his tongue at me, waggling it vigorously.

‘I’ll tell Jarvis about your cheek!’ Mrs Briskett threatened, but he just laughed and ran off with his huge basket, the muscles in his skinny arms popping.

‘Who’s that boy, Mrs Briskett?’

‘Oh, take no notice, that’s just Bertie, the butcher’s boy,’ she said. ‘He delivers all the meat to our neighbourhood. He’s not a bad lad, but you have to be firm with him.’

I decided I would be
very
firm. I did not care for
silly
lads cheeking me. All the same, I could not help marvelling at his strength. I wondered if my own muscles would get stronger now I was out at work. I ached all over and my boots were rubbing my feet sore. I wasn’t used to such long walks.

We started trudging up a hill, which made matters worse. I had to lean against a gas lamp to steady my box and get my breath back. But at last, at the summit, Mrs Briskett pointed.

‘See the big white house with the stained-glass set in the door? That’s your new home, Hetty Feather.’

IT WAS A
new, large, three-storeyed house, very grand and imposing.

‘It’s very fine,’ I said.

‘Yes, indeed it is,’ said Mrs Briskett proudly.

She opened the painted iron gate and we walked up the red-tiled path. I put one foot on the snowy white steps, but Mrs Briskett tugged me back by the hem of my skirt.

‘Not the
front
steps, girl! We never, ever go in the front door!’

I stared at her. How were we supposed to get into the house – climb through the windows?

‘We go down the area steps at the side!’ She grabbed me and steered me towards them. I glimpsed a garden at the back with a great green lawn and an ornate white iron sofa padded with cushions – but I knew enough now to realize I’d never be reclining there.

Mrs Briskett whisked me through the basement door. Suddenly I felt almost at home. The corridor
was
dark, painted cream and brown. I smelled familiar scents of soda and black lead. I walked into a large kitchen very similar to Mama’s old domain at the hospital. I stood there, quivering, because it was so very like, with its scrubbed table and shining pans, and yet not like at all, because Mama wasn’t there. There was just Mrs Briskett and a strange pale woman in a print frock, who was sitting at the table eating an enormous hunk of bread and cheese.

‘Ah, here you are at last!’ she said, springing up. ‘Let’s have a look at her!’

She seized hold of me, dragging me downwards towards the window so she could get a proper look at me. She pulled a comical face, as if she did not like what she saw. I was tempted to pull a face back, but decided I had better be cautious. She didn’t look as cheery as the butcher’s boy. If Mrs Briskett reminded me of meat, then this new woman was definitely potatoes. She had a pale, lumpy face with little warts here and there, like eyes in a potato. Her figure resembled a whole sackful of them. Mrs Briskett’s whalebone stays kept her figure solid, but if this creature wore corsets, they had long given up attempting to contain her.

‘This can’t be the new maid!’ she said, prodding my face with a finger, turning me left and right.
‘She’s
just a child. She can’t be old enough, Mrs B.’

‘She’s fourteen, believe it or not. I know she’s a skinny little thing, but we’ll just have to fatten her up. Her name’s Hetty Feather, though she tries to call herself something outrageous. What was it again, child?’

‘My name is Sapphire Battersea,’ I announced firmly.

The two women started chuckling as if I’d cracked a joke.

‘Oh yes, and I’m the Queen of Sheba,’ said Potato Woman, bobbing a mock curtsy. ‘Sapphire Battersea indeed!’

‘It isn’t a comical name at all. I don’t know why you’re laughing,’ I said indignantly.

This made them laugh even more.

‘Hoity-toity! Still, what can you expect with that hair? Well, we’ve been lumbered with a right dud, but I suppose we’ll have to make the best of it. Now, listen to me, missy. I’m Sarah, the parlourmaid. Mrs Briskett rules the kitchen, and I rule the rest of the house. You’re to do as we say – do you understand? Now, come and have a bite to eat and then I’ll take you to meet the master.’

I sat down at the table between the two great women. I stared in astonishment at the food. It was simple enough – cold meat and cheese and bread – but the portions were huge. Mrs Briskett cut me a
huge
slab of meat that would have fed five foundlings for a week, and buttered me a slice of bread so thickly that my teeth made dents in the yellow when I took a bite. There was strange lumpy brown jam too. I tried a spoonful and spluttered, my eyes streaming.

‘What’s up, girl?’

‘This jam tastes very sharp, ma’am,’ I said.

‘Jam? It’s pickles, you ninny!’

‘Don’t she know what
pickles
are?’ said Sarah.

‘This one don’t know
anything
. She’s so quaint in her ways I’m starting to wonder if she’s simple.’

I was too dispirited to argue with her. I had always been the cleverest in my year – well, perhaps first equal when Polly was at the hospital. I was used to thinking myself bright and sharp-witted. Even Matron Pigface Peters and Matron Stinking Bottomly remarked on my intelligence, saying I was as sharp and sly as a cartload of monkeys. But now that I was out in this new topsy-turvy world, I realized I had to start learning all over again. I did not know the simplest things. As a child I had longed to visit the pink and yellow and green foreign lands on the geography map hanging on the classroom wall, but now I realized that my own country was a totally foreign land to me. I did not know the language, the terrain, or any of the customs.

‘What’s the matter with you now, child?’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘You’re not about to cry again, are you? I told you, I can’t abide tears.’

‘She’s just wanting attention, so take no notice,’ said Sarah.

Their talking about me as if I wasn’t even there made the tears roll down my face. I could not be Sapphire Battersea here. I wasn’t even Hetty Feather. I was simply ‘child’ or ‘girl’ or ‘missy’. It made me feel very small.

‘Come now, no tears,’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘Have a spoonful of syrup – that’ll sweeten you up.’

I still hadn’t eaten more than a mouthful of meat and strange pickles, but I took the proffered sticky spoonful and sucked hard. The sweetness soothed me. I licked my lips, remembering the spoonfuls of sugar Mama had once pressed upon me as secret treats.

‘Aha, she likes that all right!’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘That’s a good girl. Stop that silly crying now. You don’t want to go and see the master all over tearstains – it won’t give the right impression at all.’

They fussed over me considerably for this meeting with the master. Sarah took me out through the back door to the privy, and waited for me to relieve myself. The privy was very dark, and as I squatted there, something terrifying ran over my foot.

‘Lord save us, stop that squealing! Whatever is it, Hetty Feather?’

‘I don’t know! Something touched me!’