The Gardener (13 page)

Mr. Radstone did not seem to notice the indiscretion. “Not half bad, eh?” His massive chest swelled with pride. “Biggest house in ten miles. Four bedrooms and two separate privies. Plenty of animals, too: chickens, goats, and pigs. I was a farmer before building the smithy. No sense paying someone else for what I can raise myself.”

Tom thought the ungainly welter of brick walls and sloping roofs looked like a grouping of stables instead of the home of a prosperous tradesman. A straggling bush with a few scarlet rose blooms by one of the buildings was the only spot of color. He wondered who had planted it there, an attempt at beauty amidst the ugly surroundings. Surely not Mr. Radstone.

A yellow-haired lad of fifteen or sixteen with a pockmarked face loped up and took the reins of the mule, staring at Tom with an open stare. “This the one you bought?” he said to Mr. Radstone as if Tom were not there.

“Biggest of the lot,” the master answered. “Strong as an ox. Look at those shoulders. If he has half a brain to follow what he's told, he'll do.” He took the reins from the boy. “Show him about the place and show him his bed, Henry. No use trying to teach him anything useful today.”

Henry nodded, mouth hanging open, and led Tom through the large courtyard, which was littered with dung and clucking chickens. He kicked a plump hen out of the way, and it fluttered into the air, squawking poultry curses.

Tom looked askance as Henry led him through the house’s cramped, dark rooms past heavy old-fashioned furniture. The only servant was a wench mopping the hallway, wearing a limp mobcap atop her coarse black hair, with sleeves rolled up to her elbows. For a moment, he thought of Rosie, but the comparison was fleeting. This girl's thin, sallow face and bulging eyes held none of the English maid's spunk or humor.

“Beg pardon,” Tom said politely to the girl as they squeezed past her.

“No matter,” she answered in a scarcely audible voice, as color flooded into her pale cheeks. “Is this ... is this the new boy, then, Henry?”

“Yes, Miss Radstone.”

Miss Radstone?
Surely this young woman could not be the master's daughter! Tom turned to stare and caught the wench sneaking another look at him. She blushed and hurried off, like schoolgirl caught with a hand in the sugar-bowl.

Henry had already forgotten the master's daughter. Striding on, he flapped his hand at each room they strode through. “You will not be going in
there
,” he said, nodding toward the shuttered parlor with its horsehair settee and matching set of uncomfortable-looking chairs. “That's where Mrs. Radstone received guests, but when she died, there were no more visitors.”

“How did she—?”

“Measles, a year ago,” Henry said bluntly. “The rest of us came through it fine. The family's bedrooms are up there—” He nodded toward rickety steps leading upward into darkness— “But you and me sleep above the stable. I feed the animals and run errands,” he added. “I'd have fetched you from the dock today, except Mr. Radstone wanted to pick out the new apprentice.”

“What did he need me for, with you here?”

“He tried to train me for smithing, but I hadn't the knack for it.” Henry pushed back his shirtsleeve and showed his skinny arm. It was horribly scarred, the reddened skin twisted and puckered. Tom felt a stab of pity and a stir of apprehension.

Henry matter-of-factly pulled the sleeve down. “We all eat in the kitchen," he continued, "’cept Betty, of course. She takes meals by herself. The dining room's for company, an’, like I said, there ain't never company.”

“Betty?”

“The cook. Stay out of her way—she's handy with a soup ladle.” With that, Henry pointed out the stable and went off to care for the livestock.

Suddenly tired to the bone, Tom climbed a ladder to his new quarters. The loft was small, the ceiling too low for him to stand upright. Two cots and a washstand nearly filled the space. One of the beds had a rumpled quilt. As he tested the other cot to make sure it did not collapse under his weight, his eyes lit on the china pitcher.
Fresh water!

He scrubbed every inch of flesh before washing and wringing out his only set of clothes. Hanging them over the chair to dry, he fell onto the cot and fell asleep before he could wonder what tomorrow would bring.

Chapter Twelve

Crowing roosters awoke Tom to dawn, while loud snores rose in counterpoint. He stared up at the unfamiliar, rough-beamed ceiling, trying to orient himself. The room was not pitching, he heard no creaking of timber or snap of sails, smelled no salt-air. Instead, the ripe scent of hay and manure rose to his nostrils, and for a moment he thought he was a gardener again at Blackgrave Manor.

Then memory flooded back, and he sat upright, nearly smacking his head on the low timbers. Pulling on still-damp clothes, he hurried down the ladder and found in the courtyard a childlike form crouching amid a flock of hens, scattering kernels of corn from a cloth bag.

As he approached, she dropped the bag and jumped to her feet. “Oh!” Her voice squeaked like a frightened mouse. “It's you!”

He scooped up the bag, thinking the girl reminded him of a small, blind kitten, quivering in terror. And yet she was the mistress of the house! he thought, contempt mingled with pity. Although she looked like a child, the budding shape under her dress told him she was a young woman, not much younger than himself.

“If you please, Miss Radstone, feeding the animals is servants' work.” He tossed the kernels, and the circle of hens lunged toward his legs, heads jerking up and down like toys on a string as they fought for the food.

An unbecoming flush stained the girl's thin cheeks, and she twisted her hands in her apron. “Really, you needn't ....”

“You should have ordered Henry to do it. That’s his job, isn’t it?” An abrupt note entered his voice, and he fought it down. He mustn’t speak to his master’s daughter this way, but he was beginning to suspect she was soft in the head.

She backed away, hands still entangled in her apron. “I'll go help Betty with breakfast, then. We ... we all take our meals together. But then, Henry must have told you already.” She turned, nearly tripping over the hem of her skirts, and hurried away.

Tom nudged away the chickens with his boots as they climbed over each other to reach the corn, feeling torn between pity and disgust. Much as he despised Miss Maeve Marlowe, she had behaved like a lady of high position, at least in public. He found himself keenly missing the elegance of Blackgrave Manor, where life had seemed safe and secure, and things had flowed smoothly, serenely, and graciously, until he had failed to heed Lemley’s warning. Once, he had been happy there. Now he was trapped for seven long years among savages who hadn't the least idea of proper behavior!With a surge of anger, he hurled the last handful of kernels into the air where they sparkled briefly in the morning sunlight before falling amid the squawking, fighting hens, which trampled them into the mud.

Seven years!
It might as well be an eternity. Seven years in this graceless hovel, obeying a loutish master who was not ashamed to wear a sweat-soaked shirt opened to the chest, and who spoke and spat like a dustman. Seven years serving an ugly, simpering girl with bulbous eyes and the bearing of a scullery maid. Scowling, he returned the feedbag to the stables and went into the kitchen, biting off an oath as he barely avoided hitting his head on another low beam.

The delicious smell of cooking food lifted his mood fractionally. Someone had arisen an hour earlier to prepare breakfast, for platters filled with squares of steaming, coarse yellow bread, heaps of eggs, thick slices of bacon, and fruit pies oozing juice from their crusts, covered every inch of the enormous kitchen table.

Tom's stomach rumbled. Exhaustion had caused him to sleep through last night's dinner. For two months before that, he had eaten nothing but hardtack and greasy stew, relieved by an occasional moldering lemon to stave off scurvy.

A woman with ebony skin spread over wide cheekbones was stirring a pot over a hot stove in the corner, while a fat orange tabby cat sat nearby, complacently switching its tail. A colorful patterned cloth completely covered the cook's hair, in a fashion Tom had never seen before. He stared. This, then, must be Betty, the servant who ate by herself.

She looked over her shoulder and a broad smile split her face, revealing white teeth. “You the new boy?” She bustled over with a basket of steaming, golden-topped  rolls, and commanded, "Sit down.” He automatically obeyed. “My word, you're as skinny as a starved rat! It's a good thing I made extra breakfast. When you didn't come to supper last night, I figured you'd be hungry as a lion come morning.”

She went away and returned to slap a pewter platter overflowing with steak and a white, lumpy mixture in front of him. Betty's eyes grew round when he tucked a napkin at his throat before cutting a piece off his meat.

“Lord, but you eat pretty. Mr. Radstone, he shovels it in like a hog at the trough.  Come washday, I can scarce get the grease out. I can see I shall have no such trouble with you; someone must 'a taught you what a napkin's for. What's your name, boy?”

“Tom.”

She sat down across from him, pillowing her chins on her palm, and he realized uncomfortably that she intended to engage him in further conversation. Preemptively he filled his mouth with scrambled eggs, suspecting she intended to grill him; he had no desire to provide any information about his past.

“There's some households that are fancier than ours, I 'spect,” she was saying, “but we are comfortable enough. And you'll never go hungry here: Mr. Radstone is rich, and he does like his food. You'll eat like a king.”

This raised a question about which Tom had wondered. He swallowed his eggs. “Rich?” His skeptical gaze traveled around the room with its whitewashed walls, the rough furniture and dirt floor.

She produced a full, generous, belly laugh. “Oh, he's as stingy as the day is long, so you'd never know he had money, except for what he serves at the dinner table.”

“Miss Radstone was feeding the chickens this morning.”

She caught the implicit disapproval in his voice, and she raised her sparse eyebrows. “So? Someone had to do it.”

He had already gone too far, but he could not stop now. “Must it be the master's daughter?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why not?”

He did not answer. The very question seemed absurd. After a moment, Betty's generous mouth thinned. “Are you implying
I
should have fed them? S'matter of fact, I have done it many a time when I ain't busy cooking breakfast. As for Henry, he was up late helping Mr. Radstone in the foundry since you was of no use, going to bed early as you did. We could have woken you, but we figured you needed the sleep. So Mabel decided to feed them herself this morning. Around here, you'll find everyone pitches in and does what needs be done.”

He was aware that he had not come off well. But he mustered one more attempt. “But surely it is not seemly for Miss Radstone to—”             

“Miss Radstone! Miss Radstone! My, ain't we got airs!” The cook's friendly demeanor melted. She stood up, pushing back her chair with a clatter, and pointed a broad finger at him. “
Miss Radstone
is a lonely child, young man. If she chooses to mix with the help, that's her business. I raised her from a baby, and if she don't mind what others might think, neither do I. If she lends me a hand in the kitchen or in the courtyard, I say God bless her for it!”

“I—” he began, realizing he was out of his depth.

But it was too late. Betty rattled on like the runaway phaeton back in England, but more difficult to stop. “I expect you'd rather she be one of those gussied up society ladies in Cambridge, sticking their heads out the windows of their carriages because their hair's too high to fit inside? Is that what you'd prefer?” She jumped up and began clattering pots and platters as she angrily cleared the table.

Realizing he had made a mistake, he opened his mouth to apologize. The woman had obviously taken his criticism of the household as a personal insult. Perhaps he should have kept his thoughts to himself, for the last thing he needed was an enemy.

But when he saw her bristling with disapproval as she busied herself at the other end of the room, pride caused his mouth to snap closed.

Maybe the old ways were out of place here, the rigid levels of rank, class, and position. He would have to adjust to the differences. But that was beside the point. Lemley would have frowned on him for being rude to a woman, and—he winced—so would Rosie. He suspected the plain-spoken seamstress would have got along swimmingly with the African-born cook, although physically they could not have been more different. Both spoke their mind with equal bluntness, and they shared an uncanny ability to skewer his pride with a few well-chosen words.

Just as he was about to apologize, the aforementioned pride rushed back, and he shoved his empty plate away with such force that it nearly slid off the table. Who cared what Rosie or Lemley would think? he told himself savagely. They weren’t here. He had been trained to be a footman in one of the finest houses in England, and being forced to work in a hovel like this was beneath his dignity.

For the past year, Tom had been taught to think and behave like a gentleman. After fighting so hard to improve himself, he told himself, he would not allow himself to sink to their level—no matter what the cook thought of him.

As he stood to leave, Henry rushed in, still buttoning his shirt. “There you are!” he said to Tom. “The master sent me to look for you. He’s waiting for you in the forge.”

Without looking at Betty, Tom followed the boy to a large outbuilding made of the same red brick as the house. His first impression was of heat: sizzling, unbearable heat, hotter even than Mrs. Snow's kitchen on baking day. Perspiration sprung out all over his body, and he found himself gulping for air.

A large, glowing fireplace at the far end of the room looked like the mouth of hell itself, taking up nearly an entire wall of the room and sending weird shadows over the face of the barrel-chested man in front of it. Mr. Radstone’s unbuttoned shirt exposed a sweat-soaked mat of chest hair, and black-rimmed holes peppered his clothing as if from gunshot. He held a piece of metal in the fire with a pair of giant tongs until it glowed red, and then, picking up a large hammer, banged it on an anvil until, like magic, it curved into a U-shape. After inspecting his work, he tossed the new horseshoe aside with a big hand criss-crossed by white scars. Only then did he look up. “So you’ve never been in a smithy?”

“No, sir.” Sweat ran down Tom's forehead and prickled under his shirt.

Even his employer was not immune to the heat, he noted, for a fine sheen of moisture gleamed on Mr. Radstone's heavy features. His rumpled clothes were dusted with a fine layer of white ash.

“See that hammer?” Radstone nodded toward a row of tools hanging on the wall next to the hearth. “Take it and beat this piece of iron till it is flat. Use those tongs, you do not want to be burning yourself. All right, then, make it nice and even.”

Tom had handled all sorts of tools at Blackgrave Manor. The heavy mallet fit naturally into his hand. It wasn't long before he got the rhythm of hammering, glancing sideways to copy Mr. Radstone's movements and listening to the snapped-out instructions. Shaping hot metal wasn't much more difficult than wielding heavy pruners, Tom thought with surprise, although the steady metallic clang of hammer on metal left his temples pounding. He thought of the fresh, cool air and pleasant scents of the English gardens and wondered longingly if he would ever see them again? His hands slowed; a curse from Mr. Radstone snapped him to attention again.

His master allowed him to break only once, for a lunch that was even more enormous than breakfast, but he shoved down every bite. The unaccustomed physical labor made him ravenous. When the day was done, his new employer looked at the neat row of horseshoes and nodded approvingly. “With practice you may get the hang of it after all,” he said, with the air of delivering a grudging compliment.

*     *     *

Over the next months, Radstone continued to instruct Tom in the trade of blacksmithing, gradually increasing his responsibilities. Tom found he learned new skills as rapidly as he had under Campbell's tutelage. It felt surprisingly good to hold a tool in his hand again, and his muscles responded quickly to the hard work, but deep inside, he knew he would never be a blacksmith at heart. He missed more than ever the gardens of Blackgrave Manor, where the air had been fresh and cool, scented with growing flowers and damp earth. How their beauty contrasted with the enclosed smithy whose only light came from the red glow of the hearth, which glinted off the black iron shapes that hung from the ceiling like implements of torture!

Worst of all, however, was the isolation. On the ship, he had longed for it, but now, while Radstone dealt with customers in front, Tom found himself working all day, from dawn till night, in the cave-like back of the forge. The only break from the numbing routine was when customers brought in a horse to be shod. Radstone eventually permitted Tom to try his hand at nailing on the horseshoes, and the former gardener found horses took to him, raising their hoofs willingly while he filed them and fitted the new shoes.

Although they worked together long hours, Radstone continued to treat him gruffly, seeming to regard him as nothing more than an extension of his own arm and never speaking to him of anything but work. Tom was glad. He had no desire to socialize with his employer or with anyone else in the household. How different it was from the old days, when he had strutted down the halls of Blackgrave Manor like a lordling, flirting with the maids and jostling with the other footmen!