Miranda and her daughters negotiated the rickety gate with some difficulty and stood surveying what she intended should be their new home. Beside them stood the sturdy and middle-aged Miss BetseyScrope, whose official title as Megs’ nanny did not quite describe her duties and who had already declared it her avowed intention to accompany them when they moved, even if this meant she was never paid again.
“It could be very pretty,” Miranda said, determined to maintain an optimistic front. “And look, there are chickens already, so we’d have eggs every day.”
The half a dozen tatty birds who must be responsible for the state of the pony cart were scratching in the dirt. Five of them were cockerels.
“The house isn’t locked,” Megs said. “Or at least it wasn’t when we came and looked at it a few days ago.”
Melissa shuddered. “We didn’t go inside it though. I wouldn’t let them.”
Miranda set off with determined strides across the yard, Betsey on her tail. A few spiders never hurt anyone. “I can’t imagine it will be locked now, then. Come on, girls.”
She was right. When she lifted the latch on the front door, it swung open on protesting hinges. Megs was correct about the spiders. Cobwebs hung across the doorway, dangled from every rafter, and adhered to all the walls, their wispy strands snatching at her face. A spider heaven.
Betsey peered inside and gave a snort of disgust. “Needs a good clean, Miss Miranda.”
Melissa had hung back, and was now gazing up at the rafters in the porch in distrust. “I’m sorry, Mama, but I’m not going in there.”
Miriam gave an unladylike snort, not unlike Betsey’s, which was probably how she’d learnt it. “You don’t mind going in stables and there are plenty of spiders in there. They help to catch the flies so they’re a good thing. Stop being such a baby.”
“What she said,” Megs added. “You can’t expect us to get rid of every spider in the place by ourselves, just so you can come in.”
Melissa retreated a couple of steps. “I just said I wasn’t coming inside, didn’t I? I couldn’t possibly live in a place like this.”
Ignoring their latest spat, Miranda stepped through the door. She sometimes wished the girls weren’t so…lively. Geoffrey, on one of the few occasions he’d taken notice of them, had said they were “damned argumentative.” Of course, he’d been right, but that didn’t mean she had to publicly agree with him. So she stuck with calling them lively. Or spirited. Or strong-willed. All of which were apt.
Lissy and Mims, with less than two years between them, had been so since their childhood, but it had taken a while for Megs to get big enough to join in. And, now she had, it felt as though their “lively moments” had quadrupled rather than just doubled. She turned back to Melissa. “You stay outside then, or go and look at the stables if you want to. I’ll take a look round the house with Betsey and your sisters.”
“If you think you can bring yourself to go inside the stables,” Megs added. “They’ll be full of spiders too, don’t forget.”
Melissa turned away with a huff, and Miranda took the opportunity to usher the other two through the front door behind Betsey, who was already standing in the middle of the room and no doubt weighing up the work that was required. And yes, she could feel more spiders’ webs brushing against her face and in her hair. For a moment she felt the urge to rush outside again to join her oldest child. But she had to be brave for all of them, and this house wasn’t all that bad. Not really.
She sighed. Again. Probably she should have been busy organizing their move weeks ago, but that would have meant admitting defeat.
They were all, except Melissa, in a large rectangular room that would make a good parlor. With the windows filthy and swathed in cobwebs, not an awful lot of light got in, but some elbow grease would rectify that. The floor was of good oak boards and both ceiling and walls appeared sound and unblemished. Perhaps a coat of whitewash to freshen them up. And probably the chimney would need sweeping, too. She wasn’t at all sure if any of that was the right thing,as she’d never had much to do with cleaning a house before. But she was willing to learn. And Betsey would be a good teacher.
Megs ran to a door on the right and threw it open. “The kitchen.”
Everyone went to look. This room possessed a stone-slabbed floor and a second, larger fireplace with a mangled looking spit in front of it. A large dusty table occupied the center with bench seats down two sides, and some very ancient and withered bunches of onions and dried herbs hung from the rafters. These, Melissa would have been horrified to discover, were liberally festooned with cobwebs.
Miriam put her hands on her hips. “It’s going to need a lot of cleaning.”
Betsey nodded. “But once it’s done, it’ll be a treat. You mark my words Miss Miriam. You won’t recognize it in two days’ time.”
Her stomach hollow with unspoken misgivings, Miranda abandoned the kitchen to explore the rest of the house. She didn’t have far to go. A door in the corner of the parlor opened onto a narrow spiral staircase which she climbed in some trepidation as with every step she took, loud creaks emanated from the wood. Hopefully it didn’t have too much wood worm. Betsey, with her ample figure, would put the most strain on it.
Upstairs the ceilings sloped inwards dramatically on the corridor she found herself on. Doors along one side must lead into bedrooms. Low, cobweb covered windows that she would have to bend down to look out of allowed a little light inside, but the whole place was steeped in gloom. Already somewhat less enthusiastic than she had been, she wasn’t altogether sure she wanted to look either out of the windows or into the bedrooms.
Unlike Megs and Miriam. They clattered up the stairs behind her, careless of their possible infirmity, and flung open door after door.
“This is the biggest room so it should be Mama’s,” Megs called from the end of the corridor. “Come and look, Mama. It has a window that looks over the fields where we can turn out the horses. You’ll beable to see Traveler in the mornings when you wake up.”
“This one could be my bedroom.” Miriam’s voice came from the other end of the corridor. “I’m so glad Lissy wouldn’t come in, because she would have been bound to choose this one. I can have it, can’t I Mama?”
Miranda gathered her wits. “If you undertake to clean it yourself.”
Megs emerged from the bedroom she’d earmarked for Miranda. “Can’t the servants clean everything for us?”
Miriam came out of her prospective bedroom as well. “They’re not our servants any longer, you ninny. We can’t get them to do anything. They’ll all belong to this man who’s coming the day after tomorrow. We no longer have the money to pay any servants at all.”
Megs’ face fell. “No one at all? But who will cook our breakfast and dinner? And who will wash our clothes?”
“Betsey,” Miriam said. “Of course.”
Miranda shook her head. “Poor Betsey can’t do the work of all the servants we used to have. We will just have to do a lot of the chores ourselves, of course. It’ll be quite an adventure. You’ll see.”
Neither Miriam nor Megs looked as though they agreed with this statement.
