Page 106 of The Gentlewoman Companion

She washed as well as possible using cold water and dressed in a favorite walking gown and a double pair of wool stockings. In the kitchen the rat prowled beside a bag of grain.

“Out! Out, out, out!”

After a full hour preparing the fire, fetching water, and checking on Nimbus, she consumed three cups of tea and was finally warm. She wrapped herself in a cape and set off for town.

The briny air of Wadebridge smelled like home. Situated up a gentle slope, Stillwater Cottage lay a ten-minute walk from the market. Louisa followed the road downward, stopping at a familiar old church to orient herself. The River Camel, which cut Wadebridge in half, murmured nearby but out of sight. Instead of responding to the call of the river, Louisa turned left and soon found herself surrounded by stalls selling everything from eggs to ale.

Not since living at her childhood home had she roamed alone, and never in so public a place. She fought against the urge to slouch or obscure her face with her cape, though certain everyone would notice a young gentlewoman wandering the streets unchaperoned. She bought a hand pie, feeling conspicuous as she pulled a coin from her reticule and handed it to a woman who held a babe on one hip. Neither that woman nor anyone else spared a glance for Louisa. Still, she secluded herself in an alley to satisfy her complaining stomach.

Afterward, she approached the woman from whom she’d bought the pie. “Excuse me. Where might I purchase rat poison?”

The woman handed a pie to another customer and said, “You need a cat. Richard!” She yelled over her shoulder. A man appeared. “This woman needs a mouser. Go fetch her a kitten, will you?” Richard ambled off. “He was going to drown each one, but I forbade it.”

“How old is the kitten? Will it be of any use now?”

“Four months and catching everything that scurries. I’ll be here ’til four o’clock. Come back before then.”

Louisa agreed and set about her next task, eventually stepping inside a milliner’s shop where a half-dozen women browsed and gossiped. They turned when she entered.

“Good morning, Miss. What can I help you find?” A woman addressed her from behind a counter.

“Merely information. I am Miss Louisa Thorpe, come to stay at Stillwater. I found the cottage empty. Do you know where Mr. and Mrs. Green went?”

“Mr. Green has been in the churchyard these two months. Mrs. Green went to live with her sister in Wales.”

Louisa’s heart dropped to her belly.

“Young John Pickett sells your milk and eggs now the apples are gone.”

“I have a cow and chickens?” Other than the stable, she had paid little attention to the outbuildings behind the cottage.

“He uses the proceeds to pay himself to keep your cottage, or so says his mother.”

Louisa bit the inside of her cheek, hating to apply for help from strangers. But she must seek to improve her misfortune, even if the Greens had abandoned her. “I need a housekeeper. Do any of you know of a reliable person seeking a situation?” She turned to include the women behind her.

A genteel lady ran her eyes over Louisa’s fine attire and must have decided the ensemble obliged her to respond. The woman returned a straw hat to its stand and addressed Louisa in a nasal voice. “Mrs. Keller is a widow looking for an excuse not to move in with her seven grandchildren. Come, I will introduce you.”

Louisa followed the woman out the door and down a street that led away from the noisy market.

“I am Lady Molesworth.” She was handsome, with a double chin and a mincing walk, probably in her forties. The woman scanned Louisa’s attire, all but drooling over its well-constructed expense. Likely anxious for a friend of superior status, this woman might judge Louisa’s clothing and assume her to be more genteel than she truly was. “What brings you to Wadebridge?”

Louisa told her again she had come to live at Stillwater Cottage.

“As the preeminent lady in town, I am known to everyone and can present you to the best of our secluded society.” She was becoming breathless, trotting along, taking two small steps for each of Louisa’s. “I’ll keep you from mistaking tares for wheat, you know. Your gown is lovely. From London?”

“Stroud is blessed with a very fine tailor.”

“You are from Gloucestershire? I have never been, but you are not wrong about that tailor. We are sadly not so fortunate, and I must visit London for my wardrobe. You are chaperoned?” She looked around as if an aged aunt might pop into the lane.

“I believed the Greens were at the cottage.”

“You did not inquire beforehand? Under whose guidance did you make such a blunder?”

No housekeeper was worth this conversation. “My lady, a gentlewoman must follow her own path.”

“I disagree. Vehemently. Should you require advice—that is…” Lady Molesworth shot her a sidelong glance, taking Louisa’s measure with more discrimination. The suspicion glinting in her eyes seemed as delicious to the older lady as the hope of finding a friend of genteel birth. “Who are your people?”

Louisa stopped on the path and turned to face the woman. She would not be ashamed to outline her heritage or attempt to appear higher in society than she was. “I am afraid you have mistaken my origins. I am not from Gloucestershire but from Cornwall, the daughter of a squire in Talland. I have recently spent some time in Stroud and London and am come to recover from a misfortune.”