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‘I would be happier if Andrew saw her,’ said the Alderman in doubt. ‘The doctor calms her whenever she is unwell. I remember when she had the fever a year since, nothing so cooled her as to have him sit with her a while.’
Mistress Brent turned away, frowning. She helped Cornelia up the stairs to her chamber. The servants, still clustered at the end of the hall, buzzed about like hornets, staring. Mistress Brent spoke sharply. ‘What do you all do there? Have you no task to do before you go to bed?’
Cornelia’s chamber lay in shadow. Her maid, Nan, slumped in a chair beside the ashy fire, awoke with a start as they entered, and leapt to her feet.
Mistress Brent gave her a sharp look, and scolded her for sleeping instead of looking to her duties.
‘Make up the fire, girl. Is the warming-pan in the bed? Fetch your mistress her night robe. Where are the bellows? Blow some life into that fire, quickly.’
Cornelia shut out the sound of her mother’s sharp voice. Sinking down upon the edge of her bed, she laid her cheek against the brocade bed curtains and stared, unwinking as a cat, at the hearth. Nan was working furiously, her rough-skinned face intent, her elbows jerking up and down as the bellows breathed new life into the fire. The sticks of wood with which she had built up a new layer of coal spurted into flame and, as the coal began to burn, her shadow was thrown upon the ceiling. Cornelia watched it. Grotesque, the black form danced to and fro, like a creature at a witches’ sabbath.
Cornelia had found Nan herself four years ago. She had been bored, one rainy spring morning, and, disobeying the rule which said she must never leave the house alone, had slipped out to walk in the wet streets. She had got lost. And found Nan.
Too frightened to ask the way, she had walked on and on, legs aching, half curious, half anxious. Nan had come running round the corner and collided with her.
Cornelia had been very small at that young age. Looking at her, Nan had grinned, as to a younger child. Something in her face had reassured and attracted Cornelia, and when a loud voice bellowed in the distance, and Nan turned for flight, Cornelia, fearing to lose the only friendly face she had seen for hours, had caught her hand and been pulled along with her.
They had taken refuge in a deserted churchyard. Seated on a cracked, mossy gravestone, Nan had questioned her, and chatted freely about her own life.
‘Where do you live? Oh, I know Thames Street. They’re very fine houses down there. Is your father rich? Have you heard they are bringing the King back to England? How old are you? I am fourteen. You are very young to be out alone. I’ll take you home, but we’ll have to wait until old Snudgebelly gets tired of looking for me. I worked in his tavern, but I’ll work for him no more. His rat-infested hole is not fit for a dog. He thinks because I am not made like other girls that he can beat me as he chooses, but he is wrong.’ She looked fiercely at Cornelia. ‘I hate men. They are cruel and stupid. They call me hunchback and mock me. Do I frighten you?’
Cornelia had looked at her gravely. ‘No,’ she said honestly. ‘I was frightened until I met you, but I feel safe with you.’
Nan flushed. ‘You . . . you have noticed my back, haven’t you?’
Cornelia nodded. ‘One of your shoulders is higher than the other,’ she said. ‘But why should it frighten me?’
‘It frightens other people. The boys shout after me in the street.’
‘They shout after me, too, because I am small,’ said Cornelia. She looked at Nan’s thick hair. ‘What splendid curls you have. My father makes me wear mine straight. He thinks curls are sinful. I wish I could wear my hair like yours.’
Nan had wound one of her red curls around her finger. She was very proud of her hair which was healthy, rich and of a superb colour, but it was the first time that anyone had ever said as much to her.
She did not know that Cornelia had remembered Doctor Andrew telling her once that it is better to praise the one virtue than to criticise the many failings.
Nan had taken her home safely. Once or twice, in the dark alleys, men had turned to stare covetously at the pretty girl in her fine clothes, but Nan, aware and protective, had bared her teeth at them, like a dog, and her strange, fierce face had kept them at a distance.
Mistress Brent, distracted with fear, had met them at the house door, sharply reproving yet instinctively clutching her child into her arms even while she railed. Somehow Nan had been taken into the house as well, and by the time the story had been told, Nan had been found a bed on the floor of Cornelia’s room, and was part of the household.
Mistress Brent often regretted the gesture of gratitude which had resulted in Nan’s becoming Cornelia’s maid. She could not like the girl. Her sharp temper and rough tongue made her unpopular with everyone but Cornelia, who seemed blind to all her defects as a servant.
Blunt to the point of rudeness, shrewd and rough-mannered, Nan had learnt about life in a hard school. What devotion she was capable of she turned towards Cornelia, but her affection was of the grim variety, masked from all except the girl herself and the wise eyes of Doctor Andrew.
She bustled forward now, holding Cornelia’s nightgown, scolding briskly. ‘Off with your gown. This won’t do. I’ve warmed your nightgown at the fire. Best get into it quickly.’
Somehow Cornelia was undressed, forced to drink a little warm ale, her hands rubbed until they tingled, then she was helped into her bed and lay between the warm sheets, as still as a doll, staring up at the canopy.
The wind blew down the chimney. The smoke billowed into the chamber.
Cornelia watched the shadows dancing on the walls, and listened to the spit of rain against the windows, the hiss as drops fell down the chimney onto the hot coals.
Mistress Brent stood, watching her, then sighed and went out. Nan bent over, frowning. ‘What has happened? Are you ill? Have you a pain somewhere?’
Cornelia shook her head and tried to smile, but she was too tired to think properly. She let her mind slide away.
Nan watched her for a moment, then she, too, went out. The other servants, as she had expected, were full of the tale, much exaggerated from what Thomas had told them.
‘Thomas is to be sent away,’ they whispered. ‘The Alderman is very angry with him. He says he is worse than a toothless dog, and he’ll feed him no longer.’
