AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twenty
“Nature or truth is our guide.”
Private Education: A Practical Plan for the Studies of Young Ladies.
Elizabeth Appleton. 1815.
The distant bells of St James’s Church woke Matilda to a moonlit chamber and she blearily counted the chimes to ten.
Heavy blankets smothered her to the chin, dress twisted about her legs and a blur of yellow flickered quietly in the corner, so Matilda scrabbled for her spectacles, finding them folded upon the bedside cabinet. Never was she that neat, habitually flinging them off with abandon, so Seth must have carried her up the stairs, placed her upon the bed, removed her glasses, folded them and perchance stroked her hair – how she wished she’d been awake.
Betty’s Special Tonic, she surmised, held some effective herbs within its sweet whisky.
As she sat up and stretched, her lower back twinged, reminding her of Astwood and all that had transpired this afternoon. Sighing, she rose to pad for the tapers upon the mantelpiece, lighting the lantern from the fire and casting light where there’d been gloom.
A china pitcher rested upon the dresser but it was empty, so gathering it up, she ambled for the door. The range would still be lit and mayhap Betty would be around for tea and a natter.
The Academy closed its doors at sunset most days and the house wore a strange silence by night, the din of male shouts and grunts leaving an eerie trace within the walls.
Candles were not stinted upon within the Hawkins’ household so the corridor remained well lit by its many sconces, otherwise, and with no one else about, she’d suppose herself in the middle of an outlandish tale, all the other inhabitants falling foul of a mad ghoul.
Signs of life could be heard from the kitchen, the clatter of plates and patter of feet.
“Evening, Betts.” And she swung the door open.
Behind the table, stacking crockery, Betty gawked. “My Special Tonic ain’t as strong as I thought.” She tutted. “Yer should’ve slept till Christmastide, girlie. Might have to up the whisky.”
“I believe the St James’s bells woke me, but my back rather aches now.” Matilda shuffled on her bare feet. “I can only imagine how poor Mr Hawkins’ shoulder feels. He did take a hoof for me, you know, Betty, and has an awful swelling.”
Betty grinned and waved a plate. “Did yer have to lance it?”
“Would you believe, he wasn’t all that keen.”
“That’s men for yer.”
Matilda nodded, rolled her eyes and huffed. “Anyhow, I wondered if I might have some hot water? To soak some linen in it for my back.”
The housekeeper tapped her chin in thought. “I could fetch yer some of my special camomile ointment. Whiffs a bit, but if it don’t whiff, it ain’t doing yer no good.”
“Er…”
“Or perhaps,” continued Betty with an odd glance, “yer should pop to the basement. That’ll soothe yer aches and pains.”
Matilda frowned. “I was told it was out of bounds.”
“Academy’s closed and I don’t think yer forbidden any longer, girlie. Here, take this in case it’s locked.” And she opened a little cupboard on the kitchen wall to extract a large brass key. “It’ll still be warm.”
“What will?”
“The basement. Now don’t dally. Yer ain’t got all night, and yer’ll sleep like a tot after some time down there.”
And Matilda was shooed from the kitchen by a flapping apron and waggling fingers, as though she was the kitchen cat being put out for the night.
Left in the hall with an empty pitcher but with herself full of intrigue, she thought to follow Betty’s advice, and so pottered along the hallway, discarding the pitcher on a side table.
The black-painted door leading to the basement had a heavy brass handle that turned with ease, no key required. In Matilda’s limited experience, such places below ground were unpleasant, having no windows and little light. Or air. But considering the amount of time Seth spent down here, might it be a…personal gymnasium?
Lined with four sconces, the stairs were at least lit, but a herby fragrance wafted, light glowing from beneath a further door at the bottom.
