Misselthwaite

Chapter Seven - 'Martha'

July, 1910
Yorkshire, England

I WAKE TO THE SOUND OF CINDERS BEING SCRAPED.

A young girl donning a black servant's uniform is hunched before the fireplace. With only her back toward me, I can't discern much other than the hastily-knotted apron ties about her middle. From the shape of her body I can tell that she is too tall to be a child, yet still too knobbly to be a woman. Tendrils of mousy brown hair have fallen free from the white frilly cap she wears, and they sway with each of her movements.

As she continues to sweep ash from the fireplace, I catch the slightest hint of a face. I had been correct in my assumptions: the girl is young - perhaps younger than I am - I place her around fourteen or fifteen years of age.

The servant does not notice my watching her, for she keeps about her duties in silence, and I find I do not care to reveal myself just yet. It has been a very long time since I've seen another English girl my age.

I am not surprised to see that my new quarters are altogether different in the daylight.

The heavy curtains have been drawn back, allowing strong light into the room. I marvel briefly that the onslaught of such brightness was not enough to rouse me earlier - a testament to my exhaustion. I see now that the walls of the bedchamber are lined with richly woven tapestries; some depicting scenes of lords and ladies courting, others of deep forests and fox hunts and all somehow incorporating the colours of scarlet, gold and white. With my knowledge of the portrait that hangs above the grand staircase, I guess these to be the Craven colours.

"Thou's awake!"

The servant girl's voice is far too cheery for the hour, or at least, my state of mind. My head still shaking the cobwebs of sleep, I find her by the round table where the remnants of my supper remain. The clatter of porcelain and silver are a particularly shrill assault upon my ears. "My name's Martha," she says. "I though' you may have been dead when you didn't wake."

Now that I have her full attention, I see that she has a sweet, heart-shaped face and the sort of round cheeks that only merry people possess. My mother might have called her 'plain', but for all Martha's broad-shouldered-ness and common Yorkshire speak, I find her charming.

"It's nice to meet you, Martha," I tell her, managing to pull myself up onto my elbows. "Did Medlock send you?"

"Aye," Martha says, her voice betraying the slightest bleat of laughter. "I'm to help you ge' dressed and tidy up a few things, though I wouldn'a be upstairs 'tall if there was a grand misses at Misselthwaite."

"Why ever not?"

"Well." Martha sets the supper tray onto a gilt oak stand closer to the door. "I speak too much Yorkshire an' I'm far too common. I'd be worse off than th' scullery maid. You've probably noticed how I talk far too much already - beggin' your pardon, Miss." The last she says a little more quietly, averting her eyes.

I rustle out of bed, my feet hitting the cold wooden floor.

"Martha," I say, aiming for confidence though I feel sorely dishevelled in my nightgown and loose braid, "I've never had a servant of my own before... just my Ayah, who looked after me in India and belonged to my mother, really... so I don't think I'm much like the ladies you're used to looking after... but if it's alright, I'd like us to start out as friends."

The young servant girl's doe-brown eyes meet my own at last, though there is a hint of suspicion in them. In what must be her nervous habit, she wipes her hands on her apron.

"I've no' been friends with a proper Lady before," Martha admits.

"I'm not a Lady," I tell her. "Just a military man's daughter."