Molly followed Thomas from the room, keeping her eyes on the floor ahead of her.
‘Don’t worry about Dorothy,’ Thomas said, when they were out of earshot. ‘She’s had a difficult time recently; she’ll come round.’
Molly doubted that, but remained silent. In the first bedroom they came to, bright curtains hung at the windows, and a Turkish rug covered the floor. There were comfortable upholstered chairs beside the fire, and paintings of flowers and birds filled the yellow walls.
‘Elizabeth chose everything in here. She wanted the room to be light and cheerful. The paintings are her own. She’s talented, isn’t she?’
Looking at the delicately painted flowers, Molly thought of her pots at the Charter House. She nodded in admiration. ‘She has a gift. At home we have flowers everywhere. I’ve learnt a lot about them over the years.’
‘Then you can share your knowledge with me.’
Molly looked up, her confidence growing. She glimpsed his faultless profile, the finely moulded jaw. ‘Did you know,’ she began, pulling her eyes away, ‘most of the medicines in these bottles are made from plants? There are remedies for every kind of ailment.’
‘I didn’t,’ he replied, ‘but I can well believe it. My mother says that the medicines inside this cabinet keep Elizabeth alive. She had the whole world at her feet before the accident. Now she is reliant on these small bottles. What a waste, don’t you agree?’ Thomas turned towards her. ‘Perhaps you can give her a little happiness.’
‘I will try, sir,’ she said, knowing she would do anything to gain his affection. When their eyes met, he smiled a resigned, sad smile, and she fell in love in that instant.
That evening, Molly’s duties began. When she entered the delightful bedroom, it was possible to believe that her father was right, and that this would be a great opportunity for a simple landlord’s daughter.
‘Do you like pretty things, Miss Johnson? I believe from the look in your eyes that you have a taste for beauty.’ Lady Keyt was sitting at the dressing table. Her dark hair hung to her waist, and the firelight softened her fine oval face.
‘I do, milady,’ Molly replied. She turned to look at the ornate bed hung with embroidered silk and tassels, the heavy silk curtains at the windows, and the flounced valances. Paintings in gilt frames covered the panelled walls, and there was silver everywhere: the dressing-table mirror, the brushes and combs, the candlesticks on the mantelpiece. ‘I love nice things, I believe all girls do, but best of all I like fabrics. I think that is because of my sewing. Ma says I know a good thing when I see it, and I reckon the silk on your bed must have cost a fortune.’
Lady Keyt laughed, and Molly relaxed, knowing they would get along.
‘I am unaware of the cost, but I am glad you like sewing for you will be in charge of my clothes, and when they need mending it will be your responsibility to do so. Can you manage that?’
‘I surely can. I have mended most of my life, and my stitches are nigh-on impossible to see.’
‘That is the perfect requirement for a lady’s maid. Now, Molly – do you mind if I call you that, for we are to see a great deal of each other?’
‘I would much rather be called that.’
‘Well then, it’s decided.’ Lady Keyt’s reflection smiled back at her. ‘Ruth and Annie will empty the slops, lay the fires in my bedchamber and change the bed linen, but you will care for my wardrobe and act as my personal dresser. When you are not with me you will sit with Elizabeth. I hope you won’t find the position tedious after the bustle of a coaching inn.’
‘No, my lady. I’m sure I won’t.’ Molly’s enthusiasm grew by the minute. Lady Ann Keyt was courteous and kind. As she helped her new employer into a gown of the finest silk and lace, her future seemed bearable after all.
When Lady Keyt was ready, her soft arms scented with rose water, her hair piled upon her head, she directed Molly to the servants’ quarters.
‘It’s through the swing door in the ground-floor passage. They have supper at seven, dear, so you had better hurry along.’
When Molly pushed open the door, everyone stopped eating and turned towards her. ‘Come here, miss,’ Tompkins, the footman who had winked at her earlier, said, patting the empty chair beside him. ‘It’s all right, love, Mrs Wright isn’t here – she eats with the butler, in her parlour, and there’s still plenty of time. We get an hour at lunch and at dinner.’
Molly’s keen eye counted eighteen indoor servants and noted every detail of the cheerful room: the heavy china, the pewter flagons on the long oak table, the burnished copper saucepans hanging from hooks on the ceiling. She listened as the conversation flowed.
‘She’s come up the hard way, has Mrs Wright,’ Ruth the housemaid said. ‘She has the job of hiring and firing and there’s the problem: she doesn’t think much of you being hired by the master himself. Watch yourself with Mrs Wright.’
Molly smiled, disguising her unease.
‘She’s been here for nigh-on twenty-five years, and she’s climbed up from lower than Annie here and me.’ Ruth prodded the girl beside her. ‘She had two years on the fenders, hearths and slops and she don’t take kindly to you being given right off what took her twenty years to get!’
Ruth shook her head and giggled, leaving Annie to finish her story. ‘Now she’s in charge of us all indoors. She pays the servants and the tradesmen and if anyone tries to skim her, she don’t half get mad. She does all the accounts and if we disturb her, do we know it! She does the marketing, buys all the meat and veg. She acts like my namesake Queen Anne herself, not that I ever met her, her majesty being dead that many years.’
Everyone laughed, but Annie continued, ‘she makes me right mad at times. It’s always the same. “Annie, have you been thieving?” she says, after she’s checked the linens. If something goes missing, it’s always me. What does she think I’m going to do with a fine lace napkin, wipe my bum with it?’
‘Don’t forget the stillroom perfumes,’ Tompkins interrupted. ‘Molly, me love, if you smell of lavender water, you’ll be dead before the day is out – smelling good, mind you.’ As the banter and the laughter continued, Molly grew more at ease.
That night she slept in the room at the top of the house. It was not so different from her room at the Charter House, and she fell into a deep sleep. When she awoke the next morning, she rose on one elbow and looked around her. The early sunlight made patterns on the wooden floor, and on top of the washstand a small china mug was filled with spring flowers. It was an attractive room, and with a little imagination she could make it her own. She listened to the silent house, and painfully she thought of Will, the two of them in her own bedroom, whispering before the rest of the household erupted with the day’s activity.
She got out of bed and looked through the window. Crocuses burst through the ground, another reminder of home. Once again Molly longed for her mother and for Will, and she hungered to be outside.
She washed her face and hands in the blue and white china basin, smoothed her hair and glanced in the mirror. Her hazel eyes stared back at her. Molly had never liked the colour; she wished they were blue.
She straightened the collar of her sprigged cotton dress. It was faded and a little too short, but it was her second-best dress, and until she could make another, it would have to do. She went down the back stairs and into the garden. It smelt of cut spring grass, reminding her of the garden at Warwick Castle.
A brick archway led to a pathway between two raised borders. She followed the path, picked a narcissus and held it to her nose. ‘The Romans brought them here,’ her mother had told her, ‘nigh-on thirteen hundred years ago.’
Through two pillars she entered a large untended garden. Wild flowers grew in the long grasses, and amongst the trees, two pools glittered in the early morning light. In the smaller pool there was a statue. She recognized it as Pan. She sat down on a bench and leant forward. Pan’s reflection moved across the water towards her. She was lost in thought when she heard footsteps. Thomas was at the entrance to the garden. He looked her way and for a long moment they didn’t speak.
‘May I join you, Miss Johnson? I am also an early riser.’
‘I have to start work soon,’ she said, finding her voice, ‘but, yes, for a little while. I would like that.’
He sat on the bench beside her, and when he moved, his leg brushed against hers.
‘Do you know about this flower?’ he asked, looking at the wilting stem in her lap.
‘I do. I am not well schooled, but my mother has a story for nearly every flower in England.’
‘That means,’ he said, ‘you will be able to tell me a story every day of the year.’ He looked at Molly intently and she felt her cheeks burn.
She struggled to remember the myth. ‘This is a narcissus, and it’s named for a character in Greek mythology. Surely you have heard the story?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Thomas said. ‘Go on.’
‘Narcissus was a hunter. He had flowing golden hair and great beauty, but he had no heart. On seeing him the nymph Echo fell madly in love.’ Molly paused, but Thomas nodded at her encouragingly. ‘Narcissus spurned Echo, and the poor nymph wasted away and died. This angered the gods and they decided to punish Narcissus. One day when he was tired of hunting, he drank from a clear pool of water. On seeing the beautiful face shimmering in the water below, he immediately fell in love, little realizing the reflection was his own. Like Echo, he too faded away, echoing the manner of her death. Aphrodite took pity on him and made him into this golden flower.’ As she looked up, their eyes met and he smiled, and though he would smile at her many times, this was the one she never forgot. ‘My mother is very wise, Master Thomas. She may not have had a proper education, but she knows more about life than anyone I know.’
‘Molly,’ he said. Her name sounded so pretty on his lips. ‘That is the most enchanting name. May I call you by your first name? Miss Johnson is too formal, now that I know that you love stories and flowers.’
‘Indeed, sir, you may.’
‘Do you like our house?’ he asked, willing her reply to be positive.
‘Master Thomas, I like it enough, but the house in the dip with the chickens outside reminds me of home. That one I like a lot.’
Sir William Keyt strode towards them. ‘Thomas,’ he thundered. ‘What are you doing? Your mother has been waiting for you. Have you forgotten? And Miss Johnson, are you going to neglect your duties before they have begun? Do I have to send you back to your father today?’
‘I am sorry, sir,’ she said, humiliated. She was about to apologize again, when she realized the injustice of his anger. ‘I came out to see your garden,’ she started uncertainly. ‘It was well before breakfast and the start of my duties.’ She squared her hips and faced him. ‘I did not ask to be in your employment, Sir William. My father forced me. Apparently an agreement was made. It was not my decision, and I will gladly go home.’
‘If you feel that we have coerced you, far be it from me to stop you, but have a care, Miss Johnson: your father might not be so pleased.’
He turned on his heel.
‘Forgive me,’ Thomas said when his father had gone. ‘It was my fault. I should have defended you but I didn’t know what to say. My father always has that effect on me, but you stood up to him. You are quite extraordinary.’
As Molly headed back towards the house and the day’s duties, she repeated Thomas’s words like an incantation.
Thomas remained on the stone bench. He picked up the flower and turned it in his hand, remembering the heat from her body as her leg had moved against his own. ‘Help me,’ he sighed, but nothing could ease the confusion in his heart. He slipped the flower into the pocket of his coat. Who knew what course his life would take, but at that moment he was sure that Molly Johnson would play a part in it.
The following morning Dorothy rose early, determined to find her brother. She went to his room but found no sign of him. She was about to leave when Ruth arrived, armed with brushes and the ash pail.
‘Morning, miss, just come to do the grate.’ She knelt down to clear the remains of the previous night’s fire, and Dorothy changed her mind and sat in the armchair to wait for Thomas. For the first time she noticed that all of the relics of their childhood had disappeared – the drawings pinned to the wall, the maps showing their imaginary travels, even the colourful pictures done with Miss Byrne. At fifteen, her brother was nearly a man.
Beside her on the table lay several sheets of paper, the finished translations from the day before. Glancing through them, she noticed underneath a number of poems in varying stages of composition. She was about to put them down when one line caught her eye: ‘Oh such beauty is held within thy face.’
She sucked in her breath, tears stinging her eyes, and pushed it hurriedly back into the pile. It had to be about Miss Johnson. She just knew it had been written for her.
Ruth rose and stretched her back. ‘I’ve finished the hearth. If you’re after Master Thomas, he’s in the garden. He’ll be looking for that new lady’s maid, I’ll warrant.’
‘I did not ask for your opinion!’ Dorothy got up and charged from the room.
In the rose garden Molly was picking flowers. As she straightened, wiping her face with her sleeve, she noticed Thomas watching her.
‘How long have you been here?’ she asked.
‘Long enough,’ he replied with a smile.
‘These are for your mother,’ she explained, hastily adding the stems to her basket.
He laughed, aware of her embarrassment. ‘You are allowed to pick flowers. You’ll not be punished. Mother thinks you are wonderful. In fact, it seems you have captivated the entire household.’
Neither noticed the face in the study window. On hearing their voices, Sir William had peered outside; seeing his son standing with Molly Johnson filled him with fear and helplessness. Though they stood feet apart, their looks and gestures revealed mutual attraction. Sir William slumped into the chair, and with his head cradled in his arms he wept.
Sometime later Dorothy heard shouting in the hall.
‘I will not go! You can’t make me!’
‘You’ll do as you are bloody well told! I won’t have you moping around here any longer. It’s time you went to school. You should have gone at thirteen like every normal boy. I said so to your mother at the time, but she wouldn’t have it. Now, you are definitely going.’