“Just you wait!” a woman screeched. “I’ll see you hanged first, Clem Dabney, you see if I don’t!”
“Woman! Hold your tongue!” came the deep and furious response. There was the sound of something thudding against the wall and the shattering of glass. Seven years’ bad luck thought Mina hurrying past that one as fast as her blistered foot could take her. Unless it was a window of course.
The second room, disappointingly, was locked. The third she could distinctly hear giggling from. If she wasn’t mistaken, it was that blonde barmaid named Ivy.
“Oh, you rogue!” she cooed. “You know that costs extra.”
Mina pursed her lips and passed on to the fourth room which she prized open gingerly. At first, she thought it was a sitting room, for there were several chairs dotted around it, then she noticed a mattress in the middle of the floor and on it a half-dressed man sprawled out swigging beer from a stone-wear jar. He looked up in surprise and she saw his head was bandaged.
“That you, Ivy love? Frank didn’t take long then!”
With a hasty apology, Mina withdrew her head and shut the door. She thought he called something after her but didn’t stick around to find out what. There was only one door remaining untried and it was right at the end of the passageway. Mina approached it with some trepidation. Even as she set her hand to the latch, she heard an earthy moan from within and recognized the cockney accents of the redhead from the church.
“Ah Jeb, that’s it,” Effie groaned. “Do not spare me, my love. Oh, do not spare me!”
Do not spare her from what? Mina wondered, as she hastily retreated from the door. From Effie’s loud moans, she guessed Jeb was heeding her entreaties well. If her hands were not full of luggage, and candlesticks she would have covered her ears. She took three hurried steps backward and felt herself collide with a wall where there should not have been one. Swinging around in alarm, she found a large figure looming out of the shadows before her and realized with horror that it was none other than her new husband.
“Excuse me!” Mina burst out in mortified embarrassment. Something was thudding now against the wall in the room behind her, punctuated by animalistic grunts that made Mina’s ears burn. “I need to find an empty room,” she added shrilly, trying to dodge to one side of the bulk that was William Nye. “That one is taken.”
“Are you sure?” he asked dryly and seemed to block her path entirely, whichever way she tried to barge past him. He shot one brawny arm out and braced it against the wall, leaning down so his mouth was close to her ear. “There are no free rooms,” he said slowly, possibly so she could hear as Effie was now starting to wail with increasing volume. Mina dropped her carpetbag and clapped a hand to her neck to shield it from his hot, tickling breath. His eyebrows rose. “We’re full,” he added bluntly. That took the wind out of her sails and she gazed up at him in dismay.
“Full?” she yelled as Effie approached a pitch only dogs could hear. “But where am I supposed to sleep?”
Nye frowned at her. Behind them, Jeb bellowed like a bull. The thudding stopped abruptly with the sound of a masculine groan and collapsed mattress springs.
Mina drew a deep breath and picked up her carpetbag. “If you could be so kind as to direct me to the staff quarters,” she said, striving to sound composed, but even to her own ears sounding slightly hysterical. To her shame, she could feel herself beginning to tremble all over with strung-out nerves. Hot candlewax spilled onto her fingers and her bag nearly slipped from once more from her grasp.
He did not speak for a moment, just looked at her hard. Then he uttered one word. “Attic.”
Mina sagged with relief. She couldn’t help it. She felt exhausted and perilously close to tears. “Thank you,” she muttered, a slave to politeness even in the face of the worst manners she had ever been subjected to. He made no response, just turned his back to her, and walked back down the way he’d come. Mina’s eyes burned. Pray God he never knew how close she had come to humiliating herself and blubbering like a child.
With a suppressed sob, she started up the last flight of stairs. The ceilings were much lower and sloping up here, and she could well believe it was where the maids slept. The first room had two narrow beds in it, both unmade and strewn with clothes and a dresser covered over with a deal of ribbons and combs, perfume bottles, and spilled powder. The room reeked of a floral pungent scent and guessing that one was likely Ivy’s, she opened the second which was scrupulously tidy but had a quantity of hand-sewing laid piled up on the one bed and a handmade patchwork quilt on the other. As this too was clearly occupied, she made wearily for the third and final room, which was on the opposite side and much bigger than the other two. Indeed, it was quite as big as both the other rooms combined.
This room had a bare dresser and a large bed in the center with a brass bedstead. The fire was unmade, and the bed stripped back to its mattress. Mina almost cried out with thankfulness to see it was not in use. She whisked inside and shut the door behind her, setting her candle down on the dresser. Unfortunately, there was no lock on the door, so dropping her bag, she seized a rickety wooden chair instead and shoved it under the handle.
Her safety seen to, she cast about for blankets and sheets to dress the bed. A trunk under the window looked promising so she made for that, and by another stroke of luck, found it contained a quantity of much darned and mended linen. She dragged out sheets enough for her needs and made up the bed.
Sadly, there was no water to wash and anyway, she was too tired to comb her hair or do anything other than strip down to her chemise and drawers, blow out the candle and crawl under the covers. She lay awake for a few minutes, telling herself that though she despised her half-brother, it was pointless saving her wrath for a morally weak character and a drunkard such as himself. She had sent him away with a flea in his ear and expected he was probably passed out in a drunken stupor by now in his four-poster bed. A four-poster likely emblazoned all over with the Faris coat of arms, she thought with faint scorn.
As for William Nye… she set her jaw. She would make that man sorry he’d ever met her, if it were the last thing she ever did! A small smile curved her lips even as a tear trickled from the corner of one eye. Comforted by her vow of vengeance, Mina fell into a deep sleep.
5
Mina rose early the next morning and established the routine that she would stick to for the next week. She rose, dressed in her serviceable black gown, and descended to the kitchens in search of hot water and something to eat. Her first glimpse of the large kitchen almost made her recoil, it was in such a squalid state. Every surface was covered in a thick coating of grease and dirt. The fire was lit in the coal fire range, though there was not a soul in sight. Someone was up and about though, for on the table was the remains of a round loaf and a dish of butter which still had a knife set in it.
Peeking her head in the room next door she found a large scullery which had a copper set in the corner for heating water and a bread oven, both of which shared the same chimney. Peering under the lid of the copper, she found the large pot was only half full of tepid water. First she lit it with a spill from the kitchen range and then, casting about, found a large pail in the corner and remembering she had seen a pump in the courtyard the previous night, carried it outside to fill it with water.