The Orphan Child

by Catherine King

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

Little Sarah is found on Christmas Day; a new-born baby, very soon to be an orphan. As her unnamed mother breathes her last, Sarah is taken in at the grand Meadow Hall in South Riding, Yorkshire. Just as soon as she can hold a scrubbing brush, her working life begins. Feisty and headstrong, Sarah's temper often leads her into trouble. At fourteen she decides to escape the life of a servant and run away. Dressed as a boy, she meets good-hearted Aidan and impulsive Danby, forming an unlikely but happy trio. Sarah's true identity comes to the surface after nearly a year, along with new feelings for Aidan.

Release date: December 2, 2010

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 380

Sample

Patterns of ice lingered on the outside of the scullery window at Meadow Hall and red berries set the holly bushes on fire.
Across the cobbled yard the horses were restless; the ground was too frozen for their morning gallop. Steam streamed from
their nostrils as devoted grooms clothed their backs in blankets and walked them through crisp snow that softened the clatter
of hooves on stone. Inside the stables the master and his trainer watched silently as a brood mare wrestled with the birth
of her foal. They sipped regularly from their hip flasks. This one was sure to be a winner.


Beyond the stables on the edge of the woods, a couple of young stable lads raced around throwing snowballs at each other;
until one of them stopped abruptly and stared.


‘What’s that up there on the track?’

‘I can’t see from here. Let’s have a closer look.’

‘Not now. It’s nearly dinner time. We’ll get the whip if we’re late today.’

‘Well, don’t tell anybody and we’ll come back later.’

Indoors, the servants had finished their morning’s work and coal fires were drawing well in the gracious bedchambers and reception rooms. They waited patiently in a cold passage until the housekeeper had completed her inspections. She sent three
of them back to sweep hearths and dust wooden panelling; even a footman had to go off again and polish a knife in the dining
room.


‘The butler was happy enough,’ he muttered; but not loud enough for her to hear.

‘You’d think she was the mistress,’ one of her maids whispered.

‘Silence!’ the housekeeper snapped and glared at them until they all stood perfectly still and expressionless as the draught
chilled their ankles. ‘Merry Christmas to you all,’ she said without a smile. ‘You may take your seats in the servants’ hall.’
She returned to the warmth and snugness of her sitting room, and her bottle of sherry wine.


At half past eleven a kitchen maid carried a roast leg of mutton to the servants’ hall. There was roast goose for the master
and his guests later, a dish also enjoyed by the housekeeper, butler and cook, who ate their dinner after everyone else, waited
on by kitchen maids in clean aprons. When dinner was cleared, the pots washed up and put away, enough coal for the rest of
the day carried to the master’s fires and a cold supper left in the dining room, the servants were allowed to enjoy their
Christmas. It was the only day of the year when they finished at three o’clock in the afternoon instead of nine or ten at
night and a suppressed excitement bubbled. But they ate their mutton and greens quietly. The housekeeper frowned upon frivolity.


After steamed spiced pudding, the grooms hurried back to the stables and the maids to the kitchen and dining room. Mrs Watson,
the cook, busied herself with ensuring the master’s Christmas dinner was perfect. Meadow Hall was a silent place, if not a
happy one, when the door from the scullery banged open and a rush of cold air swept into the kitchen.


‘Look what we found on the track in the woods!’ The stable lads carried a lifeless bundle, slung in a horse blanket, and placed
it on the stone flags near to the fire.


‘Take that thing out of here!’ Mrs Watson yelled, ‘and close the door!’


‘Just have a look will you.’ One of the lads unfolded the edge of the blanket to expose a pallid face surrounded by tangled
wet hair. ‘She must have been out in the snow all night. Stone cold, she is.’


Shocked, Mrs Watson turned around. ‘Oh dear Heaven! Who is she?’ She wiped her greasy fingers on her apron and tugged at the
blanket. A mewling that developed into a wailing came from the bundle of rags. ‘Lord help us, there’s a baby!’ The infant
was wrapped in a torn flannel petticoat.


‘Careful, missus,’ one of the lads warned, ‘there’s a lot of blood.’

‘I can see that.’

‘Shall I fetch the midwife from the village?’

‘It’s too late for her now. Besides, the midwife won’t thank me for spoiling her Christmas Day. You lads’d better clear off
out o’ here. This is women’s work.’


The baby’s wailing became the harsh repetitive cry of a newborn. ‘Well, here’s a fighter if ever I heard one. The little ’un
hasn’t given up even if her ma has.’ Mrs Watson bent to pick up the screeching infant from its mother’s flaccid arms. ‘You
must be made of tough stuff to survive last night’s blizzard.’ She lifted the mother’s hand and let it fall. ‘No wedding band,
I see. On her way to the workhouse, I’ll be bound, poor wretch.’


‘Mrs Watson! What is all this noise?’ The Hall housekeeper bustled out of her sitting room across the stone-flagged passage. ‘Dear Lord!
Who is that on the floor?’ She stopped and took in the situation. ‘Is that a baby?’


‘Yes, ma’am. Its mother is in a deep faint and they’re both freezing cold.’

The housekeeper’s full black skirts swished across the kitchen and she peered at the pallid form in the fireside glow. She
bent to finger the muddy, wet fabric of the mother’s skirt. ‘This was once a servant’s gown.’ She shook the material from
her fingers and stated, ‘The woman is a vagrant; one of the gypsies off the moor.’


‘Shall I send for the workhouse cart to take them on their way, ma’am?’


‘Not today. Give the warden and his wife a little respite.’ The baby’s screaming continued and its mother did not stir. The
housekeeper frowned. ‘Does the mother breathe?’


Mrs Watson leaned closer to the still form. ‘I think so.’

‘See if you can bring her round.’

‘There’s not much hope of that, if I may say so; look at her, just skin and bone. I’ll try, though. I have a drop of brandy
left over from the puddings.’


‘See if you can quieten that infant, too. My head is splitting.’

Mrs Watson inspected the babe. ‘It’s a girl,’ she commented. She placed a finger in the baby’s mouth and watched her suck
at it. ‘She’ll be wanting a wet nurse, ma’am.’


‘One of the under-gardeners’ wives lost her newborn just yesterday. Send a kitchen maid to find her.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Mrs Watson bobbed a curtsey.

But the child’s mother did not recover from her deep faint and breathed her last even as cook tried to revive her. In contrast,
the baby suckled greedily at her surrogate breast and quietened. Her foster-mother welcomed her task and the housekeeper waited
until the Hall’s Christmas guests had left before turning her attention to the child’s future. She summoned Mrs Watson to
her sitting room.


‘I have spoken to the master and he has no concern for the infant. He is busy with his horses in foal and has more important
affairs to occupy him. No one knows who her mother was. The vicar will make enquiries but he has already given her a pauper’s
burial in the churchyard.’


‘Will the babe go to the workhouse, then?’

‘No. She was a gift from Jesus on His birthday, so we shall keep her here. The under-gardener’s wife will look after her until
she’s old enough to walk and then she will become a servant.’


‘The master has agreed to that?’

‘I have told you, he is not interested in vagrants or their offspring. I have decided to keep her. A girl won’t cost much to feed and clothe, you will see to that, Mrs Watson.’


‘Me, ma’am?’

‘You can have her in your kitchen as soon as her hands are big enough to hold a scrubbing brush.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

‘The master will have an extra maid without having to sign any indenture for her parents.’ The housekeeper looked pleased
with herself.


‘What shall I call her?’

‘Sarah. I think that is a fitting name for a servant, don’t you? And Meadow; after the Hall that took her in.’

‘Sarah Meadow she is, then, ma’am, born on Christmas Day.’

‘She is a lucky child. She will have a half day holiday on her birthday every year.’

‘Have you made up the fireboxes?’


‘Yes, Mrs Watson.’ They were waiting in the scullery for the housemaids to light fires in the master’s bedchamber, dressing
room and dining salon. The other chambers were done later, after breakfast when the boot boy had carried in more buckets of
coal.


‘Start pumping your water, then.’

Sarah didn’t need to be told what to do, but Mrs Watson liked to give orders in her kitchen. She went into the scullery and
outside to the yard. The servant’s supper crockery was stacked on the old dresser where she had left it after washing up last
night, but now she saw bits of stale pastry and smears of pickle sauce all over her previously clean pots.


‘Who’s put these dirty plates in here?’ she cried. It’s those footmen again, she fumed silently. They went over to the stables
after their work was finished to play cards and take strong drink with the grooms before coming back for a cold supper at
the kitchen table.


‘Mrs Watson!’ she called. ‘Somebody’s been in here and left my clean pots all dirty.’

‘Less of your lip, Meadow, or you’ll feel my whip across your back. They’re not your pots and you’ll just have to wash them again, won’t you?’


‘Well, it’s not fair!’ Her thin arms and slender hands were already sore from too long in hot water and soda.

‘Don’t you answer me back or I’ll send you to the workhouse and see how you like that! You’ll know which side your bread is
buttered then, my girl. You’ll die of a fever in there just like your ma afore you!’


Sarah wished she’d had a mother instead of Mrs Watson. Her own mother would have been nicer to her. ‘You told me my mother
never went to the workhouse,’ she said.


‘No. She died before she got there. She were a gypsy, though, and that’s what you’ll be if you don’t watch your step.’

‘I won’t!’ she argued, ‘I haven’t got black hair like them.’

Auburn, one of the kinder maids called it; not as bright as that carrot-top jockey in the stables, but different none the
less. She had wide hazel-brown eyes, a fair skin that freckled in the summer and, according to the master’s valet, a pretty
smile. But, he had added unkindly, she was too skinny by half for any lad to take an interest.


Mrs Watson didn’t stand for any answering back and marched across the kitchen to hit Sarah across the head with the flat of
her hand. ‘Shut your mouth and get those pots cleaned up!’


Sarah pressed her lips together. Mrs Watson was a big woman and it hurt when she hit her. Sarah stalked off to clear up, muttering
to herself, ‘I’d rather they left their mess in the kitchen than all over my nice clean scullery.’


It was the only place she thought of as hers, and she took a pride in keeping it nice. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t enough
work to do already this morning, and her resentment simmered as she pumped freezing cold water into a line of buckets until
she ached. She carried them indoors, two at a time, emptied them into the copper in the corner of her scullery, and stoked
the fire drawing underneath it.


As she swept up fallen ash from the brick floor she remembered how, as a child, she had sat on a piece of sacking with a blackened
cooking pot, some soda and a scrubbing brush. She had listened to the kitchen maids’ chatter as they washed up at the stone
sink.


‘Mrs Watson should have got another lass for in here.’

‘One of the housemaids said they had a lot more servants in the old housekeeper’s day but she left when the master started
spending all his money on his gee-gees, and then his tradesmen stopped sending supplies. Mrs Watson was only the cook then,
you know.’

‘Was she? She thinks she’s Lady Muck now.’

They had giggled. ‘It’s better here than in the workhouse though and that little ’un on the floor can do the scullery when
she’s big enough to reach.’

And I did, Sarah thought. She remembered that she had needed to stand on a milking stool to reach into the corners of the
stone sink. She was the youngest of all the servants, and therefore at the end of the queue when beds and blankets were allocated.
She was the one who had to sleep in the draughts and be up first, at daybreak, to light the fires in the kitchen range and
under the copper in the scullery. She was the one who was moaned at when she woke the others as she went downstairs to get
the sticks and coal going.


The housemaids came into her scullery, bleary-eyed and yawning, to pick up their waiting fireboxes. She smiled at them. It
wasn’t their fault the footmen were unruly. ‘Your kindling is nice and dry,’ she said, ‘and I’ve put in a piece of greased
rag to start them off.’ It gave off a bit of smoke but got the sticks going nicely.


‘Ta,’ one of them replied.

‘Don’t let on about the grease, will you?’ she warned.

They shook their heads and smiled back. Mrs Watson reigned supreme over her female servants, as the housekeeper had done before
her, and they had all learned not to cross her. Sarah blew out her cheeks, then stacked the smeared plates in the sink and drew some water from the copper to wash them.


She knew more about Meadow Hall nowadays and had heard how it had been well provided for in the past; it had boasted first-rate
stables and good bloodstock that fared well at the races. Its parkland was one of the finest in the South Riding, designed
by a famous gentleman, and maintained by a band of gardeners.


But the master’s wealth had dwindled. His butler had followed the housekeeper to a better position and the master had closed
up most of the chambers – he had few guests now. He’d sold off much of his parkland and leased the remainder to a tenant farmer
in order to keep his stables thriving. His valet took charge of those footmen who had stayed, and Mrs Watson, well, Mrs Watson
had found special favour with the master. She took control of household affairs, growing round and florid in the process,
and told the servants to do as she ordered.


‘Meadow!’ Sarah jumped. ‘Get in here and do me boots for me.’

‘Yes, Mrs Watson.’ Sarah shook the greasy water from her reddened arms and wiped her hands on a sacking apron.

The older woman sprawled in her rocking chair by the kitchen range as Sarah knelt on the flagged floor. It was the only time
she was grateful for her brown jute gown. The fabric was coarse and scratchy but it softened the stone under her skinny knees.
Sarah eased the cold stiff leather over Mrs Watson’s podgy stockinged feet, and her sore fingers wrestled with the hook as
she pulled the tiny buttons through their eyelets.


Four times a day she did Mrs Watson’s boots for her. She put them on in the morning, off again after dinner, put them back
on for tea, and eased her smelly feet out of them last thing at night. And still her duties were not finished, not when the
weather was bitter. She recalled one of those cold winter nights.


‘Clean up the scullery and do the master’s nightcap now,’ Mrs Watson had ordered. ‘And then get off to bed. No dawdling. It’s
a chilly one tonight.’


‘Yes, Mrs Watson.’

Sarah had emptied the sink and threw two bucketfuls of cold greasy water outside. The sky was black but the stars were out
and ice crackled underfoot. Across the yard a lamp glowed from an upstairs window in the stables and she heard girlish laughter.


‘Meadow! Where’s the master’s tray?’

She had hurried back.

‘You haven’t fetched my carpet slippers yet.’

‘Sorry, Mrs Watson.’ They were warming by the kitchen range. Sarah eased the soft felt shoes onto the woman’s swollen feet
and put her boots in their place ready for morning.


‘That’s better. Upstairs with you now and warm my bed.’

‘It’s ever so cold tonight, Mrs Watson. Can I take a brick out of the oven? I’ll wrap it well.’

‘No you can’t. I’m not having any grit in my bed sheets. What do you think I’ve got you for?’

Sarah took a candle, climbed four flights of backstairs and went through a small door in the dark wood panelling to the second-floor
landing. Mrs Watson had moved into a guest chamber as soon as the master had given her the household keys. The room had a
carved wooden bed and matching cupboard for hanging clothes and storing linen.


She took off her own boots and gown, placed Mrs Watson’s folded nightdress carefully in a pillow sham and laid it on the soft
mattress. The sheets were freezing and she wasn’t allowed to curl up. She had to lie flat on her back with the nightgown underneath
her until Mrs Watson came to bed. She lay awake listening to the squeals and grunts from the master’s bedchamber below, where
Mrs Watson had taken his nightcap and stayed to entertain him.


But she must have fallen asleep, for the next thing she knew she had been wakened by Mrs Watson, with her corsets in one hand
and a guinea in the other, and ordered to get up and go to her own cold hard bed on the floor above. She had to creep around
the attic in the dark, her bare feet freezing, because the older maids were asleep and they pinched and slapped her if she disturbed them. She had stuffed rags into the gaps around the window over her bed but the cold wind still rattled the
windows, chilling Sarah to the bone.


This morning Sarah noticed Mrs Watson’s ankles were getting puffier and her legs swelled over the tops of her boots. She was
spending more and more time in the comfort of her rocking chair by the kitchen range and giving her orders from there. Sarah
was fourteen and had had enough of being Mrs Watson’s personal slave, as well as doing all the scullery work. She had considered
running way; but not, she thought, until summer when the weather would be kinder.


‘Chuck a bit more of coal on this fire,’ Mrs Watson directed, ‘then go and watch for the master’s trainer.’

This was an important task for Sarah every morning. The master’s trainer was in charge of the horses and he slept in the coach
house, above the master’s carriage. She stared out of the scullery window across the yard to the stables. ‘He’s on his way,’
she called, as soon as he stepped outside, dressed in his plaid waistcoat, tweed jacket and smart leather riding boots. Mrs
Watson rocked herself out of her chair and put a frying pan on to heat.


The master at Meadow Hall always took breakfast with his trainer and talked about his horses. This morning was different,
though. Sarah was still in the scullery when she heard the head housemaid’s cries in the passage leading to the front hall.


‘Mrs Watson! Oh, come quick, the master’s been murdered in his bed!’

‘What’s going on?’ Sarah went into the kitchen in time to see Mrs Watson disappear down the passage.

The head housemaid came over to the range, her face as white as sun-bleached linen.

‘You’d better sit down,’ Sarah said. ‘You look really poorly.’

The housemaid collapsed into the vacated rocking chair, clasping her firebox on her lap. ‘Oh, it was horrible,’ she cried.
‘You should’ve seen him, his face was purple! His eyes were staring at me, wide open and fit to pop out of his head!’


Two kitchen maids stopped cleaning a basket of mushrooms and exchanged silent glances. The head housemaid never spoke to them
as a rule, let alone took any notice of young Sarah.


‘Has he been strangled?’ Fear gripped Sarah’s body. She had listened at mealtimes to the footmen talking about highway murder,
and watched them frighten the maids with their antics as they acted out their tales. ‘Do you think the murderer is still here?’
She looked over her shoulder at the door to her scullery.


‘Ooh, you shut up, Meadow. You’re scaring me.’

‘I don’t mean to,’ she responded. ‘But I’ll be the first he gets hold of if he comes in the back.’

The girls moved closer to the fire, and to each other, in a gesture of mutual support that was unusual in Mrs Watson’s kitchen.
Sarah picked up a heavy iron ladle and held it behind her back. They huddled together nervously until another housemaid clattered
down the passage and into the kitchen.


‘The master’s valet wants you in the front hall.’ She turned swiftly and the head housemaid followed her.

‘Does he mean us an’ all?’ one of the kitchen maids asked.

‘Don’t know,’ the other replied.

‘I think he does,’ Sarah decided. Even if he didn’t, she didn’t want to miss what he had to say. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to
be left alone in here while a murderer is about.’


‘What about the master’s mushrooms?’

‘Leave them,’ Sarah replied. ‘He won’t be wanting no breakfast if he’s dead, will he?’ She put down her ladle and walked towards
the passage. ‘Come on, you two,’ she called over her shoulder.


The footmen and boot boy were there, and all four housemaids were clustered around Mrs Watson. The master’s valet was halfway
down the stairs, talking to the trainer, who seemed very agitated. The valet, too, was unsteady on his feet and holding onto
the dark wooden banister rail. ‘Listen up, you lot,’ he said. ‘The master hasn’t been murdered.’


A sigh of relief rippled through the gathering group. ‘He’s not dead, then?’ a footman asked.

‘Oh, aye, he’s dead right enough. He had a purple fit in the night.’


‘We’re lucky it’s after quarter day, then,’ the boot boy muttered. ‘At least we got our pay.’

‘Hush up, you. Show some respect.’

‘He never showed us any.’

The maids and footmen muttered among themselves, until the master’s trainer walked slowly down the stairs. He was frowning
and did not seem to notice the maids as they parted to allow him through. ‘I’ll tell the outdoor servants and send for his
lawyer,’ he murmured. ‘This’ll put the cat among the pigeons, right enough.’


Mrs Watson whispered, ‘What does he mean by that?’

The valet shrugged. ‘He’s knows more about the master’s affairs than I do.’ He called after him, ‘You’ll take your breakfast
with me, sir?’ Then he addressed the servants. ‘Get back to your work now. Carry on as normal. We’ll be having callers, so
make sure everything is done proper today.’


Mrs Watson turned to the green baize door at the back of the hall. ‘Meadow! What are you doing here? In the kitchen with you
and put another pan over the fire! I want two hot frying pans this morning.’


Sarah did as she was told and was followed by the rest of the servants. But things did not carry on as normal. The head housemaid
who had discovered the body hovered uncertainly in the kitchen, still clutching her firebox.


Sarah took it from her gently. ‘He won’t be wanting a fire in his bedchamber this morning, will he?’ she said.

The head housemaid looked surprised but didn’t say anything. She sat down at the table with a pale face.

‘I’ll have all my fireboxes back, thank you,’ Sarah continued, taking them from the other maids. She’d have enough dry sticks
to get her copper going every morning for the rest of the week now. ‘There’s no point in lighting all those fires now, is
there? It’s bad enough doing all that work for just the one gentleman. No sense in doing it for nobody.’


Neither the footmen nor the maids disagreed and they loitered around the kitchen table, murmuring to each other and eating
bread and dripping until Mrs Watson and the valet came in for their breakfast. The two most senior servants always took breakfast
together after the master had been served. Mrs Watson cooked for the master, but she had Sarah to fry whatever she and the
valet were having, and mash their tea.


‘Right, you lot,’ Mrs Watson said. ‘Clear off out of here and keep yourselves busy until I know what’s happening. Go on, then.’
She rattled her chatelaine. ‘Not you, Meadow. You can get our breakfast on.’ She selected a key to unlock the larder, brought
out a new flitch of bacon and carved thick slices for Sarah to put into the hot pans.


Sarah cleared one end of the huge deal table, cut more bread and made strong tea in a large brown teapot. She added slices
of pig’s liver to the bacon, then the mushrooms. When the master’s trainer came into the kitchen she served up tasty platefuls
to the three most important servants at Meadow Hall. She noticed that Mrs Watson had placed a slab of fresh butter on the
table too.


‘Put the flour and balm to warm for me, Meadow. Pour the tea first.’

‘Yes, Mrs Watson.’ As she moved quietly about the kitchen, Sarah listened to the conversation.

‘What’ll happen to us?’ Mrs Watson asked.

‘Don’t rightly know yet,’ the valet answered. ‘But he’s got no kin to inherit the Hall.’

‘That’s just as well,’ the trainer added, ‘Because he’s got no money to leave ’em either.’

‘None at all?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘He owes tradesman for tack and feed left, right and centre and the horses are not his any more.’

‘What do mean, they’re not his?’

‘He sold his last one a few years ago.’

‘Well, what about them in the stables?’

‘That’s what I’m saying. Other folk own them and leave ’em here so the master gets paid for livery and training and it keeps
his stables going. I tell you, everything is in hock. I’m getting out of here as soon as I can and, if you take my advice,
you’ll do the same.’


Sarah listened as she carried the heavy earthenware bowl of flour to the hearth to warm.

‘But he said he’d look after me,’ Mrs Watson protested.

‘He said that to keep you warming his bed of a night, old girl.’ The valet smiled weakly.

Sarah saw that Mrs Watson looked cross. They thought she didn’t know what they meant but the housemaids giggled and talked
about Mrs Watson after they blew out the candle at night. One of the housemaids did what Mrs Watson did too, with a groom
in the hayloft over the stables. Last summer, when Sarah didn’t have to warm Mrs Watson’s bed, she had listened from her attic
bed as the housemaid whispered about it to her friend.


Three Christmases ago, on her eleventh birthday, they made fun of Sarah and told her that she was old enough to do it now
if she wanted. She might have done, too, just to find out what it was like, but nobody asked her. Not even the stable lads
were interested in Sarah Meadow; she was only the scullery maid, and a foundling at that.


During the next few weeks, life improved for the servants at Meadow Hall. There were no dining-room meals to carry down the
passage and serve up on the best china, or huge fires to keep alight and clean up after. But Mrs Watson still roasted big
joints of meat and made steamed puddings that the servants enjoyed instead of the master and his friends.


A succession of gaudily dressed gentlemen visited the trainer in the stables and they walked across the yard to take refreshment
in the old housekeeper’s sitting room, where Mrs Watson invited them to stay for dinner or tea. The spring weather was breezy and cold, but the valet held the cellar keys and he brought out brandy to warm them on their way.


One of the gentleman callers was more sombrely dressed in a long dark coat and tall hat. He came to the front door and spoke
to the valet in the front hall. He did not linger for refreshment and what he said had a sobering effect on Mrs Watson; when
he had gone she assembled the servants round her and held court from her rocking chair by the fire.


‘Bailiffs will be in at the end of the week to put a value on the furniture,’ she told them. ‘The Hall and everything in it
is to be sold off.’


‘There’ll be a new owner to keep us on, then?’ The head housemaid sounded relieved.

Mrs Watson scowled. ‘You all have to be gone. The sooner the better.’

The other housemaids looked alarmed and began talking at the same time.

‘All of us!’

‘Gone where?’

‘But we’ve got nowhere to go!’