CHAPTER EIGHT
“Let us look at vice naked, stripped of every trapping of birth and fashion, and we shall only feel horror at the sight.”
Private Education: A Practical Plan for the Studies of Young Ladies.
Elizabeth Appleton. 1815.
“Taste this, will you?”
Amelia peered hesitantly at the cup of chocolate before her on the kitchen table. It looked normal. She sniffed it. Smelled normal too. “Why?”
The Welsh housekeeper, Mrs Dawkins, pursed her lips and returned to stirring a vast pot of the stuff on the stove while various servants milled about preparing for the day. “I just wish to know if it’s over-sweetened, I do.”
Fair enough, so Amelia swiped it up, took a gulp and…
Glutinous sludge coated her tongue, thick and potent as though horse glue was an ingredient. Maybe it was and she forced it down with a tremor.
“Is… Is that for Phoebe’s breakfast?”
Sally sniggered as she sliced bread while peals of laughter rang from Mrs Dawkins. “Course not! Cook will see to that. It’s my remedy for piles.”
Amelia choked. “I haven’t got piles.”
“Not now you won’t, Miss.”
Gripping a hand to her throat, Amelia hoped she’d not just been poisoned by a French spy posing as a Welsh housekeeper.
Earlier, Amelia had poked her head into Mrs Dawkins’ distillation room – noxious fumes had permeated, strange seed heads hanging from the ceiling, while jars of suspect items lined the wall and an array of tonics gleamed green from odd-shaped bottles.
“Have you always made herbal remedies, Mrs Dawkins?”
Amelia had descended to the kitchens this morning with the motive of ordering crumpets for Phoebe’s breakfast but with the ulterior motive of questioning the servants.
“Indeed I have, Miss. Learned on my Welsh grandmother’s knee in Llandudno.” She sighed. “We got in a bit of trouble when Mr Llewellyn’s sheep went mad but it’s so difficult to try out these recipes.” She paused in stirring and pointed the spoon in Amelia’s direction, chocolate clinging like grass to a cliff edge. “Mr Cadwalader would be feeding the worms if it weren’t for me and my remedies, he would. Forever coming home with some scrape.”
“More than a scrape most times, Mrs Dawkins,” prattled Sally. “Bruises, cuts, that odd gash from wot he said was a pikestaff some fella left lying around on Piccadilly.”
“Well, yes.” The housekeeper’s gaze shifted back to her cauldron. “He is rather accident-prone, Sally, but that’s gentry for you.”
Amelia pressed her lips together and thought perchance the housekeeper was fully aware ofwhyhe was so accident-prone. “You all seem…most attached to the master.”
“Of course,” said Mrs Dawkins with eyes wide. “He gave me this job when no one else would. We’d all give our right arm for him. Wouldn’t we?”
The broad-shouldered footman nodded.
The upstairs maid nodded.
The cook nodded.
Sally scrunched her nose.
“Wouldn’t we, Sally?” nudged the housekeeper.
“Well…” She scratched under her mobcap. “I’d hope not to. I mean, I’d give a finger up, gladly. Maybe two. Especially the itty ones as they ain’t much use.”
Mrs Dawkins tutted. “There’s gratitude for you. And after our esteemed master saved you from such wickedness.”
“Did he?” asked Amelia, intrigued. “What happened?”
