London in Chains Read Free Page B

would have preferred a guest who paid. Perhaps it wasn’t maternal feeling that made her want to keep Lucy out of Hannah’s room. Perhaps it was simple greed.
    â€˜There you are, girl!’ said Agnes. ‘Your things are in the kitchen. You can take them up.’
    â€˜Thank you, Aunt,’ said Lucy meekly. ‘Aunt, my petticoat’s muddy: please, where should I clean it?’
    Agnes gave her a distrustful look but showed her into the kitchen and pointed out the scrubbing brush.
    Lucy cleaned her petticoat, then carried her small case of possessions up the stairs, the damp hem flapping against her shin. She set her case down at the foot of the bed and looked at the maid’s clothes hanging on the wall. She would have to find some more nails so she could hang up her own.
    When she went back downstairs, she found that the maid had returned from the market and was busy preparing supper. Susan was about Lucy’s age, a pock-faced young woman with work-reddened hands. She was chopping onions when Lucy came into the kitchen, but she stopped and the two of them looked hard at one another.
    â€˜This is Lucy, of whom I told you,’ said Agnes, who was also in the kitchen.
    Susan bobbed a curtsey, then stared at Lucy some more. She was clearly wondering whether Lucy would go to work beside her, like a fellow-servant, or sit down in the parlour, like a guest.
    Lucy might have offered to help prepare the meal if she’d been given Hannah’s room and there’d been no doubt as to her status. Because there was doubt, she stood and smiled, as though it hadn’t even occurred to her that she might do a servant’s work. If Agnes wanted her to serve, she would have to order it.
    Agnes, however, was craftier than that. ‘Lucy has been long on the road today,’ she told Susan. ‘Tonight she will rest.’
    Meaning, of course, that she’d start as a servant tomorrow . Lucy felt her smile stiffen. Susan ducked her head and went back to chopping onions.
    The evening meal was barley soup; with it they had maslin bread, of wheat mixed with rye, cheaper than wheat bread. It was full of grit from the millstones and Lucy nibbled it cautiously. The men talked: Cousin Geoffrey was eager for hints as to how to get his business done quickly. Uncle Thomas was discouraging.
    â€˜If I’d known how the world would run over last month, I’d have advised you not to come,’ he said, shaking his head unhappily. ‘I pray the peace holds!’
    Geoffrey was startled. ‘What? The war’s well ended! Hasn’t Parliament reached a settlement with the king yet?’
    Thomas shook his head again. ‘No. Parliament sends him proposals, and he says only that he will take them under advisement. I fear he is fishing in troubled waters. The Army – have you really heard nothing of this, up in Leicestershire?’
    â€˜The Army is to be disbanded, surely?’
    Thomas let out his breath unhappily. ‘That’s what Parliament wants, certainly. The trouble . . .’ He stopped, then, leaning forward, said, ‘There was a petition from the Army last month. The soldiers asked, first and foremost, that before the Army was disbanded they should receive their pay – they have had none, not for months, and many of the men have not enough money to carry them home, let alone pay debts for their food and board. They also asked for indemnity for any acts done in furtherance of the war—’
    Geoffrey gave a snort of contempt. ‘What, so they need not repent their thieving?’
    â€˜There are some who have been hanged as horse-thieves because they collected horses requisitioned for their troop!’ Thomas protested.
    Geoffrey snorted again, unconvinced. He’d be delighted to see soldiers hanged for horse-stealing: his family had lost most of their own stock. He only had his mare and the gelding because he’d been using them when