Page 31 of The Cheapside Runners
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The Bennet sisters arrived at a house somewhere in London a few hours later to find that Elizabeth had already arrived. They had no idea how that worked. They had to bait the horses while perhaps Elizabeth got fresh, or possibly their horses were old and tired while the Gardiner’s were young and healthy.
They entered and were allowed to refresh themselves briefly, then they were shown to a small dining room where they were slightly surprised to find Elizabeth with Maria Lucas, the Weatherby sisters, Alicia and Jasmine, and an unknown young lady about Kitty’s age.
“Your first class starts very early tomorrow. You will not be changing for dinner. Eat now—there is just one course, then off to bed. You will be provided with clothing in the morning, and your instruction will begin.”
“Will you take the course?” Kitty asked.
“Can you imagine I have not done so already? Or that I would subject you to something I would not do myself?”
“Well… I suppose not.”
“Be easy. If you give the course your full attention and best effort, you will emerge the other side a better person with a more prosperous future than you can presently imagine. If you hang onto your present attitudes and only pretend to do the work, you will suffer for your indolence. It is not complicated.”
They all startled slightly when a large pot of what looked like stew was placed on the table with a stack of bowls and spoons by a maid who left without a word.
Elizabeth looked at Jane. “You are the eldest, so you should serve. This house does not have a plethora of servants.”
That statement confused all the ladies, as it seemed quite a decent house from what they had seen so far, but all questions were ignored.
Once they were done, Elizabeth and a maid led the ladies up to the second floor and down a long corridor.
When they arrived at their sleeping quarters, they observed them with a look of horror and confusion. The windowless rooms were eight feet on a side at best, with beds stacked one on top of another. A room smaller than their mothers’ closets was to hold at least four people. There was one chair in the middle of the room, which was apparently to be shared, but no dressing stand, no mirror, no… anything.
“This is your bedchamber for the time being. Do not ask why that is so. It is part of the course, and the reasoning will become clear over time. Change into your nightclothes and get into bed. Lights out in a half-hour.”
She enforced the point by leaving them one candle per room with only a half-hour’s wax left.
“Where are our trunks?” Jane asked.
“Clothing will be provided in the morning.”
After that, she assigned beds to the ladies, taking particular care to separate Lydia from Kitty, and Jane from Mary. Thatleft the other ladies mixed with Longbourn ladies, but the entire class was stuffed into two rooms.
None were thrilled, but each room had an elder sister who told them to quit complaining and get to bed.
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None of the ladies were thrilled to be awoken at the crack of dawn by a servant beating a pot with a wooden spoon, but it certainly was effective. The woman never introduced herself, but one look was enough to convince each lady that she was not someone to be messed about.
There was one chamber pot in each room, and a plain, dowdy dress hung on each bed, along with a plain cotton shift, short stays, and some sturdy looking boots. It looked like lower servant’s clothing at best. It was clearly not livery or anything that would be worn in the house of a gentleman. It was the kind of practical dress you might see on a milkmaid or laundress. None of the ladies liked it in the least, but since the servant who woke them looked like she would enjoy dragging them out by their ears, they dressed expeditiously.
As they shuffled out of the room, the servant pointed to each girl in turn and assigned them the duty of taking out the chamber pots, one lady for each day. Lydia was the first in her room, and the servant gave her a look indicating she would be quite happy to turn the child over her knee if she complained. She acquiesced with poor grace and found herself with Maria Lucas performing the disagreeable chore for the first time in their lives.
They entered a room with a rather rough table that looked worse than the servant’s tables at any of their homes. They found a pot of thin looking gruel and two loaves of bread. Two girls were tasked with distributing the food fairly, and everyone was cautioned that there was no hogging, no sharing, no talking, no arguing, no making faces, no noise, and most importantly, nocomplaining.
They ate quickly, were offered one more chance to refresh, and entered another parlour.
The room was stark beyond belief, and they wondered if instruction was always supposed to occur in dingy, dank, quarters. Most thought the affectation silly. They had briefly met all their classmates at the previous evening’s meal, so they all turned to meet the woman who appeared to be their instructor.
Their governess, or tutor, or gaoler was dressed for the outdoors, all in severe black, right down to a deep black, severe looking bonnet that covered most of her hair, leaving only raven black bangs covering her forehead and falling partway down her back.
Her face was slightly dark, as if she either spent a lot of time in the sun, or perhaps she was Spanish or Italian. The foreign effect was enhanced by a pair of large, gorgeous, blood red coral earrings with gold filigree. Those would have stood out in their own, but when contrasted with the severity of her attire, you could hardly look away. The contrast was further enhanced by subtle rouge on her cheeks. Her brows were dark and striking, as were her lashes.
By contrast, her expression was foreboding. She stomped into the room with an almost mannish gait, wearing what appeared to be walking or working boots. If not for the earrings, and the faint touch of rouge, one might have taken her for a rogue rather than any sort of governess. She wore leather gloves that looked thin and supple on the one hand, but rugged on the other. They were slightly discoloured as if she had stolen a gentleman’s riding gloves a decade earlier and never took them off.
She topped Lydia by half an inch, and since Lydia was the tallest of the sisters, the lady (if she even was a lady) was the tallest and fiercest woman any of them had ever seen. Shetopped it off by being noticeably wider in girth than any of them, even Alicia Weatherby, who had never seen a dessert she was unwilling to sample.
