Chapter 7
7
Eliza
February 5, 1791
I woke to a pain in my belly unlike any I had felt before. I placed my hands underneath my night shift and pressed my fingers into my skin. Beneath them, my skin felt warm and swollen, and I clenched my teeth as a dull ache began to spread itself wide.
It was not the same bellyache I might have had after too many sweets, or after spinning ’round in the summer garden with the fireflies back home. This ache was lower, like I needed to relieve myself. I rushed over to my chamber pot, but the heaviness still did not go away.
Oh, but what an important task lay ahead of me! The most important one my mistress had ever given me. It was more important than any dish I had scoured, or pudding I had baked, or envelope I had sealed. I could not disappoint her by saying I did not feel well and would like to stay in bed. Those excuses might have worked on the farm with my parents on a day when the horses needed brushing or the beans were ready to be plucked from their stalks. But not today, not in the towering brick house belonging to the Amwells.
Wiggling out of my night shift and walking to the washbasin, I resolved to ignore the discomfort. As I washed, as I tidied my garret room and as I stroked the nameless fat tabby cat who slept at the end of my cot, I whispered quietly to myself, as though saying it aloud made it more believable: “This morning, I will give him the poisonous eggs.”
The eggs. They remained nestled in the jar of ash, tucked into the pocket of my gown hanging near the bed. I removed the jar and pulled it to my chest, the coolness of the glass reaching me even through my nightgown. As I clutched the jar more tightly, my hands did not shake, not one bit.
I was a brave girl, at least about some things.
Two years ago at the age of ten, I rode with my mother from our small village of Swindon to the great, sprawling city of London. I had never been to London and had heard only rumors of its filth and its wealth. “An inhospitable place for people like us,” my father, a farmer, had always muttered.
But my mother disagreed. Privately, she would tell me of London’s bright colors—the golden steeples of the churches, the peacock blues of the gowns—and of the many peculiar shops and stores in the city. She described exotic animals wearing waistcoats, their handlers ushering them through the city streets, and market stands selling hot almond-cherry buns to a line of customers three dozen deep.
For a girl like me, surrounded by livestock and wild shrubs bearing little more than bitter fruit, such a place was unthinkable.
With four older brothers to help on the farm, my mother had insisted on finding a placement for me in London once I reached the proper age. She knew if I did not leave the countryside at a tender age, I would never see a life outside the pastures and pigpens. My parents had argued about it for months, but my mother would not relent, not even a bit.
The morning of my departure was a tearful, tense one. My father hated to lose two good hands on the farm; my mother hated the separation from her youngest child. “I feel as though I’m slicing off a piece of my heart,” she sobbed, smoothing out the lap quilt she’d just placed into my case. “But I will not let it doom you to a life like mine.”
Our destination was the servant’s registry office. As we rode into town, my mother leaned close, the sadness in her voice now replaced with exhilaration. “You must begin where life has slotted you,” she said, gripping my knee, “and move upward from there. There is nothing wrong with starting as a scullery maid or housemaid. Besides, London is a magickal place.”
“What do you mean by magickal, mother?” I’d asked, my eyes wide as the city began to come into view. The day was clear and blue; already, I imagined the calluses on my hands growing smaller.
“I mean that you can be anything you want in London,” she replied. “Nothing great awaits you in the farm fields. The fences would have kept you in, as they do the pigs and as they’ve done to me. But in London? Well, in time, if you are clever about it, you can wield your own power like a magician. In a city so grand, even a poor girl can transform into whatever she desires to be.”
“Like an indigo butterfly,” I said, thinking of the glassy cocoons I’d seen in the moorland during summer. In a matter of days, the cocoons would turn black as soot, as if the animal inside had shriveled up to die. But then, the darkness would lift, revealing the butterfly’s striking blue wings within the papery encasement. Soon after, the wings would pierce the cocoon, and the butterfly would take flight.
“Yes, like a butterfly,” my mother agreed. “Even powerful men cannot explain what happens inside a cocoon. It is magick, surely, just like that which happens inside London.”
From that moment forward, I desired to know more of this thing called magick, and I could hardly wait to explore the city in which we’d just arrived.
At the servant’s registry office, my mother stood patiently aside while a pair of women looked me over; one of them was Mrs. Amwell, in a pink satin gown and a cap bordered with lace. I could hardly keep from staring: I had never in all my life seen a pink satin gown.
Mrs. Amwell seemed to take an instant liking to me. She bent forward to speak to me, crouching low so our faces almost touched, and soon after she placed her arm around my mother, whose eyes were brimming again with tears. I was delighted when Mrs. Amwell finally took my hand in hers, walked me to the broad mahogany desk at the front of the office and asked the attendant for the papers.
As she filled in the required information, I noticed that Mrs. Amwell’s hand shook badly as she wrote, and it seemed a great effort to keep the nib of the pen steady. Her words were jagged and bent at odd angles, but it meant little to me. I had been unable to read in those days, and all handwriting looked as illegible as the next.
After a tearful goodbye with my mother, my new mistress and I took a coach to the house she shared with Mr. Amwell, her husband. I was to work first in the scullery, and so Mrs. Amwell introduced me to Sally, the cook and kitchenmaid.
In the weeks to follow, Sally minced no words: according to her, I did not know the proper way to scour a pot or how to pick roots from a potato without damaging the flesh. As she showed me the “right” way of doing things, I put up no complaint, for I enjoyed my placement with the Amwells. I had my own room in the attic, which was more than my mother had told me to expect, and from there I could watch the amusing, ever-present activity on the street below: the sedan chairs rushing past, the porters bearing enormous boxes of unseen goods, the comings and goings of a young couple who I believed newly in love.
Eventually, Sally grew comfortable with my abilities and began allowing me to assist in the preparation of meals. It felt a small movement upward, just as my mother had said, and it gave me hope; someday, I, too, hoped to be toiling about in the magnificent streets of London, in pursuit of something greater than potatoes and pots.
One morning, while I was carefully arranging dried herbs on a platter, a housemaid rushed downstairs. Mrs. Amwell wanted to see me in her drawing room. Terror struck me at once. I felt sure I had done something wrong, and I ascended the stairs slowly, held back by a sense of dread. I had been at the Amwell house not even two months; my mother would be horrified if I were dismissed in such a short time.
But when I stepped into my mistress’s pale blue drawing room and she closed the door behind me, she merely smiled and asked me to sit down next to her at her writing desk. Here, she opened a book and produced a blank sheet of paper, a pen and an inkwell. She pointed at several words in the book and asked me to write them down.
I was not comfortable holding a pen, not at all, but I pulled the page close and steadily copied the words as best I could. Mrs. Amwell watched me closely as I worked, her brow knit together, her chin in her hands. When I finished the first few words, she selected several more, and almost immediately I noticed an improvement in my own pen strokes. My mistress must have noticed it, too, for she nodded approvingly.
Next, she pushed aside the sheet of paper and lifted the book. She asked if I understood any of the words, and I shook my head. She then pointed at several of the shorter words—she, cart, plum—and explained how each letter made its own sound, and how words strung together on paper could convey an idea, a story.
Like magick, I thought. It was everywhere, if only one knew to look.
That afternoon in the drawing room was our first lesson. Our first of countless lessons, sometimes twice a day—for my mistress’s condition, which I’d first noticed at the registry office, had worsened. The tremor in her hand had grown so severe, she could no longer write her own correspondence, and she needed me to do it for her.
In time, I worked in the kitchen less and less, and Mrs. Amwell called me often to her drawing room. This was not well received by the other household staff, Sally most of all. But I didn’t worry myself over it: Mrs. Amwell was my mistress, not Sally, and I couldn’t refuse the ganache balls and ribbons and penmanship lessons by the drawing room hearth, now, could I?
It took me many months to learn to read and write, and even longer to learn how to speak like a child who had not come from the country. But Mrs. Amwell was a wonderful tutor: gentle and soft-spoken, wrapping my hand in hers to form the letters, laughing with me when the pen slipped. Any lingering thoughts of home vanished; it shamed me to admit, but I did not want to see the farm, not ever again. I wanted to remain in London, in the grandeur of my mistress’s drawing room. Those long afternoons at her writing desk, when I was burdened only by the gazes of the jealous servants, were some of my best memories.
Then something changed. A year ago, when the roundness of my face began to fall away and the edge of my bodice grew tight, I could ignore it no longer: the feeling of another gaze, a new one, and the sensation that someone watched me too closely.
It was Mr. Amwell, my mistress’s husband. He had, for reasons I could only faintly understand, begun to pay attention to me. And I felt sure my mistress sensed it, too.
It was almost time. My bellyache was not so bad anymore; moving about the kitchen seemed to help. I was grateful for it, as following Nella’s instructions would require me to be careful and steady. A slip of my hand, which might be laughed about in my mistress’s drawing room, would be very bad today.
The two smaller eggs sizzled in the pan. The fat spit onto my apron while the white edges of the egg bubbled and curled. I remained still, concentrating, and spooned the eggs from the pan when the edges reached the color of honey, just as the mistress liked. I placed her eggs on a plate, covered them with a cloth and set them far aside. I then spent a few minutes tending to the gravy, which was Nella’s suggestion.
As the gravy thickened, I realized it was the final moment to undo what I had not yet done, to strip out the thread which had not yet been sewn in. If I followed through, I would be like one of those men at Tyburn that I’d heard about at the hanging day fairs: a criminal. Gooseflesh scurried across my skin as I thought of it, and I considered briefly the idea of lying to my mistress—telling her that the poisoned egg must have been too weak.
I shook my head. Such a lie would be cowardly, and Mr. Amwell would remain alive. The plan—which Mrs. Amwell had set into motion—would fail because of me.
I wasn’t meant to be in the kitchen at all today. Last week, Sally had asked Mrs. Amwell for a few days away to visit her ailing mother. My mistress had readily approved and, afterward, called me to her drawing room for another lesson. But this lesson was not about penmanship or letter-writing; it was about the hidden apothecary shop. She told me that I was to leave a note in the bin of pearl barley just inside the door of 3 Back Alley, and that the note should specify the date and time I meant to return for the remedy—which was, of course, a deadly one.
I did not ask my mistress why she meant to harm her husband; I suspected it was because of what happened a month ago, just after the new year, when my mistress left the house and spent the day at the winter gardens near Lambeth.
That day, Mrs. Amwell had asked me to organize a pile of her letters, giving me several dozen to sort before leaving for the gardens, but I could not complete my task because of a headache. Midmorning, Mr. Amwell stumbled upon me with tears on my cheeks; the pressure behind my eyes had become almost unbearable. He insisted that I retire to my room and sleep. A few minutes later, he offered me a drink that he said would help, and I sucked down the sharp, honey-colored liquid as quickly as I could even though it made me cough and gasp. It looked like the brandy my mistress sometimes sipped from the bottle, though I could not fathom why anyone would willingly drink such a thing.
I slept away the headache in the quiet, sunny comfort of my room. Eventually, I woke to the smell of animal fat—a tallow candle—and my mistress’s cool touch on my forehead. The ache in my head had gone. Mrs. Amwell asked me how long I had been asleep, and I told her truthfully that I did not know—that I had lain down midmorning. It is now half ten at night, she told me, meaning I had slept for nearly twelve hours.
Mrs. Amwell asked if I had had any dreams. Although I shook my head, the truth was that a faint memory had begun to form, one I felt sure was a dream I’d had only a few hours ago. It was a memory of Mr. Amwell in my garret room; he had lifted the fat tabby cat from her place on my cot and set her into the corridor, then closed the door and approached me. He took a seat next to me, placing his hand on my stomach, and we began to talk. Try as I might, I could not remember what we discussed in the dream. He then began to move his hand upward, sliding it along my navel, when one of the footmen made a commotion downstairs; a pair of gentlemen had arrived, needing to speak urgently with Mr. Amwell.
I admitted this story to my mistress, but I said that I did not know whether it had been a dream or real. Afterward, she remained at my side, a concerned look on her face. She pointed at the empty brandy glass and asked if Mr. Amwell had given it to me. I told her yes. She then leaned in close and placed one of her hands on mine. “Is it the first time he has done so?”
I nodded.
“And you are well now? Nothing hurts?”
I shook my head. Nothing hurt.
My mistress eyed the glass carefully, tucked the blankets in close around me and wished me goodnight.
It was only after she had gone that I heard the soft cry of the tabby cat outside my room. She was in the corridor, mewing to be let inside.
Now, I handled each of the larger eggs like they were made of glass. It was a tricky thing, to be sure, and I had never given so much thought to the pressure with which I cracked an egg. The pan was still very hot, and the yolks began to cook almost instantly. I feared to stand too close, lest I breathe in any poisonous odors, so I tended the eggs with a long, outstretched arm, and soon my shoulder ached like it did when I used to climb trees in the country.
Once cooked, I removed the two larger eggs to a second plate. I smothered them in gravy and threw the four eggshells into the rubbish bin, straightened my apron, and—being very sure to place the poisoned eggs on the right side of the tray—I left the kitchen.
The master and mistress were already seated, engaged in a quiet discussion about an upcoming banquet. “Mr. Batford says there will be a display of sculptures,” Mrs. Amwell said. “Procured from all over the world.”
Mr. Amwell grunted in response, looking up at me as I entered the dining room. “Aha,” he said. “Here we are.”
“Beautiful things, he’s promised.” My mistress rubbed at her collarbone; where her fingers touched, the skin was red and splotchy. She seemed jittery, even though I carried the tray of poisonous eggs, and this annoyed me somewhat. She had been too scared to retrieve the eggs herself, and now she seemed unable to calm her nerves.
“Mmm-hmm,” he said to her, his eyes never leaving me. “Bring that over here. Quickly now, girl.”
Stepping close to him from behind, I lifted his plate from the right side of the tray and carefully set it in front of him. As I did so, he reached his hand behind my legs and delicately pulled the heavy fabric of my skirt upward. He ran his hand over the back of my knee and upward to my lower thigh.
“Lovely,” he said, finally pulling his hand away and lifting his fork. My leg itched where he touched it, an invisible rash beneath my skin. I stepped away from him and set the second plate in front of the mistress.
She nodded at me, her collarbone still flushed. Her eyes were sad and dark, as dim as the maroon rosettes on the papered wall behind her.
I took my place at the edge of the dining room and waited, still as stone, for what would come next.