Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [108]
The kitchen itself was enormous for a house of this size, two rooms knocked into one, either deliberately or by a rotten wall collapsing and being removed. The floor was wooden, scrubbed till the planks were worn uneven, nails in little islands humped above, grit driven into the cracks. Two large stoves were covered with a variety of cauldrons, and one kettle spouted steam, presumably to refresh Mrs. Mapes’s teapot. Beside the stoves were scuttles of coal dust and coke refuse, close enough for the spindly-armed girls to lift them and restoke. By the far wall sank sacks of grain and potatoes and a bundle of grubby cabbages. Opposite was a huge dresser decked with dishes and pans and mugs, drawers ill-fitting, papers poking out. A ball of string, partly unwound, lay on the floor. There was a half wrapped parcel on the kitchen table, and a pair of scissors. Above them, winched to the ceiling, was an airing rail, hung with all manner of ragged clothes and linen collecting the kitchen smells.
There were three more girls working at various chores; one at the sink peeling potatoes, one stirring a cauldron of gruel on the stove, the third on her hands and knees with a dustpan. None of them could have been more than fourteen—the youngest looked more like ten or eleven. Obviously the establishment was intended to cater to a considerable number of people on a regular basis.
“How many more are there of you?” he asked before Mrs. Mapes could catch up with him. He could hear her skirt swishing and rattling behind him.
“I dunno,” a white-faced girl whispered. “There’s all them little ones, the babes. They comes and goes, so I dunno.”
“Shush!” the oldest warned fiercely, her eyes black with fear.
Pitt did all he could to keep his expression from betraying him. Now he knew what this place was, but he was helpless to change it. And if he showed his fury, pity, or disgust, he would only make it worse. Nature fueled the need and poverty necessitated the answer.
“What do yer want in ’ere, Mr. Pitt?” Mrs. Mapes demanded from behind him, her voice shrill. “Ain’t nothin’ ’ere as ’as ter do wiv you!”
“No, nothing at all,” he agreed grimly, without moving. There was no point at which he could even begin, let alone accomplish anything. He would do more harm by starting, and yet he was loath to leave.
“’Ow much?” she asked.
“What?” He had no idea what she was talking about. His eyes roamed over the cauldrons: gruel, easy and cheap for the children, potatoes to fill out a stew with no meat.
“’Ow much did Mrs. March remember me wiv?” she said impatiently. “You said as she remembered me!”
He looked at the floor and the large wooden table. They were unusually clean—that at least was something in her favor. “I don’t know. I expect it will be sent to you.” It would depend on what he could persuade out of his superiors. He might even forget it altogether.
“Ain’t you got it?”
He did not answer. If he did he would have no excuse to remain, and there was something at the back of his mind that held him here, a sense that there was meaning, if only he could find it.
What could Sybilla March possibly have wanted with this woman? A child taken for a maidservant in trouble? It seemed the only reasonable thing. Was it worth pursuing, following to Sybilla’s house and seeing if any maid there had been unaccountably absent, perhaps due to a confinement? Did it matter? Life was full of such domestic tragedies, girls who had to earn their livings and could not afford to keep a child born out of wedlock. And servants hardly ever married, precisely for that reason; they lived in their masters’ houses, where there was no room for families.
Mrs. Mapes’s voice grated behind him. “Then yer’d best be abaht yer business, an’ leave me ter mine!”
He turned slowly, looking over the room for a last time. Then he realized what it was that held him: the parcel—the brown paper parcel on the kitchen table, half tied, next to the scissors. He had seen that