Free The Memory Garden by Rachel Hore Page A

Under her white cap, the unruly dark hair, trained back in its bun, blended into the shadows.
    Her young rosy face above her age-pale mistress’s in the mirror looked like an illustration for a lesson on the fleeting nature of time, and clearly this struck Mrs Carey too when she opened her eyes. She stared for a moment at the contrast of mistress and maid before her and snapped, ‘That’s enough now. I’ll show you how I like it to be.’
    But as she taught Pearl how to lift, roll and pin the coils of hair into a flattering halo, she grew kind.
    ‘You’re gentle, that’s good. Joan was neat but she did pull so.’
    ‘I used to do my stepmother ’s hair,’ Pearl ventured. ‘It would calm her.’
    ‘She is ill, Cook told me. I’m sorry. How is she?’
    ‘The doctor says it could be months or only weeks. I . . . I don’t know.’
    Mrs Carey nodded sympathetically. ‘We will pray for her. We have prayers after breakfast, you’ll know. And attend church up at Paul on Sunday mornings – all of us.’ Paul was the village a couple of miles away, towards Newlyn. ‘There’s a chapel here in the village and it’s your business if you go there as well in the evening. Some here do.’
    ‘Chapel people didn’t like us selling the drink.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Carey, ‘I have to say I wasn’t sure about the inn myself, but Cook was sure you were a good girl. I expect you to prove her right.’
    Pearl raised her eyebrows in surprise as she met her mistress’s firm gaze. Aunt Dolly had always betrayed so little interest in Pearl when they met and now, it seemed, the woman must have argued her case. And yet, she thought, remembering the previous few hours, Cook seemed terse with everyone. It must be her way.
    Mrs Carey opened a blue velvet box and passed Pearl the delicate diamond choker within. As Pearl fastened it around her mistress’s neck and made small adjustments to her hair, the older woman patted the powder puff to her face one final time.
    ‘One of the artists died in the fire, I hear,’ Mrs Carey said. Pearl forced herself to carry on her task without even catching her breath. ‘Not someone Charles knew, I gather.’
    ‘Beg pardon, madam?’
    ‘My nephew is a painter, did you know?’ But before Pearl could answer there was a rap on the door. It opened and a burly middle-aged man in shirtsleeves stomped in. ‘Fix these damn cuffs, will you, my love?’ he barked at Mrs Carey, looking Pearl quickly up and down. ‘Who’s this then?’
    ‘This is the girl from Newlyn I told you about, Stephen,’ Mrs Carey explained to her husband, as she threaded a cufflink. ‘You may go now, Pearl,’ and Pearl fled.
     
    Pearl wasn’t asked to serve in the dining room that night, but to watch how it was done as she hurried back and forth for Jago and Jenna, weighed down with entrée dishes and vegetable bowls, piles of dirty plates and fistfuls of empty bottles.
    As she blew out her candle and lay on her lumpy bed waiting for sleep to overtake her, exhausted but her mind racing, the memories of the day tumbled together in her mind. The jingle of the horse’s harness, the swaying of the cart on the potholed road, the clang of kitchen pots, the rich cooking smells , the steam and heat of the kitchen, light twinkling through fine crystal, the scent of flowers, skirls of ladylike laughter , the wine on the men’s breath as she helped with the coats.
    All this was a hundred miles away from this morning, hurrying past the fish spread out on the beach, last night’s catch, men and women haggling, seagulls squabbling for scraps and the sea a brooding monster after the night’s winds, crashing on the shore.
    And yet, despite all that she had lost, she had a hope that she could be happy here in Merryn Hall, that there was kindness, beauty, and the succour of daily work to heal her.
    She felt under the bolster and her fingers closed around the little paintbox her father had given her. Then rolling over, listening to