Never a Road Without a Turning (2 page)

“Sweet boy. Do ye even know why?” Maud cupped his chin as she spoke, and the tightness in his throat increased.

Pip put his free hand over hers and gave it a gentle squeeze before pulling it away from his face. “Once more, Maud. That’s all I need. One more village, one more change of scenery, and I’ll be right as rain when I next come ’ome. Ye’ll see,” he assured her. He knew it was a lie even as he said it, but he didn’t want her to worry.

Maud’s lips twisted into a long-suffering smile. She drew her hands from his and tapped his nose with her finger. “Once more is all ye’ll be getting’ from us, lamb. Ye mind that now. Master Carey and Master Carruthers won’t be writing any more letters for ye. Nor will I or any of the rest of the staff. Ye only got this job because Mr. Myers knows that housekeeper’s husband and wrote ye a recommendation against ’is better judgment. We won’t be ’aving ye ruin our good names anymore with yer wicked ways.”

Pip kept his snort of laughter to himself but only just. Maud had started her life as a whore. Mr. Carey, though he appeared as fine and upstanding a gentleman as could be, had spent years as a smuggler with Maud’s husband, Stubbs, on the coasts of Cornwall. And all the servants in the house were unwed mothers Maud had rescued from London’s streets—the many children running about the farm, their bastards. Not even including Pip’s sordid history, if ever there were a house where “wicked ways” and “good names” shouldn’t be mentioned, it was here.

And yet appearances and reputation counted more than truth in the country. He was smart enough to know that. Mr. Carey had spent a great deal of time and effort establishing them as a respectable household while Pip had spent far too much time doing the opposite. So perhaps the time had come to settle down and behave himself. If only he knew what he should settle
for
.

The sound of the front door closing and footsteps in the main hall brought an end to whatever else Maud might have said on the subject. Master Carey and Master Carruthers were back from their ride. Maud needed to see to their afternoon tea, and Pip should go to the stables to help with the horses and pitch in wherever else he could until he set off on his next adventure.

Maud sighed heavily as she stood and smoothed her hands down her pristine apron. “If ye think ye’ll find whatever it is ye’r lookin’ for in Keswick, then go with me blessin’. Just promise ye’ll come back, love. I miss ye dearly when ye’r gone… and the children as well.”

Pip stood and kissed her cheek. “I promise.”

That vow he could easily keep. He might be restless at the farm, but it would always be home as long as his family of choice was there. He would always come back.

September, 1826

Keswick, Cumberland

P
IP
STARTED
his day at Greer Cottage the same as he had every other in the two months since he’d come to Keswick. At dawn, the singularly unpleasant voice of Mrs. Applethwaite, the housekeeper, screeched at him through his door, rousing him from his soft, warm bed and demanding he quit lazing about and get to work. Pip, in his turn, grumbled and called the woman unflattering names under his breath. But still he crawled from beneath the linens and washed in the icy water from the basin and ewer atop his plain wooden dresser—the only piece of furniture in his tiny room other than the bed. After as quick a wash as he could manage, he pulled on his thick wool waistcoat, jacket, and trousers over the coarse linen shirt and drawers he’d slept in, then left his room in his stocking feet, and padded down the cramped and dark hall to the kitchen.

From there, however, he’d been forced to change his routine over the last fortnight. Instead of joining the housekeeper and her husband in breaking their fast, as he had done for the first month and a half, Pip now crept as silently as possible through the kitchen to the back door. Quiet as a mouse, using every ounce of skill he’d acquired during his misspent childhood plying the buzman’s trade in Rat’s Castle, Pip tiptoed through the kitchen. Snatching a slice of bread from the board and a steaming bowl of porridge out from under Mr. Applethwaite’s snoring nose might not be as much of a challenge as picking pockets, but Mrs. Applethwaite was as fierce as any constable Pip had ever dodged.

Breakfast in hand, he continued to the door, grabbed his boots from where Mrs. Applethwaite’s edicts had consigned them, and slipped outside without so much as a stirring of the air to mark his passing. Once in the open air and away from the housekeeper, Pip breathed a sigh of relief, tugged on his boots without bothering to lace them, and headed across the muddy yard to a quiet corner in the barn where he could break his fast in peace.

Mrs. Applethwaite would notice his absence and the missing food soon enough. But Pip would already be hard at work by that time, and she’d have to dirty her boots and the hems of her skirts if she wanted to give him an earful without interrupting his chores. He’d had to endure the woman’s hysterics ever since she’d received the letter announcing their master’s impending arrival. She carried on like a fishwife all day long, chasing after Pip, and finding more and more work to add to his already impressive duties. In the end, Pip had had no choice but to avoid her at all costs or find himself worked into an early grave. Sheer self-preservation led to his return to guile and thievery—or at least that’s what he told his conscience whenever it tried to raise its thin and querulous little voice.

When Maud had originally spoken to him about the position, it had been with the understanding that his duties would revolve around the care of a single horse, a cow, and chickens, as well as a few odd chores that Mrs. Applethwaite and her husband couldn’t manage on their own. Only after his arrival did he learn those few odd chores entailed nearly everything under
Mr.
Applethwaite’s charge, for the man was always ailing and rarely left his comfortable chair by the fire—or his bottle of Old Tom. But Maud’s warnings were clear. Pip believed her when she said he’d receive no more recommendations. So he had no choice but to accept his lot or go crawling back to Penrith, for forever this time.

At first, Pip hadn’t actually minded. With only the three of them, he was not taxed by the work. He didn’t enjoy being idle, and they left him to himself most of the day. In fact, if things had stayed as they were—and Mr. Applethwaite had parted with even a little tipple of gin every now and again—Pip would have been fairly content with his lot. But now with the housekeeper on him all hours of the day and her husband, the stingy old sod, guarding his bottle like his wife guarded her clean floors, they left Pip with all the hard labor and sober as a vicar to boot.

Suffering, thy name is Pip.

He tugged his jacket a little tighter around his neck and scooped warm porridge into his mouth with the slice of bread as he wiggled his frozen toes in his boots. His stockings were worn thin since Mrs. Applethwaite forbade him to wear his boots in her kitchen. Soon he’d need to buy some house slippers and new stockings as well with the meager amount he’d managed to set by from his wages.

“Tisn’t fair,” he groused into the empty air.

Pip shivered and sighed dramatically, pouting, though no one other than the horse and Molly, the cow, was there to appreciate the picture he made. He was saving all his blunt for the fancy russet waistcoat he admired through the tailor’s shop window in the village. The waistcoat matched his auburn curls to perfection, and he’d spent many an hour daydreaming about the figure he’d cut wearing it—and the attention he’d get from the village girls. Now, if he bought the things he truly needed, the waistcoat would probably be long gone before he could save enough again to buy it.

Pip sighed once more over his loss, and the horse nickered back, making him smile. “Laugh all ye want, ’orse. But it were a pretty waistcoat, and I’m sure there ain’t a man in the village who’d ’ave worn it better.”

What did it matter anyway?

Tucked away at the cottage, he wouldn’t have much opportunity to wear something so fine. No one would see him in it but the horse, Molly, the housekeeper and her husband, and perhaps a few of the village chits when he was sent for supplies. Every one of them—except perhaps the girls—would think he’d lost his bleedin’ mind wasting his blunt on a bit of vanity. Agnes might have appreciated it but Agnes preferred him without any clothes at all, so crying over the loss of it would do no good.

Pip downed the rest of his breakfast quickly and set the bowl aside. Ignoring the screeching from the kitchen door that signaled Mrs. Applethwaite had finally discovered his theft and his absence, he tied his boots and then set to work on the duties for which he’d actually been retained, knowing it would be some time before Mrs. Applethwaite worked up enough of a temper to willingly venture through the mud to find him. Pip hoped to be mostly through with his duties in the barn by then and free to run away if need be.

He rushed through his morning chores as much to keep warm as any other reason. Some days, he doubted he’d ever become fully accustomed to the cold of the lake country, and he very much feared his wool jacket would not be enough protection, come winter. But he could ill afford the expense of a new coat, and he sighed heavily again as the pretty waistcoat moved further and further from his grasp. A job as a clerk didn’t seem so unpalatable as it had only a couple of months ago. But Pip always felt that way when winter came, and then spring would show her lovely face again, and he’d be anxious to return to the open air.

When he had seen to Molly and the chickens, Pip filled a couple of buckets from the well. He slunk in and out of Mrs. Applethwaite’s kitchen, unnoticed as before, and left the buckets in the corner by the door for her to find while she bustled in front of the kitchen fire, all unaware. After that, Pip stacked more wood within easy reach of the door, fetched the pail of milk he’d taken from Molly that morning, and left it beside the water.

Mrs. Applethwaite was now thumping about somewhere in the house, so Pip took the opportunity to snatch a little more for his breakfast while Mr. Applethwaite continued to snore quietly by the fire. The man had more hairs bristling out of his ears and his bulbous red nose than he had on his head, and Pip was momentarily distracted watching them shiver and dance with his rumbling exhalations. Pip had almost finished with his second heel of bread and the apple he’d snatched when the housekeeper’s heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. He took one last longing look at the bottle by Mr. Applethwaite’s feet before he hurried outside again.

The autumn sun had broken through the mist in the yard, and Pip smiled in triumph as he closed his eyes and turned his face up to it. Not only had he managed to avoid Mrs. Applethwaite for the entire morning, but now nothing stood between him and seeing to his favorite duty of all. He hurried to the gray stone and thatched-roofed barn and saddled the horse quickly. Mrs. Applethwaite called for him as he led the horse through the gate, but Pip pretended not to hear. He mounted as soon as he was able and rode off without a backward glance. Exercising the horse was the only true joy he had at that lonely stone cottage, and he wouldn’t be kept from it for anyone, especially not now when the master was due to arrive at any moment and would more than likely take the pleasure for himself.

The horse didn’t have a name. Pip would have named the magnificent creature the very instant he met him, something like Titan or Samson to match his grandeur. But Mrs. Applethwaite insisted the prize gelding was a present to their master from his brother, Sir Edward James McNalty,
baronet
, and their master alone had the right to name him.

By now, Pip had lost count of the number of times Mrs. Applethwaite mentioned that their master’s brother was a baronet. Pip supposed he should have been as proud as she to be employed by such a lofty family, but having spent many years under the patronage and in the employ of Master Carey, whose brother was a
viscount
, Pip had lost some of the awe he might once have felt for the highborn. They only ever treated him like dirt under their feet—except Mr. Carey that is. And Mr. Carey was living proof that blue blood didn’t mean a man’s conscience and hands were any cleaner than Pip’s. A man’s deeds and character spoke more clearly of his worth than anything else. If only the rest of the world saw it the same way.

As Pip rode over the fells to his favorite spot, high above the village of Keswick, he forgot all about the duties and the tongue-lashing he would
receive on his return. The sky above was clear and beautiful.
Derwentwater to the south sparkled in the sun like shards of glass. The air carried only hints of loam, coal, and wood smoke. And Pip sat astride the most magnificent beast he’d ever been allowed to ride. For those few short moments each day, it didn’t matter that he was born a street wretch and a bastard. On the back of that horse, he was the equal of any man. He owned the world and no one could make him feel any less a man.