Magic Below Stairs Read online

  “That I can do.” With satisfaction, Frederick gazed at the expanse of freshly scrubbed floor all around them. “We’re nearly finished.”

  “Finished here, maybe. We are to clean the still room next.” Bess pointed to the far corner of the laundry. “Clarence, you’ve missed a spot.”

  Something cold seemed to squeeze Frederick’s stomach as memories of darkness and hunger returned. “The still room? You have one here?”

  “Of course we do. Every proper household has a still room,” Bess declared. “Where else do you make potions and lotions and things that smell good?”

  “What do you mean?” Frederick could not conceal his confusion. “The still room is where you have to be still. That’s where they lock you up for punishment.”

  Bess and Clarence regarded Frederick in silence. They exchanged a wordless look of concern. Then Clarence took Frederick’s hand as Bess said, “I’ll show you.”

  Still holding his scrub brush, Frederick let Clarence lead him as they trailed after Bess. Down the corridor and around a corner, they came to a spacious, well-lit room furnished with shelves and a worktable. In every corner hung bunches of dried herbs. Fascinating smells came from the bottles and crocks, all neatly ranked and labeled, on every side.

  “This is a proper still room,” said Bess. “I don’t know what sort of carryings-on there were at that orphanage of yours, but in a proper still room, things are distilled and preserved.”

  Frederick looked around, marveling. “No beetles.”

  “I should hope not!” Bess’s sharp eyes were already measuring the task before them. “Clarence, fetch us the bucket.”

  3

  IN WHICH FREDERICK LEAVES HIS WORK UNFINISHED

  Working hard came easily to Frederick. He did as he was told. He used his head about the things he wasn’t told. Before long, Frederick’s readiness to work wore Fan’s suspicions away. The laundress grew used to Frederick and began to give him orders. Lots of orders. Frederick ran upstairs and down with folded stacks of clean linen and armfuls of dirty linen. He carried messages and delivered orders for supplies. Fan needed not just soap but starch and washing blue to do her work properly.

  One day when Frederick was sent to the chemist’s to fetch an order, he was kept waiting a long time—long enough to notice a sheet almanac posted on the wall. By the time the order was ready, Frederick had worked out from the calendar that it must be the twentieth of April. That meant it was the day after his eleventh birthday. He was sure about the date because it had been listed in the orphanage registry. Vardle had helped him find it out. The cook had taken great pride in telling Frederick all about his adventures back in 1809, feeding the Royal Navy when Frederick was only a squalling infant.

  “I’m eleven,” Frederick told Bess, on his return with the washing blue he’d been sent for. “I was eleven years old yesterday.”

  “Many happy returns,” said Bess. “Fan, yesterday was Frederick’s birthday.”

  At first, Fan only grumbled over the quality of the washing blue he had brought her, but when she had it put safely away among her supplies, Fan told Frederick, “When Kimball lets you have your next change of linen, give me that shirt and I’ll clean and press it for you. I’ll show you how to tie your cravat properly as well. It’s a disgrace the way you wear it now. You might as well tie a great bandage around your neck.”

  A few days later, Mr. Kimball gave Frederick a second shirt and two more white cravats along with an advance on his first quarter’s wages. Frederick took Fan up on her offer, and she washed and ironed his shirt for him.

  “You want to use the smoothing iron like this,” Fan instructed as Frederick watched her press his clean cravat. She folded the crisp fabric so that only the center section was the full width. Each end was made long and narrow when she folded the fabric in thirds and pressed the edges sharp.

  “Now, stand up straight.” Fan stood behind Frederick and placed the center of the cravat against his Adam’s apple, wrapping the cravat ends around so they crossed at the back of his neck, and then draping them so they hung down in front of him. “Hold it in place for me. One finger will do. Now, look at the ceiling.”

  Fan showed Frederick how she wanted him to keep the cloth still while she walked around in front of him and studied the fall of the fabric. “Keep your chin up, no matter what happens. This is the tricky bit,” she told him. Then, without fumbling or hesitation, she seized the two ends and knotted them deftly under Frederick’s chin. She did something to the ends to tuck them in neatly, then stood back and studied the result.

  “Drop your chin,” Fan ordered. “That’s right. Look at me.”

  Frederick brought his gaze down from the ceiling to Fan’s critical inspection. He felt as if he might be choking.

  “You’ll do,” said Fan at last. “Mind, if I had to adjust it, I’d take the whole thing off and start again with a fresh cravat. You can’t make a bad sauce good by adding more eggs. Once they curdle, you must throw the whole lot out and start fresh.”

  “Is this thing supposed to be strangling me?” Frederick managed to ask.

  “Are you suffering for fashion? You’ll get used to it,” Fan said heartlessly. “Next time you’re upstairs, use a looking glass. Once you see how fine it makes you look, you’ll be after me for lessons.”

  Frederick knew better than to argue. The next opportunity that came, he looked himself over in the first mirror he found. The cravat did make him look more elegant, but he didn’t think it could be quite right, wearing so much fabric wrapped around his neck. It looked like someone had tried to cut off his head and then fasten it back on with bandages.

  That night, when Frederick unwound his cravat and readied the clean one he would put on next morning, he used the smoothing iron to duplicate the folds Fan had made. He did his best to copy her work, but next morning, somehow it looked different. The ends were a trifle more narrow, the edges a trifle more crisp.

  Frederick tied his cravat with care, and even though it was not quite a duplicate of the fashion Fan had shown him, it felt better around his neck and looked far neater. He could breathe and turn his head freely. When next he studied himself in the looking glass, he discovered that he looked as elegant as any footman, not bandaged at all.

  Frederick’s first glimpse of his employer came when he was scrubbing floors near the forbidden workroom. He was scraping at a stubborn spot when the door opened behind him and slammed shut.

  “Confound it! Kate, have you seen my sealing wax?”

  Frederick turned to look and froze in place so he wouldn’t be noticed. He knew without being told that he was looking at his employer. Who else would dare use the workroom?

  The wizard marched away, but even from behind Frederick could see the man was stocky, and much too short to be a stately butler or even a fashionable footman. He didn’t look a bit like a wizard. He was mumbling to himself wildly and running his hands through his hair, making it stand on end, as if he were some sort of a madman.

  As Frederick watched him go, the wizard called out again. “Kate!”

  From around the corner, a lady in a beautiful pink gown joined him. Her dark hair was twisted up in a complex knot at the back of her head, but the smudge of ink on her nose rather spoiled the elegant effect. She took the wizard’s arm as if joining him for a stroll. “Of course I haven’t, Thomas. I have my own, after all. Would you care to use some of mine?”

  “I don’t know. Is it red?” The pair of them turned the corner and Frederick went back to work. It was a great relief. Wizards were nothing like what he’d expected. His employer was just like anyone else, only rich.

  Nearly every day, Frederick learned a new skill as he went about his work. Under the watchful eyes of Mr. Kimball and of Mrs. Dutton the housekeeper, Frederick had learned how to dust. The very first thing to know about dusting turned out to be wash your hands.

  “Use plenty of soap when you scrub your hands,” Mrs. Dutton commanded. “I won’t have nice th
ings made nasty by prints from greasy fingers. Clean and trim your fingernails while you are about it. You’re not a gardener, after all. Let the dirt go.”

  Mrs. Dutton ordered Frederick to start at the top and work downward, told him when to use the duster and when to employ the whisk broom, and set him to work.

  Frederick’s favorite part of his job was dusting and waxing and polishing the furniture. The wood carvings seemed almost grateful for the beeswax polish he rubbed in with fingertips and cloth. The beeswax was scented with lavender, and in the quiet of the drawing room, the clean smell of it filled Frederick with peace.

  Sometimes it was so quiet, all Frederick heard was the ticking of the tall clock in the corner, the one it was Mr. Kimball’s duty to wind.

  Sometimes it was so peaceful, Frederick felt he might be dreaming. Sometimes his ears buzzed a little, so that he almost thought he heard dry leaves rustling. There were no leaves to be found, of course, nor anything else in the room to explain the noise, but when Frederick heard that sound, he felt an odd sense of companionship, as if someone friendly was nearby, just out of sight. Sometimes, at his dreamiest, Frederick even thought he detected a low humming, as if there were bees about. Embroidered bees to go with the embroidered flowers, he told himself, and laughed.

  After polishing furniture, Frederick’s favorite task was cleaning knives. Sometimes he was even permitted to sharpen a few of the knives Mr. Grant the cook used. Mr. Grant was as different from Vardle as the food he prepared was different from orphanage food. At the orphanage, what little they were given to eat was usually cold and often tasted bad. At Schofield House, even in the servants’ hall, the food was so good that sometimes Frederick wanted to sing.

  Jolly round Vardle had taken pride in everything he cooked. Even if it could scarcely be scraped out of the pot, he was pleased with his work. “Fit for the Royal Navy,” he would say. Skinny Mr. Grant, on the other hand, was as stern as a judge about what came out of his kitchen. Often grumpy over flaws no one else could find in the food he prepared, Mr. Grant made sure everything he cooked was the best he could make it. When he praised Frederick for the way he sharpened the knives, Frederick was proud. He knew he must have done his work perfectly.

  The only tasks Frederick truly disliked were emptying chamber pots and blacking boots. Even though he disliked blacking boots, he did it beautifully, for Frederick knew the first rule of polishing. It worked for boots just as it did for anything else. Before one could even begin, the boots must be clean. Handling the blacking was a dirty job, and it always took a long time to buff the leather to the proper perfect shine.

  One wet night, Frederick sat by the laundry room fire, cleaning mud off a pair of Lord Schofield’s leather boots. Lord Schofield must have visited a very low part of town, for the filth caked on the leather smelled dreadful. Frederick knew that the best way to deal with mud was to wait for it to dry, but this mud would not be dry by morning, when the boots would be called for. No, it was scrub and oil for him.

  First Frederick used saddle soap to clean the boots and then neat’s-foot oil to keep the leather from cracking after it had dried. By the time he was finished, his fingers stung, and the boots, although clean, still needed to be polished before they were returned to Lord Schofield’s valet, Piers. Frederick set the clean boots beside the fire to dry a bit more before he started with the blacking and buffing, but the long day caught up with him. His task only half done, Frederick dozed off.

  Somewhere far into the night, Frederick woke confused. It took him a moment to remember why he was sleeping beside the hearth instead of in his own straw bed. When at last the memory of his unfinished task came back to him, Frederick looked around for the boots. To his surprise, Lord Schofield’s boots were right beside him, ready and waiting. Close examination showed Frederick that the boots were not only perfectly clean and perfectly dry, inside and out, but they had been polished with such care that the gloss of the leather rivaled a looking glass.

  For a moment, as he inspected the boots, a soft rustle that was almost, but not quite, the sound of a breeze moving dry leaves, filled the room. Frederick dropped the boots and gazed wildly around. The rustling stopped. Nothing was there to account for the sound.

  Nowhere did Frederick find a hint to tell him who had done his work for him. Even his buffing rags and boot brushes were dry, untouched by any signs of recent use.

  Frederick put more coal on the fire and sat between the hearth and the boots for the rest of the night, but he could not reason out what had happened.

  First thing in the morning he delivered the boots to Lord Schofield’s valet, Piers, and spent the rest of his time scrubbing the laundry floor. He asked Fan, Bess, Clarence, and everyone else he encountered, about the polished boots. No one knew a thing about it.

  “You did it in your sleep,” said Bess. “Clarence used to walk in his sleep something chronic.”

  Clarence just shook his head and went on scrubbing the floor.

  “How could I have done it in my sleep?” Frederick showed Bess his hands, chapped but clean, front and back. “Wouldn’t my hands show the boot blacking?”

  “Must have been a brownie did it then,” said Bess. “Mind you don’t thank him, or he will run away and never come back.”

  “No brownies or hobgoblins here,” said Fan. “Even if his lordship wasn’t more than a match for such things, his mother would never have stood for such doings in her household. I’ve known folk who had the brownie in their house plug the chimney with a feather pillow it hauled into its nest. Worse than badgers, they can be. Worse than bats, even.”

  “Badgers and bats, my Sunday hat,” said Bess. “Those boots were polished, weren’t they? Someone did it. It wasn’t a ghost.”

  “Someone did it,” agreed Fan, “and all in good time we’ll find out who it was.”

  The next night, Frederick lay wondering in the dark. For the first time in a long time, he thought about the dream he’d had in the orphanage kitchen, the deep soft voice counting out the peas and beans. Had there been a voice the night before, a deep drowsy voice? Had that voice said something about corn and rye? Frederick fell asleep still wondering. Somewhere in the night, it came back to him, no dream at all, but the clear memory of a deep voice. “Peas and beans, corn and rye. Who can work like Billy Bly?”

  4

  IN WHICH FREDERICK MEETS HIS FIRST WIZARD

  Next morning, the summons came. Mr. Kimball came looking for Frederick and when he found him, seized him by the ear. “You are wanted in the drawing room. Lord Schofield wishes to ask you some questions. You will tell him what he desires to know. You will tell him at once, do you understand?”

  Frederick had to balance on the very tips of his toes to ease the pain in his ear. “Yes, sir! Right away, sir!” As Mr. Kimball hauled him along, Frederick examined his conscience and his fingernails, but he couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong. Nothing, that is, except fall asleep with his work half done. Could that be a bone-grinding offense?

  Lord Schofield dismissed Mr. Kimball with a gesture and Frederick found himself alone in the drawing room with his employer.

  “You’re Frederick Lincoln? From the orphanage?” The wizard stood before the window. The light behind him made it hard to see his expression.

  “Yes, my lord. Mr. Kimball engaged me, my lord,” Frederick replied, mouth so dry with fear his lips tried to stick together when he said the m’s.

  Lord Schofield paced to the far end of the room and returned. When he paused to study Frederick, Frederick had his first good look at his employer’s face. Lord Schofield did not seem any more like a lord than he did like a wizard. He had dark eyes and dark hair, but that was not unusual. So did Frederick. He still looked exactly like anybody else, well dressed, but no dandy. The only unusual things about him were his waistcoat, which was vivid blue silk embroidered with a pattern of peacock feathers, and the sharpness of his eyes.

  “Have you brought anything with you from the orphanage?�
�� Lord Schofield asked at last. “Any luggage?”

  Frederick made himself speak plainly despite his nerves. “Didn’t have nothing—” He caught himself. “I mean, I had nothing to bring, my lord.”

  “Nothing whatever?” Lord Schofield looked keenly interested. “Not even a hat? A pair of gloves? A family keepsake of some kind, perhaps?”

  “Don’t have family keepsakes when you’re an orphan.” Frederick felt pinned by Lord Schofield’s gaze and found it took all his resolve to look steadily back.

  The wizard’s sharp eyes didn’t waver. “Silly of me. Of course you don’t. What do you have?”

  “Mr. Kimball let me wear the suit of livery he had me put on, my lord,” Frederick replied. “He engaged me because he thought it fit me best.”

  “Just so. Unlike so many, you know how to wear a cravat. Rare in someone your age. Of any age, come to that. Commendable.” Lord Schofield tugged at the cravat tied around his own neck and cleared his throat. “Tell me about this orphanage. How did you come to be there?

  “It all happened before I can remember, so I only know what I’ve been told,” said Frederick. “The orphanage at Lincoln’s Inn is much the same as any other orphanage, I am sure. I was sent there when me mum—my mother—died having my baby sister. My baby sister died too.”

  Lord Schofield looked grave. “No other family?”

  Frederick shook his head.

  “What of your father?”

  “Don’t know as I had ever one, my lord. Will that be all, my lord?”

  “No, it will not be all.” Lord Schofield gazed piercingly at Frederick, as if he were trying to see right through him. “I wish to ask you to assist me with an experiment. Do you have any objection?”

  “What sort of experiment?” Frederick asked, then coughed and added hastily, “I mean, no, my lord. No objection, that is.”