Willow Chapter 6: Maggie and Sarah (serial novel)

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Maggie felt a foot prod into her back and sleepily tried to push it away. “Stop Seamus!”

Cook kicked her harder and said, “Should have known you’d be a lazy one. And who is Seamus?” Her arched brow gave a tinge of indecency to the question.

“My brother, ma’am,” Maggie whispered, now fully awake and sitting up in the corner of the kitchen where the governess, Rose, had spread some blankets for her.

“The privy is out back. Hurry up, we have work to do.”

Cook turned back to the large butcher block table in the center of the kitchen while Maggie slipped out into the biting wind to the servants’ privy. Once inside, the cold made it almost unbearable to lift her skirt. Yet, she was grateful that there was no line of people standing in filth as they waited their turn, as there was in the morning at the outhouses behind the tenements.

Her hand was on the side door of the house, ready to return, when Maggie paused. She thought about the fact that she did not have to go back inside, that she could slip away. It was daylight now, and it seemed Cook expected the worst from her anyhow. She could steal the one night of warmth by the fire, the hot milk that Rose had insisted she get last night, and disappear.

Yet, where could she go that was better? The streets downtown were covered in an icy slush, snow mixed with horse manure, and ash. People would be inside, or rushing to get out of the cold. It was a bad day to persuade them to stop and buy matches.

Then again, there was likely little bread anyway at the tenement room her family rented, and what little there might be should go to the young ones. Maggie did not begrudge her mother’s decision to favor the babies, just acknowledged it as a plain fact. At thirteen she was selling matches and starting to make her own way.

She had never ventured this far uptown, where country mansions on the upper West Side overlooked the Hudson, but now that she was here she shrugged. She might as well stay a bit.

Cook didn’t look up from preparing the scones when Maggie came back into the kitchen, but she gestured at the coal scuttle that sat by stairs that led down to the basement. “Took you long enough! Well let’s see if you can earn your keep. You’ll get your bread after you fetch the coal and build the fires. Start with the dining room, that’s where Miss Sarah and Rose will be having their breakfast. Then ask Rose to show you Miss Sarah’s room. She’ll be wanting it warmer before she gets out the bed.”

Maggie picked up the coal scuttle, a black pail with a hinged cover, and a small shovel, and carried them down the stairs. The small windows at the top of the basement walls, which were ground level outside, let in just enough of dim winter light for her to see the pile of coal on the floor. She opened the top of the scuttle and began to fill it with coal, hesitantly at first, then more quickly. She wanted the bread that Cook had mentioned.

Climbing back up with the heavy scuttle, she paused when she reached the top of the stairs. She was confused about what to do next, but reluctant to ask the sharp-tongued Cook.

“Well, don’t just stand there dumb,” Cook snapped after noticing her. “Go make the fire in the dining room. Or do ye not know how?”

Maggie gave the barest shake of her head. Cook sighed and wiped the flour from her hands. “Come on, then,” she said, leading the way through the butler’s pantry to the dining room. There was a polished copper bucket that held bits of wood next to the ornate stove that was inset under the marble mantle. Cook showed Maggie how to open the door, start some bits of the wood burning, then layer the coal on top without suffocating the flames.

“Now,” she said more gently, “you learning this will be a great help to me. They have me running the stairs, doing the work of maid and cook.”

Maggie poked the fire as Cook showed her to allow more air to come in under the coals, and they closed the stove door just as Rose entered the room.

“Cook, you may go back to preparing breakfast. I’ll take Maggie to Miss Sarah’s room.” Cook turned wordlessly and left, without giving Rose the satisfaction of knowing that she was glad to have a helper.

Rose addressed Maggie in her crisp way. “Follow me. Once you light the fires you may go back to the kitchen to eat.” Maggie followed her up the backstairs of the house to a small landing, then through a door to a carpeted hall.

“Mind you’re quiet when you go into Miss Sarah’s room. She’s still asleep.” They entered soundlessly and crossed the room to the stove, which if anything was a little less ornate than the one in the dining room, but still far fancier than the open coal grates Maggie had seen in the past. Maggie glanced at the girl in the four-poster bed, who was asleep between fine linen sheets.

Without talking, Rose showed Maggie how to open this stove and Maggie built the fire carefully. She blew on the tinder to make the flames jump up more strongly, before placing the coal gently piece by piece. Rose nodded approvingly and they both stood up, still without speaking or making noise. As they left the room, the girl in the bed stirred and opened her eyes, but did not say anything.

For a moment, the gaze of these two thirteen-year-old girls met across the chasm of their circumstances: A girl who was waited upon, and a girl who counted herself fortunate to shovel the coal. Then Maggie slipped back down to the kitchen for her bread.

Click here to read Willow Chapter 5: Sonia Drifts