Shall Make Her Once Relent? - Episode 4

 

The fine young Lady was not, if she was being honest, at her best just at this moment.  To start with, it was barely light.  She had experienced a less than comfortable night, sharing a bed with her maid who, despite her protestations to the contrary, most definitely DID snore!  Moreover, there seemed to be a good deal more in the way of living things in the bed, than her and her maid.  Then, before she had been asleep (as far as she was concerned, anyway) for much more than five minutes, she had been dragged out in dawn’s early light, had to wash in an ice-cold water butt, and had broken her fast with some grey, lumpy paste which may, or may not, have been a form of porridge.  This was not, to her mind, the way that days were supposed to start.

Now she was standing in the road, outside the inn where they had spent the night, looking suspiciously at the vehicle before her.

“It’s a cart!”  She announced to the world in general and her maid in particular, who was struggling to heave one of their bags onto the back of it.

“Takes a good ‘un to get owt past you, m’lady” the maid puffed as she headed back into the inn.

The young Lady peered around the cart in order to see its means of propulsion.

“It’s a bullock cart!” She announced to her maid as she puffed and panted past her with the other bag.

“Right again, missy!” The maid answered, sarcastically, “I’ll just go and get the sack with our other bits and pieces, shall I?”

“Yes, do” the young Lady agreed, absentmindedly.

The maid reappeared with the sack over her shoulder and placed it on the back of the cart with an enormous heave which nearly threw her to the floor.

“Why are you putting our things onto this cart?”  The young Lady enquired.

“Because…” the maid leaned against the cart and tried to catch her breath, “because, m’lady, this is the way we’re going to get to the next town”

“I’m not riding on a cart.  Particularly not a bullock cart!  It would not be…seemly” the young Lady stuck her chin out defiantly.

The maid sighed a deep sigh and rubbed her forehead.

“Look, lovey” she began, “we need to get to the next town so’s I can try and flog these bits and pieces of jewellery and stuff we’ve got.  Also, towns are big places with lots of people. If we’re in a town, no-one will know who we are, or even care.  Stay in a local village and, sooner or later, someone’s going to ask questions ain’t they?  We’ll stick out like a sore bum!”

“Sore thumb” the young Lady corrected, automatically.

“You have what you want to be sore, m’lady, and I’ll ‘ave what I want, alright?  Now, are we getting on this cart or what?”

“What is the alternative?”  The young Lady looked around as if expecting a coach and four to appear, miraculously.

“The alternative?” The maid rubbed her forehead again and appeared to be counting under her breath, “well, I suppose we could walk but we’d have to carry these bags an’ all, and it could take hours and hours, possibly days.  Now, if you want to walk, you’re welcome to, but me, I’ll take the cart”

“I suppose that leaves me no choice” the young Lady sulked.

“Up to you, missy, but I’d get on the cart if I were you” the maid suggested, hauling herself up in a less than ladylike fashion.

The young Lady allowed herself to be dragged up, onto the cart and sat, as primly as she could, on a hay bale.  Her face was set in an attitude of distinct displeasure.  As the cart lurched off, the maid settled herself down and sighed,

“Look, lovey, I think you and me are going to ‘ave to ‘ave a little chat about the future”

“The future?” the young Lady sniffed.

“Yeah, like the immediate future.  The next week or two, style of thing”

“In what way?”

“Well, it’s like this.  If we’re lucky, I should be able to sell some or all of them bits of jewellery for a few bob.  Probably more if we sold that ring of his Lordship’s?” The maid said, hopefully.

“I am not selling my Lord’s seal to some common trader!” the young Lady snapped.

“Well, yeah, fair enough.  Questions would definitely be asked if I tried to shift that, I suppose.  Any road, say we do sell the rest, we’ll have enough to keep us fed, watered and with a roof over our ‘eads for a few days, perhaps a week if we’re lucky”

“Is that all?”  The young Lady looked surprised.

“I’m afraid so, lovey” the maid nodded, gloomily.

“Then what?”

“Ah, now that’s what I was coming to, miss.  When the cash runs out from what we’ve sold, then we’re gonna ‘ave to find more money from somewhere else.  Which means…working” the maid waited anxiously to see how her Ladyship would respond to this news.

“Working?”  The young Lady said, eventually, “why, what will you do?”

“Oh, I can turn me ‘and to most things, lovey, don’t you worry about me!  The trouble is, what little I can earn would only keep me in food and lodging…not you an’ all”

The young Lady considered this situation for a few minutes.

“I’m a little perplexed” she admitted, after a while, “what would you have me do?”

“Well…work, m’lady” the maid took a deep breath and waited for the inevitable.

“Work?  Work? What do you mean, work?”

“You know, seek gainful employment.  Do stuff for someone else and they pay you for it, type of thing”

“I can’t do that!  I’m a Lady!” the young Lady looked horrified.

“Well, it’s that or starve in the streets, miss” the maid said, flatly.

“I would rather that than lower myself to toil like some common guttersnipe!”

“Your choice, m’Lady” the maid shrugged and settled back onto the hay bales for a doze.

“But…but…you are my servant.  You are used to work.  Why can’t you do it?”

“Like I’ve said, miss, I can’t earn enough to keep us both.  As for being your servant, that might ‘ave been the case but right now, I’m not being paid nor nothing.  In point of fact, it’s me what’s got the money and you ‘aven’t.”  The maid opened one eye and looked to see how this had gone down with her Ladyship.  She looked as if she had just trodden in something unspeakable.

“I see” she said, eventually.

“Now, don’t get me wrong, miss.  I’m very fond of you and I’m not going to see you stuck or owt but, things are different now.  If we’re going to survive, we’ve got to look out for ourselves”

“It seems to me that I’m only in this mess because of you” the young Lady said, bitterly, “if I hadn’t run away from my castle…”

“You would be dead.  Or worse” the maid confirmed.

“You don’t know that” the young Lady sniffed.

“Alright.  Go back, if that’s what you want.  It’s not far, as the crow flies, from ‘ere.  I’ll get the driver to set you down, you can take one of the bags.  Should be back there before nightfall, I reckon.  Just aim for that plume of smoke that’s still rising from the ruins” the maid pointed toward the horizon.

The young Lady looked resolutely in the opposite direction; a tear made it’s solitary journey down her cheek.  The maid sighed, and scrambled over to sit beside her.

“Look, lovey, I know it’s been ‘ard for yer.  I wish I could make it better for yer, but I can’t.  The world’s a dangerous and lonely place when you’ve got no money, and that’s where we’ll be afore long.  I know it’s not summat yer used to, but there ain’t no other way”

She held the young girl’s hand as the cart swayed and pitched along the uneven track.  Eventually,

“I don’t know what I could do?” the young Lady sniffed, miserably.

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, eh lovey?  I’m ‘ere and I’m not going away”

The maid patted the young girl’s hand.  The young Lady looked a picture of abject misery but managed a thin smile.

At the head of the cart, the bullock, or possibly the driver, passed wind loud and long.  The two passengers found themselves giggling like schoolgirls.  Somehow, it seemed appropriate.

The story of the young Lady and her maid can be followed in these preceding episodes:

She Who Would Valiant Be..."

"...'Gainst All Disaster"

"There's No Discouragement..."