MATILDA AT DYMOCK MANOR
CHAPTER 1: ARRIVAL
The sun had set when the farmers' cart dropped Matilda off at the gates of Dymock Manor. The long gravel drive up to the imposing mansion stretched out in the darkness, with the first stars glimmering through the cloud cover. The cart clattered away, taking its load of hay and apples back to the farm, leaving her along. She pulled her thin shawl around her shoulders, shivering slightly in the oncoming chill, and blinked back the tears in her eyes. She had promised herself she wouldn't cry.
She set off up the drive.
As her worn, rough shoes crunched the gravel, her stomach rumbled. It had been weeks since she had eaten properly. Once father had died, mother had no choice but to sell the family farm. It had been snapped up by their neighbour, Mr Jones, and now her mother was working as his maidservant for a couple of pennies a month and a bed in the stable eaves. Matilda had hoped to stay on: she had offered to work any job on the farm, to do anything Mr Jones wanted if she could stay with her mother. But when her mother had come back from making that offer to Mr Jones, she had been tight lipped and angry.
"There's no way a daughter of mine is performing the kinds of tasks Mr Jones was asking for, Matilda. No, sir. You may be eighteen now, but you'll be married before God before you let any man at you in that way," she blustered, crossing herself.
Matilda didn't quite know what her mother meant by this. She knew, ever since she had first flowered, that the menfolk looked at her differently. Her shapely breasts, thin waist and even her apple-shaped behind all gave them a kind of hungry look. Whilst father had been alive, she had felt safe. But now...she wasn't so sure. Mother told her not to trust men, who would take her honour as soon as look at her. Matilda didn't know where her honour was kept, but resolved to keep it safe and not to trust any of the men on the farm.
And so, the morning after Farmer Jones's mysterious proposal, she was packed off across the county to Dymock Manor on the back of the farm cart, a curling page from the local gazette tucked into her smock. "Maidservants wanted," the advertisement read. "Obedience of more importance than experience." The advertisement said to ask for the housekeeper, Mrs Smyth.
Matilda has always been a good girl. She always did what she was told. She had spent most of her eighteen years on the farm, and had never been beyond the village before - but now she was forty miles from home, approaching Dymock Manor, to start her new life in service.
When she reached the house, she made her way round to the servant's entrance, and knocked timidly on the door. Footsteps approached, and the door opened onto a dimly lit hallway. A tall, thin man stood there, a sneering expression on his face. He looked at Matilda's upturned face as though she was something unpleasant on the bottom of his shoe.
"Yes?" he said, impatiently.
"P-please Sir," stammered Matilda. "I'm here for Mrs Smyth. The Gazette said she was wanting a maid." She held out the page with the advertisement. He took it between finger and thumb, inspecting it as though it were something repellent.
"Wait here," he snapped, and shut the door in her face.
Matilda stood there, shocked and frightened. What if this was the wrong place? What if the position had been filled? Where would she go? What would she do? She had a ha'penny to her name, and that wouldn't get her very far at all.
The door opened again. A stern-looking woman of about sixty stood there, framed in the doorway. She was dressed all in black, her slate-grey hair pulled back tight from her lined face. A bunch of impressive keys hung at her waist. In her hand, she clutched a short switch, like a riding crop. She examined Matilda from over the top of a pair of thin-framed spectacles.
"Name?" she demanded.
