him with such trivialities we’ll never get the garden tidied for the winter. Is it such an awful task to skin and draw a rabbit?’
‘It’s still got the yed on,’ Dolly added. ‘I hate doing it, ma’am. It turns me stomach.’
Poppy looked first at Dolly, then at Aunt Phoebe. ‘I can do it,’ she said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. ‘I can skin and draw a rabbit. I’ll do it for you, Dolly, if you like. Save disturbing Clay.’
Aunt Phoebe huffed disapprovingly. ‘Really, Poppy, I don’t think that is quite the sort of thing I would expect you to do … And what about your lesson?’
‘Oh, I don’t mind, honest. I’ll gladly do it. I’m used to it.’ She got up from the desk and moved towards Dolly.
‘Just this once then. To show Dolly and help her overcome her aversion.’
‘There’s nothing to it,’ Poppy said affably, as the maid led her towards the kitchen.
‘Well, thank the Lord you can do it, miss. I’m that grateful, honest I am. I hate and detest messing with the things.’
‘It don’t bother me.’
‘So where did you learn how to do such things, miss?’
‘Oh, I used to have to help me mother,’ she said artlessly. ‘I was always having to pluck chickens and ducks. I was always pulling the innards out of something or other. Men was always bringing things for us to cook – things they’d poached or pinched.’
They entered the kitchen, warm with a fire burning in the cast-iron range. A dead rabbit lay limp and fluffy on a wooden workbench, its upturned eye open, looking vacantly at the whitewashed ceiling.
‘See what I mean?’ Dolly remarked. ‘Poor thing. It makes me cringe to have to chop its flipping head off.’
‘But it don’t matter, Dolly,’ Poppy reasoned. ‘It’s dead. You can’t hurt it now.’
‘I know, but the smell when you gut it. It’s vile.’
‘Oh, the smell’s nothing. No worse than a privy. Just hold your breath …’
‘Here, miss … put this pinafore over your clean frock.’
‘Thank you, Dolly … Have you got a cleaver?’
Poppy fastened the strings of the pinafore and pulled up her sleeves, while Dolly reached for the cleaver and handed it to Poppy. Poppy held it poised over the rabbit and, with a single deft action, decapitated the furry corpse.
‘There y’are, Dolly.’ She took a sharp knife and slit the pelt, then peeled it away. ‘At least with the skin on you know you got a rabbit, eh? When it’s skinned it could be anything. A cat, even.’
‘I know. It wouldn’t be the first cat neither that folk have ate, thinking it to be a rabbit, eh, miss?’
‘How’s your young man, Dolly?’ Poppy asked, changing tack. ‘Esther tells me you go a-courting on your afternoon and evening off.’
Dolly smiled bashfully. ‘He’s all right, miss, thank you.’
‘What does he do for work?’
‘He’s a puddler at the Dixons Green Iron Works down Bumble Hole,’ Dolly replied.
‘Have you been courting long?’
‘Not that long. Mind you, I’ve had plenty chaps in me time.’
‘But he’s the one you liked best, eh?’
‘Not really,’ Dolly said resignedly. ‘He’s the ugliest, though. You couldn’t punch clay uglier.’
‘So why did you take to him over the others?’ Poppy asked, her fingers covered in entrails.
‘’Cause he earns the most … And his mother told me he can draw fowl. I hate drawin’ fowl and things.’ Dolly watched what Poppy was doing with distaste, her mouth turned down at the corners. ‘It don’t bother you though, does it, miss?’
Poppy smiled, content that she had helped Dolly, happy that this opportunity to befriend the girl had arisen. It was in her nature to be friendly in any case, to want to please. She was anxious to let these servants see that she was no different to them, that she was not likely to look down on them just because she was unexpectedly thrust into the elevated position where she was to be waited on and looked after. She didn’t particularly relish the idea of them doing her bidding. She didn’t warrant it. No, she would rather help them than find them tasks. Because she was no better than them, how could she reasonably be expected to give them orders? If they sensed that she was no better, how indeed could she expect them to respond if they did not like or respect her? Ah … Respect … Respectability … She washed her hands in the bowl of water that was in the sink.
‘I’m that grateful, miss. Honest,’ Dolly said again, offering Poppy a towel to dry her hands.
‘Oh, I don’t mind, Dolly. Anytime I can help, just let me know …’
Poppy was taken to Aunt Phoebe’s seamstress, Mrs Gadd, and measured. Together they chose material and flipped through patterns for everyday dresses, evening dresses, walking out dresses, skirts, blouses, petticoats, chemises, and frilly drawers. Poppy’s choice was frequently tempered and guided by Aunt Phoebe. Poppy was to return a week later for her first fitting. The next day, Tuesday, Aunt Phoebe had Clay drive them to town after Poppy’s lessons to buy mittens, day gloves, evening gloves, decent stockings, a purse, several bonnets, scarves, another cloak, a crinoline, another pair of dainty boots, and two new nightgowns, and to be measured for a corset.
As Poppy’s first week progressed, she had more lessons in reading, writing, elocution and deportment. On her second Sunday, she was taken to church in the carriage, along with Esther and Dolly, who sat in a pew at the rear of St Thomas’s church. Although the relatively new St John’s was nearer, Aunt Phoebe had always attended St Thomas’s. Poppy’s second week subsequently included an introduction to the scriptures, learning the Lord’s Prayer by heart, and Aunt Phoebe presented her with a map of the British Isles to pore over. First Poppy looked for Dudley, then Edinburgh, and thought about Robert Crawford and his two-wheeler. She found Mickleton, where her father had met with his death, but the map was not sufficiently up to date to show the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway line, although the Great Western from London to Bristol was shown, as was the London and Birmingham.
Poppy went alone to Mrs Gadd, the seamstress, for her first fitting.
‘Hold your arms up, young Poppy,’ Mrs Gadd said, somehow magically since she was holding a row of pins between her lips. ‘I just want to see if the bodice rides up.’
The bodice did not ride up appreciably because it was tight, as was the fashion, but Mrs Gadd found some material to pinch together and inserted a pin.
‘My word, you’ve got a lovely little figure, Poppy.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Gadd.’
‘You remind me o’ me eldest daughter. She’s got a figure like you, you know. She’s had three kids an’ all, but
