Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

above us, at a little window, I thought I saw a candle-flame shine, and flutter, and then go out.
    The door led to a passage, and this led to a great, bright kitchen, about five times the size of our kitchen at Lant Street, and with pots set in rows upon a whitewashed wall, and a few rabbits hanging on hooks from the beams of the ceiling. At a wide scrubbed table sat a boy, a woman and three or four girls—of course, they looked very hard at me. The girls studied my bonnet and the cut of my cloak. Their frocks and aprons being only servants’ wear, I didn’t trouble myself to study them.
    Mrs Stiles said, ‘Well, you’re about as late as you could be. Any longer and you should’ve had to stay at the village. We keep early hours here.’
    She was about fifty, with a white cap with frills and a way of not quite looking in your eye as she spoke to you. She carried keys about her, on a chain at her waist. Plain, old-fashioned keys, I could have copied any one of them.
    I made her half a curtsey. I did not say—which I might have—that she should be thankful I had not turned back at Paddington; that I wished I had turned back; and that for anyone to have had the time that I had had, in trying to get forty miles from London, perhaps went to prove that London wasn’t meant to be left—I did not say that. What I said was:
    ‘I’m sure, I’m very grateful that the trap was sent at all.’
    The girls at the table tittered to hear me speak. The woman who sat with them—the cook, it turned out—got up and set about making me a supper-tray. William Inker said,
    ‘Miss Smith’ve come from a pretty fine place in London, Mrs Stiles. And she’ve been several times in France.’
    ‘Has she,’ said Mrs Stiles.
    ‘Only one or two times,’ I said. Now everyone would suppose I had been boasting.
    ‘She said the chaps there are very short in the leg.’
    Mrs Stiles gave a nod. The girls at the table tittered again, and one of them whispered something that made the boy grow red. But then my tray was made, and Mrs Stiles said,
    ‘Margaret, you can carry this through to my pantry. Miss Smith, I suppose I should take you to where you might splash your hands and face.’
    I took this to mean that she would show me to the privy, and I said I wished she would. She gave me a candle and took me down another short passage, to another yard, that had an earth closet in it with paper on a spike.
    Then she took me to her own little room. It had a chimney-piece with white wax flowers on it, and a picture of a sailor in a frame, that I supposed was Master Stiles, gone off to Sea; and another picture, of an angel, done entirely in black hair, that I presumed was Mr Stiles, gone off to Glory. She sat and watched me take my supper. It was mutton, minced, and bread-and-butter; and you may imagine that, being so hungry as I was, I made very short work of it. As I ate, there came the slow chiming of the clock that I had heard before, sounding half-past nine. I said,
    ‘Does the clock chime all night?’
    Mrs Stiles nodded. ‘All night, and all day, at the hour and the half. Mr Lilly likes his days run very regular. You’ll find that out.’
    ‘And Miss Lilly?’ I said, picking crumbs from the corner of my mouth. ‘What does she like?’
    She smoothed her apron. ‘Miss Maud likes what her uncle likes,’ she answered.
    Then she rearranged her lips. She said,
    ‘You’ll know, Miss Smith, that Miss Maud is quite a young girl, for all that she’s mistress of this great house. The servants don’t trouble her, for the servants answer to me. I should have said I had been a housekeeper long enough to know how to secure a maid for my own mistress—but there, even a housekeeper must do as she is bid, and Miss Maud’ve gone quite over my head in this matter. Quite over my head. I shouldn’t have thought that perfectly wise, in a girl of her years; but we shall see how it turns out.’
    I said, ‘I am sure whatever Miss Lilly does must turn out