BlackShanglan
Silver-Tongued Papist
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2004
- Posts
- 16,888
I'm looking for feedback on the piece below. I'm trying to work out the female lead's motivations for staying in her current employment. Things get rougher before they get better, so she needs a strong reason to stay in a place where she will face some ugly challenges. However, I don't wish to descend into outright bathos. I've been fiddling with this from an earlier draft and can't decide if I'm headed in the right direction. I'm particularly interested in whether the description of her family's circumstances is too melodramatic. Oh, and I should point out that this chunk is the opening to the story, so there is no other information or context around it.
Many thanks, any who comment!
Shanglan
***************
Lizzy was scouring the back stairs when it came again – another rough reminder of her status in the home of Lord Sebastian Vayne. As she bent into the hard work, scrubbing another day’s worth of grime from the bare planks of the landing, she heard a lurching step in the hall. She moved to jump up, but damn Watt Thompson, he was fast on his feet and stealthy for a drunken sot of a coachman. He shot his hand under her petticoats and groped upward. Damn the red-faced pig! She cracked his rough, calloused hand with her scrubbing brush, hard, and scowled up at him as he snatched it back with a muttered oath. She sat back on her heels, as much to tuck her skirts swiftly under her as to face him.
“I’ve these stairs to do, Mr. Thompson, so please leave me to do them. I’ve no need to be chasing you off from me every moment I set about my work.”
She glowered fiercely at him, although admittedly it was difficult from her position kneeling on the floor. Still, she stayed down. Down here, on the floor, she was close and crouched, and if he pushed this much further she’d be glad of that. There was less of her to get at and a better chance of dodging him in his unsteady state. She watched him warily.
“Little cock teaser,” he muttered sullenly. His eyes were bloodshot and there was a reek of gin from him. Lizzy shifted her weight back just a bit, bringing her balance to her feet. He’d taken a proper skinful this time. It might be best to run.
Thompson eyed her a long moment. Then finally he curled his lip.
“Fucking judy to half the stable boys,” he sneered. “I wouldn’t touch yer with his.” He jerked his head at the shape of a man emerging swiftly from the kitchen hallway, then spat on the floor in front of her and staggered off, pushing past the newcomer on his way to the yard.
“Lizzy. You’re all right?” Alexis offered her his hand, helping her quickly to her feet. She realized quite suddenly that she was trembling. He peered at her in concern, darting his gaze between her and the departed figure of the coachman. Without warning, hot, angry tears burst from her, and she groped blindly for the stair. Alexis guided her hastily to sit, and she let the sobs come.
She’d been in service three months now, and it got worse every day. She had tried to prepare herself for what she knew would be hard – the long days of cleaning from dawn until past dusk, the fierce physical labor, the constant summons and almost total lack of privacy. She’d thought herself equal to it. The ruin of her hopes she’d tried to put behind her; there was nothing to be done. Her parents had dreamed of better things. They’d prayed she might become a governess, perhaps, or even a teacher in a girls’ school. But money had run short, and debts had mounted, and where in the world was there, really, for the daughter of a seamstress and a broken schoolmaster who’d lost his sight and his living? To be able to read, but have no money for books – to spell, and write, and figure, but know no French or German or science – to have a fine wit, in short, but stocked with what rags and ends of knowledge could be garnered in the blind alleys of Spitalfields – what trade did that leave open to her? What life, indeed, but illuminated misery: drudgery, with always a glimpse of what might have been.
She shook her head, putting it from her. Self pity was of no use. But she was neither one thing nor the other, and that was the problem. Things might have gone well enough if she’d never had any learning or thought of some other life – if her words were rough, her manners coarse, and her thoughts firmly located in the back alleys of the world. But they were not, and they marked her out in an ugly way.
It had begun with Kate. She’d taken a dislike to Lizzy from the start. God knows she’d had no reason to; they’d come to the house together, not a day’s difference in their time of service. And they were housemaids alike, part of his lordship’s expansion of staff in preparation for his coming marriage. But Kate had set herself above Lizzy from the first. And she’d swallowed it, Lizzy thought bitterly. She had thought to ingratiate herself, but her humble submission had only marked her an easy target. Mrs. Crouch, the housekeeper, was equally dour to them both at first, but it had only taken a few days before Lizzy found herself looking in from without. She’d meant no harm, only wishing to work hard, do her job well, and prove her worth. Yet the very things on which she’d hoped to found goodwill had turned against her. They sneered at her for her diligence, though it saved them the trouble of their own effort, and resented her when she would not join them in their career of petty theft and idleness. They had all turned on her, and Bill as well – the upper footman, who was always swaggering around Kate in an openly leering fashion. Mick, the lower man, was decent enough, but new like her and with no desire to make himself the whipping boy for the house. It had grown more open day by day, until finally one night she’d come to the servants’ hall late to dinner and heard them as she approached.
“Nose-in-the-air little cow,” sneered Kate in her sly, spiteful voice. Lizzy had stopped in the hallway, less to eavesdrop than because she was too stunned and humiliated to face them. “Runs about with that bloody dustrag of hers like it’s a badge of office, into everyone’s business. You can’t have a stretcher or half a belt without her turning up.”
“Aye, and simpering like a nancy,” grumbled Mrs. Crouch. Lizzy felt the jibe painfully. She’d tried all she knew to please the woman. “Oh, I’ve seen her, the little suck-up. Thinks she’s a site better than the rest of us, don’t she? Mind you, she reads.” She drew out the last word with a lengthy contempt. “Wouldn’t want to mix herself up with the rest of us ignorant folk.”
“Holds herself a damned sight too high,” growled Watt. She knew that hoarse, drink-thickened voice. “Frigid little bitch, too good for any man in the house.”
“Happen she fancies his lordship,” smirked Kate, and they burst into raucous laughter. Lizzy had slunk back down the hall then and sat on the cold back stairs until at last they departed and she crept in to eat what was left.
From that day on she’d avoided them, speaking only when she must and doing her work with as little contact with the others as she could manage. But it had done her no good. Her isolation they took for pride, and her silence for insolence. Nothing she did seemed to assuage them; they resented her regardless. She had the coals and water to carry every day, backbreaking work, and she no longer even tried to guess what tasks she could possibly have been spared to give to Kate. She hardly ever saw her out of Mrs. Crouch’s dayroom. When the stableboys spoke rudely to her, Kate sniggered behind her back; when she complained to Hodges, the butler, of Bill’s wandering hands, she was carpeted for “bearing tales” and troubling him with the concerns of the lower staff. When she’d tried Mrs. Crouch she’d only been sneered at and told that she’d best learn to work with the others, and Kate had smirked openly. The next time Bill had tried it he’d been bolder, and she’d been thankful that Mick had walked in as Bill held her wrist in a bruising grip and ran his hand over her thighs. He’d turned her loose as Mick glared at him from the door, but she read the message clearly enough in his triumphant glance. She might complain all she liked. Nothing would be done.
Desperation was setting in. She longed to flee, but she needed the money so badly that she dared not. She knew how little hope she had of a new position with the character Mrs. Crouch would give her; the dour old housekeeper would poison Lizzy’s name with any employer she tried to find. Mrs. Crouch might detest her personally, but she gladly loaded her work upon Lizzy and would keep her a slave as long as she might. No – she must stay. Every time she looked longingly at the door to the yard, her mind went back to her mother, hard-driven with her work and the other children still to feed, and her father sitting blind by the fire. His books were closed to him forever now, their joyous light extinguished. He who had brought her Blake’s fiery illuminations and Wordsworth’s divine vision could now see nothing himself – a bitter irony, a last joke from a god who had abandoned him. He clung to his faith yet, but for Lizzy it was harder. A good man, devoted to his family, he’d given himself unstintingly and struggled to better them all. What had God given him in return, she thought bitterly. Blindness and poverty. Now he sat there in the corner raveling cotton or pasting matchboxes, whatever rough work he could find that needed no sight and paid a pittance. He was spared only this: the sight of her mother grown paler each day, placing meat upon his plate to cradle his illusions while she ate coarse bread dipped in watered milk and hushed the children over their porridge.
And so Lizzy stayed. Her wages were tiny, a painful sum to see set in her hand on the quarter-day after three backbreaking months of slavery. Yet they loomed larger when she brought them to her mother, eight shining sovereigns. Eight sovereigns, and a gift that had wrung her heart with gratitude – a meat pie fit for a lord’s table, a gift from Alexis.
Many thanks, any who comment!
Shanglan
***************
Lizzy was scouring the back stairs when it came again – another rough reminder of her status in the home of Lord Sebastian Vayne. As she bent into the hard work, scrubbing another day’s worth of grime from the bare planks of the landing, she heard a lurching step in the hall. She moved to jump up, but damn Watt Thompson, he was fast on his feet and stealthy for a drunken sot of a coachman. He shot his hand under her petticoats and groped upward. Damn the red-faced pig! She cracked his rough, calloused hand with her scrubbing brush, hard, and scowled up at him as he snatched it back with a muttered oath. She sat back on her heels, as much to tuck her skirts swiftly under her as to face him.
“I’ve these stairs to do, Mr. Thompson, so please leave me to do them. I’ve no need to be chasing you off from me every moment I set about my work.”
She glowered fiercely at him, although admittedly it was difficult from her position kneeling on the floor. Still, she stayed down. Down here, on the floor, she was close and crouched, and if he pushed this much further she’d be glad of that. There was less of her to get at and a better chance of dodging him in his unsteady state. She watched him warily.
“Little cock teaser,” he muttered sullenly. His eyes were bloodshot and there was a reek of gin from him. Lizzy shifted her weight back just a bit, bringing her balance to her feet. He’d taken a proper skinful this time. It might be best to run.
Thompson eyed her a long moment. Then finally he curled his lip.
“Fucking judy to half the stable boys,” he sneered. “I wouldn’t touch yer with his.” He jerked his head at the shape of a man emerging swiftly from the kitchen hallway, then spat on the floor in front of her and staggered off, pushing past the newcomer on his way to the yard.
“Lizzy. You’re all right?” Alexis offered her his hand, helping her quickly to her feet. She realized quite suddenly that she was trembling. He peered at her in concern, darting his gaze between her and the departed figure of the coachman. Without warning, hot, angry tears burst from her, and she groped blindly for the stair. Alexis guided her hastily to sit, and she let the sobs come.
She’d been in service three months now, and it got worse every day. She had tried to prepare herself for what she knew would be hard – the long days of cleaning from dawn until past dusk, the fierce physical labor, the constant summons and almost total lack of privacy. She’d thought herself equal to it. The ruin of her hopes she’d tried to put behind her; there was nothing to be done. Her parents had dreamed of better things. They’d prayed she might become a governess, perhaps, or even a teacher in a girls’ school. But money had run short, and debts had mounted, and where in the world was there, really, for the daughter of a seamstress and a broken schoolmaster who’d lost his sight and his living? To be able to read, but have no money for books – to spell, and write, and figure, but know no French or German or science – to have a fine wit, in short, but stocked with what rags and ends of knowledge could be garnered in the blind alleys of Spitalfields – what trade did that leave open to her? What life, indeed, but illuminated misery: drudgery, with always a glimpse of what might have been.
She shook her head, putting it from her. Self pity was of no use. But she was neither one thing nor the other, and that was the problem. Things might have gone well enough if she’d never had any learning or thought of some other life – if her words were rough, her manners coarse, and her thoughts firmly located in the back alleys of the world. But they were not, and they marked her out in an ugly way.
It had begun with Kate. She’d taken a dislike to Lizzy from the start. God knows she’d had no reason to; they’d come to the house together, not a day’s difference in their time of service. And they were housemaids alike, part of his lordship’s expansion of staff in preparation for his coming marriage. But Kate had set herself above Lizzy from the first. And she’d swallowed it, Lizzy thought bitterly. She had thought to ingratiate herself, but her humble submission had only marked her an easy target. Mrs. Crouch, the housekeeper, was equally dour to them both at first, but it had only taken a few days before Lizzy found herself looking in from without. She’d meant no harm, only wishing to work hard, do her job well, and prove her worth. Yet the very things on which she’d hoped to found goodwill had turned against her. They sneered at her for her diligence, though it saved them the trouble of their own effort, and resented her when she would not join them in their career of petty theft and idleness. They had all turned on her, and Bill as well – the upper footman, who was always swaggering around Kate in an openly leering fashion. Mick, the lower man, was decent enough, but new like her and with no desire to make himself the whipping boy for the house. It had grown more open day by day, until finally one night she’d come to the servants’ hall late to dinner and heard them as she approached.
“Nose-in-the-air little cow,” sneered Kate in her sly, spiteful voice. Lizzy had stopped in the hallway, less to eavesdrop than because she was too stunned and humiliated to face them. “Runs about with that bloody dustrag of hers like it’s a badge of office, into everyone’s business. You can’t have a stretcher or half a belt without her turning up.”
“Aye, and simpering like a nancy,” grumbled Mrs. Crouch. Lizzy felt the jibe painfully. She’d tried all she knew to please the woman. “Oh, I’ve seen her, the little suck-up. Thinks she’s a site better than the rest of us, don’t she? Mind you, she reads.” She drew out the last word with a lengthy contempt. “Wouldn’t want to mix herself up with the rest of us ignorant folk.”
“Holds herself a damned sight too high,” growled Watt. She knew that hoarse, drink-thickened voice. “Frigid little bitch, too good for any man in the house.”
“Happen she fancies his lordship,” smirked Kate, and they burst into raucous laughter. Lizzy had slunk back down the hall then and sat on the cold back stairs until at last they departed and she crept in to eat what was left.
From that day on she’d avoided them, speaking only when she must and doing her work with as little contact with the others as she could manage. But it had done her no good. Her isolation they took for pride, and her silence for insolence. Nothing she did seemed to assuage them; they resented her regardless. She had the coals and water to carry every day, backbreaking work, and she no longer even tried to guess what tasks she could possibly have been spared to give to Kate. She hardly ever saw her out of Mrs. Crouch’s dayroom. When the stableboys spoke rudely to her, Kate sniggered behind her back; when she complained to Hodges, the butler, of Bill’s wandering hands, she was carpeted for “bearing tales” and troubling him with the concerns of the lower staff. When she’d tried Mrs. Crouch she’d only been sneered at and told that she’d best learn to work with the others, and Kate had smirked openly. The next time Bill had tried it he’d been bolder, and she’d been thankful that Mick had walked in as Bill held her wrist in a bruising grip and ran his hand over her thighs. He’d turned her loose as Mick glared at him from the door, but she read the message clearly enough in his triumphant glance. She might complain all she liked. Nothing would be done.
Desperation was setting in. She longed to flee, but she needed the money so badly that she dared not. She knew how little hope she had of a new position with the character Mrs. Crouch would give her; the dour old housekeeper would poison Lizzy’s name with any employer she tried to find. Mrs. Crouch might detest her personally, but she gladly loaded her work upon Lizzy and would keep her a slave as long as she might. No – she must stay. Every time she looked longingly at the door to the yard, her mind went back to her mother, hard-driven with her work and the other children still to feed, and her father sitting blind by the fire. His books were closed to him forever now, their joyous light extinguished. He who had brought her Blake’s fiery illuminations and Wordsworth’s divine vision could now see nothing himself – a bitter irony, a last joke from a god who had abandoned him. He clung to his faith yet, but for Lizzy it was harder. A good man, devoted to his family, he’d given himself unstintingly and struggled to better them all. What had God given him in return, she thought bitterly. Blindness and poverty. Now he sat there in the corner raveling cotton or pasting matchboxes, whatever rough work he could find that needed no sight and paid a pittance. He was spared only this: the sight of her mother grown paler each day, placing meat upon his plate to cradle his illusions while she ate coarse bread dipped in watered milk and hushed the children over their porridge.
And so Lizzy stayed. Her wages were tiny, a painful sum to see set in her hand on the quarter-day after three backbreaking months of slavery. Yet they loomed larger when she brought them to her mother, eight shining sovereigns. Eight sovereigns, and a gift that had wrung her heart with gratitude – a meat pie fit for a lord’s table, a gift from Alexis.