Virtue and Venom Chapter Three
Note: As I have a lot of weddings to attend and jobs to do this season, updates may slow down for a while. I hope to be back to normal by July.
…..
Helga was young when she realized they were in trouble. She was just a little older when she realized that she, specifically, was in trouble.
Her father had brought a man back to the house for dinner. Miriam had to cook, making some sort of mumbled excuse about the cook not being around, the beef was underdone and the potatoes boiled into an unpalatable mush. Nevertheless, the man ate everything he was given, and that was a clear sign he was not a man of means.
Helga could not recall his name or even much about him beyond the dirt under his nails and the wrinkles on his face. She remembered distantly a conversation about what he did for a living, and it was some mumbled words about some sort of land maintenance. What he was doing there, among the social-climbing Patakis, was a mystery.
Up until Bob asked him what he thought of Helga, and mentioned that she was healthy and strong.
Bob had always regarded her as just another mouth to feed, but it hadn't occurred to her that he saw her as a resource until then. He wouldn't consider anything less than a titled nobleman for Olga, but Helga could be pawned off on whatever random peasant he found on his way home.
Fortunately, the man seemed uninterested in taking a little girl as a wife and he left. It would only be a matter of time before Bob found someone else until he'd gotten rid of his extra child.
Helga had no real options. Getting work as a scullery maid was for older girls. Leaving home meant going straight into the workhouse, or worse. There was really only one job available for an unskilled young woman in the city, and it didn't bear thinking about.
In the end, the only way to keep the roof over her head and keep her father from selling her away was to make herself useful to the head of the household. From the age of nine, she took over the running of the house, from the most basic cleaning and cooking to using what little education she'd been given to manage their taxes and income. In between, she sold whatever she could that would not be noticed as missing and raised their small crops to stock the pantry.
She was able to breathe a little easier once the Heyerdahls moved into the hermitage. The Pataki family, as far as she knew, had not had an actual hermit living in the hermitage so it was a holdover from the previous family that owned the estate (who had lost the place due to treason about two hundred years before the first Pataki out of Russia won the property in a bet). Bob and Miriam didn't know anything about the sprawling acres they owned, and Olga didn't like to go outside for too long in case she got a much dreaded freckle.
The Heyerdahls paid a pittance for the hermitage (although it was cozy and comfortable and Helga could easily have charged more) but they made up for it by taking over the farming duties, even keeping some chickens, two sheep and a small dairy cow. Stocking the pantry was much easier with their help, and anything they produced in excess they could sell at the open market.
When the rest of the Patakis were back living the lives they were more accustomed to, Bob stopped looking at her like she was a pig to be fattened up for market, and she was able to breathe more easily.
…..
Helga managed to find an hour to lie down between lunch and dinner, but the whole time she was eating she couldn't stop yawning. Olga's droning on and on about this man she was due to be introduced to wasn't helping.
“...Josepha says that the flute is far more elegant for a bride, but the harpsichord is traditional and he's quite a traditional man, from what I've heard. His family is very old, his estate has been standing for over...”
Bob and Miriam were nodding along but they probably weren't listening either. Olga had been talking for hours. Helga allowed her mind to wander back to the boy she'd helped in the forest, the failed convent romantic. Had he made his way home safely? How angry had his parents been at the state he'd returned home in?
“...where is our harpsichord, anyway?”
Her attention was jolted back onto Olga.
“I should have some practice, I went to the study but it doesn't seem to be there anymore,” Olga said with a confused little frown. “Where is it?”
Helga could feel Bob staring at her.
“It's being repaired,” Helga said, racking her brain for a plausible excuse. “Mice got at the strings, it didn't sound right.”
“Oh,” Olga said, clearly disappointed but accepting the excuse.
The harpsichord had been sold five years before, and probably chopped up for firewood. It hadn't been a particularly good one anyway, and always sounded a bit creaky.
“Most men prefer the flute anyway,” Helga told her. “They say only widows play the harpsichord.”
“I suppose you're right,” Olga preened. “Perhaps I should practice that instead...”
Crisis over, Helga went back to daydreaming. Just two hours more and she could get a good night's sleep.
…..
“What, exactly, were you thinking?” the king asked, not angry so much as just tired.
“I wasn't, really,” Arnold admitted.
“Clearly.”
Arnold had spent the night in an inn, in the town where thankfully no-one recognized him as the crown prince, and been woken at dawn to be dragged back to the palace and face his grandfather, covered in the dirt and grime his little adventure had left him with. King Philip sighed loudly and dramatically when he saw him.
“All this for a Catholic,” Phillip grumbled. “Are you trying to start a war?”
“No, of course not,” Arnold placated. “I don't think her people would mind, it's not like I'm asking her to convert....”
“No, but they'll want us to convert,” Philip growled. “And if we don't, they'll sue for annulment or they'll start a succession war with whatever children you have. That's if you manage to have any children with that line of the family...”
Arnold winced. Princess Lila's family line were well-known for having trouble conceiving heirs to the throne. Lila herself was an only child.
“You could have ended up on a ship for ransom,” Philip groaned, leaning back and rubbing his temples under his crown.
Like your father, he didn't have to add.
As far as either of them knew, Arnold's parents were still with the corsairs that captured them after the crusades. Kidnapping the crown prince was bad enough, catching the wife who had journeyed with him to support him was disastrous. It was just a matter of luck that they'd agreed to leave their son with the wet nurse.
“How did you get away?” Philip asked, when that strained look left his face.
“A peasant girl who knew the land helped me,” Arnold explained. “She threw rocks at my pursuers.”
And then she laughed at me for trying to break into a convent.
“Thank the lord for that,” Phil muttered. “Did you compensate her?”
“Ten gold pieces,” Arnold replied.
“Should have been fifty. She saved the royal line. Throw in an estate to keep her sweet. And she didn't recognize you?”
“I don't think so. She seemed happy enough with ten.”
“Hm. Well, if you ever run into her again, compensate her properly.”
That's unlikely, Arnold thought.
…..
“Pheebs! PHEEBS!”
“I'm here,” Phoebe said, wiping a knife on her apron. “What's wrong?”
“Everything's wrong,” Helga groaned.
“Okay,” Phoebe sighed. “Come on in and tell me about it.”
She wouldn't let Helga say a word until she'd sat by the fire and taken at least two sips of tea from the kettle. Aside from stocking the pantry and bringing in a little money, Phoebe's most valuable asset was that she was always calm.
“We got a missive this morning,” Helga explained, staring into her cup as if it contained the source of her doom. “Three missed payments.”
“How?” Phoebe asked. “You've always put that money away for the taxes....”
“Bob,” Helga said. “I trusted him to make the payments in person. I didn't think he was that stupid...”
“I have about thirteen shillings...” Phoebe began, rummaging in a small tin box.
“No, no, I'm not going to take your money,” Helga said.
“But if you lose the estate, we lose the hermitage,” Phoebe reminded her.
“I know, I just....I'll think of something, okay? I can get the money, we still have some things in the house I can sell, but I'm not old enough to file the payments.”
“Olga is,” Phoebe suggested. “Could you ask her to file them?”
“No, she'd freak out and go crying to Bob,” Helga said. “Although...Pheebs, you're a genius! They don't know what Olga looks like!”
“You'll have to tie up your hair,” Phoebe told her, having grasped Helga's plan within seconds of her coming up with it.
…..
Three days, a solid marble statue from the old parlour sold for fifty shillings and a borrowed new gown and matching kirtle from Olga's wardrobe later, Helga managed to get a lift from a fruitseller's cart most of the way to Knightsbridge. She walked the remaining two miles, holding the green brocade over her knees to keep it out of the mud. Phoebe had braided her hair and tucked it under a coif, and although it looked nice it felt tight and uncomfortable on her head.
Once I get this over with I can walk home in my chemise, she thought sourly.
Knightsbridge was bustling when she arrived, including around the magistrate's building. She clocked the glances the men were giving her; a high-class girl out in public, unaccompanied. Easy prey. Her hands balled into fists even as they stepped to one side to let her pass.
The magistrate raised an eyebrow as she introduced herself as Olga Pataki.
“Why has your father not come to bring these to me himself?” he asked. “Or your husband.”
“I am unmarried,” she replied, in that haughty-but-achingly-polite way Olga affected when speaking to someone of noble birth. “And my father is too unwell to make the journey, I said I would go in his stead.”
“Three missed payments,” the magistrate hummed. “That is not usual...”
“You!”
Oh no....
It would be him. Convent-raid boy.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, oblivious to the fact that she was trying very hard not to look at him.
“The young Madame Pataki has come to pay the taxes on her family's estate,” the magistrate explained. Helga was very glad he didn't use her first name.
“And...why are you stopping her?” convert-boy asked.
“Well, it's not usual...” the magistrate hummed again.
“If she has the money, take the payment.”
The magistrate grimaced, but he took the money and put his seal on the form, and that was that.
Convent-boy insisted on escorting her out, past all the men who were hanging around the front of the building.
“Forgive me,” he said after they were on the outskirts of Knightsbridge. “I mistook you for a peasant when I met you.”
“An easy mistake to make,” she laughed uneasily. “I wouldn't exactly wear my best gown for wandering around the woods.”
“I guess not,” Arnold agreed. “Is your carriage near here?”
“Uh, no,” she said, racking her brain. “It threw a wheel...I got a lift from a neighbour, but...”
“Oh. Well, I'd offer you a lift but...”
“That's okay, I can hitch a ride,” she shrugged.
“That's not exactly safe,” Arnold said with a frown.
“It's fine,” she demurred.
“No, it's not,” he insisted. “But...listen, I owe you a lot more than ten gold pieces for what you did for me. How about I rent you a horse? And I can escort you at least part of the way...”
How could she say no? It was a long walk in a dress that didn't belong to her, it would be getting dark soon, and those men lingering around the magistrate's were watching in the distance.
“All right,” she agreed.