Chapter 2: Samson

Jessica was roused from her slumber by furious banging on the door of her room. It had been a pleasant surprise to be afforded her own private sleeping space, cut off in the opposite wing to where the maidservants slept, but the blissful respite of sleep being broken signalled a new day, no doubt full of peculiar and perhaps frightening experiences. She sat up in bed, her face obscured by curtains of untidy orange hair.

“You’ll not have to worry about that much longer.” the presence on the floorboards to her left that she’d heard bustle into the room said in Mrs Breadworth’s voice. “Clothes on the dresser, girl. Get dressed promptly and come to the butler’s pantry. We’re busy folk, Mr Rathbone and I, and there’s more than enough work to do with you in particular today that we’re not looking to fall behind on.”

Jessica swung herself out of bed as she heard Mrs Breadworth leave and close the door, and sleepily crossed the floorboards to the small washbasin. After rinsing and drying her face she turned to the dresser to examine what she’d been left by way of a work uniform.

A man’s pinstriped work shirt and waistcoat in a small size. A pair of braces to attach to the slightly faded brown trousers which she knew she would have to turn up at the cuffs to get on. A pair of stubby brown work boots that smelled strongly of polish. A large ring of various keys- no doubt to sheds and gates in the garden- that attached to the trousers via a hook. A flat cap that she could just envision making her look even more crude. She was, she was relieved to find, permitted the indulgence of feminine undergarments, including a simple corset that that she found was of a design that flattened and hid her meagre breasts. Having eventually managed to haul the complete costume on, and taken some time to properly braid her hair, she took a moment to examine herself in the mirror.

I look ridiculous. She thought. Was this all really necessary? It was all very well to keep up appearances, but the fact that she was a young girl in an ill-fitting men’s shirt was blindingly obvious to any observer taking more than a casual glance. She resembled a child cross-dressing for a small part in an amateur theatre production that lacked sufficient actors. Wouldn’t it be easier for Lady Ashwater just to have swallowed her pride and outfitted Jessica with a simple brown apron and some sensible shoes?

Regardless, she had better not keep Mrs Breadworth waiting. She removed the hat- not a thing to be wearing indoors when one wasn’t checking the fit and style- and tried to effect a purposeful stride as she marched out into the corridor and closed the door, but in these braces and thudding, inelegant boots she felt more like a circus clown than anything. She hoped the maids would already be away about their business- she didn’t care for any of them to see her like this too soon, least of all that chronic gossip Catherine. As surreptitiously as she could, she made her way downstairs to the kitchen, and from there to the butler’s pantry.

“There you are!” Mrs Breadworth said exasperatedly as Jessica clomped in. “What kept you, girl? Oh look Mr Rathbone, she’s gone and plaited her hair! Stupid child- why do you think you’re down here to begin with?”

Standing in the centre of the stone floor was a large, rough looking wooden stool with a low back and a single faded cushion on it. Behind it was the sallow, officious form of Mr Rathbone the butler, who surprised Jessica by actually electing to reply for once.

“I shouldn’t be concerned, Mrs Breadworth.” He said in an oily, droning tone. “It is not a very complex operation. Sit in the chair please, Hocking, and put this on to protect your clothes.”

Jessica wanted to retort that that there was very little that they could be protected from that did not seem already to have happened to them, but it didn’t do to talk back to one’s betters that way. She obediently sat herself in the stool and turned forward, stonefaced.

“Hold still.” Mr Rathbone commanded firmly. Jessica felt a canvas blanket being fastened around her neck and heard the unmistakable ring of a pair of scissors being opened behind her. She almost twisted in her seat before she felt a tug on her plait that forced her to look straight ahead, her chin up. The scissors rang behind her again and with a sickening lurch the backward pull on her hair was gone, and strands of it were thrown into her eyes. From there he grasped her head firmly again and again, and she felt the blade of the scissors scrape against the back and sides of her scalp. It seemed to take an absolute age, aeons passing between each tick of the clock, all that Jessica could see in her field of view being the stern looking form of Mrs Breadworth standing off to the side and a flurry of orange hairs fluttering to the floor.

Finally, the butler’s rough hands left her skull and the blanket was pulled away. Mrs Breadworth unhooked the cracked, plain mirror from the wall and handed it to Jessica, who tentatively tipped it until her face hove into view.

She blinked blithely, her mind for a moment unable to comprehend the face in the glass, a freckled young boy with close-cropped messy hair- the kind who used to jeer at her from the street when she helped her mother hang out the laundry. The boy blinked too, and as recognition and realisation began to wash over Jessica his eyes began to well with tears.

This was what Lady Ashwater wished of her, and would wish of her for a long time to come. Not just wearing the clothes and approximating the manners of a male servant, not just resembling one, but playing the role, inhabiting it, deceiving people. It would be a long while before she could go back to being Jessica, go back to things being normal. She wiped the tears away, hoping they wouldn’t persist. It wasn’t a good start to be seen to be this emotional, especially now she would have to play the part of a man. But oh, what a wretched predicament!

“Her ladyship wishes there to be no points of confusion or alarm for those visiting who might be introduced to you.” Rathbone said.

“Which means you’ll be needing a new name, a boy’s name to go with yer work clothes.” Mrs Breadworth added sternly. “And if you want to choose it, you’d better do it now so we can all start using it. It’ll be hard enough to get the maids you came with to change, we don’t all want to get used to calling you ‘Jessica’. Any ideas, child?”

Jessica looked down at her alien reflection in the mirror again, its hair now a fraction of the length she was used to; the messy result of Mr Rathbone’s inexpert barber’s ability insufficient for the dignity of indoor work, but perfectly acceptable for a dirt-mucking gardener boy. She felt deflated, like everything she knew and valued about herself, everything she thought she was good at or was good about her, had been cut off along with her hair, replaced with a pair of work trousers and a flat cap from somebody’s else’s cast off things.

“Samson.” She said in a small voice. “Sam, for short.”

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“You are to leave the general structure alone.” Lady Ashwater commanded as she, a despondent Jessica and Mr Rathbone walked through the garden. “The levels and the stonework are adequate for the purposes of forming a new garden, and I find the patio gets used too much for it to be drastically changed. Down here-” she hurried blithely down the steps, leaving the two servants to follow her- one striding officiously, one scurrying harriedly. “-I think we’ll need to revert to a lawn on most of the rectangle. Feel free to take out the paving slabs if you like, just remember that access to the glass house needs to be maintained. Though perhaps you might leave that particular job just for the minute; they’re heavy slabs and you’re a spindly lad; we have Doctor Casement coming in from town later in the week to help you with that. Yes, a lawn here please, and perhaps up there on the middle level towards the hedge you might consider a small vegetable patch or something of the sort. Put those agricultural skills of yours to work, shall we? It’s not the sort of thing I would normally consider, you understand, but I rather think that in a few years or so when the war effort has done for the price of food it will be quite fashionable to be seen to have an area like that in one’s garden- self sufficiency, you know. Perhaps nothing material will come of it, but if any of the produce turns out edible feel free to consult the cook about whether it can be of any use.”

“Yes Ma’am.” Jessica said, a little uncertainly.

“Beyond that, what to plant is fairly standard nowadays.” Lady Ashwater continued without acknowledgement. “Peonies, Irises, Lavender, Lady’s-mantle for the cover… I’m sure you’d know more about than I do. Normally there’d be a senior gardener to supervise you, but those are not the circumstances we find ourselves in, so I suppose you’ll have to use some small amount of creativity, won’t you…?” She trailed off, frowning at Jessica.

Jessica stared at her employer, startled, until she realised what was being asked of her. “Oh! Sam- Samson! Ma’am! My name is Samson.”

“I rather hope Doctor Casement can do something about that voice if you can’t, Samson.” Lady Ashwater remarked incredulously. “It might not be so much better than the alternative to be seen to have boy of thirteen for a gardener.”

Jessica gulped and tried to adopt a guttural, chesty tone. “I- I will try my best, Ma’am.”

“Very good then. And did you get all that?”

“Er- yes Ma’am, I think so. A lawn down there, a vegetable patch up here, and everything else in the modern style… but don’t touch the stonework except the path by the glass house!” Jessica listed off, a surge of satisfaction coming from discovering that her ability to remember basic instructions had not been one of the things her de-powering had taken from her.

“Well then. I think I shall go inside, it is rather cold out here. I look forward to seeing your results in the spring, Samson.” Lady Ashwater said. “If you have any questions I’m sure Mr Rathbone can help, though he does have other duties to attend to so perhaps you’d be better familiarising yourself a little more with the garden’s layout.” She swept away back over the patio and into the house. Mr Rathbone looked at Jessica expectantly.

“Any pressing matters, Sam?”

“Oh! No Mr Rathbone, I don’t think so.” The name still felt odd and she doubted it would ever fit her as nicely as ‘Jessica’, even looking like she did. “If I do have questions unless they’re terribly pressing I think I’ll leave them until I see you later today, if I might, to…to save you the trouble.”

“That would be much appreciated. Pleasant morning to you.” The oily butler headed off in the direction of the house.

Jessica sighed and descended the steps to the future lawn. Right at the moment it was a series of raised beds, of the kind that were rather unfashionable now. They would need to be dismantled. She cast about a bit. There would be a potting shed, somewhere, and a wheelbarrow, but unsightly as garden owners tended to consider such things they would be off the beaten track. She noticed that the doors to the glass house were double ones- hardly required for entertaining guests, the glass house was far too small for any kind of crowd- but likely necessary if one was to push a cart or barrow through from the other side- yes! She could see through the glass that there was another, wooden building abutting the glass house on the far wall! She fumbled with her ring of keys, trying a few before she managed to unlock the door to the humid botanical haven.

Upon entering, she realised quickly that a spread of ivy trellises largely obscured the interior of the glass house from the windows of the manor, likely not by happenstance. The arboretum itself was cozy, with a number of large, hardy looking ferns, and an enclosed patio area with room for some sort of couch or lounge chair to be spread- or perhaps two if necessary. In this cold season such things were tidied away, and Jessica presumed she would find them in the potting shed.

She was quickly proven correct. The shed itself was rather spatious, and the various things that occupied it- the lounge chairs, storage crates, a set of gardeners tools notably missing a fork- had evidently been hastily stuffed inside, such that Jessica could imagine a more sensible arrangement affording her quite a bit of free space. She resolved there and then to spend as much of her time when she was not presently working down here- it was nicely secluded, hidden from view, it had room for her to set up a cosy living arrangement; and at least until the springtime nobody would have much reason even to enter the glass house, so she would be left alone. She had begrudgingly accepted that some sacrifice to public display of this awful aesthetic that had been thrust on her would be necessary in the line of duty, but she hardly desired to parade herself any more than she had to.

The wheelbarrow was here, and she was grateful to discover that it had not been hemmed in by the slapdash storage of other bulky items. In a crate nearby she found and dusted off a pair of gardening gloves that emerged to fit her- if not comfortably- acceptably. Having decided on her purpose for the morning, she hefted the barrow and wheeled it out down the brick path in the glass house towards the rectangle.

Stopping in front of the open doors, she examined one of the paving slabs on the ground. It was large, certainly, but not so big as she had feared, and sufficiently well spaced from the others that she didn’t imagine she would even need a tool to get under it. Might this be so difficult? She would only need to lift one at a time, and it surely couldn’t be heavier than the vegetable boxes she had, as the eldest of three daughters, been entrusted to heave off the lorry of Mr Morris the grocer whenever he came to her house back home.

She decided to try it. Perhaps a demonstration of her extant abilities might dissuade Lady Ashwater from allowing Doctor Casement to do… whatever it was exactly he had in store for her tomorrow. Feeling under the stone with her gloved fingers she scraped away some of the earth, gripped tight, and- pausing only to squat in preparation as Mr Morris’ admonishment of “Lift with your knees, girl!” flashed into her mind, pulled upwards.

Jessica screwed her eyes up as she hauled the paving slab up to her waist, turned and deposited it in the waiting wheelbarrow with a clunk. Turning back to the hole, she covered her face with one hand and chanced a peek.

There was nothing in the hole but bare earth and what she imagined to be a dead root bed. Jessica breathed out in relief. She did not like insects and other creepy-crawlies, but she had done enough garden work before to know that they came with the territory, and with at least thirty more slabs to remove she didn’t deign to lie to herself that an encounter would not be forthcoming.

The second slab came easier, and she felt that her technique was becoming more solid. She found that placing it in the barrow against the first, however, made rather more noise than she had hoped, and she glanced up almost in fear at the looming form of the house.

Her fear, she discovered, was not unfounded. In one of the upper room windows a figure stood, observing her. It was too far away to make out their specific identity, but Jessica’s gut wrenched as she saw the dark smock and white apron of one of the maids. Blood rushed to her cheeks at the realisation that she had been observed diligently and somewhat enthusiastically performing this most unladylike of tasks.

She feared what the rest of her cohort would have to say to her when next they met, and decided to double down on the work to give herself as much excuse to avoid the other servants as possible. Cast once again into misery, Jessica tried to focus on that big round number thirty in her mind as she bent to pick up the next stone…