Chaff upon the Wind (2 page)

‘Go on with ya. Quick. Mebbe he’s havin’ one of his wheezy attacks.’

‘But what if I meet the mistress or – or . . .’ Her eyes widened as she added in a whisper, ‘What if the master comes back?’

Mrs Grundy laughed. ‘She’ll not bite ya, Kitty. Anything you do for that lad of hers, you do for her.’

‘But what about the master?’ Although Kitty would never admit to being frightened of anyone, she could not help being a little in awe of the big, blustering figure of Mr Franklin,
whose roars of rage when he lost his temper could be heard in the kitchen.

‘Oh I grant you he shouts a bit now an’ then. But as the gentry go, the Franklins aren’t so bad. An’ I should know ’cos I’ve worked for some snobby beggars in
me time, let me tell you . . .’

Kitty hid her grin. Get Mrs Grundy launched into her stories of the places she’d worked as a young girl and the people she’d served and they’d both be here till the next
morning.

Mrs Grundy had been in service from the age of twelve, starting as a kitchen maid and working her way up through several different jobs until she had come to the Manor to take up the much
respected position of cook. She had never been married and the ‘Mrs’ added to her name was a courtesy title befitting her position within the household, yet she was a motherly soul and
genuinely fond of the young girls who came and went under her charge. To Kitty she seemed old, yet the woman was only just fifty. Maybe the roundness of her body, the florid complexion and the grey
hair pulled tightly back under the white frilled cap she always wore did nothing to dispel the image of advancing years. At the end of a long and tiring day, she would sit with her feet on the warm
bricks bordering the huge fireplace, a glass of sherry from the dregs of a bottle sent back from the dining room in her hand, and launch into her childhood memories.

‘My dad was in the Crimea, y’know,’ she would begin proudly. ‘He fought for our dear old Queen, he did, God rest her.’ Here Mrs Grundy would dab her eyes with the
corner of her apron. ‘Wounded, he was, in the leg and she gave him a medal . . .’ And on she would go, the sherry loosening her tongue even more than normal and making her reminiscences
maudlin until the tears were trickling down her red cheeks.

Kitty would listen with half an ear. She had heard the stories so often now, she could almost recite them herself, yet she truly liked Mrs Grundy and would do nothing to hurt her feelings.

The bell rang yet again and Mrs Grundy flapped her hand at Kitty. ‘Go on with ya, girl. The lad must want summat.’

‘But . . .’ Kitty, poised on her toes, tried one more protest. ‘Where’s Lucy? Surely she ought to go? Or even Sarah. Not me.’

Mrs Grundy sucked her tongue against her teeth. ‘Oh that one! That Sarah’s an idle creature. Taken to ’er bed today with a cold, so she ses.’ Mrs Grundy sniffed her
disapproval of housemaids who dared to be ill. ‘And Miss Miriam keeps young Lucy on the run. No, there’s no one else today, Kitty. You’ll have to go. It’ll be all
right.’

Kitty had managed to untie the strings and remove the sack-like covering. Now she smoothed her hands down her white apron and tucked a stray black curl back beneath her cap.

‘Go on, girl,’ Mrs Grundy urged and Kitty pushed open the door and went down the three steps into the main hallway of the house. She stood listening for a moment. Mrs Franklin would
be upstairs in her sitting room which adjoined her bedroom, reading her mail, writing letters or planning the day’s menus. Soon, Mrs Grundy would be summoned by the bell from that room to
discuss the various dishes with the mistress.

Even though she had heard the master leave the house just after breakfast, Kitty was still nervous that the front door might suddenly be thrown open and he would stride into the hall. She ran
swiftly up the servants’ staircase, the old, uneven floorboards creaking under her light weight. Turning to the left, she hurried along the passageway leading to the west wing, past the main
staircase which the servants were not allowed to use and to the door of Master Edward’s bedroom. She paused a moment and glanced over her shoulder as she heard the sound of Miss Miriam
Franklin’s voice, high-pitched and petulant, coming from behind the closed door opposite.

‘Useless! You’re a great, useless lump, Lucy. Get out – get
out
. . .’

There was a startled cry and the door flew open. Cap awry and hair coming loose from its pins, Lucy, who was personal maid to both Mrs Franklin and her daughter, pushed past Kitty. ‘That
does it!’ Kitty heard her mutter through clenched teeth. ‘I’m leaving. I won’t stay another minute in this house. That girl’s not right in the head . . .’

Kitty stood gaping, and then through the open door of the bedroom she caught sight of Miriam, scantily clad in her underwear, sitting at her dressing table, a glass jar of cream balanced in her
hand as if she were poised to launch it.

Their glances met and held.

‘What are you staring at, girl? Get on with your work.’

Keeping her voice deliberately level and calm, Kitty stepped forward. ‘Shall I close the door for you, miss? You don’t want to catch cold sitting there like that.’

Without waiting for Miriam to reply, Kitty pulled it shut. As the sneck clicked, there was a thud against the opposite side of the panelling and the sound of shattering glass.

Kitty jumped and then she smiled as she turned towards Master Edward’s bedroom. Miss Miriam was certainly in one of her tantrums this morning, she thought as she knocked on his door.

‘Come in.’ The voice was faint and breathless.

In the huge bed, lost among a mountain of white pillows, lay Master Edward Franklin. His blue eyes, large in his pale face, widened as he saw her. Only two years separated their ages, yet
frequent illness made him seem even younger. Boys of fourteen, Kitty thought, ought to be out tramping the fields and getting into mischief, not shut up alone in a sickroom.

‘Kitty,’ he said huskily and tried to pull himself up, but the effort brought on a spasm of coughing.

She hurried to the bedside. ‘Lie still, Master Edward, you’ll make yarsen worse.’

The boy smiled and, for a moment, some of the suffering left his face. ‘If I was much worse, I’d be dead.’

‘Master Edward!’ Kitty, her lips twitching, pretended to be shocked. ‘You shouldn’t say such things.’

The grin widened, stretching across his thin face. ‘Oh Kitty, it does me good to see you. Why don’t you come up more often?’

Kitty chuckled. ‘You know I can’t when I’m working. Not me, Master Edward, I’m only a kitchen maid. I shouldn’t be here now really. It should be Lucy or
Sarah.’

Sarah Maybury was the housemaid, the only other ‘upstairs servant’ at the Manor besides Lucy.

‘Lucy has her hands full with my sister.’ Edward tried to laugh, but the laugh turned into a cough again.

‘See, you’ll have me in trouble for making you worse,’ Kitty teased gently, straightening the bedclothes and leaning across to plump up his pillows.

Edward caught hold of her arm. ‘Stay and talk to me.’

Only inches apart, her soft, brown gaze looked into his fever-bright eyes. ‘Please, Kitty,’ he pleaded softly.

‘I wish I could,’ she said gently, moved by the young boy’s loneliness. ‘But I daresunt.’

‘It’ll be all right. My mother . . .’ he began.

Straightening up, Kitty said firmly, ‘Aye, your mother. If she catches me in here when I’m not supposed to be, I’ll be fer the sack.’

‘I wouldn’t let her dismiss . . .’ he began and then, altering his words to suit her way of talking, said, ‘sack you.’

Kitty giggled and they smiled at each other, his gaze holding hers. He sank back and sighed. ‘Oh Kitty, how I wish I had your strength, your vigour.’

She gave a wry snort of laughter. ‘Good job I am strong an’ all, with the hours I have to work . . . Oh heck!’ She stopped and clapped her hand to her runaway mouth.
‘I’m sorry, Master Edward, I didn’t mean nothing.’

But he was still smiling, his face showing more colour than it had when she had entered the room. ‘I know you didn’t, Kitty. And stop apologizing. You can say anything you like to
me, you know. I would never tell.’

A door banged somewhere along the landing and Kitty jumped. ‘Oh heck, what am I thinking of, dawdlin’ about here. Mrs Grundy’ll ’ave me guts fer garters. What was it you
wanted, Master Edward? Why did you ring?’

‘Can’t remember now. But I’ll think of something. I’ll ring more often if you’re going to answer it.’

‘Oh, now . . .’

He gave a wheezy laugh. ‘It’s all right, Kitty, I’m only teasing. But you’re a refreshing change from Lucy’s tearful face. Or Miss Starchy Knickers . . .’

Kitty gave a little squeal of delight at his saucy name for the housemaid. ‘Master Edward!’ she said, pretending to be shocked yet the description was apt. Sarah Maybury fancied
herself above the rest of the servants at the Manor. ‘Gives hersen airs and graces, that one,’ Mrs Grundy would sniff. ‘What with ’er and her stuck up ways and Lucy always
in tears, thank goodness I’ve got you, Kitty.’

‘What was all the commotion just now?’ Edward was saying.

‘I don’t know yet, but I’ll no doubt hear all about it when I get back downstairs.’

‘Do tell me later, won’t you?’ he pleaded. Kitty nodded, feeling a stab of pity for the young boy who had so little in his life that his sister’s tempers were the only
exciting event in his day.

He was sighing now. ‘My sister really is the end, you know. Six maids in three years have come and gone and it’s all Miriam’s fault, not Mother’s. Now it sounds as if
Lucy’ll be the seventh to leave. No one can handle my dear sister’s tantrums, at least not since Nanny got too old and retired.’

Absentmindedly, Kitty straightened the already smooth counterpane. ‘Can’t they indeed?’ she murmured and then felt his gaze upon her.

‘Kitty,’ Edward began warningly, ‘what are you up to?’

Kitty widened her eyes, feigning innocence. ‘Me, Master Edward? Now what could I, a lowly kitchen maid, possibly be “up to”?’

He wagged his finger at her. ‘I know you, Kitty Clegg, there’s something going on in that pretty little head of yours. Now, you just—’

Another door banged, closer this time, and Kitty jumped. ‘I’ve gotta go, Master Edward. Just tell me quick what you wanted. Please!’

He sighed, his ploy to keep her with him failing by the minute. His voice flat, he said, ‘Just close the window, will you? There’s a draught.’

Kitty crossed the room and reached to push up the top part of the sash window.

‘Oh!’ Her arms suspended in midair, a surprised gasp escaped her lips.

‘What is it? What can you see?’ Edward was sitting up in bed again.

‘I never realized,’ the girl murmured, pushing the window up slowly until it was closed, ‘that you can see right into the stackyard from your window.’

Her whole attention was gone now from the boy in the bed as she watched the tall, burly figure of Jack Thorndyke polishing his engine with loving care until the dark green paintwork and the
brass fittings and copper pipes gleamed in the sunlight and the name
Sylvie
, picked out in gold lettering on the front of the smokebox door, shone.

‘Oh,’ Edward said and dropped back again, pushing into the pillows as if he would bury himself in them. ‘Oh yes. I can see everything that goes on down there, Kitty.’ His
voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Everything.’

She heard his words with only half an ear and their underlying meaning escaped her. ‘I’ll have to go down,’ she said, though whether she meant back to her duties in the kitchen
or out again to the stackyard, neither she nor the boy really knew.

‘Yes, you do that, Kitty. You go down.’

She hurried across the room towards the door, two bright spots of colour in her cheeks.

As she closed the door softly behind her and sped along the passage towards the stairs, she could not see the boy in the bed turn his face into the pillows, or hear his muffled groan of
anguish.

As Kitty pushed open the kitchen door, the sound of wild crying met her.

Lucy Jones was sitting at the kitchen table, mopping at her tear-streaked face. Mrs Grundy, standing beside her, looked up as Kitty came in.

‘There you are. Thank goodness you’ve come. P’raps you can talk a bit of sense into this silly girl, Kitty. She’s threatening to give notice.’

‘I’m not threatening,’ Lucy wailed. ‘I mean it. She – she attacked me. I’m sure she’s not right in the head.’

Mrs Grundy leaned closer. ‘Now, you listen to me, me girl. Don’t you go saying such dreadful things about the young mistress. You hear me?’

Lucy snivelled miserably, but said no more.

Kitty stood on the opposite side of the wide, scrubbed table and leaned on her hands, regarding Lucy thoughtfully. The girl did look a sight and no mistake. Her face was blotchy with the storm
of her weeping and her hair was ruffled and pulled from its plait. The pretty frilled cap that Kitty secretly envied so much was held only by one hairpin and hung down over her left ear. The
delicate lace bib of her white apron had been torn away, leaving a triangular rip in the black fabric of her maid’s dress.

‘What happened, Lucy?’ Kitty asked. ‘What did Miss Miriam do?’

At the offer of sympathy from someone closer to her own age than the cook, fresh tears welled in Lucy’s eyes. ‘She pulled my hair, Kitty, and tore my dress. Just look!’

‘I can see that,’ Kitty said tartly. ‘But what happened? What caused it?’

Turning away, back towards her range, Mrs Grundy said, ‘’Spect you deserved it.’

‘How would you know?’ In her self-centred misery, a sneer twisted Lucy’s mouth. ‘You’ve never worked above stairs. You’ve never been a lady’s maid. How
would you know?’

Despite her bulk, Mrs Grundy whipped round with surprising agility. She raised her arm and began to wag her finger at the girl, but before she could speak, Kitty broke in, ‘Now don’t
you go upsetting Mrs Grundy.’ She laughed, her eyes twinkling at the older woman, whose face was red with anger. ‘She’s already threatened me with her copper stick once
today.’