Hope (14 page)

‘I don’t mean that I think Nell’s sweet on him,’ Rose said quickly. ‘It’s more like she saw Old Nick come through the door. Is she afraid for the mistress? Or has the Captain done something to her?’

‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep such thoughts to yourself,’ Cook retorted sharply.

Hope was brimming over with curiosity now; she had to take a look at this man who flustered Nell.

Unfortunately she had no excuse to go anywhere in the house. She was a kitchenmaid, and the kitchen was where she had to stay.

Cook always had a little rest between three and four in the afternoon. Mostly she just sat in her chair by the stove and dozed a little, but that afternoon her legs, which often troubled her, were very swollen and she said she was going to have a lie-down in her room.

‘If I’m not back here by four, put the kettle on for tea and come and get me,’ she said to Hope.

Baines was in his parlour busy with his accounts, Rose was in the dining room laying the table for supper, and Ruby had the afternoon off and had gone down to the village. With everyone gone, Hope got on with scrubbing the kitchen and scullery floor. When she came back in from tipping the dirty water away out in the yard, she was surprised to see it was almost four, and Cook wasn’t back.

This had never happened before. Cook always asked to be called, but it was never needed. While it was the excuse Hope had wanted to go beyond the kitchen, she was suddenly nervous. She put the kettle on, changed her apron, straightened her cap, and after a few minutes’ hesitation went out into the hall.

The backstairs on the east side of the house that led from beyond the servants’ hall right up to the attic rooms were the ones she was supposed to use, but she wouldn’t catch even a glimpse of the Captain that way. But if she took a chance on crossing the hall, going up the main staircase and then nipping along the landing past the master and mistress’s rooms, if anyone saw her before she reached the backstairs, she’d be in trouble.

Hearing Lady Harvey’s voice coming from the drawing room, which meant the door was open, she turned back. Maybe it would be better to watch for the Captain going round to the stables to get his horse – no one could tell her off for going out into the yard.

As she made her way up the backstairs, Hope reflected on their meanness. They were narrow and steep, and the plain whitewashed walls were marked and gouged from the passage of so many servants carrying heavy loads up and down them. It always seemed absurd to her that while servants had intimate knowledge of their master and mistress’s bodies, personal habits and every other aspect of their lives, they had to use a separate staircase.

Hope rapped on Cook’s door and called out that it was after four. When there was no reply she opened the door and peeped in.

But instead of finding Cook still fast asleep as she expected, she was lying face down on the floor.

‘Cook!’ she exclaimed in dismay, rushing to her and rolling her over.

To her horror the older woman’s face was chalky-white, with an angry red mark on the forehead, clearly the result of banging her head on the bed as she fell. Her skin was ice-cold, and when she didn’t respond in any way to Hope chafing her hands, the girl thought she was dead.

Hope rushed out of the room and clattered down the backstairs two at a time, then, because she was so panicked about Cook, she ran straight for Lady Harvey in the drawing room.

‘It’s Cook, m’lady,’ she blurted out as she charged in. ‘She’s fallen down in her room and I think she’s dead.’

‘You didn’t knock!’ Lady Harvey reproved her. ‘Whatever are you thinking of, Hope? It’s Baines who deals with the servants.’

Hope had not only forgotten her manners and Baines, but in her haste she’d forgotten about the Captain. He had jumped out of his chair by the fire as she rushed in, and she immediately recognized him as the same tall and slender man she’d seen in the front garden on her first visit to Briargate almost six years earlier.

‘She’s just a child,’ he said, looking askance at Lady Harvey. ‘Look how frightened she is!’

‘She’s all cold and stiff.’ Hope directed this at the Captain for he was clearly more sympathetic than her mistress. ‘I turned her over because she was on her face, but I couldn’t lift her on to the bed on my own.’

‘Has she complained of feeling unwell?’ Lady Harvey asked, finally getting to her feet. Her face was cold and stiff too, but Hope realized this was through anger at the interruption.

‘No, m’lady,’ Hope said, tears springing to her eyes with shock. ‘She said her legs were bad, that’s all, and she’d have a lie-down for an hour. She said I was to call her if she wasn’t down again by four.’

‘We must get a doctor of course,’ the Captain said. ‘But I have a little medical knowledge, m’lady, so maybe I could go up to see what I can do until he gets here?’

‘Yes, of course, Captain Pettigrew.’ Lady Harvey looked flustered now. She turned to Hope. ‘You go and tell James to saddle up, and fetch Nell too.’

The Captain strode out of the room, Lady Harvey following him. Hope ran out to the stables and told James what had happened, then tore back up the stairs to find Nell.

She was in the little room next to Lady Harvey’s bedroom where she did her sewing. As the door opened her eyes widened in alarm.

Hope ran into her arms and told her what had happened. ‘I think she’s dead, Nell,’ she sobbed out. ‘And Lady Harvey didn’t even care, she said I should have got Baines.’

‘That’s just her way,’ Nell said. ‘She don’t really mean it, ’spect it was a shock to her too. You go on downstairs again, I’ll go up and see what I can do.’

The house had been as quiet as a church all the time Hope had been scrubbing the kitchen floor but as Nell rushed up to the attic and Hope ran back down the stairs, suddenly there was tumult. Baines appeared in the hall demanding to know what was going on, Rose came out of the dining room and Rufus came haring out of the schoolroom, closely followed by a distracted-looking Miss Bird calling out that his lessons weren’t over yet. Ruth was there behind them too, looking startled; later she was to admit to Hope her first thought was that she’d been up to some mischief.

Ruth was still called nursemaid, and saw to Rufus before and after his lessons, but she filled in the time she wasn’t with him by standing in wherever she was needed. This meant she did Rose, Ruby and Nell’s jobs on their afternoons off, and quite often helped Cook when there was a dinner party. She was closer to Cook than any one, and looked stricken when she was told what had happened.

Everyone forgot their place, even Baines, and they were out in the big hall all talking at once when the Captain came back down the stairs.

‘Back into the kitchen with you,’ he said, but his tone was gentle and understanding. ‘Cook is not dead fortunately, but she is gravely ill. I believe it is her heart.’

He herded them all back into the kitchen and came with them, saying that sick people needed quiet. James was waiting on the saddled horse for instructions and the Captain went out and told him to ride for the doctor. When he returned he made the suggestion that Ruth should go up and stay with Cook until the doctor arrived, and that Nell should go to her mistress as she was in shock.

‘And you, little one,’ he said, turning to Hope. ‘I think you should make tea for everyone. Can you do that?’

Until then, Hope had looked upon Baines as the most admirable man she knew. Yet suddenly the Captain seemed far more impressive for he’d not only taken her part against Lady Harvey, he’d also taken command of the whole house. She could see exactly why he made Nell flustered, for he was so handsome with his large dark eyes and sharp cheekbones. She felt warm inside that he’d called her ‘little one’, for her father used to call her that. But there was something more; she thought it was wonderful the way he looked directly at each person he spoke to, taking in their name, their position in the house and even their character, as if he considered every one of them of vital importance. She’d never before met anyone quite like him; Sir William wasn’t that way at all; he walked past everyone with barely a nod. Hope didn’t think he even knew who worked for him, let alone their names.

Once the Captain had gone back into the drawing room, he said he’d wait there until the doctor came in case he was needed. Baines cleared his throat and gave out his instructions.

Hope felt that although he said he was glad the Captain had been here in the emergency, he was a bit annoyed that a visitor had taken over his role.

‘It may be weeks before Cook is well enough to work again,’ he said, but the sad tone of his voice hinted that he didn’t expect to see her in the kitchen ever again. ‘Meanwhile we must all keep the house running smoothly by pitching in and doing extra duties.’

He divided up Rose’s parlourmaid duties between the other maids and told Rose she would have to take Cook’s place.

‘I can’t do that, Mr Baines.’ Rose looked aghast. ‘Nell and Ruth are both much better at it than me.’

Baines shrugged. ‘Then it will be useful practice for you. Hope will help you – she may be very young but Cook has trained her well.’

Hope glowed at the words of praise, but a second later she was smarting because Baines said she would also have to help Ruby with the fire-lighting in the mornings. In effect this would mean Hope would have to do almost all of it, for Ruby was slow, and struggled with just the fires in the nursery and schoolroom.

Baines then went on to say he was also going to ask Lady Harvey if she would consider cancelling the big dinner party she had planned for the following week as Rose was not an experienced cook.

Baines had only just left the kitchen when Albert came to the back door. He was very dirty and his face was like thunder.

‘Why are you still here?’ he snarled at Hope. ‘The fire’s out and there’s no supper for me.’

Because of all the drama, Hope hadn’t noticed that it was well after six. She always went home after laying the tray for Master Rufus’s tea, and it was her job to stir up the fire, put the kettle on and heat up whatever Nell had made for Albert’s supper in readiness for his return home around six.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, then launched into an explanation about Cook.

‘That’s no concern of mine,’ he snapped, cutting her off in mid-sentence. ‘A man who has been working outside all day needs his victuals. Get home now.’

Rose came into the kitchen just as Hope was getting her shawl and bonnet. ‘Nell won’t be home tonight,’ she called out to Albert. ‘Baines thinks she might be needed here.’

Hope’s heart sank as she saw Albert’s face darken even further at discovering he would be without his personal lackey for the night, but Rose had now aggravated him still further by speaking so dismissively.

There was a sharp frost again, and Hope shivered as she trotted along behind Albert in the dark. She was scared: to her knowledge Nell hadn’t been able to slip home earlier in the day to prepare some food for his supper as she usually did. If the fire had gone out too, it would be ages before Hope would be able to rustle something up. Albert wasn’t going to like that.

The cottage was icy cold, the stove out. This was evidence Nell hadn’t been back during the day as she always put more fuel on it when she came in. Hope quickly raked it out, laid a few dry twigs over some paper and then set light to it. She was very nervous because Albert was standing over her, glowering, and she offered up a silent prayer that it wouldn’t go out. Luck was on her side: the wood caught quickly and as she slowly added larger pieces of wood they blazed merrily.

‘Let me take your coat, and you sit down here where it’s warmer,’ she said, looking up at Albert. She wouldn’t normally have spoken so sweetly to him, but she was afraid he was going to explode.

‘I want hot tea and something in my belly,’ he snarled. ‘And quickly.’

Hope put the kettle on and scuttled out to look in the pantry which was situated in the lean-to scullery. There was half a loaf of bread, some cheese and the remains of the lamb stew from the previous night. She breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to prepare something from scratch.

Within fifteen minutes Hope had the kettle on the boil, the table laid and the potatoes cooking. She had added a few lumps of coal to the stove to keep the blaze more constant, and as she warmed the teapot she tipped some of the hot water from the kettle into a bowl for Albert to wash his hands.

‘There you are,’ she said, adding a little cold water to it. ‘The tea will be made by the time your hands are clean.’

She glanced round as he was washing and saw he was looking at a bad cut on the palm of his hand. ‘That looks nasty,’ she said in sympathy.

‘This is what I get in my line of work,’ he hissed at her, as if it was her fault. ‘Hands so stiff with cold I sometimes don’t know I’ve cut them. By then the dirt’s got in, and one day a cut like this will become poisoned, and then where will I be?’

Hope couldn’t understand why he was so angry. It appeared to be more than just the cold cottage and having to wait for his supper. ‘Let me put something on it,’ she said. ‘Nell’s got some ointment that’s good for cuts.’

‘I want my supper,’ he roared at her. ‘Not fucking ointment.’

She was shocked that he’d use that terrible oath in her hearing. There had been a casual worker last year at the haymaking who had used it in front of her and her mother, and Father had punched him on the jaw for it.

Turning away in disgust, she made the tea and poured him a cup without speaking. She hoped his hand would become infected, then his arm and finally his whole body. He was hateful.

Hope got up when she heard the mantel clock chime five. It was pitch dark outside and very cold. She lit a candle, wrapped her shawl around her nightgown and tiptoed past Albert’s room.

He had gone to bed the minute he’d finished his supper, much to her relief as she had fully expected that he would start finding more fault with her. She took herself off to bed as soon as she’d cleared up, but she hadn’t been able to sleep for thinking about Cook, and who would replace her if she died.

The stove hadn’t quite gone out, thanks to the coal dust she’d put on it before turning in. She managed to stir it into life, and used the warm water in the kettle to wash herself. She thought she would get herself ready, then call Albert just before she left. That way she wouldn’t have to face him again until the evening.