Nothing But Time (7 page)

It was good to know that there were those with the ability to stimulate the economy in such a way, but
Kate
had to wonder what
her new boss
did for a living to afford it all.

At the end of her first
– not even full – work
day,
Kate
had wanted
nothing more than to take a bath and sleep for
a week. 
However,
she was denied both
.  The staff bathed twice a week on Saturday and
Wedne
sday nights
and it was
now
only
T
ues
day
.  A
nd
unfortunately,
they
rose before dawn to start their day
so rest wasn’t
in the cards for her
either
. 

A
t least
t
he food was good and there was plenty of it.  Good traditional English food much as she had come to love since moving to England
.  Food
that stuck to your ribs and warmed you from the ins
ide out.  Bangers and mash, meat
pies, puddings of all sorts, soups, tarts and fish.

It was t
he kind of food that let a person fall asleep the second their head hit a pillow as Kate’s did that first night…though it might have been the simple result of sheer exhaustion.

Now
as
she l
owered the heavy bucket of soapy water to the floor, Kate stood arching her back and rotating her shoulder to relieve the strain.  She always considered herself a fit person.  She was active and outdoorsy, but this was just plain hard work.  Kate hurt in places she didn’t even know she had. 

With a sigh, she lowered herself to her knees and reached for the stiff bristled brush to tackle the sooty brick.

“It’ll get easier,” Marta told her as the maid dunked her own
scrubbing
brush into the bucket and set back to work as well.  “When I first came ‘ere, I thought I was like to die that first few days.”

“That sounds about right,” Kate agreed but didn’t stop her work.  Mrs. Hendricks seemed to have a talent for rounding a corner just when
Kate
paused to take a breath, each time giving Kate a glare more chastising than any Sister Anita had delivered in Catholic school when
Kate
was in the first grade.  “Tell me, is Mrs. Hendricks always so terrifying?”

Marta’s eyes widened before a wide grin broke across her face and she lowered her voice.  “Me and some of the other girls call ‘er the Dragon.  There ain’t no one in the ‘ouse who ain’t afraid of ‘er.  ‘
Er
temper’s
legendary so watch
yerself.  You know, I’ve been wanting to ask, where are you from because I can tell ye
r
ain’t from ‘round ‘ere?”

“
Originally
I’m from Minnesota
,” Kate answered as they worked amicably side-by-side. 

“Minnesota?” Marta repeated
,
shaking her head.  “
Ain’t never heard of it.”

“It’s
in the Midwestern
United States
.
”  The brush w
ent
into the bucket and back out.  “How about you?  Where are you from?”

“Lickfield, south of here,” Marta answered
,
dropping her scrub
bing
brush for a moment to stretch.  “
Mary
and
now Nan
, to
o.  I helped them get ‘ired
.  You should come out wi’ us on our ‘alf-d
ay off.  We like to go down to T
he
Row Barge
– it’s a tavern
in ‘
enley
– to meet wi’
some of our other friends,
too.  Nice crop of young footme
n there sometimes, if you’re looking to find a
n
‘usband.”

“What do you mean?”

She listen
ed
avidly to Marta as they worked side by side as the maid told her about
how many of
the unmarried maids
sent all their wages back to their families
in nearby towns
to
help
support younger siblings
, some
still in nappies.  Marta, for example, was the oldest child in her family and had seven younger siblings still at home. 
Going into service
and sending their
wag
es back to help their families
was
what unmarried girls of her class did.

Most of the staff at Ramble House had started out working in
Town – as
Kate found out
London was referred to –
in lesser households and wor
king their way up the ladder
to houses like the one in
Belgrave
Square or off to big country houses like this one.  Most of the maids also came
with hopes of finding a husband from among the male servants and tradesmen they encountered along the way.  On their half day off
– t
hat in itself was a bit of news Kate hadn’t yet truly absorbed
– t
hey would frequent the local shops, taverns and parks hoping to meet someone new.  With their families far off and so much expectation heaped on each of them, Kate could not help but feel for them. 

Once started, Marta talked the day away, through dinner where she introduced Kate to all the other girls she had missed meeting the day before. 
Her roommates were all
friendly, outgoing women like Marta, free with talk about their lives.  Most had situations very similar to Marta’s while a few others were married or widowed like Nan. 
Few
had an ambition beyond marriage, a family and home of their own
, other than
a hope of rising up the household staff.  The most ambitious
had a
goal to become a housekeeper one day, but Kate liked being among them. 
They cared for each other like sisters, watched out for one another and took Kate into their fold without question
.  Being a maid might be a step
down in her career
and the work harder than she expected
but
Kate thought her
co-workers were among the nicest she had ever
ha
d. 

As they all gathered in their dormitory
at
night, Kate thought their nights were like a perpetual slumber party full of laughter and gossip as they braided each other’s hair or mended their clothes.

The talk eventually turned to the imminent arrival of the new ‘master’ of the house. 
The
new boss
was apparently an earl. 
The
Earl
of
Harrowby to be exact. 
This Harrowby had
only
recently inheri
ted the title from his uncle
, his father’s older brother
.  T
hough it seemed some of the older, senior staff had known him as a boy when his mother had brought
him to visit his grandparents,
the man hadn’t stepped foot in the house in
almost a score of years
. 
There was
a rumor resurrected among the staff about t
he new earl’s mother
having
had
a
falling out with her
in-laws
years before
but no
ne of the upstairs maids
k
new for certain what had kept them
away in all the years since.

The prospect of meeting an English nobleman
sent a thrill of expectation through
Kate.  Being from the U
.
S
.
as she was,
the idea of royalty and nobility was fascinating to her though
t
he only real earl she had ever seen was
Prince Edward, the Earl
of Wessex, who’d been on the TV in the UK
quite a bit recently.  
She could just picture this Earl
of
Harrowby,
though.  G
iven the average age of the senior sta
ff and the family portraits around the house, she
envisioned
the earl
as an aged
, distinguished
chap with long whiskers who resembled
Walt Whitman.

Four days later

Kate had to admit that when she got things wrong, she
tended to get
them
reall
y
wrong.  “U
hh,
wow
!” she whispered under her breath to Marta as they stood near the end of one of the two rows of household staff lined up to greet the earl
that
Satur
day
afternoon
.  They were
all dressed in their best uniforms, the footmen in full livery while
Kate
and the other maids were adorned
in matching grey gowns, tight through
the long bodice and arms and complete with a full bustle in the back.  Their pristine white aprons and caps
gave them a generic appearance and
made any
one of them easily mistaken for the next.

Except Marta, who was a bit shorter and more buxom than the rest
, i
t seemed to
Kate
that most of the maids had been hired, like the footmen, for their height and build
.  T
he rest of them were all of upper average height and fairly slim, though it might have
simply
been the hard work that
kept
them that way.

“I
’m not familiar with that term but I’d say it sounds ‘bout right
,” the other maid agreed and several others around them giggled
even as they all stared at the new earl, each one blushing at the thoughts that were no doubt filling their heads much as they filled
Kate
’s
.

There was no denying that she had been very,
very
wrong with her pre-imagined
picture of the
E
arl
of
Harrowby, because the man who descended
from
the elaborate carriage and strode up the marble stairs into the hall slapping his gloves against his thigh was beyond imagination.  Not even her assessment of his age had been right.  Harrowby was
perhaps only thirty
,
she guessed.  He was
tall –
more than six feet easily,
powerful
– a
nd…
strapping (an old-fashioned word, of course, but it seemed to fit)
like a man who worked out daily or
was a real sportsman
.  Kate
wasn’t certain what they played at here but
a guy
had to do something
pretty
major nearly every day
to look like that. 
If he’d had a hammer in his hand, Kate would have cast him as Thor without a second thoug
ht.  It was easy to imagine wome
n throwing themselves at his
god-like
feet in supplication.

His stride was athletically
graceful, showing off his tall,
muscular
form and
hewn
thighs with each step, but what had really knocked the ‘wow’ out of
Kate
had been his face.

Here
was
a man who would make angels weep
, she thought giving herself a snort of amusement at her poetic waxing
.  Harrowby
’s visage was
wonderfully
defined with pronounced cheekbones, a
distinct
square jaw and
straight nose. 
E
ven from a
distance,
his eyes
were a piercing blue as his gaze narrowed under low brows at them all, but his lips were full and
Kate
would have wagered a bundle that he’d have devastating dimples when he smiled. 

If
he ever smiled, she amended.  He didn’t look like the type give
n over to good humor very often but, even with his mouth set so sternly, Kate was hard-pressed not to sigh and maybe drool just a bit.

His sandy hair was cropped close to his head unlike the other men she’d seen so far in this time who wore their hair a bit longer but slicked it back with oils.  The earl’s hai
r was shiny clean with just
enough
length
to have a mussed look about it that easily
mad
e one
woman think that another had recently
ru
n her fingers through it.  And
also unlike the other men who wore either full beards
, twisted mustaches
or long mutton-cho
p sideburns, Harrowby was clean-
shaven as if he knew that hiding his
transcendent
good looks would be a sin.

Brad Pitt might have
twice
been named
‘sexiest man in the world’
by People magazine
, but
Kate
was very certain that
, had People existed in 1876, this man w
ould
have broken
that record in
consecutive
years.

“Hello
oo,
hotness,”
she
drawled
in a suggestive tone
under her breath once again raising a scattering of giggles around her and prompting a glare from that old bat Hendricks from her place at the front of the line.

The
women
stifled their laughter and stood at attention as the earl greeted the butler, Geoffrey, and Hendricks who in turn took him away down the line introducing the senior staff.  Though it seemed that she meant to come all the way to the end,
Harrowby
soon waved her off claiming fatigue, etc.
stating
that he would meet the rest
of them
in the days to come.

With that, he strode
briskly
off down the hall leaving them all behind to stare after him.  Each and every set of female eyes watched him go and,
Kate
would wager, some of the male eyes as well because there was no denying the earl’s general appeal.

When he was
gone,
the air went out of the staff and they all collapsed into whispers about Harrowby, most of the younger girls giggling amongst themselves.  Hendricks sailed toward them and caught
Kate
painfully by the ear and dragged her off to scrub the servants
’
l
avatory
as punishment for her rabble rousing, as the housekeeper put it.

At least it was a
Saturday
night and, after that disgusting duty,
Kate
was able to line up with the others for her bi-weekly bath.

That was
an experience
Kate
didn’t think she’d ever get used to. 

The sharing of bathwater was almost as bad as not bathing at all.  The water was tepid and the soap harsh and all
Kate
could think about while she scrubbed was that there had to be some alternative to this lackadaisical approach to personal hygiene.  She certainly couldn’t imagine only bathing twice a week for the remainder of her life.

At
least she was finally clean
er if not truly clean
and in bed for the night earlier than usual.  The other gir
ls snored softly around her, but
Kate
couldn’t sleep even knowing that the
next day would send
more labors her way. 
For half the day, at least. 
The staff had the morning and early afternoon off
on Sundays
, presumably to attend church and visit their families
. 
Like all the other women, Kate was looking forward to
it,
wondering
if the day would w
h
iz
z
by like all the others or if the free
time
would be as long as her nights.

Evenings here were long for her.  At
home,
she’d usually curl up with a book and a glass of wine to unwind after a long day
’
s work or watch TV though she hadn’t been as obsessed with that since moving to England.  She’d just been unable so far to get used to the new shows and missed her favorites back home. 

However,
there was no time for unwinding here.  They worked, they ate and they slept before they got up to do
it all again.  Some of the other maids
could fall asleep in moments
and Kate envied them that ability
as she lay awake staring at the ceiling
.

Thinking of that huge library she had dusted on the first floor,
Kate
flung back the covers and pulled on the warm velvet
dressing gown
David
had provided for her
.  Stuffing her
feet into matching slippers that were finer than those most of the maids owned
, she
slipped silently out the door and into the darkness. 
M
oonlight
lit the halls,
s
treaming in the long windows
and
casting long rectangular patches against the carpets but it was enough for
Kate
to make
her way by as she descended
four
floors to the first where the library was located. 
It had taken her most of the week to learn to call it the first floor,
when
to her it was the second.  The first was on the ground level where she came from.

Shaking her head at all the differences between now and then, America and England, Kate felt her way down the dark hall to the library. 
There were candles and
a box of long
matches
there
and even an
oil lamp also on the desk if she remembered correctly
.

The library door opened with barely a creak and
Kate
entered
,
turning to where she had seen the lamp
earlier.  A drawer in
a nearby
table held matches and
Kate
struck one
.  Holding it up, s
he lifted the dome on the lamp and set the wick ablaze remembering to turn the knob to allow more light.  Satisfied, she held
it aloft in the darkness
illuminating the bookshelves.  Kate
tried to remember how the books were catalogued because it had seemed
that
they were in some order.  But what to read? 
The
English Lit
course she’d studied during
her freshman year seemed far away as she tried to recall some popular English novelists. 
Sure,
there was H.
G. Wells, but that poor boy hadn’t gotten old enough to write any of his books
yet
and might not ever after
David
’s tutelage. 

“Let’s see,” she murmured to herself.  “Jules Verne?  I doubt that’s out yet and
it would
probably
be
all in French
if it hasn’t been translated yet
.  Dumas
is
probably out but
same problem
.  Let me think…  Robert Louis Stevenson, he was big.”  She sc
ann
e
d the shelves but couldn’t find anything by that author.  “Ugh, who would have written by now?  Oh, I know! 
Jane
Austen
would have. 
Austen, Austen
….where are you
Austen
?”

“Lower and to your left
, I believe
.
”
A
deep male
voice broke through her wonderings
and
Kate
spun about to find the earl le
aning casually against the door
jam
b
. 
A
squeal of surprise
escaped
Kate
and she
jumped back
,
nearly dropping th
e oil lamp
.  She saved it though her hand was still shaking and she feared that she mi
ght burn the whole place down if
she dropped it.  The earl apparently felt the same concern as he rushed forward in long strides to remove it from her trembling hand and place it on the desk.

“
Oh geez!”
Kate
swore as he neared
,
backing
herself
against the shelves
, his size and strength overwhelming h
er.  He was certainly a dominant
guy, she thought.  Very lordly, aristocratic
.  T
hough she’d never known those qualities in anyone else
,
they were easily recognizable
.  Entitled might best describe it, but what could you expect from a guy who ow
ned everything around him?
  Wondering what to do,
Kate
bobbed an
awkward imitation of the curtsey
she’d seen the other girls make and had
half-hearted
ly attempted for Hendricks.  It was wobbly though and the earl’
s firm hand saved her from making an even
bigger fool of herself by falling to the floor.