The Maid's Secret (3 page)

When Daisy had finished and made the kitchen tidy, Ellen told her that she could go to bed. The girl put her mattress at the other side of the kitchen, pulled her blanket over her and was instantly asleep whilst Ellen patiently waited until she judged that the cake was done.

It rose, just as the other one had, the aroma was delicious and she felt with immense satisfaction that she was a true cake maker. She carefully transferred it on to a rack and left it to cool, and then she took it into the larder, placed it on a stone shelf and covered it with a mesh dome. That done, she found a pencil and a piece of paper, wrote
Do not eat
in large letters and placed it by the cake.

It was late, after eleven o’clock, and she had to be up, washed and dressed by six, but she sighed happily. It was the first time she had done something for someone else without prompting and only because she wanted to, and she was astonished by the wonderful sensation it gave her. But I’ll never do it for anyone else, she thought. Not ever. Only for Christopher.

The next day Mrs Marshall, declaring it excellent, wanted to cover it with chocolate icing, but Ellen said no, she wanted to keep it simple and only sprinkle a dusting of chocolate over the top. That evening, the eve of his birthday, Christopher came down to the kitchen an hour before supper.

‘Can you wait awhile, Master Christopher?’ Cook asked him. ‘There’s a surprise for you, but we must wait for Ellen. She’s helping Mr Stephens with ’table setting.’

‘I know. I saw them. We have friends coming for supper tonight and then a party tomorrow.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t really like parties, Cook. When I’m running this house I don’t think I’ll have any.’

‘Oh?’ Mrs Marshall put her hands on her ample hips. ‘And then what will we all do here in ’kitchen? Just twiddle our thumbs? And what if you have a wife who likes to entertain, Master Christopher?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said glumly. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Well, I’ll have to choose someone who doesn’t like them either.’

Mrs Marshall raised a quizzical brow. Nobody’s ever satisfied with what they’ve got, she thought. You’d think that a young man with everything he could ask for would be happy with his lot, but he’s not. She wanted to pat his head, but it wasn’t her place to be too familiar.

When Ellen came back downstairs, Cook had put out a cake stand with a pretty lace doily, set out cups and saucers for three people and told Daisy to make a pot of tea. Ellen took the stand into the larder, arranged the cake on the doily and bore it proudly into the kitchen.

‘Happy birthday for tomorrow, Master Christopher,’ she said, and Cook and Daisy joined in whilst Flo looked on with her mouth turned down and didn’t say a word.

‘How very kind,’ Christopher said, when Cook told him that Ellen had made the cake. Ellen cut a slice and handed it to him on a plate. He took a bite, pronounced it delicious, and hoped they would join him and have a slice.

Cook nodded and said they would, and she and Ellen sat with him at the kitchen table whilst Daisy poured the tea.

‘Flo, Daisy, you must try it too,’ he said, and although Daisy eagerly stepped forward Flo said, ‘Thank you, sir, but I won’t if you don’t mind. I don’t care for chocolate cake.’

Ellen gave a little smile. Sour grapes. She’d seen Flo eating chocolate cake many times, and, she thought, I’ll be sure to remind her she doesn’t like it when Cook next makes one.

When Christopher got up to leave, Ellen wrapped the remains of the cake in greaseproof paper and put it in a tin for him to take upstairs. He thanked her and bent to kiss her cheek and then did the same to Cook. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘How splendid you all are.’

Ellen stood and stared after him. He’d kissed her cheek. Oh, she breathed, if only I could have kissed him back.

‘Mistress’s bell’s ringing, in case you can’t hear it,’ Flo said spitefully. ‘Don’t forget who you are.’

By nature Christopher was a quiet, polite and rather shy young man, adored and cosseted by his older sisters since he was a baby, yet rather than growing up clamorous and demanding he looked to the women in his life for reassurance and advice. Except for his mother. Although triumphant that she had finally produced an heir, as was expected of her, she had handed over this latecoming infant to her daughters and the nanny; as he grew up she was never able to give him an opinion on anything important to him, or for that matter any love or comfort either. She neither understood nor was interested in children, especially boys.

Since the marriage of his last sister, as the only minor still at home he had felt isolated, neither a fully fledged grown-up nor a child. His mother often looked at him as if she didn’t really know who he was, and his father on their perambulations round the estate or tenanted farms would point at a newly born calf or a pig in litter and say gruffly, ‘When you’re older, my boy, I’ll teach you about
what’s what
,’ and bark with forced laughter.

Christopher would feel his cheeks redden and lower his head in embarrassment, thinking, if he means procreation then I already know about it. Has Father forgotten that I go to school? The other boys have already told me all I need to know, and some things that I’d rather
not
have known.

His trips down to the kitchen were essentially because he was lonely and in need of company. He knew some of the maids were rather shy of him, but Cook was warm and sympathetic and treated him like a normal human being, unlike the menservants. The butler was always so correct, whilst his father’s valet was almost too subservient and the footmen rarely spoke to him. Most of the outside men, as he thought of them, didn’t seem to notice him, and the rest, like the horse lad Tuke, were ingratiatingly servile.

I suppose, he thought, they think that I’ll remember them favourably when I am master here, but that won’t be for many years, as my father is hale and hearty. And what’s more I won’t, because I hate their fawning obsequious manners and there is nothing about their conduct that would make me want to employ them.

He was, without realizing it, setting parameters for what he would do when the time came. That the servants were afraid of his parents he knew, for even those who were instrumental to their well-being, their means of livelihood and their future were utterly dependent on them. I shall be just, he decided with youthful passion, and treat my servants kindly.

And it was as he was thinking of these things that his thoughts turned to the young maid who had made him a birthday cake. She was very pretty and rather shy, he thought, just as he was, though not so shy that she hadn’t thought to bake him a cake, and she had done it herself. Mrs Marshall had said so. ‘Ellen wanted to bake you a cake,’ she said.
Ellen
, that was her name. She started in the kitchen and is now an upstairs maid, which means that I won’t see her so often, which is a pity, as I’d like to; we are a similar age, I think.

Does she get time off, he wondered; if she does I could perhaps talk to her. I wouldn’t be as tongue-tied with her as I am with young ladies. He gave a silent groan as he thought of the forthcoming tea party. His mother would have invited her friends and they would bring their daughters, who would be as speechless and inarticulate as he was.

It was only a small gathering, as sixteen wasn’t considered to be a significant age, but nevertheless he was expected to exchange small talk with two young ladies and three boys, all considerably younger than himself, who were even more reluctant to be in attendance than he was. After tea he offered to take them to the stables and show them his new horse. Two of the boys and one girl agreed; Jane, the other girl, was urged by her mother to go with them but steadfastly refused, saying she wasn’t interested in horses. Christopher grinned at her show of spirit and was rewarded by a returned smile.

They passed the kitchen door as they made their way to the stables and Christopher saw Ellen and another maid standing outside. They both bobbed their knees and retreated into the kitchen. They didn’t have to do that, he thought. Was that a resting period before going upstairs to clear away the tea things? He felt guilty about disturbing them, but also thought that he would wander outside again at the same time on another day in the hope of catching Ellen alone and speaking to her as he had previously. I will have to do it soon, he thought, as I shall be going back to school before long and the opportunity will be lost.

The two young boys were not impressed with Sorrel and boasted that they would be getting stallions when they were old enough.

‘So will I,’ he told them in an unusual show of pique, ‘but I won’t have to wait as long as you will,’ which shut them up immediately.

The girl, whose name he had already forgotten, patted the horse’s neck, turned round and went back towards the house.

I must try to come outside at the same time tomorrow, Ellen thought, and preferably on my own. Master Christopher looked as though he would have liked to come over, but how can I take more than a few minutes without anyone noticing?

There was only one way, she thought, and that was to call on Cook’s good nature. ‘Mrs Marshall,’ she whispered, ‘I think that Master Christopher wants to speak to me about something. I saw him just now when I was outside with Flo and he was making signals behind the boys’ backs. Flo didn’t notice and I couldn’t make out what he meant.’ It was an exaggeration, but Mrs Marshall didn’t know that.

‘Why would he want to talk to you?’

‘I don’t know. But he doesn’t seem to have anyone to confide in, does he? I just wondered, should I try and step outside after tea tomorrow so that if he comes by I could ask him what’s troubling him.’

Cook frowned. ‘He’d surely ask somebody else if summat was amiss? He wouldn’t ask a servant.’

‘Not normally he wouldn’t, I suppose,’ Ellen agreed. ‘But who would he ask? Sometimes there are things that you don’t want to talk about to your mother or father in case they think you’re being foolish, but it wouldn’t matter if it was someone ’same age as yourself. They would understand. Wouldn’t they?’ She put her head on one side as she posed the question. ‘Like when he wanted to show me his new horse.’

‘Mmm.’ Cook pondered. ‘He does seem a bit lonely sometimes.’ She shook a finger at Ellen. ‘All right, but don’t let Mr Stephens catch you, or I’ll be given ’sharp end of his tongue as well as you.’

‘Oh, I won’t,’ Ellen assured her. ‘He’ll never know.’ The butler went to his room for an afternoon nap at that time of day in order to prepare himself for the evening. He’ll not notice if I’m in or out.

The next day, when tea was cleared away, Mrs Marshall was resting in her easy chair, Mr Stephens had gone to his room and the other maids were taking advantage of the spell of quiet, Ellen slipped silently outside, where she leaned on the wall and put her face up to the sun. She had been there only a few minutes when she heard the crunch of gravel and prayed that it wasn’t one of the horse lads or a gardener.

‘Hello,’ a soft voice greeted her. ‘Sorry. I always seem to disturb you.’

Ellen opened her eyes, ‘Oh, no, it’s all right,’ she murmured. ‘I’m not needed for anything so I thought I’d mek ’most of ’sunshine for five minutes.’

‘Quite right,’ Christopher said. ‘But there’s nowhere for you to sit.’ He looked about him. ‘There’s a bench in the kitchen garden. Wouldn’t you like to go and rest yourself?’

‘I, erm, will it be all right?’ She hesitated. ‘We aren’t usually allowed in there unless it’s to fetch something, like onions or carrots, you know.’

He put out his hand. ‘It will be fine.’ He smiled. ‘Come on, the gardener won’t question it if you’re with me.’

‘No, of course he won’t,’ she said. ‘It would be nice to tek ’weight off my feet for a minute.’

His forehead creased. ‘You must get very tired, looking after us all day. You deserve a short break at least.’

Ellen smiled up at him. How kind and thoughtful he was, and very handsome too. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Sometimes we do,’ but she made it sound as if it was the greatest pleasure and honour in the world to work for his family.

That first meeting in the kitchen garden, with the earthy smell of vegetables and the sweet perfume of honeysuckle and roses that drifted over their heads from beyond the wall, led to several more before Christopher went back to school. Ellen daren’t exceed more than ten minutes, and not every day in case someone missed her, someone like Flo who seemed to have eyes in the back of her head, and asked Ellen a couple of times where she had been. Sometimes Ellen replied that she’d slipped upstairs to have five minutes on her bed; once she brought in a cabbage she’d picked up from a wooden box which was obviously meant for the kitchen. She just held it out on her hand as a silent answer.

She and Christopher spoke of many things, but mainly he led the conversation, for she knew that the doings of a busy housemaid were not particularly interesting for a young gentleman to hear about. He told her about his school and his few friends there. ‘I like to be selective,’ he explained. ‘Not all the boys are people I would want as companions.’

He asked her about her own friends, presuming, she thought, that she would have some among the staff as well as from her home life. She prevaricated. The only friend she had in the household was Mrs Marshall, the cook.

‘I’m selective too,’ she told him, although she could have said she was choosy. Choosy enough not to want to discuss personal matters with any of the young women who worked alongside her; she wasn’t the kind who shared confidences, nor would she want anyone tittle-tattling about her private life, even if she had one.

‘Parents don’t always understand,’ he said, confirming her observation to Cook. ‘They like us to mix with the right people, don’t they? I expect your parents are the same?’ He gazed down at her. ‘Do they expect you to marry someone who is in a similar station in life?’

Ellen contemplated the comments her mother might make if she announced she was getting married. The first would be, was she in a hurry; second, was her suitor in work; and third, ‘Don’t come crying to me if it doesn’t work out,’ or ‘You made your bed, now lie in it.’ Her father wouldn’t say much at all, as he left all the important decisions to his wife. It was better that way, in case he got them wrong.