Chaff upon the Wind Read online

  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.

  Three

  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.’

  Kitty caught the glance of the cook who glared at her for a moment and then, with a grunt, turned away. Thwarted in giving vent to her rage, she banged a huge cooking pan on to the range as if wishing Lucy’s head was beneath it. The smile faded from Kitty’s mouth as she turned back to the weeping maid. She didn’t particularly like the girl in front of her, never had. She was a whining, sour-faced creature who complained from morning until night about anything and everything. But Kitty had a real affection for Mrs Grundy, whose rough and ready manner hid a soft heart.

  ‘Come on, out with it. What did happen?’

  Lucy sniffed again. ‘I told you,’ she muttered. ‘She attacked me.’

  ‘But why? We all know Miss Miriam’s got a quick temper, but there’s got to be summat that set it off.’

  Lucy sniffed again. ‘How should I know? She’s vicious.’

  ‘Now don’t you start that again,’ came Mrs Grundy’s warning voice, ‘else . . .’ But as Kitty held up her hand, palm outwards, the older woman subsided, though she could still be heard muttering darkly to herself.

  ‘What happened?’ Kitty persisted, determined to get at the truth.

  ‘It was her new riding habit,’ Lucy began reluctantly. ‘You know, the one with the white ruff at the neckline. Well, last time she went out riding she tore the lace. I mended it but – but I’m not very good at sewing and she said – she said I’d made a pig’s ear of it. Oh she’s got such a mouth on her when she starts. Lady, my eye. She’s no lady.’

  Now Mrs Grundy turned and came back to the table. ‘No wonder she was mad. A lady’s maid that can’t sew. I never heard the like. What do you expect, girl?’

  Lucy stood, drawing herself up to her full height so that she towered over the short, dumpy figure of the cook. ‘In my previous position,’ she said, with deliberate condescension, ‘they employed a seamstress to do all the sewing and mending jobs. Not like here, where they can’t afford a proper complement of servants.’

  ‘Then why, pray,’ Mrs Grundy asked, hands on her hips and her head wagging from side to side, ‘didn’t you stay in your previous fancy position instead of lowering yarsen to come and work with the likes of us, eh?’

  Lucy sniffed. ‘My young lady went away. To finishing school. And if you ask me, that’s exactly where she . . .’ she jerked her thumb towards the door leading to the upstairs, ‘ought to go too. Might teach her some manners.’

  ‘Now just you look here—’ Mrs Grundy began again.

  Kitty, forestalling another argument, said, ‘Let ’er go, Mrs Grundy. She ain’t happy here, that’s obvious. There’s plenty more girls’d like ’er job. Ladies’ maids are two a penny.’

  Lucy turned her pale grey eyes upon Kitty, looking down her long nose. ‘I expect you think you could do the job, don’t you? Well, you’re welcome to it. See how you like having your hair torn from its roots.’

  The girl turned away and missed seeing the gleam in Kitty’s brown eyes. It did not, however, escape Mrs Grundy’s notice. ‘Kitty,’ she began warningly. But Kitty, too, turned away to hide the smile that twitched at the corner of her mouth, trying to still the sudden swift excited beating of her heart.

  Why not? she asked herself. Why shouldn’t I be a lady’s maid? I’ve worked in this kitchen for three years, she reminded herself, remembering the day her mother had brought her to the Manor.

  They had stood on the pavement looking up at the impressive old house that stood on a road leading out of the market town of Tresford. No one knew exactly when the house had been built. Some said that the central part had been built in the sixteenth century, originally a mud and stud structure that had been encased in brick walls at a much later date and probably added to by various owners down the centuries. Inside, the rooms led from one to another in a maze of passages and stairs and creaking boards and there was a strange feeling that the rough-hewn timbers held the secrets of long ago and the walls still enveloped the ghosts of the generations who had lived there.

  Kitty had arrived on a bright, warm morning in May and as she stood in front of the house, her gaze roamed over the pale mauve flowers of the wistaria that wound its way around the front door and crept over the brickwork, threatening to engulf the sash windows above. She loved the grey mottled thatch of the roof, the three sets of chimney stacks, so symmetrically placed. Prickly, variegated holly bushes guarded the front gate and a tiny blue butterfly hovered over the flowers on one of them. Kitty had made a step towards the gate to take a closer look but her mother had grasped her shoulder and propelled her further along the road and into the wide driveway at the side of the house.

  ‘Servants by the back door. Always know your place, Kitty.’ It was her mother’s maxim and she had drilled it into her eldest daughter for as long as the girl could remember. ‘When you go into service, Kitty, you give your life to those who put the food in your mouth and give you shelter. They deserve your devotion and your undying loyalty always – no matter what it costs.’ Her voice dropped almost to a whisper as she repeated the words, ‘No matter what it costs you.’

  At the side of the house, the wide driveway circled a clump of trees – hollies with dark green leaves, a sycamore, a yew tree and pines that stretched tall and straight to the sky. The drive opened out before the stables which were built at right angles to the house and against the wall enclosing the garden at the rear of the house. And beyond the driveway, more trees bordered the beck that ran along the edge of the Manor House grounds and then curved away, meandering through the flat farmland.

  ‘Oh Mam, look, just look at that huge tree. Look at its big roots,’ the excited young girl had exclaimed. ‘It must be hundreds of years old. Why, it’s higher than the house.’

  ‘Yes, yes, Kitty, come along.’ Her mother was impatient now, pulling her past the towering copper beech and through the gate in the wall at the side of the stables. Gripping Kitty’s hand, Betsy Clegg had scurried past the ground floor windows of the house, keeping her head averted until they came to the back door. Then she had seemed to breathe more easily.

  Puzzled by her mother’s obvious agitation, Kitty had said, ‘What’s the matter, Mam?’

  ‘Nothing – nothing, child. I just didn’t want to be seen by—’ She broke off and then added swiftly, ‘Be seen from the house, that’s all.’

  ‘Why?’ Kitty had questioned innocently. ‘Aren’t we supposed to be here?’

  ‘You are,’ her mother had said, ‘but I’m not so sure that I . . .’ Again she altered what she had been about to say and instead said impatiently, ‘Oh do stop aski
ng questions, Kitty, and let’s get inside.’

  Her mother had almost pushed her through the back door and into the kitchen.

  ‘Well, here she is, Mrs Grundy.’ Sitting down at the large table, Betsy accepted the cup of tea the cook placed in front of her. The thirteen-year-old Kitty stood awkwardly, gawping at her mother’s familiarity with the cook in this big, awesome house.

  ‘’Ow’ve ya been, then, Betsy? By, but it seems a long time since you worked here. I still miss you. We allus got on well together, didn’t we?’

  Kitty, her sharp ears missing nothing of the conversation passing between the two women, looked about her. This kitchen was immense. Under the window was a deep white sink with proper taps, Kitty noticed, rather than the pump handle at the side like the sink they had at home. That would make her life a little easier, she thought. Directly opposite the window, an enormous brick fireplace dominated the wall, but into its recess had been fitted a more modern black cooking range. On the wall alongside it, copper pans hung in neat rows, battered with constant use, yet they still shone and sparkled in the light. Kitty could imagine the work that had gone into cleaning them and her arm ached at the thought. Suspended from hooks in the ceiling were huge hams, wrapped in cloth, and at one end of the kitchen stood a dresser, its shelves lined with willow-patterned plates, cups and saucers. Kitty bit her lip, realizing she would have to get used to handling such fine china.

  In the corner near the dresser, a door opened on to a flight of steeply twisting stone steps that led both upwards into a dairy and a pantry beyond and also downwards into a cellar where rows and rows of the master’s wine lay in racks. Above this door a row of tiny brass bells bounced on curved springs and in the same corner was the door leading into the front hall of the house. But much of the upper part of the house, Kitty knew, would remain a mystery to her and she turned her attention back to the place that would, from now on, be her home.