The Maid's Secret
Authors: Val Wood
The truth could change the lives of all those around her . . .
Ellen has worked as a servant girl since she was twelve – her mother had always taught her that she must earn her own keep until she finds someone to marry.
After a year of back-breaking work, a chance encounter leads her to a new position as kitchen maid at Hart Holme Manor – the grandest estate around for miles.
There, against the wishes of the household, she befriends the owners’ son, Christopher. If the true nature of their closeness were ever revealed it could not only jeopardise both Christopher and Ellen’s positions, but carry consequences that could affect the rest of their lives . . .
Contents
Maid’s Secret
Val Wood
Chapter One
1830
Ellen had been in service since her mother had told her that she could no longer keep her at home. She was twelve then, and from the age of five she had known that this day would come. At ten she had been allowed to go to school for six months to learn to read and write, but once those lessons were mastered she had had to leave and continue to learn the rudiments of housekeeping from her mother.
‘You’re a girl and must earn your own keep until such time as you find somebody to marry you,’ her mother had said bluntly. ‘Any spare money we had has gone towards your brothers’ apprenticeships.’
There was no arguing with her mother: not even Ellen’s father did that. His wages as a bargeman were put on the table and his wife gathered them up to pay the rent and buy food, which year by year was getting more and more expensive. Bread and flour, the most staple of necessities, were hard to come by. They lived in the small town of Brough on the Humber estuary, and although in times past it had been important its chief claim to fame now was that the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin had boarded at the Ferry House Inn until he was captured and taken to York in irons, where he was subsequently executed for horse theft.
Ellen found work as a general maid in a house in Brough, where she discovered that she was even lower in the pecking order than she had been at home. After twelve months of scrubbing floors and vegetables, cleaning the grates and lighting fires, washing windows and floors, dusting and polishing and, it seemed to her, being blamed for everything that went wrong, she was determined to get away.
Quite by chance, when sent by the mistress to buy strong thread and be quick about it, she met Susan Tyler, who had attended school with her. Susan told her that she was applying for a position as a kitchen maid in a manor house near Broomfleet, a few miles up the river.
‘What’s it called?’ Ellen asked. ‘Because I’ve put in for one as well.’
‘Hart Holme Manor,’ Susan told her. ‘It can’t be ’same; ’job’s onny just come vacant. My sister knows ’brother of ’girl who’s just left.’
‘It’s ’same one,’ Ellen lied. ‘I heard about it ’other day and wrote straight away. I’ve got a really good reference, so ’job’s practically mine. They wanted somebody who could read and write well,’ she added, knowing that Susan could do neither.
‘Oh!’ Susan’s expression fell. ‘So no use me asking then?’
‘None,’ Ellen said sorrowfully. ‘I’m so sorry, Susan. But tell you what, leave it about a fortnight and then apply to ’place where I am now; they’ll be that desperate for somebody you’ll be sure to get ’job.’
Susan frowned at the backhanded compliment, and not sure how to respond simply said that she would.
Ellen hurried back with the thread and breathlessly told the mistress that she had to go home immediately as she’d heard that her mother was very ill.
‘You can’t,’ Mrs Burton said. ‘I need you here.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ she said, letting her lips tremble and blinking as though to hold back tears. ‘But I’m that worried; I don’t want to leave it too late.’
She packed a bag with her few belongings and then scurried round to the stable to find the young stable lad.
‘Quick,’ she said. ‘I’ve to go on an errand for ’mistress. She said you’d to take me in ’trap.’
She had never been to Broomfleet, and Susan had only said near Broomfleet, so as soon as they were on the right road she told the lad to pull up and ask a man for directions to Hart Holme Manor.
‘Drive on for another two miles,’ he said, ‘and you’ll see a long track; look up it and you’ll see ’house at ’top. Can’t miss it.’
‘Thank you.’ Ellen smiled at him, and because she was a pretty girl he smiled back and touched his hat.
‘You can stop here,’ she told the lad when they reached the bottom of the track, ‘and I’ll walk up. Then you get off back to ’house. If ’mistress asks just say you dropped me off but you don’t know where.’
‘I don’t know where,’ he snuffled. ‘I’ve no idea. I’m from Hessle.’
‘We’re still in Brough,’ she lied again. ‘Vicinity of.’
‘Am I coming back for you?’
She decided there and then. She would lose her wages if she didn’t go back; she’d been given a shilling when she’d started work and the rest she’d get at the end of the year, but she was willing to gamble, especially as she’d glimpsed the manor house at the top of the track and known instantly that she wanted to be there. ‘No. I’ll mek my own way,’ she said. ‘I know how.’
Metal gates opened on to a gravelled drive that ran between large trees and bushes and neatly clipped grass and then divided, one drive leading to the front of the house, the other to the back. The house was solid and dignified, with stone steps leading to the front door, which had a balcony over it. An additional wing had been built on the left hand side with a large bay window in the centre.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘I want to work here.’ She also wanted to live here, and, if given work, then she would, up in the attic.
She took the side drive towards the servants’ entrance. I know my place, she thought. I’ll do everything right to make sure I get taken on. She knocked on the door, placed her bag on the ground and stood demurely waiting with her hands folded in font of her.
‘Just a minute!’ a woman’s voice shouted. ‘Is it Mr Hanson?’
‘No, ma’am,’ she called back. ‘It’s not.’
A flustered-looking woman clad in white apron and cap opened the door. Surely, Ellen thought, Cook doesn’t usually open ’door herself? In the Brough house Ellen had to drop everything to answer both back and front doors.
‘I thought you were ’butcher,’ the cook said, wiping her forehead with the back of a floury hand. ‘Who are you?’
Ellen dipped her knee. ‘Ellen Fletcher. I heard there was a vacancy for a kitchen maid and I came straight away. I’ve allus wanted to work at ’manor, Cook, and although I know it’s not ’way it’s done, I just dared to come.’
‘Did you now? Well, you’d better come in.’
Cook sat down at the wooden table and gave a deep huff of breath. ‘Don’t know where everybody is. I’ll have somebody’s hide,’ she muttered. ‘Nobody to answer ’kitchen door and me in ’middle of baking for afternoon tea.’
The door into the kitchen opened again and a young maid rushed in. ‘Sorry, Cook,’ she said. ‘Call o’ nature.’ She looked at Ellen. ‘Who’s this then? New kitchen maid?’
‘She might be. Put ’kettle on, Letty, and mek me a cup o’ tea. Now then, young woman. I’m Mrs Marshall. Cook in this household and my word is law. Now let’s hear about you and how you come to be here.’
Ellen confessed to Mrs Marshall that she had met someone that morning who had told her about the vacancy at the manor. She left out the fact that the girl had been going to apply for it herself, and embroidered her reasons for rushing here immediately before anyone else took the position.
‘You mean that you’ve left without giving notice?’ Mrs Marshall was aghast. ‘Now that won’t do, it won’t do at all.’
‘Oh, no,’ Ellen said. ‘I left a message with one of ’other staff that I’d be back as soon as I could.’ She found that lying was coming quite easily to her and she didn’t disclose that the ‘other staff’ was a humble stable lad she had coerced into bringing her. ‘I wouldn’t let ’mistress down. I know how important I am to her, but neither could I miss ’opportunity to better myself.’
‘Mmm.’ Mrs Marshall seemed suitably impressed. ‘Which house in Brough? I don’t know one of any size.’
Ellen gave a disarming smile. ‘You wouldn’t know it, Mrs Marshall,’ she explained. ‘It isn’t in this class at all. Mr Burton is in trade, but a very decent hard-working man, although Mrs Burton gets a bit above herself sometimes, begging her pardon,’ she added, in case she’d overdone it.
‘Aye, well, some folks do,’ Mrs Marshall agreed. ‘We all need to know our place. All right then,’ she said. ‘I’ll tek you on, on a month’s trial. When can you start? And what about a reference? I can’t tek you without a reference.’
Ellen put her fingers to her lips as if considering. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I could start today, except that Mrs Burton won’t give me a recommendation unless I work a month’s notice and you might decide to tek on somebody else who onny has to give a week.’ She pouted as if she were going to cry and took a deep sobbing breath. ‘And I’d be devastated if I lost ’chance of working here.’
‘A month! I can’t wait a month,’ Cook declared. ‘And you’d be prepared to start today? What would your mother say? What would she think about it?’
‘She wouldn’t care,’ Ellen claimed. ‘She’s not really bothered about what I do.’
Mrs Marshall was quite soft-hearted in spite of her bluster, and she was drawn to this young girl who had taken matters into her own hands to better herself. She nodded. ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do then. I’ll tek you on today and you must write to your employer and explain that you’ve accepted another position. How you explain it is up to you, but ask her for a reference cos ’month’s trial still holds. And if you don’t fit in then you’ll be given notice.’
‘Oh, thank you, Cook.’ Ellen spontaneously gave the older woman a kiss on her floury cheek, and Mrs Marshall was quite overcome. ‘You’ll never regret it. Never.’
And she didn’t. Ellen became the surrogate daughter that Mrs Marshall had always wanted, and Ellen found someone who, unlike her own mother, listened to what she had to say and took time to answer her questions. In other words, as one of the other maids hinted jealously, they became as thick as thieves. The month’s trial came and went and the reference was never asked for, which was just as well, for Ellen had written to Mrs Burton only to say that she had left and wouldn’t be coming back, but if a Susan Tyler should apply for the position she would highly recommend her.
She felt that she was almost rich. She was to be paid ten shillings a year and supplied with two grey cotton dresses, three coarse aprons and caps and her food and lodgings, and although she didn’t get the room in the attic she had imagined, she was given a mattress in the kitchen in front of the range.
The housekeeper, Mrs Whitton, didn’t allow the kitchen staff upstairs, but in any case Mrs Marshall kept her busy learning the way she liked things to be done, from scrubbing floors, washing windows and cleaning out cupboards to stoking the fire under the range, as well as preparing vegetables for cooking, and washing a sink full of dirty dishes and pans. Many of her tasks were similar to the work she had done at her former employer’s house, but now she did them willingly, for she liked the thought of being part of the staff in this mansion and hoped that she would eventually become an upstairs maid.
Sometimes she helped in the laundry, lighting fires and filling the tubs with water for Mary the washerwoman, who came in every Monday to wash and Tuesday to iron. Mrs Marshall told her that Mary had a hard life, as she was the only daughter left at home to look after her demanding father and earn a living for the two of them. She was also a self-taught midwife, often called upon to attend the labours of local women in spite of never having had any children herself. She was strict with Ellen but taught her which sheets needed boiling and which needed only a warm wash, as well as the correct way to iron shirts, press linen sheets and pillowslips and look after Mrs Hart’s lingerie.
‘One day you’ll mebbe have a husband and bairns of your own,’ she said. ‘And you’ll know ’best way to starch and press and fold and keep your fustian nice, even if you’re not lucky enough to own linen like this.’
‘Learn well,’ Mrs Marshall murmured to Ellen. ‘Listen and learn, know what’s required from all of ’staff and you’ll do well for yourself. One day you might even become lady’s maid to ’mistress. Now there would be a thing, wouldn’t it?’
The mistress, Mrs Hart, was a stickler for propriety, and Ellen began to realize what a chance Mrs Marshall had taken in employing her. Mrs Hart had given birth to four daughters and a son; the daughters were gradually being married off and the son, Christopher, was expected to run the estate when he was old enough; he was presently at school and only a little older than Ellen, but she’d meet him in the school holidays, Mrs Marshall said, for he always came down to the kitchen for a slice of cake when he was at home.
