Easterleigh Hall (27 page)

Evie was on her knees now, stroking Mrs Moore's hands. ‘No, they won't notice, why should they? And you know your rheumatics come and go. Soon you will have improved again. Summer will be here before we know it.'

Mrs Moore interrupted. ‘It's not fair. You are working while I'm getting the pay and you won't let me share. I can't return to Miss Grace, she has Sally now. It will be the workhouse.' Her voice broke completely.

Evie stood up and went to her. Millie knocked. ‘Evie, time's getting on.'

‘Start the soup, please, Millie. White soup, the recipe's in my book.'

‘But I'm not sure I can do it.'

Evie whispered, ‘One day I will put her in the stockpot and be done with it.' Mrs Moore's laugh was tearful. Evie raised her voice. ‘We're discussing the engagement party for Lady Veronica. Just read the recipe and we'll be out shortly.'

To Mrs Moore she said, ‘You see, you can't be so cruel as to leave me with her. You're still training me, I need you so much. Soon we'll have the hotel. We are all saving, my family and I, and though the strike will take some of the money we'll get there soon. I said 1914, but if it's 1915 it won't be the end of the world, and then everything will calm down, it's all become so tumultuous somehow. Either way, you'll be with us, so no more nonsense, if you please.' She shook her slightly. ‘Come on, we have work to do.'

Mrs Moore said, looking up at Evie, curiosity lightening her eyes, ‘Did Lady Veronica mention the Rt Hon. Captain Williams or the wedding at tea? Not quite the blushing bride, is she?' She tried to ease herself up from the chair and Evie helped, shaking her head. ‘Nothing was said at all. I expect they'll marry in London, but I wonder if we'll be making the cake? We'll have to put cold compresses on your hands if we do, because you're the only one with the skill to decorate it. I'll be watching carefully, mind. It's something I need to learn.'

She walked with Mrs Moore to the door. ‘I'll come back for the cup in a moment and where would you like me to hide the gin? And what if Millie had come in?'

Mrs Moore reached for the door, saying nothing until she was in the passageway, and then she muttered, ‘Better to stop the habit altogether maybe, pet?'

Together they strolled to the kitchen, welcoming the warmth and light. Evie muttered when she saw that Millie had done absolutely nothing about preparing the soup, ‘Aye, it would be better for you to stop, perhaps, and certainly better for someone else to actually start.' Both were laughing quietly as they went to the table and showed Millie, yet again, how to make white soup, wondering if this time she would listen.

After dinner Evie slipped out into the yard to meet Simon, round the corner from the store. He held her close, kissing her hair, neck, mouth, and she loved the feel of his body against hers and wanted more, but didn't know what. No one talked of what came next, not even her mother. The moon was huge and lit the path as they strolled along, his arm around her. They didn't speak, there was no need. They were as one and she loved him with all her heart. She wished it was the two of them marrying instead of Lady Veronica and if it was she'd not only talk about it, she'd leap into the air and keep going, right to the moon.

She stared up at the great white orb. ‘It does look as though it has a face, doesn't it, Si? I wonder what's up there.'

He stared too. ‘We'll never know, pet. No one will ever know, so we can just keep guessing and singing or writing about it. But one day, when we're married, it won't matter. It will be as though we're both up there, just being happy.'

Evie hugged him. One day, yes. They talked about it so often but it was only after they left service that they could marry, and they weren't ready yet. She said, ‘By then we'll have Mrs Moore living with us, you doing the gardens, Jack doing something, I don't know what, Timmie too. Mam and Da and your parents will do something. We'll get a hotel nearer the sea, we'll have lots of guests. You can sing and Bernie can play the fiddle and I'll cook.' He was kissing her now, smothering her words, and she quite forgot what she was saying as the heat rose in her.

The next day Lady Veronica came down into the kitchen at teatime with another young woman. It was Lady Margaret Mounsey, the one who had hurled herself into the melee outside the meeting in Gosforn when they were trying to protect Lady Veronica. Evie bobbed, her head down. Would she be recognised? Surely not, it was so long ago. Lady Margaret's face was thin and drawn and she trembled as she sat at the table.

Lady Veronica was apologetic. ‘Would it be too much trouble to take tea down here? Lady Margaret will be visiting for a few days, perhaps until the engagement party, and expressed a wish to join me here. She has been unwell and I wanted to discuss invalid food for her, if you and Mrs Moore would be so kind. But please continue with the five courses for me. No doubt Lady Brampton will give us the benefit of her company at some stage, perhaps at Easter, when we might have to reconsider the number of courses.'

Evie had already made tea and fancies for Archie to take upstairs, and she sent Millie scuttling to inform the servants' hall that the kitchen had unexpected visitors and Archie need only take tea for the chaperone, Mrs Benson. Millie took a tray to the butler's pantry for Archie and then the heavy tray with the servants' tea, and knew to remain there until Lady Veronica had left. Evie placed a tablecloth on the top end of the table, and hastily laid up for the two women. Lady Margaret's hair was dragged back in a bun. It was a sad sort of dull brown, and her skin tone was pasty, her chin was strong, her nose rather long and thin. By, she was just like a horse.

‘I can make an egg custard, Lady Veronica,' Evie suggested.

Lady Veronica shook her head. ‘No, I don't mean you to do it now, Evie. I know you're busy. Perhaps at dinner there could be something light – fish and then the egg custard.'

Lady Margaret stared around the kitchen. The copper glowed but this young woman seemed to absorb light and give back nothing; her eyes were dull and somehow she wasn't here. Where was she? In the cells? On hunger strike and being force-fed like the others? Lady Margaret lifted her skeletal hand to her hair with such effort that it might have weighed as much as a coal tub. Evie knew from the January meeting that she had been arrested yet again for public damage to a letter box; in other words, she had burned the mail. She had then hurled a brick through a local councillor's window, frightening the family. Did Lady Brampton know? Obviously not; no suffragette would be allowed to sully her home, and God knew what would happen if she discovered she harboured one in her own family.

Evie insisted. ‘I will make an egg custard now if you would pour the tea.'

Lady Veronica did, without a murmur. The egg custard took little time, but it would have to be eaten without setting. Evie explained this, providing a spoon, putting it in Lady Margaret's hand as though she was a child, then guiding it to her mouth, slowly and firmly and again and again.

No one spoke until the bowl was empty. Evie took it through to the scullery and on her return was pleased to see Lady Margaret sipping tea with a vestige of colour in her cheeks. Evie smiled at Lady Veronica. ‘I suggest that we start with simple foods and build up slowly. I also suggest that small portions are less off-putting. Beef tea and a few spoonfuls of jelly and perhaps some oat biscuits should be readily available for her Ladyship to nibble during the day.' She stopped. Did that make it sound as though Lady Margaret was a horse? Well, the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

She hurried on. ‘Some days the appetite may fade but it will return. There is a habit to overcook vegetables for those unwell, which destroys all goodness, so I suggest we prepare them al dente. I would also like to keep the skin on potatoes, which is where the goodness is contained. I will confer with Mrs Moore, and with her advice Lady Margaret will improve quickly.'

Lady Veronica smiled. ‘I knew I could rely on you, Evie, you and Mrs Moore. Wainey would have liked you as much as I and my brother like you.'

Evie could think of no reply. Servants weren't liked, they were just there. She bobbed a curtsy.

Lady Margaret spoke then. ‘You remind me of someone, Evie. Yes, you do but I can't think who.'

There was no thank you for the egg custard, there was just this, and Evie felt exposed. Lady Veronica cut in. ‘I am looking forward to you meeting Captain Williams, Margaret. I'm sure you'll like him, everyone does.' Her tone was crisp.

The conversation then roamed around the marriage and Lady Brampton's delight but clearly Lady Margaret was tired and ill, and soon became monosyllabic. As they left she looked again at Evie. ‘It is strange, I'm sure that somewhere in this muddled head of mine is the memory that we have met.'

They did not return to the kitchen but instead took tea in the drawing room, and Evie felt more secure. She and Mrs Moore sent up lightly boiled eggs for Lady Margaret's breakfast, broiled chicken for lunch with a simple pudding. Dinner might be a carefully cooked piece of cod, removed by an egg custard.

As the days went by they provided beef tea at all hours of the day, since the appetite was a strange thing and came and went according to its own clock, Mrs Moore reiterated. She showed Evie how to make the drink without the slightest trace of fat on the surface, using piece after piece of greaseproof paper. Evie didn't mind the extra work, because she was learning, always she was learning. They might well have convalescents to stay at their hotel.

The engagement party took place two weeks later, at the beginning of April, the week all the Durham miners returned to work. The strike had failed. They had to accept the owners' decision over a minimum wage. The Rt Hon. Captain Williams' parents resided near Cumbria, in a home that resembled a castle, so Mrs Green told Mrs Moore, and she doubted they knew one end of the coalfield from the other. ‘Lord Williams is a viscount, old stock, not new like Lord Brampton. Not as rich as the Bramptons, but then who is? Old money is small money these days. New money is big but grubby money. He's the eldest son so will inherit what there is, and Lady Veronica will inherit an old lineage. Lady Brampton is cock-a-hoop.'

In the kitchen no one was cock-a-hoop, they were all too busy and had been all week, what with the invalid food on top of everything else. Mrs Moore had concentrated on the engagement cake, decorating it painstakingly with her swollen hands, and it was ready the day before, nestling in the pantry in all its glory. She sat on her stool on Saturday issuing instructions as all the staff flew from one chore to another. The kitchen was alive with the banging of pans and the delivery of provisions from the co-operative store and Home Farm, not to mention the passage of flowers from the garden.

They slaved from five in the morning to lunchtime, with Mrs Moore cracking the whip, though that was into empty air where Millie was concerned. The girl disappeared with monotonous regularity and was to be found smoking Woodbines in the yard. ‘I need me breaks,' she complained after Evie had called her in yet again.

Mrs Moore said, ‘You need a good kick up the backside, you silly lass. You
must
do your share. It's not fair on the others. Sometimes I think you are working well, but it doesn't last. What am I to do with you?' There was no answer, just a pout, but as Mrs Moore sighed and resumed her work Millie said, ‘I've had a hard life, and you don't care.'

For one moment the kitchen fell silent. Everyone stared at her. Mrs Moore lifted the rolling pin but then replaced it slowly. ‘I'll tan your backside with this one of these days, see if I don't, you silly little madam. There's many more with worse stories than yours and they work just grand. Now get on.'

At lunch they were allowed an hour to put up their feet. Evie was too hot to stay in the kitchen and slipped outside, fanning herself. It was cloudy and the breeze had become light, which worried her because the furnace needed a stiff breeze to perform to its utmost. She strolled down the path into the vegetable garden, hoping to see Simon, but there was no one working there. She walked on down to the bothy; perhaps he was here? Along the way were cowslips and soon there would be bluebells. She slipped inside but no Simon, so she rested a moment, perching on an upturned barrel which had been moss-covered from the damp winter until she'd attacked it with some hessian on her last visit here.

Almost immediately she heard footsteps approaching but they weren't his, for Simon sounded like a shire horse crashing through bracken. Instead it was Millie and Roger who appeared in the doorway. Millie blushed but Roger just looked, then laughed. ‘Well, what a nice little meeting place for us all. You fancy a bit of a smoke in private, do you? Well, Millie and I'll just take ourselves off somewhere else, shall we?' He swung the girl around and she giggled. Evie struggled to find words, but all she could come up with was, ‘Don't be late, Millie. We have to be back soon.' What more could she say? She wasn't the girl's keeper.

She stayed firmly in the bothy, however, because if Roger saw her leaving he'd bring Millie back here to do heaven knows what in the darkness and privacy. She waited for fifteen minutes and only then did she go, searching for them in amongst the trees, not knowing what she'd do if she saw them up to something. It would likely be the murder of them both.

Millie was in the kitchen when she returned. Evie dragged her into the pantry. ‘Look, you know what he's like. I've warned you that he said he'd target you to get back at me. Please, please don't play his game.'

Millie tore herself free. ‘Mind your own business, Evie. If he takes me walking it's because he likes me and it's nothing to do with you. Not everything is, you know. Just because Mrs Moore teaches you all the time you think you're someone special, but you're not, you're just a servant like me.' Her face was twisted and she shouted, ‘I like him, can't you see that? You're lucky, you've got a family, a home, and a boyfriend, what have I got?'