The Black Velvet Gown

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘No, it isn’t. Not this way. Along there.’ He thumbed in the direction from which they had come. ‘There’s a little gate; it leads around the outside of the grounds, take that. You’ll come into the yard by it.’

  So saying, he turned his back on them and went into the stone-built lodge that stood to the side of the drive.

  Riah glared after him for a few seconds before she turned away, saying as she did so, ‘Come on.’

  They found the gate and started to walk between two high hedges, the path being wide enough to allow them to walk abreast; but it could not have taken a vehicle. It seemed to wind endlessly on and on. And then it rose steeply and they were brought to a halt by the sight of the house in the distance. A tree had been cut down here and part of the hedge taken away with it, and there, over a prim patchwork of lawns, beds, and paths bordered by hedges, Biddy first saw The Heights. It looked gigantic, like a whole street that had been lifted from a town, and not just one street, but three piled on top of one another. The early morning sun was warming its frontage which from this distance seemed to be hovering in the air. She made out a myriad of windows and the tops of two archways. She couldn’t see the bays. For a space they were both awed into silence; then simultaneously they walked on together, and the path, still going upwards, began to twist and turn as if it was straining away from the house. Then suddenly they walked out of the dim border of trees and into bright light, and there before them was a high stone wall and in the middle of it, a wooden door.

  Having passed through this the whole aspect changed and for a moment Riah thought that she was back in the pit row, for there to the left of her was mound after mound of ashes, and the smell that assailed her nose told her that they were near a cesspool. They rounded a clump of bushes and there it was.

  Their noses wrinkling, they crossed a small bridge over a tiny runlet of water and, leading from the bridge, were three pathways. One, they saw, led to a gate in a field, but the other two were hedge-bordered, and, more to herself than to Biddy, Riah said, ‘What now?’ And Biddy put in, ‘The left one, Ma’—she pointed—‘’cos the house lies t’other way.’

  Without making any comment they took the left-hand path, and they walked almost a hundred yards before they knew they had arrived, because here the pathway widened considerably into a broad ash-strewn space. Beyond was an arch, and through it they glimpsed a yard.

  Once in the yard, they both stood looking about them in amazement, because the yard was as long, if not longer, than the pit row and down one side of it were horse boxes; and there were the horses with their heads bobbing over the half-doors. Connected with the stables was a series of buildings and at the end, towering above them, was a big barn. For the first time that morning her mother spoke pleasantly, and under her breath she said, ‘I may see Davey.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  They both swung round to see a man in leather breeches and a leather jerkin looking at them.

  ‘We’ve…I’ve got to see the housekeeper.’

  ‘Oh aye. Well, go along there’—he pointed to the end of the yard—‘through that next arch and you’ll come to the back of the house. You don’t want the first door you come to but the second.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She had to put her hand on Biddy’s shoulder to turn her around. She couldn’t fathom the look on her daughter’s face: it wasn’t fear, because she didn’t think the girl knew what fear was, yet… yet there was some kind of apprehension in her expression.

  When they had passed through the second archway and entered another yard, which she saw at once was bordered completely to the left of them by the side of the house, she pulled Biddy to a momentary stop, hissing at her now, ‘Mind your manners when you go in there, and talk natural. Do you hear me? Talk natural. None of your fancy stuff, draggin’ your words out, else I can see you’ll be in trouble from the start.’

  Biddy shrugged herself from her mother’s hold and walked a step ahead of her towards the second door, and there, after a moment’s hesitation, Riah knocked upon it.

  It was opened almost immediately by a boy of about nine years old, and he looked at them brightly, saying, ‘Aye?’

  ‘I’ve come to see the housekeeper.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked behind him, then pulled open the door saying, ‘You should have gone in by the passage.’ He jerked his head to the side.

  ‘We were told to come to this door.’

  He stood back and they entered a square room, two walls of which had long slat tables attached to them with racks above and below. One table was covered with lamps, the other was covered with boots and shoes of every description. The boy now left the room through a doorless aperture, and they heard him say, ‘Kathy, go and tell cook to send word to Mrs Fulton that there’s a wife here to see her and a lass along of her.’

  When the boy came back into the room, he looked at Biddy who was staring at the shelves and, his voice as bright as his face, he pointed to the boot rack, saying, ‘The first lot’s gone up an hour since. These are the spares.’ Then jerking his thumb towards the other long shelf he said, ‘I’ve trimmed fifteen of them already this morning.’

  Both Biddy and Riah shook their heads; then Riah said gently, ‘You’ve been very busy.’

  ‘Aye, we’re always busy.’

  Riah now looked at her daughter as much to say: There you are. This young lad must have been up all hours to get this work done and he looks happy enough. So what have you got to turn your nose up at, miss?

  Biddy now saw a girl a little younger than herself standing in the opening. She stared at them both for a moment before she said, ‘You’ve got to come this way.’ Her voice was broad, her face was round, and her cheeks red. She was wearing a starched cap that covered her ears. She had on a blue print dress, the sleeves rolled up above the elbow and the rest almost enveloped in a coarse hessian overall. As they followed her through the next room Biddy saw the reason for the coarse apron, for the three tables were covered with pans, all fire-smoked, soot-bottomed iron pans, and at the end of one of the tables was a thing that looked like a square bath on stone stilts, and it was full of black scum-filled water.

  They were in the next room now, which Biddy described to herself instantly as a huge scullery. A girl was at a stone sink washing dishes, and Biddy had never imagined there were so many dishes in the world as what she saw on those tables. Here, too, there were dirty pans, but these were copper ones.

  And now they were in the kitchen, and this was the biggest surprise of all, both to Riah and Biddy. The kitchen in Moor House wasn’t small, it was bigger than the living room had been in the pit row, but this kitchen was almost as large as the entire middle floor of Moor House.

  Biddy too, was overwhelmed, not only at the size of the place, but at the contents. One end of the long table had different iron gadgets screwed to it, part of one wall was hung with shining copper pans. Next to them was a row of brass-pronged forks, and the ovens appeared enormous. There was one each side of a large open fire, above which an enormous iron spit dangled; and there was a smaller fire with a round oven above that.

  There were three people in the kitchen. The elderly, short fat woman, who was standing at one side of the long table, had a very pleasant face and her manner matched it. ‘She’ll see you presently,’ she said; then she added, ‘You’re Davey’s mother, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

  ‘And this is your lass?’

  ‘Yes.’ Riah nodded now towards Biddy and the fat woman smiled at Biddy as she said brightly, ‘Oh, you’ll fall into it. They all do. Takes time but they all do.’

  The second woman looked about thirty. She stood at the end of the table pushing handfuls of nuts into an iron cup, before turning a handle. From the effort she was using it appeared pretty hard work. There was also a girl of about sixteen, peeling vegetables at a shallow trough sink. They all wore the same kind of uniform: a blue striped cotton dress with white apron. Only their caps were different. And Biddy h
ad already taken in the fact that these must denote their rank in the household.

  There appeared now, at the far end of the room, another servant. This one was in a grey dress and her cap was different again; also the broad apron straps were edged with a small frill. She beckoned to them; and now Riah, nodding towards the cook, as if in farewell, pressed Biddy before her towards the housemaid. This woman was tall. She looked a solid woman, almost, as Biddy thought, as old as her mother. She didn’t speak but held the door open for them, and they passed through and into a broad passage, off which a number of rooms led. It was on the last door at the end of the corridor that the maid knocked, and when she was bidden to enter she pressed the door open and allowed them to pass in.

  As Biddy passed her she turned her head and looked up at the woman and, the impish side of her forcing its way through her misery, she remarked to herself, This is one occasion when the master would have said I could use a colloquial expression such as, ‘Cat got your tongue?’

  But when she stood side by side with her mother looking at the small figure sitting behind the oak desk, the impish smile vanished. The woman was about fifty years old, she guessed. She had dark hair and her features were prim, indicated mostly by her mouth, which was full lipped and which Biddy was quick to notice kept pursing itself as if she was sucking a sweet. When she spoke her voice matched the rest of her. ‘So this is the girl?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘How old is she, did you say?’

  ‘Fifteen last December, ma’am.’

  ‘And am I to understand this is her first time in service?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Tut! Tut! She doesn’t look very strong. She’s very thin.’

  ‘She’s quite strong, ma’am. She’s been used to garden work for some years now.’

  ‘Garden work?’ The neatly combed head with the goffered cap perched dead in the middle of it and from which two starched streamers fell down just behind the ears, seemed to lift slightly with surprise. ‘She doesn’t look strong enough for garden work. Do you mean potato picking and such like?’

  ‘No, ma’am. Real garden work, growin’ vegetables and tendin’ fruit bushes and diggin’ and the like.’

  ‘Oh, well.’ The cap gave another little jump which seemed to bring the housekeeper up from her chair, and to Biddy’s surprise, she saw that she was no bigger than herself. She came round the desk now and, addressing Biddy solely, she said, ‘You’ll get a shilling a week. You arise at five in the morning. You finish at six in the evening. At eight o’clock you have twenty minutes for breakfast. At twelve you will stop for dinner and see to the cleaning of your room which you will share with another maid. You will attend church with the rest of the staff every Sunday, and every other Sunday you have leave time from two o’clock in the afternoon until seven in the evening in the summer, and from one o’clock till six in the winter. You will be allowed one candle a fortnight. Your room companion is allotted the same, so you have a candle a week. When you are working in the laundry you will come under Mrs Fitzsimmons, at other times you will be answerable to me. You address me as Mrs Fulton. At no time are you to go round to the front, back, or west side of the house. Should you at any time encounter any of the family, you will do your best to make yourself scarce. You understand?’ She paused as if for breath.

  Biddy made no answer, simply stared wide-eyed straight into the face of this little woman, seemingly fascinated by the constant pursing of her lips when she wasn’t speaking. But now she had started again.

  ‘You do not speak unless you are first spoken to, except with those on your own level, who are the three laundry maids and the lower kitchen staff. Do you understand what I’m saying, girl?’ She cast her eyes towards Riah, and the look said, Is your daughter stupid? Then her cap jumped even higher as the new member of her staff spoke for the first time, saying, ‘I understand you perfectly, Mrs Fulton.’ The housekeeper was so surprised at the tone that her lips stopped their pursing and spread themselves wide. Again she was looking at Riah, whose face was scarlet now. But when Riah offered her no explanation, the lips dropped together again and gave an extra purse before she said, ‘Say goodbye to your mother.’

  They looked at each other and in this moment Biddy wanted to throw herself into her mother’s arms and cry, ‘Oh, Ma, take me back. I’ll do anything, if you’ll take me back.’ But the look on her mother’s face silenced such a request and when she said, ‘Goodbye now, and behave yourself mind. Behave yourself,’ she felt she was being abandoned. Biddy watched the door close on her mother; then looked back at the little woman, as she thought of her; and the little woman looked at her.

  Behave yourself. So we have a joker here, have we? were the little woman’s words to herself. Well, I have a way of sorting jokers out…I understand you perfectly, Mrs Fulton…So part of her joking was to ape her betters, was it? Forward young brat! And not yet been sent out to work, and she on fifteen. Well, she’ll soon learn to know her place here, and the hard way or else.

  ‘Now, Miss Bridget’—the tone was heavy with sarcasm—‘should I hear you aimin’, however badly, to imitate your betters, then you will learn what it is to go without meals for a day, and also to lose your leave time for a month. An’ these are only two of the minor ways you can be made to recognise your place in this establishment. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes what?’ The small body bristled.

  ‘Mrs Fulton.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Fulton. And never forget it. Now we will see to havin’ you properly dressed. Follow me.’

  Biddy picked up her bundle and followed the housekeeper, through corridors, and through a maze of doors until she felt she must have come to the end of the house, the working part of it at any rate. In a long narrow room that had a peculiar smell, which she likened at first to moleskin, then to calico, she saw three women. They had all been seated, but they rose immediately on the housekeeper’s entrance, and she, addressing the eldest woman, said, ‘This here is the new laundry maid. You know what she requires. See to it. And when you’re finished, Julie here—’ she turned to the youngest of the three, adding, ‘can take her and show her her room. She’s sharing with Jean Bitton. Then to the laundry. I will, by then, have advised Mrs Fitzsimmons of her comin’.’ And with one hard look at Biddy she marched from the room. And no sooner had the door closed on her than the head seamstress, turning to the woman next to her, muttered, ‘We’re in a tear this morning, aren’t we?’

  ‘Are we ever anything else? Hello there. What’s your name?’

  This woman was now addressing Biddy, and she said, ‘Bridget Millican.’

  ‘You Irish?’

  Biddy hesitated a moment before she answered, ‘Not that I know of.’ And at this two of the women started to laugh.

  ‘Well, come on.’ The head seamstress took up a tape measure and began to take Biddy’s measurements, saying as she did so, ‘They won’t be new stuff, just alterations from the last one. Poor thing. But her clothes have been washed, so you won’t catch anything.’

  Catch anything? What had the girl had? Whatever she’d had she must have died of it.

  ‘Where you from?’ It was the woman the housekeeper had addressed as Julie who asked this question, and Biddy replied, ‘Moor House.’

  The three women looked at each other; then Julie repeated, ‘Moor House? That’s over the church way, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, we’re about a mile from the church, yon side.’

  ‘Moor House,’ the second woman repeated now; then looking at the others, she said, ‘That’s where the hermit man used to live. Well, I mean the one who spent all his time with books, so I heard. Is that the same place?’

  ‘Yes.’ Biddy nodded at them.

  ‘But’—the seamstress was now leaning towards her—‘wasn’t there something about him leaving the house to his housekeeper?’

  ‘Yes. That’s my mother.’

  Again they exchanged glan
ces. Then it was Julie who made a statement: ‘And you’re gona work in…in the laundry?’ she said. It was as if she was baffled by the situation, and Biddy answered her frankly, saying, ‘Yes, because he didn’t leave any money.’

  They all stood staring at her for a moment, until the head seamstress exclaimed, ‘Well, let’s get on with it.’

  The measurements taken, Julie now led Biddy from the sewing room. But she didn’t take her back towards the kitchen quarters; she led the way still further into the house along more passages, up more stairs, and then lastly to the garrets. And there Biddy saw what was to be her room. It was hardly larger than the store cupboard at the house. The two beds were merely wooden-based pallets with the bedclothes folded at the foot. There was a table with a jug and basin on it, and, except for some nails in the back of the door, nowhere to hang clothes.

  ‘’Taint madam’s bou…doir,’ Julie said. ‘Worst of the lot. But there…Well, put your bundle down an’ come on.’

  After retracing their steps for some way they entered a yard by a side door, and there at the other side was a long low brick building. It was situated at the end of a number of outhouses. Biddy was quick to notice that this yard wasn’t attached to the stable yard.

  They were halfway across the yard when Julie paused for a moment and looking down on Biddy, she said, ‘You’re going to find it hard in there, lass, mind. I better warn you. Jinny Fitzsimmons is a real slave-driver. But I’ll give you a tip. You stand up to her. And Sally Finch an’ all, she’s the first scrubber. You’ll find Florrie McNulty, she’s the assistant, she’s all right. And so is Jean Bitton. She’s the staff scrubber. But in any case, you’re gona have your work cut out. And that’s not just a sayin’, it’s a fact. You know’—she shook her head—‘I can’t understand your mother puttin’ you into a situation like this after…well, you being brought up in that house. You see, we’ve heard about him, the owner, through Mary Watts. Well, you wouldn’t know this, but she’s the first housemaid, and she’s on speakin’ terms with Miss Hobson, she’s madam’s lady’s maid. You see, they’ve both been in service here over thirty years, so you see what I mean about speakin’ terms like. An’ Mary knows that Miss Hobson used to visit the owner of that house now and again because at one time she had worked there. Miss Hobson I mean. Do you follow me?’ She smiled now, and Biddy said, ‘Yes, yes, I follow you.’ And then Julie ended, ‘Well, I’m only explaining that’s how we know. I understand he was a very clever man.’