Easterleigh Hall

by Margaret Graham

  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?’

  Evie pulled her back, shutting the pantry door behind them so that the whole world couldn’t hear. ‘I know I’m lucky, but choose someone else. What about Bernie, he likes you and he’s a grand lad.’

  Millie shook her head, crossing her arms. ‘He’s an under-gardener and Roger’s a valet. You might like someone who grubs in the ground but I like clean fingernails and someone with prospects. I’m going to get out of here, just you wait.’

  ‘But Roger won’t . . .’

  Mrs Moore opened the door. ‘Come on girls, I won’t have this shouting. Get out here now.’ She shook her head slightly at Evie. ‘Leave it,’ she mouthed. ‘We can only do so much.’

  When they retired to bed at midnight Millie lay there silently. Evie said, ‘I’m sorry I upset you, Millie. I just worry about you.’

  There was no reply. Perhaps she was asleep.

  Veronica and Auberon leaned on the balustrade of the terrace at the end of the party. There was a slight chill in the air. They had begun to come here again now the passing of time was lessening the distress. Auberon ran his hands along the stone, feeling the lichen. Had Wainey felt . . . No, enough. Why was he thinking of death on the day of Ver’s engagement? Perhaps because she seemed so unhappy?

  She stood motionless at his side, staring down on to the formal gardens, the box hedges so neatly clipped, the daffodils and tulips visible in the bright moonlight. She said, ‘Soon there’ll be sweet william and roses and a myriad of others. The air will be overlaid with scent.’

  He said, ‘I like your Richard Williams. He’s a good man. He was in the Officer Training Corps ahead of me at school. We admired him, really we did, Ver.’

  Veronica stepped away, and stared up at the house. ‘I know he’s nice. I admire him too. I just don’t love him, but as Stepmama says, what’s love got to do with anything. It should have something to do with it, shouldn’t it, Aub? Sometimes I wish I hadn’t become involved with votes for women. It’s made me think about my life. I don’t want marriage yet, I really don’t. I don’t know if I want it at all. Look at Father, look at what he’s like. Mother wouldn’t have married him if she’d known, so he must have changed. Perhaps all men change once . . .’

  Auberon put his arm around her shoulders, she was shivering despite her stole. ‘Listen, I haven’t a clue, Ver, about love. Yes, I suppose we must change if we marry because it is different, but men aren’t all like Father.’

  ‘But how do you know? What makes a man become a brute?’

  ‘Father’s not a brute to you, Ver.’

  Veronica pressed her head into his shoulder. Thankfully, his father hadn’t laid a serious hand on him for over a year. The strike had been universal, not peculiar to Easton, and Brampton had his own problems with a prolonged strike at the brickworks. ‘He’s not a brute to me because he’s got you, poor Aub.’

  Neither spoke, continuing to look out across the lawn. To the right, the rear stables were just a dark shape but Auberon could hear the huffing of the hunters, the sound of their hooves in the stalls. An owl hooted. ‘Did he hurt Wainey, do you think?’

  Veronica swung round. ‘For God’s sake, for the last time of course he didn’t, that imagining is for books. Don’t think of it, Aub.’

  He shook himself free of memories. ‘Be happy, Ver. Richard’s a good man. Trust him. He might even let you continue with your interests, you never know.’

  ‘He chose to be a soldier, to fight, to kill?’ He felt her shivering again; a breeze had sprung up. She continued, ‘But never mind, he’ll be away a lot and anyway, the knot isn’t tied just yet, so there’s more time for me to be me.’ He watched as she turned away from him. She traced shapes in the lichen, then beat it with her fists. She stopped suddenly. Behind them the staff were clearing the ballroom. Soon they would reach the terrace. She spoke again. ‘I’m sorry, Aub, what about you?’

  He laughed quietly. ‘I’m almost enjoying life. There’s a purpose to getting up in the morning now I’m getting the hang of the mine, and Father’s been too busy to pass even a glance over my shoulder. I’ve had time to think: there was a dog in the yard at Fro
ggett’s, so I wonder if Forbes meant him when he said daft beggar? I thought of it as I was talking to Margaret. Not sure why but she does look rather like a dog, or is it a horse?’

  Veronica laughed out loud, the only time he’d heard her do that this evening, and slapped his arm. He continued, ‘I fear I’ve made a fool of myself, a bloody fool. But dear God, I still hate Forbes. I don’t like being bested, Ver, but I just must return the cavil. Father’s still saying no, but I’m working on it.’

  Ver tucked her arm in his. The servants were clearing up the terrace now. It would have been good to walk beneath the moon with one of his dance partners this evening, but they’d all seemed to lose interest when it became clear that he had a job. It was not something they could understand. People of his class should go to their club, hunt, shoot, and fish. At the end of each dance his partners had no longer smiled, but examined their dance cards and darted on to the floor again with someone more suitably connected.

  Ver had danced mainly with Richard, but so it was expected. They made a fine couple. ‘Perhaps love will come to you?’ he suggested.

  Ver’s stole had slipped and he adjusted it for her, but still she shivered. He removed his jacket and placed it around her. ‘Perhaps. Aub, I have so much I want to do but if I do it and say no to marriage, what happens? Out on the street with Society turning away? Will I become a punchball for Father? You and I have no money now he’s taken control of Mother’s inheritance, and I’ve no training. I’d perhaps be better off being Mrs Moore, or Evie.’

  Auberon drew out a cigarette from its case, tapped it, lit it, and inhaled. Evie? Lately he’d been thinking a lot about her. The way she sat at the end of the kitchen table, the sweep of her eyelashes, her hands so deft and fingers so fine. Had she really thought they believed it was Mrs Green who had baked the cakes? Did she really believe that Wainey wouldn’t have told them of Mrs Moore’s increasing disability and chide them that they must protect their cook? But there was no need for them to do so, because Evie was there.