Ella's War

by Lynne Francis

  Ella opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She sensed Grace’s critical regard upon her.

  ‘No, I think we are quite safe. You do not seem to have a violent nature.’ Grace paused. ‘Let no more be said. It is as if Esther had never spoken. She has no inkling of the situation, and let it be so with everyone else. Only you and I know the truth. It will be our secret.’

  As Grace spoke she gave Ella an encouraging pat on the shoulder. Ella shrank away from her touch, then hoped that Grace hadn’t noticed her reaction. She couldn’t afford to antagonise her. As Grace turned and left the room, Ella’s thoughts raced. Whatever assumptions Grace may have made, she didn’t know the truth. She only knew who had been blamed for the fire, which wasn’t the same thing at all. It was quite possible that the only people who were in possession of the truth were dead. In the midst of her distress Ella felt a flash of sympathy for Esther. She, too, was still living with the sadness of the death of a sibling. She, too, had been horribly reminded of it today, by Grace.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘So, you will do it for me?’ Grace’s voice was hushed and urgent.

  Dressed in her high-necked white nightgown, she was gazing at Ella’s reflection in the mirror while she brushed out her hair before bed. Ella was bemused. Grace’s proposal had taken her by surprise.

  Edith, Grace’s eldest sister, was engaged to be married, and as a result she’d moved up a notch in the world, her visits to fashion houses and jewellers having taken on an air of even greater importance now that she was preparing for her wedding and her future. Grace was envious of the status her sister had acquired and had taken it into her head that she had to be next. She considered Ailsa, her older sister, currently visiting relatives in Edinburgh, to be no great beauty and thought she was unlikely to captivate a suitor anytime soon. Grace, however, had her sights very firmly set on Edgar Broughton, the son of a baronet, handsome and debonair. Despite her best efforts, Grace had as yet failed to do more than engage him in light and polite conversation at the various social events of the season. To her chagrin, she had been unable to even elicit the promise of a dance from him at the recent ball at her aunt’s house in London’s Manchester Square.

  However, Edgar Broughton and his father were due to visit the Ward household, staying overnight in York on the way to their family seat in Northumberland for Christmas. Grace had decided that this was her best chance of winning Edgar Broughton’s heart, and she wanted Ella’s help to do so.

  Ella regretted that, early in her first year of employment at Grange House, before she had learnt the importance of keeping her distance, she had mentioned something of her background to Grace. Mistaking their similarity in age as a possible affinity, she had told Grace about her mother Sarah’s prowess as a herbalist, and how her custom had dwindled over recent years. She hadn’t chosen to elaborate on why, but she had let slip that the family were reliant on what little money Ella could send them to survive. Grace’s attention had been caught.

  ‘A herbalist? She made potions?’

  ‘Medicines, really.’ Ella corrected her. ‘I suppose you might call them potions because of the way they were made. We grew the herbs in our garden, or Alice would collect them from special places in the woods.’

  Ella bit her lip, regretting mentioning her sister Alice in front of Grace. Grace, however, had other things on her mind.

  ‘Which herbs? Which potions were the most popular?’

  Ella tried hard to explain that the medicines were individually tailored to people’s needs, and that the constituent herbs would differ.

  ‘Did you learn how to do this?’ Grace demanded.

  Ella hesitated again, torn between the truth and embellishing her abilities. She had, after all, watched Sarah at work many times.

  ‘Yes, I know some of the basic methods,’ Ella had replied and had thought very little more about it until that very evening, several months later, when out of the blue Grace had proposed, nay demanded, that Ella should make her a love potion. Her plan was to slip a few drops into Edgar Broughton’s drink so that he would be helpless, captivated by her charms.

  Ella, unfamiliar with the popular novels of the day, much loved by Grace and girls of her generation with time on their hands, couldn’t imagine where she could have come by such an idea.

  ‘These medicines are designed to cure illness, Miss Grace,’ she said, gathering up the stockings and petticoats that her mistress had discarded on the floor. ‘They are not meant to be employed to bend someone to your will.’

  ‘Oh Ella, it’s just a bit of fun. And anyway, some would say that love is a sickness. True, Edgar doesn’t suffer from it as yet, so maybe you can make me something that will create a sickness, rather than cure it?’

  Grace was pressing her with some urgency. Edgar Broughton was due to arrive within a few days, and Grace was prepared to exert some leverage to get her way.

  ‘Ella, I wouldn’t like to have to tell Father about the actions of your sister, and about the disrepute that she brought your family into. I hesitate to remind you about my charity towards you over Esther Weatherall. But it would reflect very badly on me if it became known that I had preserved your reputation and risked that of our own family.’

  Ella was confused by Grace’s reasoning. Surely if her father knew that his daughter was hiding things from him, she would be in deep trouble? There could be no mistaking the threat implicit in her words, however, and Ella had not put the earlier request out of her mind entirely. She had resolved that, if it became unavoidable, she could, with the aid of a mixture of liquorice water and a few drops of harmless oils, produce a potion that would satisfy Grace: one suitably dark and mysterious in appearance to convince her that it was capable of a type of sorcery.

  Ella realised that Grace was watching her, reflected in the mirror, and waiting for an answer. Although the two girls were of a similar age, there the resemblance ended. Grace had a healthy sheen about her, the result of years of a good diet, plenty of rest and loving attention paid to her skin and hair. Ella, although she had filled out a little over the last few months, looked pale and not a little tired; she had been on her feet since dawn and despite her best efforts to maintain her appearance, she noticed that her hair was beginning to tumble loose from her cap, her collar was awry and her cuffs were no longer pristine.

  Resisting the urge to adjust these things in a mirror that wasn’t her own she said, ‘I will do my best to help you,’ and laid the hairbrush down on the dark wood of the dressing table. The hairs caught in the bristles gave her an idea.

  ‘I’ll need to take a few of these,’ she said, ‘something that is a part of you, to blend into the mixture.’ She was beginning to warm to the idea of herself as some kind of sorceress and she pushed out of her mind the thought of what her own mother would say to such nonsense. Sarah need never know, and if it would satisfy Grace, and above all keep her own job safe, then there was no harm in it, was there?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  So it was that she’d given in to Grace’s demands, and made her the love potion she so desperately desired. Ella had risen very early the next morning, long before she had needed to set about her usual duties, clearing the fireplaces and laying the fires to warm the rooms for the still-sleeping household. Creeping down the stairs, she’d prayed fervently that her hurried dressing hadn’t roused Doris sufficiently to wake her. Doris had murmured in her sleep and flung her arm back, then turned on her side and seemed to settle as Ella silently opened the door.

  She tiptoed in stockinged feet down the stairs, only pausing to lace on her boots when she reached the chilly flagstones of the kitchen. It had been bitterly cold overnight, frost sprinkling the whole of the garden so that it looked as though it had been lightly dusted with snow. It would look magical as the sun rose, but Ella couldn’t afford to wait for that moment. Instead, she moved swiftly around the kitchen, setting water to boil on the stove before extracting a couple of twiggy sticks of liquorice root from
her pocket and crushing them with the heavy pestle and mortar that sat permanently in the back kitchen. She poured a little water over the crushed root, added a couple of drops of vanilla extract from the big brown bottle in the larder, stirred in some sugar and cast around for anything else that might be suitable to add. She counted out four drops of oil of cloves, before taking a teaspoon and tasting the hot liquid. Grimacing, she’d added more sugar.

  The sun’s rays were creeping up over the chill blue of the horizon as Ella strained the liquid over the stone sink. She poured it into a jug, then into a couple of small bottles, purchased with this in mind from the apothecary in the market on one of her forays into town. She tucked the bottles into the pocket of her apron before she set about erasing all traces of her early morning activity. Only too aware that the kitchen was probably filled with the aroma of her brew, she opened the heavy kitchen door into the garden, gasping at the shock of the cold air as it rushed in.

  Ella set more hot water to boil, so that no one would have cause to comment on the heat of the pot, then bent down to stroke the kitchen cat as it wound around her legs. Hearing the heavy bolts of the kitchen door drawn back it had hurried across the garden, desperate to be inside away from the bitter cold and eager at the prospect of a little milk.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Ella straightened up guiltily, cheeks instantly aflame and heart pounding.

  ‘You know I don’t like that cat in here.’ It was Mrs Dawson. Ella knew her words to be untrue; she had seen the cook sneaking a fish head or leftovers from the dinner table to the cat on more than one occasion.

  ‘It was so frosty out there, I felt sorry for her,’ Ella said, glad to keep the focus on the cat and away from her exploits in the kitchen.

  Mrs Dawson glanced out of the window. ‘I knew when the berries followed on so close to the harvest that we were in for a hard winter,’ she said. ‘Now, for heaven’s sake, were you born in a barn? Close that door and get on with those fires upstairs. We need to get them going early today, with the rooms so cold.’

  Ella, arming herself with a shovel, a brush and the cinder pail for the ashes, was grateful to slip away, taking care as she did so not to let the bottles chink against each other in her pocket. As she turned to close the door into the passageway behind her, she saw the cook stoop to stroke the cat.

  ‘A little milk for madam?’ Ella heard her say, as she pulled the door softly closed.

  So this was Grace’s love potion: the bottles were un-stoppered and left to cool on the windowsill after Doris had risen, when Ella had returned upstairs to remove the apron she wore for household duties before she went to help Grace with her morning toilette.

  She had handed one of the bottles over to Grace that evening, reminding her in a whisper to add only two or three drops to a drink. Ella saved the other in case she was asked to provide further supplies. Edgar Broughton was due to visit the following night and Ella anticipated that it was by no means certain that her love potion would have any guarantee of working.

  These actions, just a few short days ago, must be the cause of her incarceration now, Ella reasoned. If only she could turn back the clock. If only she hadn’t felt pressured to submit to Grace’s request. Something that she had told herself was just a bit of girlish fun on Grace’s part was already proving to have far-reaching consequences.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  When Mr Ward finally summoned Ella from her room again, it was Boxing Day evening. The fire had burnt low in the library where he was sitting alone, a half-empty decanter and glass set in front of him as witness to many hours spent in deliberation.

  ‘I will get straight to the point, Ella. You are in very serious trouble.’ He paused.

  Ella’s heart was beating fast. What exactly was she going to be accused of?

  He continued. ‘I have tried hard to comprehend how this could be, as I consider myself a good judge of character, but I have to accept that the trust I had in you was misplaced. I can only believe that your character must have been tainted by the wickedness of your sister.’

  Ella was stunned. Surely Mr Ward had no knowledge of her sister? Whatever it was that he was referring to could only have been divulged by Grace.

  Mr Ward continued, ‘Edgar Broughton, whilst a guest under our roof, has suffered a serious misfortune; one so grave that he may not recover. My understanding is that this is entirely due to poison that you have chosen to administer to him, for reasons that remain unclear to me.’

  Ella’s legs felt as though they might buckle, her hands were shaking and she couldn’t seem to get her thoughts straight.

  ‘Well, what do you have to say for yourself?’ Mr Ward was short-tempered, his Christmas spoilt by this unpleasantness, which he had been bracing himself to deal with.

  Ella took a deep breath, but even so there was still a quiver in her voice. Would he read it as a sign of guilt?

  ‘I admit I prepared a draught, but it was harmless, sir. Just a mixture of liquorice water, herbs and oil of cloves. There was no poison.’

  Grace had clearly played down her own role in the affair. Would it do Ella any good to try to convince Mr Ward of the truth? She thought rapidly, then realised with a sinking heart that the odds were stacked against her. The testimony of a servant – a girl from a ‘bad’ family at that – could never outweigh the word of the daughter of the house. Her family’s experience when Alice had been so wrongly accused – thrown into jail no less – had taught her the futility of trying.

  There was a pause. ‘I wish I could believe you but the evidence is plain enough. I will have to refer this to the magistrate and I think, Ella, that you must expect a custodial sentence of several years, despite your previous good character.’

  Ella drove her fingernails into the palms of her clenched fists and willed herself to stay standing, even though she felt on the verge of collapse. She would not show herself weak, give him the satisfaction of seeing tears, and beg his forgiveness.

  ‘You have made a mistake, sir,’ she said, trying to sound calm and not defiant.

  ‘Then that is for others to decide.’

  This was a double injustice and one she could see no way of resolving. The only consolation, if one was to be found in this sorry affair, was that Mr Ward looked unutterably sad as he spoke. He sighed, turned away from Ella and gazed into the fire as he spoke again.

  ‘Go back to your room. You will wait there until I have summoned the constable, but you should pack your things. And do not speak to any of the other servants. Nor to anyone else in the household,’ he added, as an afterthought.

  PART TWO

  1903–1904

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The carriage rolled away, leaving York on the Tadcaster Road – and thus Ella was spared a last agonising view of the city that had so enthralled her when she arrived. She was huddled in her seat, exhausted, her belongings on her lap, wrapped once again in a shawl. This time, she wore Mrs Sugden’s coat for her journey, pressed on her when she had tried to return it early that morning.

  ‘My dear, you only have to take one look at me to know that it will never fit me again. I hope it brings you more luck than your stay in this house has done.’ Mrs S had sighed and Ella, startled at being addressed as ‘my dear’ was sure that she caught the glimmer of tears in the housekeeper’s eyes.

  Mrs Sugden hadn’t sought to lower her voice in front of the other servants and Ella’s own eyes welled up as she remembered how they had each come forward in turn, pressed her hands and offered comforting words. Doris and Rosa were crying, and Doris had pressed a package bound up with string into Ella’s hands.

  ‘It’s just a dress of mine. I’ve no use for it: I’ve rather outgrown it, to be honest, and now you’ve filled out a bit I hope it will fit. Oh, Ella, you sent all of your money home and never thought to spend it on yourself. You can’t go home taking only the clothes you arrived with. You deserve better than that, no matter what is supposed to have passed.’

 
Mr Stevens was the last to speak to her and Ella feared a scolding, or a frosty farewell. Instead, he grasped her hand in both of his and squeezed it.

  ‘Go home with your head held high,’ he said. ‘You have worked hard for this family and this household. I hope time will show what has happened here to be naught but a misunderstanding.’

  Then word came that the carriage was waiting. None of the family was to be seen as Ella, escorted by Mr Stevens, left by the side gate.

  The leaden sky was heavy with further snow yet to fall and there were few people out and about in the streets. Those that were hastened about their business, shoulders hunched against the bitter wind as it spread its chill across Knavesmire.

  All Ella could see as she thought back to her departure was the startling sight of Albert’s face, glimpsed as he had passed through the gate of Grange House at the very same moment that she was being handed into the waiting carriage by Mr Stevens.

  She had been too stunned at seeing him there to react. For Albert’s part, his expression of astonishment at seeing Ella had turned into one of bewilderment when she didn’t speak to him; in fact, she had turned her head away from him and cast her eyes down. It was over in an instant and she was in her seat, thankful that there were no other passengers as yet, and no need to make polite conversation. She could sink back into her thoughts, uninterrupted. Yet, as the coach driver clicked his tongue at the horses to ‘walk on’, she couldn’t forego one last glance back. Her gaze swept the scene, from the snowy drive up to the front windows where, she was sure, she glimpsed John. Was that a ghostly face, and a swirl of Miss Gilbert’s dress, as he vanished from the window of the nursery? Was that Grace, too, a shadowy presence at the window of the parlour, dark hair framing a drawn, pale face? Then her gaze rested on Albert, deep in conversation with Mr Stevens, who appeared to be trying to shepherd him towards the front door. Albert resisted, turning back towards the carriage, a view framed through the narrow back window as it pulled away.