She rose from the bed and took off her coat and hat before putting on her bibbed apron and her white linen cuffs; smoothed her hair back, then adjusted her starched cap on top of it and, ready, she went down to the next floor.
Five
The Christmas holidays came and went, as did New Year, and there was no jollification in the house. The staff were perturbed; since the dismissal of Summers they had been waiting daily for a call to the master’s room; but no such call had come. It was as if the master was ignoring the whole affair, and soon there were heard murmurs amongst them that Frank Summers deserved all he got, doing a bit on the side like that. And apparently not just a bit, by what John Hillman let out, because both Pilby and Hillman had been in on it. Nobody else had known about it, not even Leyburn because his work mostly kept him to the yard. But that the master was annoyed about something was evident in the fact that this year there had been no Christmas gifts sent down to the servants’ hall, and no message to Mr Pike to take a bottle or two from the cellar. But that hadn’t stopped him, of course. Then again, they thought this omission could have been because there was no mistress in the house and it was usually the mistress who remembered these kinds of things.
So with time passing and Mr Harry now gone, their anxiety disappeared, although the perplexity still remained, and there was resurrected the feeling against – that one, because again, hadn’t she been the cause of trouble? If she hadn’t sneaked on Frank Summers he’d still be here, wouldn’t he? So what was going to be done about her? Nobody was safe as long as she stayed.
Then out of the blue the call came down to the kitchen. The master had summoned Mr Pike, and Pike came back downstairs on legs that were feeling decidedly weak, and he, summoning Mrs Lucas, the cook, and Simes, announced, ‘The master wants to see you all.’
On this Mrs Lucas demanded, ‘Why wasn’t I informed if the master wanted to see any member of the female staff?’
And to this Pike replied wearily, ‘What you forget, woman, is that I am really in charge of the house, but I’ve let you take the lead for years, it’s saved trouble. And now let me tell you, I think we’re all in for trouble.’
Tilly opened the door to them and she could have been an automatic hinge on it for all the notice any of them took of her for their eyes went directly to the basket chair and the man sitting upright in it.
They stood in line at the foot of the chair and Mark looked at them: the tall, thin, weary-looking Pike, the narrow-faced Simes, Mrs Lucas looking like a small tightly stuffed model of a human being, and the woman Brackett, the cook, looking as if she had sampled every dish she had ever cooked in her life. Strange, he had only seen her twice in as many years but she seemed to have doubled her size. His eyes slid from her to Trotter who was going into the dressing room, and when the door closed on her he turned his attention to the group before him, and it was to them as a group that he spoke.
‘I have been waiting,’ he said, ‘for you coming to see me, because I understand that you have a proposition to put before me. Is that so, Mr Pike?’ His voice was quiet, his tone even, and there was about his manner a casual air that deceived them all; yet not quite in Mr Pike’s case, and he, knowing he should be spokesman, was finding difficulty in answering his master, and he blinked and he shuffled his feet on the carpet, rubbed his hands together as if he were washing them, then said, ‘Well, sir, it’s . . . it’s . . . ’
‘Yes, go on.’
Mr Pike now switched his eyes to the side and to where Mrs Lucas, who was looking at him, as also was Jane Brackett, and the cook’s irritation made evident by the sudden movement of her hips told the housekeeper that if she wasn’t careful Jane Brackett would get in before her, and so she, looking at her master, said, ‘He finds it difficult, sir, as . . . as we all do, to speak . . . to speak about this matter.’
‘What matter?’
‘Well—’ Mrs Lucas proved she had a body inside her uniform because it stretched and her neck craned round to the dressing-room door, and now her voice dropping a number of tones, it came over just above a whisper as she said, ‘Trotter, sir.’
‘Trotter!’ Mark’s voice sounded high with surprise. ‘What about Trotter?’
‘Well, sir . . . ’
It appeared that the housekeeper was in the same difficulty as the butler, and this being evident Jane Brackett could see the whole interview coming to nothing, or at least going against them, so it was she who broke in. ‘Begging your pardon, master, it isn’t my place I know, ’tis Mr Pike’s or Mrs Lucas here to put it to you, but . . . but it’s got to be said and we all think alike, sir, from the top to the bottom.’ She now looked at Mr Pike standing at one side of Mrs Lucas and at Simes on her other side, then continued, ‘Trotter is a bad influence like. There’s been no peace in the house since she’s come, and what’s more . . . well, as Mrs Lucas here will tell you’ – the rolls of fat on her neck indicated the housekeeper as she jerked her head – ‘nobody’s got their place any more. You see, master, as you know, you don’t have to be told I’m sure of that, you have your place on a staff and it gets your bile when someone like the likes of her start throwing their weight about and giving orders.’
‘Trotter throwing her weight about? That surprises me, Cook. She has always appeared very diffident to me, rather shy.’
‘Oh! master’ – she was nodding at him – ‘people can be taken in. We know what we know, don’t we?’ She looked from one to the other again. ‘It . . . it was the same when she was on the nursery floor, nothing went right in the house, she seemed to brew trouble, and . . . and now it’s worse.’
‘Really!’ He hitched himself slightly up in the chair; then leaning forward and his manner definitely expressing sympathy and his voice low, he said, ‘And what do you suggest I should do?’
Jane Brackett felt exuberant. There now, why hadn’t they done this before? And she dared to move so much out of her place as to take a step nearer the foot of the chair and, her voice low now, she said, ‘Get rid of her, master.’
‘Get rid of her?’
‘Yes, master.’
‘But what if I can’t.’ He didn’t say won’t, but as if appealing to her he used the word can’t, which emboldened her now to say, ‘Well then, master, I’m afraid you’re in for trouble. Well, what I mean is, begging your pardon, we said it afore Christmas but we let the holidays go by, but you see . . . well’ – she attempted to straighten her front shoulders – ‘it’s either her or us. You’ll lose your staff, master, if you don’t get rid of her, and . . . and we’ve proved ourselves, we’ve been with you for years, Mr Pike here the longest, since a lad he’s been in your family, and I’ve served you well for the last ten years, master, and . . . ’
‘Yes, yes, you have, Cook, yes, indeed, you have served me well for the last ten years.’ He was now leaning back against the pillows. ‘But you haven’t served me as well as you’ve served yourself, Cook, have you?’
Her face changed colour. She didn’t speak, no-one spoke, nor moved, and now he lifted his eyes from one to the other before he said, ‘You’ve all served yourselves well, haven’t you? How much have you made out of your little book, Mrs Lucas?’
‘S . . . sir!’
‘And you, I understand, Cook, have a special book for your fiddling. Summers wasn’t in it, you ran your racket, didn’t you?’ His voice hadn’t risen but his manner had changed and the words that he was speaking were dropping like pointed icicles on their heads. ‘Now your proposition is that I get rid of Trotter or you go. Well now, for your information I am keeping Trotter, so what does that tell you?’
Still no-one spoke.
‘You, Simes, and you, Mrs Lucas, and you, Brackett, will take a week’s notice as from today. I will allow you a month’s pay in lieu of further notice. As for you, Pike, I’m going to give you a choice, you served not only my father but also my grandfather, but although it is an understood thing that the butler has his perks, it is also understood that they don’t amount to robb
ery. Now you may go with the rest or you may stay. You needn’t answer now, you can fight that out when you get downstairs. In the meantime, there remain four other members of the indoor staff: those who wish to stay you will send up to me; after they have been you will bid Leyburn, Pilby, and Hillman to come to me. That is all.’
‘’Tisn’t right.’
‘What isn’t right, Simes?’
‘To . . . to be thrown out like this.’
‘But you don’t care for your position, Simes.’
‘I’ve . . . I’ve never said . . . ’
‘No, you’ve never said but your attitude when you thought I was at your mercy was at times nothing short of callous. You can leave me now, all of you; and I think, Simes, you had better help Mrs Lucas out, she needs your assistance.’
Pike and Simes with Mrs Lucas between them made for the door, but Jane Brackett remained staring at him, her mouth open to speak; but no words came, and she didn’t move until Mark’s voice, at the pitch of a shout now, cried, ‘Leave me, woman!’
She left, wobbling, he thought, like a fat bull at a cattle show. It was some minutes before Tilly made her appearance in the room. Her face was ashen white, her head was bowed, and so he cried at her, ‘Don’t let your conscience on this matter bring you low, Trotter, you didn’t start this business. Now by what Harry worked out for me, the household expenses can be cut by half, and that’s something to be considered at this time, that is providing you’re successful in arranging what we talked about yesterday . . . Lift your head.’
She lifted her head, then said, ‘They’ll be out of work, sir, I can’t help feeling sorry . . . ’
‘Did they feel sorry for you? They would have had you thrown out and never turned a hair. That woman, that cook, she’s vicious. My God! to think one has been served by such as her.’ He turned his head to the side. ‘You just don’t know what goes on in your own house. Anyway, remember what you once said to me.’ He smiled slowly. ‘It seems so far away now, like a dream, but I remember you saying, when one door shuts another one opens. Well, this afternoon take the coach and carry out what was decided on yesterday . . . Well! come on, look pleased, girl.’
‘I am pleased, sir.’ Her voice was soft, but she could have added, ‘I’m afraid too because the cook, Mrs Lucas, and Simes now have joined the villagers.’
The Drews’ kitchen smelt of wet clothes, sweat and the fumes that come from banked-down coal dust. There was no blazing fire today, the free coal was finished and the only way to keep some sort of a fire going was to rake the pit heap.
The kitchen was crowded, all the family were indoors with the exception of Sam.
They had greeted her, each in his own particular way, the older boys with jerks of their heads and a smile which expressed their liking, but the girls, Katie and Peg and Fanny, crowded round her and their welcome was none the less warm because she had come empty-handed. And this fact was brought into the open by Jimmy suddenly saying, ‘You brought nowt the day, Tilly?’
There was the sound of a crack as Biddy’s hand contacted her son’s ear, and when he cried, ‘Oh, ma!’ she yelled at him, ‘And I’ll oh ma you if you don’t keep your mouth shut. That’s the only thing about you that grows, your mouth.’ While the others laughed, Tilly put her hand out and drew Jimmy towards her side and, smiling down at him, she said, ‘I haven’t come empty-handed.’
She was aware of the eyes all on her now and of some slanting from her towards the door and the coach outside. They still couldn’t get used to her coming to visit them in a coach and she was aware that the older ones were trying not to imagine there was something fishy behind the privilege afforded her.
Now they were waiting, and she savoured their waiting; then putting her hands out impulsively and grabbing Biddy, she pulled her down to a chair, saying, ‘You’d better sit down before you fall down when you hear me news.’
Like a troop advancing to a central point, they all came slowly towards her, but she continued to share her glance between Biddy and Katie who was standing at her mother’s side, and slowly she said, ‘Can you cook, Mrs Biddy Drew?’
Biddy closed her eyes for a moment and turned her head to the side; then looking at Tilly again, she said, ‘Yes, ma’am; given the ingredients, I’m not a bad hand at cooking.’
‘Good. You’re engaged. Miss Drew’ – she now looked at Katie – ‘would you care to assist your mother in the kitchen? I’m aware that you are no hand at cookin’ but there’s hope for you, you could learn.’
‘Eeh! Tilly, what you gettin’ at?’
‘Aye’ – Biddy’s face was straight now – ‘what you gettin’ at, lass? Come on, don’t keep us in the dark.’
Tilly straightened her shoulders and looked around them with tenderness, and she said quietly, ‘You’ve all got jobs if you want them.’
‘All of us?’ Biddy pulled herself to her feet.
‘Aye, and not only you but one or two of the men down the row, the Waters and Mr McCann, but they’ll only be on part-time . . . ’
‘Eeh! My God! jobs. You mean it, Tilly?’
‘Where’s this to be, Tilly, I mean the jobs for the men, Tilly?’
‘Listen. Listen, and . . . and it mightn’t suit all of you, at least not the older ones, but . . . well—’ She now said, ‘Can I sit down?’
‘Out of the way!’ Biddy swept two of the boys from the front of the form, and Tilly, sitting down, began from the beginning, filling in the parts that Biddy or Katie knew nothing about which was the hate that had been directed towards her in the house, and also the fiddling that had grown out of all proportion both in the house and in the grounds, and then she ended, ‘It wasn’t really me, it was the master who thought of you.’
‘I’ll believe that when they give me wings.’ It was Alec speaking and she turned to him and said, ‘It’s right, Alec.’
‘With a little push from you.’ Katie accompanied this by digging Tilly in the side playfully with her fist.
She went on talking while they gazed at her open-mouthed, and she ended, ‘Ada Tennant’s staying, she’s the scullery maid, and Phyllis Coates, the first housemaid, she’s staying, but Amy Stiles . . . well, I think she wanted to stay but she was frightened of the cook and so she’s going. So you, Peg, would be under Phyllis. As for the men . . . well now, there’s a point here. The master, I think, is up against it in more ways than one as the mine’s finished, an’ as I see it he’s still got to support the mistress and children, although they’re staying with her mother, so in all cases the wages won’t be anything like you got in the pit. But what you will get is your food, good food, the men an’ all, and that’s something.’
Biddy now dropped her head back on her shoulders and looked up towards the ceiling and what she said was ‘Something? It’s everything, lass. Oh, thanks be to God in Heaven!’ and her head coming slowly down, she added, ‘And to you, Tilly Trotter. It was a lucky day for us when our Katie stumbled across you.’
Katie smiled and again punched Tilly, and she, turning and looking at Alec who was the eldest there, said, ‘Well now, Alec, there’s you and Arthur and young Jimmy here’ – she pressed the boy to her side – ‘what would you feel like working outside, I mean digging and clearing and seeing to the vegetables and things like that? There’s little livestock, only hens and pigs, but there’s piles of land that used to be cultivated for vegetables and now it’s all overgrown, and . . . and as I put it to the master, not only is there enough space to grow stuff to feed the whole household but, just like they’ve been doing on the side, it could go to market and help to pay your wages.’
‘Lass’ – Biddy gripped hold of Tilly’s arm – ‘as long as we can eat through this winter we’ll work like Trojans, because what more is needed if you have food, heat and shelter?’
‘Will Sam see it that way, Mrs Drew?’
‘Oh aye, lass, Sam’ll see it that way, I can promise you. And so will the Waters and McCann and any other that could get work for their food.’
>
‘But their jobs mightn’t last all that long. Over the winter months perhaps. And yet I don’t know.’ She looked over their heads towards the smouldering fire and said, ‘All that land there, a couple of horses and a plough.’
‘And it used to be under plough. There used to be a farm at this end of the estate an’ all at one time, so I’m told.’
‘Oh, speaking of farms, that reminds me. Not that the farmer was here, but the young lad, Steve, he came on Sunday expecting you to be here and was asking how you were.’
‘You’ll have to look out for him, Tilly.’ It was Alec laughing and nodding towards her now, and she looked at him solemnly as she said, ‘He’s just a friend, a childhood friend;’ and under the warning glance from his mother, Alec said, ‘Aye. Aye.’
Biddy now, to the surprise of her entire family, turned her body sharply round and, dropping her head on to the table, began to cry. Such was the amazement of all her brood that no-one moved for a moment. They had never seen their mother cry, not one of them could remember ever seeing her shedding a tear, not even when their father died. They had heard her making strange noises in the bed that night, but they hadn’t actually seen her cry.
‘Aw, Ma! Ma!’ The protest came from all of them and she lifted her head and said, ‘’Tis all right, you cry when you’re happy, and aw, lass’ – she turned to Tilly – ‘the sight of you this day and what you’ve brought us . . . well, I’ll never be able to thank you, lass.’
Tilly Trotter (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) Page 33
