by Tania Crosse
She found herself back in the gloomy corridor down in the bowels of the house, and followed the clink of crockery into the kitchen that she had glimpsed on her previous visit. What struck her first was that the room was so much brighter than the corridor, due to windows all along the outside wall, but Anna realised they looked out on a level with the ground outside. So, this hub of the household was half underground. It was lit also by two stark electric bulbs suspended over a giant table that dominated the room – and where Mrs Davenport was busily preparing some food.
‘I said ten minutes, girl,’ she said, glaring up accusingly. But before Anna could open her mouth in protest – her watch told her that she’d been less than that! – Mrs Davenport commanded, ‘Get yourself an apron and give your hands a good wash and then come and help me. Lady Ashcroft will be requiring her lunch shortly and I’ve wasted enough time over you already.’
Indignation threatened to burst out from Anna’s lips, but she somehow managed to swallow it down. She was fuming, but she’d show the old crow by proving what a good worker she was! She dutifully tied on a crisp white apron, scrubbed her hands at the deep, stone sink and presented herself at the table.
‘Lady Ashcroft takes a light lunch,’ she was told. ‘Today I have prepared vegetable soup and a cold selection. Ah, Mr Jackson,’ the housekeeper smiled as the said chauffeur – who Anna realised was also the butler – entered the room. ‘Would you carve some ham, please? And you, girl, display those wedges of cheese nicely on the small cheeseboard, and then cut two slices of bread, very thinly if you’re capable, and butter them, making sure it goes right to the crust.’
Anna obeyed while Mrs Davenport arranged everything just so on a huge tray covered by a pristine cloth. The slivers of bread were almost like wafers and Anna spread the butter evenly. Yes, she supposed it looked very neat and uniform, though what difference it made to the taste, she couldn’t possibly imagine!
‘You call that thin?’ Anna shrank back at the irate exclamation. ‘They’re like doorsteps! Get out of the way, girl, and let me do it. Oh, I can see I’ll have my hands full teaching you!’
Anna stood back from the table. Oh, you mean old woman! And she watched Mrs Davenport crossly saw two slices that, if anything, were thicker than the ones she had cut! Her lips were pursed almost as tightly as the older woman’s were, ready to explode, but at that moment, one of several highly polished brass bells on the wall clanged tunelessly.
‘There’s Lady Ashcroft waiting,’ the witch cackled, ‘and her lunch isn’t ready. Well, don’t just stand there, girl! Fetch the cutlery and make sure you hold it by the handles.’
Anna jumped to it, doing this, that and the other as she was bid until the tray was perfected. It was then placed on a wide platform through a hatch, and pulling on some ropes, Mr Jackson hauled it upwards on a kind of lift. Well, I never, Anna thought, but had no more time to marvel as she was instructed to go upstairs with Mr Jackson and open the doors for him.
The butler himself did not utter a word as Anna followed him up those few steps – she was going to dream of them for nights on end, she was sure – into the main hall and across to what was obviously a grand dining room. Lo and behold, the laden tray was waiting behind a pair of small doors in the wall.
‘Lady Ashcroft takes her lunch in the breakfast room,’ Mr Jackson deigned to speak at last. ‘If you see her, you make yourself invisible. Understand?’
Anna gulped down her resentment and nodded. Yes, she understood, all right! It had been made abundantly clear to her that she was the lowest of the low. Dear Lord, how was she going to stand it?
‘Yes, Mr Jackson is what you must say,’ he told her icily. ‘Now, I’ll carry the tray and you knock on the breakfast room door, that one over there,’ he indicated with a jab of his head as they went back out into the hall. ‘Just one firm knock but not too loud, and wait until you hear Lady Ashcroft’s reply before you open the door. And then stand back into the hall. She doesn’t want to see any more of you than she has to.’
‘Of course, Mr Jackson,’ Anna answered, lifting her chin. Her cool tone must have brought him up short as she saw him blink in what passed as surprise. Good! She wanted him to know that while she was happy to show respect, she wasn’t going to be treated like a doormat, and that seemed the first step!
She carried out her instructions perfectly, but as Mr Jackson advanced into the room with the massive tray, she heard Prudence Ashcroft’s cut-crystal voice.
‘Ah, is that young Miss Millington I see behind the door? Come here, child.’
Oh. What should she do? But she hesitated only a moment before crossing the threshold into the room. She saw Mr Jackson frown and direct his eyes sharply downwards. Did that mean she should curtsey? She bobbed her knees briefly, keeping her gaze on the luxurious carpet.
‘I expect Mrs Davenport has thrown you in at the deep end,’ she heard Lady Ashcroft’s autocratic tone, ‘but you’re an intelligent girl and I’m sure you can cope. Now, we can’t keep on referring to you as Miss Millington, so I want everyone to call you Anna. Is that understood, Mr Jackson?’
‘Yes, Lady Ashcroft.’
‘Very well. You may both go.’
‘Yes, Lady Ashcroft,’ they replied in unison, and dipping her knee once again, Anna backed out of the room following Mr Jackson’s example. Would he praise her for managing the unexpected moment so well? Not on your Nellie! But Anna felt pleased with herself as they returned to the kitchen. So, she was to be called by her given name – somewhat better than girl! At least it was a step in the right direction.
‘Shall I show Anna below stairs now, Mrs Davenport?’ Mr Jackson suggested. ‘Or do you need her urgently for something? And Lady Ashcroft wishes the girl to be called by her Christian name.’
‘Does she now? Encouraging the girl to put on airs and graces, if you ask me. But if Lady Ashcroft wishes it—’
‘Oh, I won’t! Put on airs and graces, I mean.’
‘How dare you speak before you are spoken to!’ Mrs Davenport took a step forward, brandishing the bread knife, and for a fleeting moment, Anna thought she might be attacked! Good God, she had come there to get away from such things! But then she realised that the knife had just happened to be in the housekeeper’s hand as she was cutting more slices of bread. It seemed that the witch managed to contain her anger, though her next words were laced with contempt. ‘You had better teach the girl some manners while you’re at it, Mr Jackson.’
‘This way,’ he barked in reply, and Anna was relieved to scamper after him.
Mr Jackson gave her a swift tour of the maze of small rooms that led off from the corridor, and in his habitually gruff manner, explained each one’s function. There was a boot room, a locked wine cellar to which only he himself held a key, the butler’s pantry, and the housekeeper’s room where Mrs Davenport saw to all the below-stairs accounts but also had a cosy chair by the fire. As far as Anna could tell, it was the only room below stairs to have a fireplace. The dairy had been made obsolete by the refrigerator, but the laundry was still in use, the washing being done once a week by the daily, Mrs Smudge, who was at this moment cleaning ‘upstairs’. Mr Jackson hoped Anna could iron!
Back in the kitchen, Anna was shown the separate scullery where the washing-up was done, the sinks in the kitchen itself being strictly for food preparation. The house had been built in a bygone age and nothing, it seemed to Anna, had changed since. She would have been fascinated – if she hadn’t gained the distinct impression that she was going to slave in it like a skivvy. And, apart from the kitchen, all the rooms were so dark that she was convinced she would turn into a mole! It was no wonder that the butler and housekeeper were so short-tempered.
‘Well, that’s me done for the day. Alfie’ll be yere in a mo to pick me up. Couldn’t come on me bike in this yere fog.’
Oh, what a relief to hear a cheerful voice! What Anna saw first was a fat, be-aproned behind as Mrs Smudge came in backwards, using her bottom to open
the door since her hands were full of her cleaning materials.
‘’Ello, cheel! You’m the new maid?’ she beamed as she turned round. ‘I ’opes you last longer than the last one,’ she whispered with a wink as she struggled past Anna with her dusters, brushes and brooms. ‘See you tomorrow,’ she called as, having stowed her equipment somewhere in the scullery, she came back through the kitchen and disappeared out of the door again.
Well, at least she would look forward to working with Mrs Smudge, Anna mused, but just then the breakfast room bell clanged once more.
‘That’s Lady Ashcroft finished, so up we go. Anna,’ Mr Jackson added as if he resented using her name.
Anna was appalled. The tray had been set out like a banquet for Lady Ashcroft to choose from, and yet she had hardly eaten anything. And when Anna thought of how her dear mum had struggled through all the years of rationing to put a decent meal on the table, well, it was criminal. She sincerely hoped all that food wouldn’t go to waste. And all the time and effort of preparing the tray for nothing. No wonder Her Ladyship required so many people to look after her!
Once Lady Ashcroft had been served her coffee, the servants were able to sit at one end of the enormous kitchen table to have their own lunch. The one pleasant surprise of the day was that they helped themselves from the ham and cheese that had been returned on the tray – Anna being made to wait until last, of course – and Mrs Davenport reheated the soup on the range so that it was piping hot. And Anna had to admit that it was delicious.
‘Please may I ask when His Lordship will be back?’ she plucked up the courage to ask, most politely, of course.
She saw them exchange glances, and Mrs Davenport rolled her eyes to the ceiling. Oh, Lord, Anna wondered in dismay, what on earth had she said now?
‘Explain to the girl, would you?’ Mrs Davenport sighed in exasperation.
Mr Jackson coughed lightly. ‘There is no His Lordship. Sir Hugh was a baronet, not a lord of any sort. And sadly he died some years ago, so Her Ladyship is officially the Dowager Lady Ashcroft. Since Sir Hugh’s death, she has preferred to live here rather than in London.’
‘Oh dear, how sad,’ Anna ventured. ‘But I’m sure Mrs Davenport mentioned family?’
‘She may have done. A baronetcy is not part of the peerage, but unlike a knighthood, it can be hereditary. The son may claim the title upon the death of his father. Sir Gilbert comes to stay with his mother quite frequently. No doubt you will meet him soon enough. And Lady Ashcroft also has some distant cousins. But stop asking about things that don’t concern you, and hurry up and finish your lunch. We all have work to do, especially you.’
He wasn’t kidding! It seemed that Anna was to do all the washing-up, scouring and polishing the copper pans until they gleamed. She had to wash and prepare all the vegetables ready for Mrs Davenport to cook, and weigh out all ingredients on some cast iron scales. The housekeeper instructed her in the exact method of making tea – what a blooming waste of time that was, in Anna’s opinion. Tea was tea, for heaven’s sake. Although apparently not.
She seemed to be kept on her feet – running around like a blue-arse fly as Ethel would have said – for ridiculous reasons. The highlight of the afternoon was being taken to Lady Ashcroft’s opulent bedroom to help Mrs Davenport change the sheets, which was done twice a week. Crikey. Surely once a week was enough? When Anna finally fell into her own bed, which she had been obliged to make up for herself as well, it was with strict instructions to present herself in the kitchen at six o’clock in the morning without fail.
She lay in bed in the pitch dark. It was so silent, like nothing she had experienced before, no traffic or people’s voices from outside. She hoped she would sleep all right in the strange room, but she was so exhausted that she didn’t even say her nightly prayer for her mum before she fell fast asleep, clutching her threadbare little teddy.
Chapter Six
‘You’m going out with Bert tonight, all dolled up like a dog’s dinner?’
‘I am that!’
Ethel set her face in a grin, hoping it appeared genuine. Thank goodness Bert was on earlies and was free, ’cause she really needed cheering up this evening. The first night for thirteen years, wasn’t it, when Anna wasn’t in hailing distance? Crikey, she were missing her already, and her only gone since that morning. How were she getting on? Ethel didn’t like the sound of the place, even though she were the one who’d encouraged Anna to go for an interview. She didn’t half feel guilty now, as if Anna had been swallowed up into a great big black hole and it were all her fault.
‘Say goodnight to your sister now, Primrose,’ Mabel ordered kindly, stubbing out her cigarette on the cracked plate from which Primrose had just been eating her tea of baked beans on toast.
‘Nightie-night,’ Ethel smiled a little ruefully as her mum heaved little Primrose into her arms. ‘Don’t let they fleas bite.’
‘No fleas in our beds!’ Mabel nodded emphatically, and Ethel grimaced. There had been once upon a time. Well, bed bugs, anyway. She remembered the legs of their beds standing in saucers of something that smelt disgusting to stop the little blighters crawling up at night. It had been when they had returned to the house after the war. Her dad hadn’t exactly kept the place clean. Managed to break his leg, he had, leaving it slightly shorter than the other one, so he’d been discharged from the army. He’d gone back to working longer hours than ever on the railway. Important war work, he often declared proudly – which indeed it was, especially with Plymouth being a major naval port – and often dangerous, with Hitler aiming at the railway routes as well as the city and the dockyards in his air raids. And when Fred wasn’t at work, he’d been a member of the home defences, patrolling the streets, so he’d hardly had time to eat and sleep, let alone keep the house clean. Not that it was spick and span now, but at least you didn’t wake up covered in little red bites. And it was home. Unlike where Anna had gone.
‘Night-night, Daddy,’ Primrose beamed, leaning out from Mabel’s arms to receive a noisy kiss from her dad who was also on earlies that week.
‘Oh, I swears you gets ’eavier every day!’ Mabel grumbled good-heartedly as she shambled out of the door in her worn slippers.
‘Huh, all right for you!’ Billy growled at once at his big sister. ‘Going out enjoying yersel’ when some on us ’as got flaming ’omework to do!’
‘An’ I didn’t ’ave ’omework when I were at school?’ Ethel retorted sharply. ‘An’ one day you’ll be out at work, too, like Davy an’ Dad, an’ wishing you was back at school!’
‘I likes ’omework,’ little Sammy piped up, wide-eyed with earnest.
‘Yes, us knows you does!’ Ethel saw her dad grin, and he ruffled his youngest son’s mousy hair. ‘P’r’aps us ’as one scholar in the family!’
‘You calls that ’omework, reading a page of Janet and John an’ doing a few sums, like?’
‘’E’s only eight, Billy—’
Oh, thank the Lord for that, Ethel sighed as she heard a loud knock from the hallway. That was as near to an argument as her family ever got, but she could do without it tonight. That would be Bert at the door, though he was a bit early and she wasn’t quite ready. Hadn’t got her lipstick on yet, but the knock had sounded impatient for Bertie and she didn’t want to keep him waiting on such a dank evening. So as she hurried along the hallway, she pinched her lips to put some colour in them that way instead.
She pulled the door wide, vibrant with expectation, and her fingers turned rigid as they gripped the latch. It wasn’t Bert, and a little gasp escaped her throat as she stared up into Vince Millington’s maddened face.
‘Where’s my daughter?’ he raged. ‘Gone and left me, she has, but I’ll wager you know where she’s gone! And I bet it were you as put her up to it, as well!’
Ethel could smell beer on his breath and stepped backwards, pressing her back up against the open door. Bloody hell, she hadn’t foreseen this, and for once, her brain couldn’t think of an answ
er.
‘I-I …’ she stuttered, but her shock was so deep that no words came out of her mouth.
‘Who the ’ell does you think you’m be!’ she heard her dad’s voice storm from behind her, and her knees went weak with relief. ‘I’s bin a friend to you, Vince, but I’ll not ’ave you coming into my ’ouse, shouting at my family like this! Now what’s this all about?’
Ethel stared up at Vince, quite petrified. It were no wonder Anna were afraid of him if this were how he could be! But then she saw him take a deep breath after which he seemed calmer, though his lips were still clenched in an angry knot.
‘My Anna’s run off,’ he grated. ‘Packed her bags and gone. And I reckon she knows where to!’ he spat, poking Ethel in the chest.
‘Keep your ’ands off my darter!’ Fred at once barked back, and drew himself up to his full height. Although Vince was tall and strong, he couldn’t match Fred, and he knew it. Ethel could see he was backing down, thank God. ‘Now, does you know ort about this?’ she heard her dad’s reasoning voice as he turned to her.
Ethel tried to speak, but still no sound would come from her lips so she shook her head instead. She noticed her dad frown questioningly, but he spoke to Vince without hesitation.
‘If Ethel says she knows nort about it, then she don’t. So don’t you come yere again bothering ’er, like, or you’ll ’ave me to answer to.’
‘Huh!’ Vince snorted back. ‘I’ll go to the police, then. They’ll likely get her to tell the truth!’
‘You’d be wasting your time. Anna be eighteen, same as Ethel yere. Not a child. From what you says, she’s gone of her own accord. An’ there be nort you can do about it. So I suggests you pushes off ’ome an’ sobers up a bit. Now goodnight.’ And he slammed the door in Vince’s face.
