Daisy’s new mistress had advanced half her first month’s wages at their initial meeting, which had meant the rent was taken care of and Daisy was starting work secure in the knowledge that she was leaving her granny and the other two women well able to afford food and other essentials such as oil and candles.
Her granny had hugged her tight in an unusual display of affection which had touched Daisy greatly. Although she knew Nellie loved her all the world the old woman was not physically demonstrative, and to have the gnarled old arms holding her close while her granny had whispered amid tears that she was a brave, bonny lass and her mam and da would have been proud of her, had caused the lump in Daisy’s throat almost to choke her. Tilly and Margery had embraced her too, their faces as bereft as if she was travelling two hundred miles instead of two, causing Daisy to remind them all that she would be seeing them in six days’ time, on her half-day off.
She had sniffed and gulped on the first half-mile of the walk to the house, but then the bright blue sky overhead and the singing of the birds as they busily went about the business of feeding their young had quietened her heart. She was doing the right thing, the only possible thing. Whatever the future held she had to face it head on now.
It was Kitty who answered her knock on the door, and the little maid’s beaming smile along with the words, ‘Oh, lass, it’s right good to see you, I’ve been hoping and praying you wouldn’t change your mind,’ did Daisy the world of good.
‘Come along to the kitchen, the mistress isn’t awake yet,’ Kitty continued as she stood aside for Daisy to enter the hall and then shut the door. ‘She rarely rises before nine ’cos she don’t sleep too well most nights and likes a lie in. You’ll find it’s normally a slow start to the day here.’
Daisy followed Kitty down the hall and then into the right-hand corridor she had noticed on her first visit to the house. ‘Back there’ - Kitty paused and turned for a moment, gesturing to the left fork - ‘is the mistress’s bedroom, bathroom and private sitting room. It used to be a study and library but when the mistress got too bad to use the stairs, Sir Augustus had it all altered. Lovely it is, but you’ll see that and the rest of the house later. The drawing room you’ve seen, and the morning room is on that side as you come in the front door. On the other side is the main sitting room and the dining room, all right?’ Kitty continued walking again, saying as they passed another door, ‘That’s the breakfast room but it’s not used much now as the mistress always has a tray in her own quarters, ’cept when the parson comes, and then they have the trolley in the drawing room. And here’s the kitchen.’
So saying Kitty flung open the door in front of them to reveal a large, long stone-flagged room which, although smaller than the one at Greyfriar Hall, to Daisy’s quick glance seemed just as well equipped and appeared beautifully clean.
There was a welcoming glow from the large range which was a closed type with what looked like two ovens for roasting and baking set to either side of the enclosed grate which had the most enormous clippy mat Daisy had ever seen spread in front of it, thick and brightly coloured.
This and the solid kitchen table at which Gladys and Harold Murray, Kitty’s parents, were sitting over breakfast, were the two things which registered first in Daisy’s whirling mind. She had met the couple briefly on the afternoon she had been engaged, Sir Augustus’s sister having summoned the Murrays to the drawing room for the purpose of introducing her new nurse companion to the rest of the staff. In the presence of their mistress the cook and her husband had been all smiles and ingratiating charm, but now, as Daisy smiled politely and said, ‘Good morning,’ neither responded beyond a cursory nod.
‘Sit down, lass.’ Kitty pushed Daisy down into one of the straightbacked chairs around the table, and it was only then that Gladys raised her head and really looked at her, her voice flat as she said, ‘You’ve arrived then.’
‘Aye . . . yes.’
Their breakfast looked to be a very substantial one. The cook’s plate was heaped with eggs, ham, fried potatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms and broiled haddock, and there was a large plate of toast and another of shives of white bread in the centre of the table, along with a platter of butter and various preserves.
Gladys barely paused in her task of shovelling the food from her plate into her mouth, and her husband, who was as thin as his wife and daughter were plump, continued doing likewise as Gladys said, ‘Aye, well, that’s all to the good ’cos we need to get a few things straight afore the mistress rings for her tray.’
Daisy stared into the woman’s fat, rosy-cheeked face, aware her stomach was turning over the way it did when she knew some kind of confrontation was looming.
‘Me and Harold have been with the mistress ever since Sir Augustus first set her up in her own place when he got wed,’ Gladys said stolidly, food splattering out of her mouth and on to her plate as she spoke. ‘The mistress had been in charge at Greyfriar afore then, of course. With Sir Augustus’s parents having died when him and his brother, Mr Francis, were no more than youngsters, it was Miss Wilhelmina who took on the role of guardian to ’em both, her being a good few years older. She used to act as hostess for all the fancy balls an’ such Sir Augustus was fond of once he reached marrying age, but then he met his wife and the two of them - his wife and the mistress - didn’t hit it off by all accounts. Two women stirring the same pot with different spoons, you see. The mistress liked things done one way, and Sir Augustus’s new bride had her own way of thinking on matters. Which brings us to you.’
‘Me?’ Daisy had been wondering where all this was leading but she still didn’t see what Kitty’s mother was getting at. The woman was clearly rattled about something but her heavy-jowled face was giving nothing away, although there was a distinctly shrewd gleam in her button eyes. As for her husband, ferrety would best describe his slight frame topped by a pointed face and teeth that were blackened and fang-like. But Harold must be a hard worker, she added silently, almost by way of apology for the previous thought. The garden was a picture.
‘Aye, you. The fishergirl who’s landed on her feet.’
‘Here, lass, get this down you while it’s nice and hot, an’ help yourself to milk and sugar.’ Kitty broke into the conversation, ignoring a dark look from her mother as she placed a large mug of black tea in front of Daisy, pushing a basin of sugar and a small white jug filled to the brim with creamy milk in front of her a moment later. ‘You had your breakfast?’ she continued cheerily. ‘There’s plenty if you’re peckish?’
‘I ate before I left home, but thank you.’
‘
Excuse me, miss
.’ Gladys was fairly bristling as she glared at her daughter. ‘Whose kitchen is this?’
‘The mistress’s,’ Kitty returned cheekily, purposely misunderstanding her mother’s meaning, ‘but as she isn’t here, I thought I’d do the honours.’
The other girl winked at Daisy as she turned from the table and walked over to fetch her plate from the long slatted steel shelf above the enormous range where she had obviously placed it to keep warm before she answered the door.
‘Any more of your lip, my girl, an’ I’ll give you a skelp o’ the lug.’
Kitty said nothing to this, merely settling herself down at the table and beginning to eat her food. Daisy glanced from one to the other. It was clear Kitty and her mother did not get on, and the father seemed well under his round little wife’s thumb.
Gladys gave her offspring one last vitriolic look before turning back to Daisy. ‘Like I said, we’ve been with the mistress for donkey’s years, and there’s nowt that goes on at the big house we don’t hear the ins and outs of. Am I right, Harold?’
He nodded without raising his eyes from his plate where he was mopping the last of the yolk from his eggs with a piece of crusty white bread.
‘Aye, when Sir Augustus comes to visit the mistress, Mr Kirby’s not above sitting and passing the time of day with us and sampling a shive of fruit loaf or gingerbread, which shows how well we’re thought of at the big house. A real gent Mr Kirby is an’ no mistake, isn’t he, Harold?’
It was said with the clear intention of provoking her, and Daisy knew this. She would have known it by the expression on the woman’s face, even if Gladys hadn’t taken care to labour the point that she and Harold were fully aware of the state of play between Mr Kirby and the new nurse companion.
Daisy’s mind was moving very swiftly now. She would have liked to have told Kitty’s parents her real opinion of Sir Augustus’s valet, and she sensed this was exactly what Gladys was expecting her to do. For some reason the cook had decided to dislike her, and her husband was obviously of like mind. But not Kitty. The maid was for her, and equally set against her parents. This was clearly a divided household. Oh, dear, and just when she had thought she might have sailed into calm waters for a while.
Daisy breathed in to steady herself and said lightly, ‘You are, of course, entitled to your opinion of Mr Kirby.’ She allowed the merest pause before she added in the same tone, ‘As am I.’
There was silence for a moment before Gladys spoke again, and the sarcasm in her tone was evident when she said, ‘And him of you. Oh, aye, him of you all right. No one can pull the wool over Mr Kirby’s eyes, however much they may lick the boots of the gentry.’
Don’t lose your temper. Start as you mean to go on. If you let her get under your skin now you’ll be forever scratching. It was as though her granny was in the kitchen with her.
Daisy forced herself to take a sip of tea before she said coolly, ‘Sir Augustus thought highly enough of my suitability as a nurse companion to recommend me to his sister, Mrs Murray, and he didn’t strike me as the type of man who would appreciate having his opinion challenged. Of course, I could mention to the mistress that you and your husband are unhappy about my appointment in view of what you have apparently heard from . . . other quarters? I’m sure the matter would be investigated very thoroughly, and then we would all know where we stood with our respective employers. I, for one, would have no problem with that at all. Of course, I can’t speak for Mr Kirby.’
She didn’t know where the words were coming from or how she had restrained herself from going for the cook, but she blessed the strength of mind that enabled her to take another sip of tea, as though she wasn’t in the least concerned about what this horrible woman had insinuated.
The cook’s face was burning now, colour suffusing it until it was almost scarlet. Gladys glanced at her husband who had just started on a piece of toast and was keeping his head down, and then at her daughter who was not bothering to hide her wide smile. She ran her tongue over her lips, and then said tightly, ‘No need for that, I’m sure. I was only saying, that’s all.’
‘Perhaps it would be better if you waited until you had all your facts straight in the future, Mrs Murray?’
She had done it now, Daisy thought. She had burnt her bridges with this particular woman and they would never be friends, however long she worked here, but it couldn’t be helped. The cook’s antagonism needed to be faced and dealt with or Gladys Murray would have thought she’d got the upper hand and made her life miserable.
Her da had always said that when you weren’t the person who started the trouble, you had to make doubly sure you were the one who ended it. ‘Turn your back on a fight an’ likely you’ll end up with a knife atween your shoulder blades.’ She had heard him say it time and time again to the lads when they had been younger. ‘Face ’em, an’ ten to one you’ll find you’re bigger an’ uglier than the other bloke, an’ if you’re not, you might fool him you are.’ And then he would grin.
Da
. Oh, Da, Da, Da. Suddenly the longing to see her da’s face if only for a moment or two, to see the love in his eyes, was so strong it was a physical pain in the middle of her chest. But she couldn’t, she couldn’t ever, see him again.
‘By, it comes to something when I can’t have a bit crack in me own kitchen.’ The words were muttered through the cook’s gritted teeth.
Daisy rose from the table. She needed to get out of here for a few minutes. Now the unexpected confrontation was over she felt sick and shaky inside but she couldn’t let the cook see it. She glanced at Kitty, who had pushed her plate aside and also risen, and said quietly, ‘Could you show me where my room is? I’ve left most of my things at home’ - she hadn’t, but she would rather have been hung, drawn and quartered than admit in front of the cook and her husband that her pathetic little bundle was all she possessed in the world - ‘and I might as well get packed away before the mistress wants me.’
‘Aye, lass. Come on. The air’s fresher once you leave here,’ said Kitty stoutly. Once they were outside in the hall, however, the maid’s brashness disappeared, and she said softly, ‘Don’t take no notice of me mam, lass. She’s a sour old wife if ever there was one. I reckon that rhyme the bairns sing was made for her.’