As she had been speaking, a young stable-lad had scurried up to them. Ivy smiled at him as she climbed down from the trap. She handed him the reins, saying, ‘I’m Mrs Banks, the cook’s mam. You’re expecting us, aren’t you? See the horse has a good rub-down before you settle him for the night, he’s had a long journey. I’ll be leaving in the morning after breakfast so I want him ready for eight o’clock.’
Constance was full of admiration for the way her aunt was handling herself, but the stable-lad didn’t seem to share her awe. He grinned at them cheekily, winking at Constance as he said, ‘Oh aye, I know about you. You’re the new scullerymaid.’
‘Not yet she isn’t.’ Ivy’s voice was sharp and she wasn’t smiling any longer. ‘And I’ll thank you to see to the horse.’ Taking Constance’s arm she ushered her across the stableyard and through an arch which led into another courtyard beyond which was the house itself. ‘You don’t fraternise with the likes of that one, do you understand me, Constance? Everyone will be well aware of your family connection with Florence, and anything you do or say will reflect on her. She has a high position here and has always conducted herself with absolute decorum. I expect you to do the same.’
Constance couldn’t have answered if she wanted to. She was concentrating on remaining upright on the slippy cobbles beneath her feet, but fully aware the moment was upon her and she was about to enter Grange Hall. If she secured the post of scullerymaid, this place would be her life for the forseeable future. If she didn’t . . .
But she wouldn’t let herself think of failure. Her granda had always said if you wanted something badly enough, you could make it happen. She didn’t know if she agreed with that, but Grange Hall was another world and one so far away from Sacriston she wouldn’t be able to run home when the ache in her heart became overpowering. Already she was so homesick she felt chewed up inside and she wasn’t foolish enough to think it would get better in the next little while. She wanted to see her grandma and granda, to soak up the sweet normal-ness of their lives in Cross Streets. She wanted to sleep in her own bed and hear the owl that came and perched on Mr O’Leary’s roof each night at exactly eleven o’clock, come rain or shine. But Sacriston held other folk too, and here she wasn’t thinking of Vincent McKenzie but a tall, laughing-eyed lad with hair the colour of hazelnuts and the pert miss who had stolen his heart. They all seemed to think the world of Tilly back home, but she would never like her and she’d rather work her fingers to the bone and suffer whatever befell her here than have to pretend to be glad for Matt and watch them together. The way Tilly had sailed into the kitchen and dragged him off with hardly a by-your-leave at their last meeting had been downright rude, and he’d gone with her with barely a protest. That’s what had hurt.
‘Here.’ Ivy stopped outside the kitchen door and adjusted her niece’s hat, brushing Constance’s coat and pulling it straight. She was carrying the carpet bag which held the sum total of Constance’s personal possessions: a change of clothes along with her Sunday best frock, her hairbrush and some spare pins for her hair, the little New Testament Miss Newton had presented all the children with when they left school and the linen pads with ties she used for her monthlies. The bag was not heavy.
Ivy gazed into the deep blue eyes looking at her so anxiously, and not for the first time reflected that such beauty in one of Constance’s class was not a good thing. It made the girl noticeable, made her stand out, and following on from this thought, she said, ‘Your grandma has told you that men, lads, will take advantage of a lass if she lets them, hasn’t she, but now you’re here you’ve got to be even more on your guard. If you get set on there’ll come a time when you might come to the attention of visitors to the house. Male visitors. Do you understand what I’m saying, hinny?’
‘I – I think so.’
‘If that should happen and the man won’t take no for an answer, you open your mouth and yell wherever you are. That’ll show him you mean business. Some . . . gentlemen think servants are fair game for a spot of dalliance and that’s been the ruin of many a poor lass, I’m telling you. And there’d be no help if there were consequences, you can be sure of that. You’d find yourself dismissed without a reference and then the only place would be the workhouse for you and the baby. So however charming or persuasive the gentleman is, just remember you’d mean less to him than his favourite dog or horse. They don’t see us as real people, the gentry. That’s when they see us at all. All right, hinny?’
Constance gulped and nodded. If anything could have made her feel more terrified than she already was, her aunt’s little talk had done the trick.
‘That’s a good lass.’ Ivy smiled fondly. ‘Come on then.’
Ivy’s knock at the door was answered by a young girl with a pimply face wearing a dress with the sleeves rolled up and a huge holland apron. Her hair was plaited and put up neatly under a cap and she had on her feet the ugliest thick boots Constance had ever seen. ‘We’re here to see Mr Rowan,’ Ivy said, then pushed past the girl, adding briskly, ‘Come along, Constance,’ and as they stepped into a room which to Constance’s gaze seemed endless, Ivy called, ‘Hello, Florence, we’ve arrived at last.’
‘Mother.’ A small round woman who was as fat as she was tall rose from a rocking chair placed at an angle to a monster of a range and came towards them. The kitchen was full of other girls of varying ages who all seemed to be busy working and who carried on with what they were doing with just a quick glance here and there at the newcomers.
Constance watched her aunt embrace her daughter and then Florence turned to her. She didn’t smile or say hello, merely eyed her up and down, before saying, presumably to her mother, ‘She doesn’t look very strong.’
‘She is. And willing. She’s a hard worker, is Constance.’
‘Aye, well, she’ll need to be. There’s no room in my kitchen for malingerers.’
‘She’ll pull her weight, have no fear.’
They were talking as though she wasn’t there, but bearing in mind her aunt’s warning to say nothing unless she was spoken to directly, Constance remained silent.
‘Sit yourself down there.’ Florence pointed Constance into a corner of the room where a long wooden settle without any cushions stood. Ivy she drew closer to the fire, saying to one of the kitchenmaids working at the enormous table, ‘Make us a pot of tea, Agnes, and fetch out that fruitcake we had yesterday. It’s a while till tea and you must be peckish, Mother?’
Constance sat down, biting on her lower lip. Everyone was ignoring her, even her Aunt Ivy. She took the opportunity to gaze at her surroundings. The kitchen was bigger than her grandma’s whole house, so large and lofty it seemed incredible there was so much space just for a kitchen. Through an open doorway at one end she could see a scullery and that looked huge too. The lower parts of the walls were covered in glazed tiles and the floor was stone slabbed in the kitchen, wooden duckboards standing on the floor round the table where the girls were working, probably to lift their feet off the cold stone. Three enormous dressers stood against the walls holding jugs, copper moulds, a staggering array of dishes and utensils and many objects Constance had never seen before. Furthermore, she didn’t have a clue as to their purpose. Pin rails holding metal dish covers were positioned near each dresser, and against one was a tall pestle and mortar.
Even as she watched, the young girl who had opened the door and who wasn’t dressed as nicely as the kitchenmaids with their neat white frocks, smaller aprons and tiny pancake of a cap, came to the pestle and mortar carrying a large lump of meat. The mortar looked to be made out of part of a tree trunk with a marble basin inserted into the top, and the pestle was a stout wooden pole with its bulbous base resting in the marble bowl and its top secured to the wall by a metal ring. The girl gripped the pestle with both hands after placing the meat in the basin and began to pound up and down with all her strength. Constance gazed at her, fascinated. The girl was so small and skinny and the pestle looked so heavy.
The kitchenmaid, Agnes, had made the tea in the biggest teapot Constance had ever seen. Everything seemed larger than life here. After pouring Florence and Ivy a cup and taking it to them with a piece of cake, Agnes placed a mug near everyone else although no one stopped working. When she brought the tea to Constance, Constance smiled her thanks. ‘I didn’t know if you took sugar but I put a spoonful in anyway,’ Agnes murmured, returning the smile. ‘And don’t look so scared.You’ll be fine. If Gracie’ – she indicated the girl pounding at the meat – ‘can do the work, I’m sure you can. She’s the other scullerymaid,’ she added by way of explanation. ‘And she’s not very bright.’
Constance just had time to whisper, ‘Thank you,’ before Agnes returned to her post at the table, but the little exchange warmed her far more than the hot tea. Suddenly the kitchen wasn’t such a strange and hostile place.
A footman walked into the kitchen at five to three from the scullery and his tone was deferential as he spoke to Ivy’s daughter. ‘Mr Rowan is ready for the girl now, Cook.’
Florence rose from her chair, brushing cake crumbs from the front of her dress. Constance had stood up too and now Florence beckoned her. ‘Come along, girl. Don’t stand there dilly-dallying.’
As she followed the liveried footman and the cook into the massive scullery, Constance realised there were only two ways into the kitchen: one, the door she and Ivy had first come through, which led out into the courtyard, and this other, which took them across the scullery and out into a passageway leading to a back flight of stairs.
She only had time for a quick glance round the room in which presumably she’d spend most of her working hours if she got the job, but it was a dark, dismal place. There were several sinks dotted round the walls, some made of wood and some of stone, and a huge floor-to-ceiling plate-rack. Three rough tables stood in the centre of the space and a boiling copper took up one corner. The one and only window was tiny.
There was no chance to see any more, but as they walked down the passageway towards the stairs, Florence waved her hand at doors as they passed them. ‘These are the storerooms. This one’s the dry larder holding bread, pastry, milk, butter and cold meats. That one’s the meat larder. This one’s the wet larder for fish, and the vegetable store’s between them. The last one is the salting and smoking store where we also store the bacon. It’ll be one of your jobs to cut sufficient rashers of bacon for the house and staff for the week every Monday morning. There’s a pastry room off the dry larder.’
They had almost reached the stairs when Florence said shortly, ‘This is the housekeeper’s still room and private quarters, but that needn’t concern you,’ as she nodded at the door on her left. ‘And here’ – as she turned to the right of the passageway where the footman had just knocked on the last door – ‘is Mr Rowan’s pantry and private quarters.You keep your eyes lowered in his presence and only look at him to answer if he speaks to you, is that understood? Now stand up straight, girl, and don’t slouch.’
The footman had opened the door for them and was standing to one side, but as the cook sailed past him he winked at Constance, mouthing, ‘Good luck.’
Constance didn’t dare smile back. Her aunt had regaled her with stories about footmen and servant girls; they were to be avoided as much as gentlemen. She stepped out of the dark-brown-painted passageway into a sitting room of some considerable comfort, and the contrast made her forget the cook’s instructions to keep her eyes on the floor. The room was small but cosy, the two armchairs either side of the fire and the bookcase along one wall homely and the wooden floorboards polished, with a bright thick clippy mat in front of the hearth. Another door, which was closed, led to the butler’s bedroom and pantry, the place where in a pair of lead sinks all the tableware too valuable to be trusted to the ministrations of the scullerymaids was cleaned, and where a fire-proof safe held items of value the master and mistress wanted keeping under lock and key. Ivy had filled her in on all this, along with the fact that the butler, the housekeeper, the master’s valet, the lady’s maid, the nanny and the cook – this last had been said with some pride – ate their meals with the house steward in his room where they were waited on by the steward’s boy. The rest of the servants ate in the servants’ hall, a room with long scrubbed tables and benches which was situated next to the steward’s room on the next floor.
The butler had risen to his feet as they had entered. Now he indicated an armchair as he said, ‘Please be seated, Mrs Banks,’ as he took Florence’s arm and helped her sit down.
‘Thank you, Mr Rowan.’
Once Florence was sitting down, the butler also resumed his seat and now they were both staring at Constance. After one swift glance at the butler Constance remembered her manners and lowered her eyes to her feet.
‘So this is your aunt’s granddaughter. How old did you say she is?’ The butler addressed himself to Florence, his voice precise.
‘Thirteen in the December just gone, Mr Rowan.’
‘She looks older. And she’s a good worker?’
‘So I’ve been assured, Mr Rowan. So I’ve been assured.’
‘Well, in all matters appertaining to the kitchen, you know I trust your judgement, Mrs Banks.’ There was a pause, and then: ‘You, girl. You’re aware of your good fortune in being recommended for this position by Mrs Banks?’
Constance looked into the thin bony face staring at her. ‘Yes, sir.’ At least she could answer with genuine enthusiasm.
‘I hope so. You’re a most fortunate girl. Most fortunate.’
Constance dropped her gaze again but not before the incongruity of the two figures sitting in the armchairs struck her. They were like the nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat and his wife which Miss Newton told the little ones, she thought with a touch of nervous hysteria. The picture she’d held up in her book had shown a woman so rotund her tiny feet didn’t look as though they could support her, and a man so thin he was skeletal.