When Agnes had married her Cuthbert and become pregnant almost immediately, Teresa had taken her place as head kitchenmaid. Patience, Cathleen and Maria had each taken a step up the ladder and when Florence had promoted Constance to fifth kitchenmaid she had been overjoyed, even though she’d felt sorry for poor Gracie who – Florence had said – was born to be a scullerymaid and would die one. Within four years Teresa had left to become a cook in a small establishment in York, taking Patience with her – something Florence looked on as an act of betrayal and had waxed lyrical about for weeks. Constance got on well with Mirabelle and Clara, the two new kitchenmaids beneath her, and life in the kitchen of Grange Hall was not unpleasant, merely repetitious and humdrum.
Try as she might, Constance found she just couldn’t get excited about a perfect salmon mayonnaise au Gridoni or a Charlotte Russe. She appreciated that Florence was an excellent cook, she was in awe of some of the dishes that went through to the dining room and by keeping her eyes and ears open she had quickly learned the French names for these, and what sauces and accompanying dishes were needed – but she didn’t long to be a cook like Cathleen and the others did. She now earned twenty-four pounds a year, most of which she sent to her grandma to enable her to contribute to Molly’s household expenses and have the odd little luxury for herself, like the Tiger Nuts and Everlasting Stripes that her grandma had always enjoyed.
She had seen her grandma three times in the last six years since she’d left Sacriston, thanks to Ivy and her intrepid horse and trap. On each occasion Ivy had made sure her visit coincided with Constance’s free Sunday. Constance had relished the hours with her beloved grandma, but after the time had come to say goodbye and she had waved the two sisters off, she’d felt acutely homesick for days.
She had made it a point of conscience never to ask after Matt when she corresponded with her grandmother, but Mabel mentioned him often. Through her, Constance had heard when Tilly had given birth to a little girl seven months into the marriage. Supposedly premature, her grandma had written, but the baby had been a good weight and like no premature bairn she’d ever seen. Still, they wouldn’t be the first betrothed couple to jump the gun and all was well that ended well. They’d called her Rebecca and she was the spitting image of her mother.
There had followed a period of two or three years when her grandma had written about what Rebecca was doing and saying, and how the child was progressing. By all accounts she was a bright little girl. Gradually though, more by what was unsaid than said, Constance got the impression all was not well with Matt’s marriage. Then, just a few weeks ago, her grandma had written to say Ruth had confided she was worried about Matt. He’d become withdrawn since his marriage, non-communicative, and he was getting worse with time. Constance had found that hard to imagine. Matt had always been outgoing and sociable, not exactly the life and soul of the party but certainly affable and friendly.
Her fingers stilled on the plate of hors d’oeuvres she was arranging. To celebrate the new century the Ashtons had invited both sets of in-laws and other family members and friends to stay for a few days over the New Year, and it had been one big dinner party after another. The kitchen staff were exhausted.
But Matt wasn’t her problem to worry about, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time since receiving her grandma’s letter. She hadn’t seen him for years and of course men changed with the responsibility of a wife and family, it was only natural. It didn’t mean he and Tilly weren’t happy together. And even if they weren’t, they were married. End of story.
‘You finished, Constance?’ Florence bustled up, her face as red as a beetroot. Her critical eyes surveyed the pimentos, brilliant red and green foreign pickles, startling white and yellow slices of egg, pink curls of tongue and tiny rolls of cured ham, and black trails of truffles. She nodded approvingly, handing the plate to one of the housemaids who was waiting at the entrance to the kitchen.
Without being told, Constance went over to help Cathleen transfer the two enormous saucepans of soup – one thick and one clear – into the warmed soup tureens. Both soups had been started two days before. The consommé had been cooled, had the layer of fat removed from the top, then reheated and cleared by dropping in eggshells and egg-whites so any bits of meat would rise with them to the top of the pot. Once the soup had been allowed to cool again it was reheated and the performance repeated. This time the meat stayed on the surface for an hour and a half before being skimmed off. After soaking a cloth in boiling water to ensure the stock passed through quicker, it was strained into the saucepan it would be reheated in for serving. Making the thick soup was an equally lengthy business, and because Florence was adamant that the quality of the soup revealed the calibre of the cook, everyone was on tenterhooks until she expressed her satisfaction that all had gone well.
Several more courses would follow the soup. The menu for the evening was pinned to the wall so there was no excuse for anyone to say they didn’t know what was required of them. A saddle of beef with vegetables and salad was next, followed by a sorbet – pineapple ice with rum. Then the roast. Tonight it was rabbit and the animals were served on two enormous platters in a crouching position, complete with tails and by courtesy of judiciously placed skewers, with their heads on and ears erect. A choice of two sweets followed the roast, a tall and elaborate jelly with fruits inside, and an opaque blancmange. A savoury was next. This evening it was
marrons en mascarade
, Sir Henry’s favourite, and the braised chestnuts coated with a savoury stuffing and then half with grated ham and half with grated cheese was one of Florence’s specialities. Then more ices would be served to clear the palate for dessert – pineapples in ornamental beds of leaves, dishes of grapes with silver grape scissors, and strawberries and cream, along with the housekeeper’s crystallised fruits, sweetmeats and nuts.
Constance knew she’d be lucky to be climbing the stairs to the attic before midnight, and the two scullerymaids wouldn’t fall into their beds until well after one o’clock in the morning. Every member of the kitchen staff was now longing for the next day when the guests were due to depart and normality would be resumed. And not just the kitchen staff. Listening to the chatter in the servants’ hall, the nanny and the nursemaids were exhausted too. As well as their usual charges – Miss Charlotte who was ten years old, Miss Gwendoline who had been born the year Constance had arrived at Grange Hall, and Master Edmond, the long-awaited son and heir whose third birthday had been celebrated shortly before Christmas – they’d had the care of several children of the guests who had apparently all run riot.
‘Bedlam, it’s been,’ Katy, one of the nursemaids, had muttered to Constance when she had flopped on her seat in the servants’ hall the day before. ‘And of course they’re all over-excited, it being the Christmas holidays, which doesn’t help. Master Edmond’s a handful at the best of times, but this week . . .’ She’d rolled her eyes expressively. ‘If he’d been one of my little brothers, he’d have had a good slap by now.’
‘But Master Edmond is
not
one of your little brothers,’ Betty, the head nursemaid, had said sharply. ‘He is the master’s son and don’t you forget it, Katy Mallard. A good slap, indeed! You let Nanny Price hear you talk like that and you’ll be out on your ear without a reference.’
She’d glared at the unfortunate Katy who’d looked suitably chastened, but only for as long as Betty looked at her. Then she had whispered in an aside to Constance, ‘He put a worm in Nanny Price’s pocket yesterday and he knows she’s mortally afraid of them. Screamed like a two year old, she did. And how he got it with the ground so hard, I don’t know. He’s a little devil, that one. You never know what he’s going to do next.’
Constance had caught the odd glimpse of the family over the years when Cook had sent her on errands to the glass-houses or dairy, but she had always made herself scarce as soon as she could. Sir Henry and his Italian-born wife Lady Isabella were a handsome couple, she as dark as he was fair, and the two girls were pretty in a fairly nondescript way. Edmond was as fair as his father, and a sturdy little boy. Katy had told her they had been forced to take him out of his infant dresses when he’d yelled the place down, and now he strode around in little breeches and a waistcoat like his father, and thought himself the bee’s knees.
Constance had found it amusing, although Katy hadn’t been laughing. Master Edmond reminded her of the Finnigan twins, who had been in Miss Newton’s class and who had been characters with minds of their own. They’d tried her patience but she had to admit she’d found them more interesting than the bairns who did everything they were told and wouldn’t say boo to a goose.
Once the soup tureens had been dispatched, the rest of the courses flowed as smoothly as a well-oiled machine. Abe Rowan and Florence worked well together. As butler he stood silently behind the master’s chair and kept a careful eye on the table. As each course progressed he judged the appropriate time to ring the dining-room bell and signal the kitchen, thus ensuring there was no delay between courses. Essential in such an eminent establishment.
It was nearer one o’clock than midnight when Constance and the other kitchenmaids finally dragged themselves up to bed, leaving Gracie and the second scullerymaid still scouring pots and pans with sand and salt in the dark, dismal scullery. As one, they fell into their pallet beds just as they were, drawing the thin blankets up over their heads to combat the freezing cold. In the moment before Cathleen blew out the candle, thus plunging them into pitch blackness, Constance thought, However will I get up in the morning? But then in the next instant she was fast asleep.
Constance did get up in the morning. They all did. And when Florence walked heavily into the kitchen some time later after Lotty, the second scullerymaid, had taken up her tea-tray, she voiced what her staff were thinking when she said, ‘Thank the powers-that-be they’re all going home this morning. I’m dead on me feet and that’s no lie.’
But before the guests left, breakfast had to be served, and that in itself was no mean feat. Just the fancy breads alone had had Constance and the other kitchenmaids rising even earlier than normal to get them underway. French and Vienna bread rolls, muffins, oat cakes, crumpets, breakfast cake, bannocks, whole-meal rolls and scones, and all baked fresh that morning. Add to this the rissoles, kedgeree, cold meats, hot meats, broiled eggs, omelettes and the inevitable porridge and choice of several preserves, and it was no wonder they all scrambled up to morning prayers breathless when the footman sounded the gong, pulling on clean aprons and straightening their caps as they went. After breakfast they dived back down to the kitchen to begin sending up the myriad dishes which had been kept warm for fifteen minutes.
It was mid-morning by the time both family and guests, and the servants, had finished eating. Then all the dirty dishes were cleared and once the scullerymaids were tackling them the rest of the kitchen staff had a cup of tea before they started on the preparations for luncheon.
Constance and the other kitchenmaids were sitting at the table too tired to talk as they finished their tea, but once Florence had drunk two cupfuls straight down with hardly a pause, she rallied her troops. Rising ponderously to her feet, she didn’t have to tell them to get to work. No one would dare to remain seated when Cook was standing. Everyone knew what they had to do but as Constance went to fetch a clean white cloth and lay out the spoons and knives and other equipment needed for the game pie Florence was about to make, Florence said, ‘Leave that, Constance. Maria will see to it. I want you to nip to the mushroom-house and bring me back a basketful, and a jug of cream from the dairy while you’re about it. That one they sent over first thing went at breakfast.’
Constance didn’t have to be told twice. Any excuse to venture outside for a few minutes was welcome. Sunbeams rarely strayed into the kitchen for, in an attempt to keep it cool in the heat of summer, its windows faced north. Today, although bitterly cold, the weather was bright and sunny and she had been longing to feel the fresh air on her face if only for a moment or two. It always lifted her spirits.
Quickly changing her apron for a clean one – an unwritten rule even for a quick errand like this one – Constance made her escape. It had snowed steadily over Christmas, but in the last day or two after a brief thaw, everything had frozen solid, as hard penetrating frosts had made themselves felt. Brilliant sunsets and rosy dawns spoke of clear high skies, and as Constance hurried across the courtyard which the outside staff kept clear of snow even in the worst of the weather, she breathed in the sharp frosty air with delight, taking it deep into her lungs.
Passing through the archway into the stableyard, she ignored the low wolf-whistle Ray McGuigan, one of the grooms, sent her way. She’d rebuffed numerous advances by some of the outside staff since she’d been at Grange Hall, along with the odd surreptitious suggestion by one or two members of the indoor staff too. Now their overtures were without expectation and friendly; they knew she wouldn’t respond and she knew they knew.
Nevertheless she sped across the yard towards the door in the far wall which led to the kitchen gardens, not because of Ray and his harmless flirting, but due to the fact that a stable-lad might bring out one of the horses for exercise. She thought the master’s horses were beautiful, their glossy coats and noble heads were a sight to behold, but she was very aware of their lethal hooves and huge sharp teeth too. Midnight, the master’s favourite stallion, was known to be a temperamental beast; on one of her half-days when she’d visited Agnes in her cosy little cottage, Cuthbert had come in full of the fact that Midnight had kicked one of the stable-boys straight through the wooden divide into the next stall.