The Downstairs Maid (5 page)

‘It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it?’

Emily shook her head. Pa got to his feet and placed his paper on the table. She glanced down at it and saw the headlines concerning the death of a woman who had thrown herself in front of the king’s horse at the Derby. Miss Emily Davison was a martyr to the cause and her fellow Suffragettes were mourning her.

‘They’ve buried that poor woman then,’ she said. ‘She was very brave to try and stop that horse …’

‘Brave or foolish,’ Pa said. ‘I don’t say her cause isn’t just, because it is – but there’s better ways than disrupting a race meeting. These Suffragettes are making a nuisance of themselves everywhere. If you read the paper you’ll see there’s too much trouble going on already. It seems harsh but the police have no choice but to lock them up.’ He pulled on his jacket and went out, saying he’d be back later.

Emily nodded agreement, because she’d already read every single word of the paper and knew that some of the women she considered brave had been starving themselves in prison as a protest.

It was yesterday’s paper and she’d taken it to bed, reading until her candle guttered and went out. Emily read everything she could get her hands on these days. Pa brought a paper back if he drove into the market in Ely, or if he found one when he went to view stuff people wanted to sell. And he bought any books he came across in case Emily wanted to read them before they were sold on as a job lot.

He was gaining quite a reputation for buying the junk others didn’t want and he now had two barns filled to the rafters. Ma still thought it was junk but with the prices for wheat and milk down again, it was the occasional sale of Pa’s ‘junk’ that kept the wolf from the door. They hadn’t had to hide from the tallyman recently, though the jar on the mantelpiece was empty more often than not when he called. It wasn’t Mr Thompson now, but someone called Eddie Fisher. He was a tall blond man with blue eyes and a nice smile. Ma usually sent Emily out on an errand to her father when Eddie called, and she always answered the door to him, even if there was no money to pay him the two shillings owed each week.

‘Where’s your father?’ Ma asked as she came downstairs, after tending to the baby. ‘I thought I heard his voice.’

‘He was here for a while. I made him scrambled eggs with toast and a pot of tea, and then he looked through the paper. He’s taking me to Ely this afternoon.’

‘I suppose he’s going to buy more of that rubbish …’ Ma grumbled. ‘You’ll get your chores done before you go.’

It was an order not a question. Emily didn’t bother answering. She’d known her mother would find as many jobs for her as she could. Emily had left school the previous Christmas, because Ma said she’d learned all she needed to know.

That wasn’t true, because the vicar had been Emily’s window on the world. She would have known nothing of the Olympics that happened in London in 1908, had the vicar not asked the children to do a project about it. Emily went home in tears because she didn’t even know what it was, so Pa went out and bought a souvenir newspaper with lots of pictures of the competitors. Someone from America won the 1,500 metres final but second and third went to British men; they won medals in swimming and rowing and all kinds of sports Emily had known nothing about. So she cut out all the pictures and pasted them in her scrapbook – and she won the prize of a penny bar of chocolate from the vicar.

When in 1909 Bleriot flew across the English Channel, it was the vicar who told Emily about it. He told his class that the brave ladies of the Suffragettes were being force-fed in prison. As the weeks and months passed, he told them of the miners’ struggle for an eight-hour day and of the wonderful X-ray machines that were helping doctors to improve people’s chances of surviving an operation. He told them when the wicked Doctor Crippin was caught and of the terrible disaster when the Titanic was sunk and so many people died in the icy water.

Leaving school for Emily was like being torn apart. The vicar had tried to tell Ma that Emily was bright and could go a long way given her chance. Emily had had vague hopes of becoming a schoolteacher herself or perhaps a librarian. Her favourite treat was to slip into the library in Ely while Pa was busy at the market and borrow some books, but she’d known from the look in her mother’s eyes that she had no chance of choosing what she wanted to do with her life.

Ma wanted her home to help with the heavier chores, like butter making and scrubbing out the dairy, because she was busy with caring for the new baby. Jack cried a lot and seemed to pick up chills easily. Emily gave her father a hand with the milking too, because he’d increased his herd to ten recently and was hoping the price of milk would increase, though with his luck it would sink like lead or the cows would get some dreadful disease. Milking was a chore she didn’t mind, because she liked the warmth and smell of the cows and each one was an individual; you had to watch Bella, because she kicked, while Bess was as docile as could be.

Being at home wasn’t too bad these days, because Emily had learned to turn a deaf ear to her mother’s nagging. She supposed that was what Pa did too, because he ignored Ma more often than not and just went out to the yard or the barn. However, Pa took Emily with him to Ely on most market days. Going to Ely market was a treat for all the families from the fens, and those who could manage it went in as often as they could. A few weeks back they’d bought a box of day-old chicks for a shilling in the cattle market. Emily had kept them in a little shed at the back of the barn; she put down old newspapers for them to run about on inside the pen she’d built and she’d fed them on hard-boiled egg and soft scraps. They were already growing well and Pa had told her they were hers to sell or rear for the eggs the hens might lay. She’d given them all names and loved watching them scratching about in their pen.

Emily wasn’t paid a wage for her work, but Pa slipped her a few shillings when he had some to spare. She liked to spend her money on the market in Ely, because she could get good bargains there, and shops were too expensive. The stall selling remnants of material was her favourite. She could buy a pretty length of cotton or wool and a pattern and make her own dress in the latest style. Once in a while she bought a fashion magazine, and the previous week she’d bought a little box of face powder and a lipstick from Woolworth – though she hadn’t dared to wear them yet, because Ma would have given her a good slap.

It was Emily’s secret but one of the nicer ones – not like the dark one she’d buried deep in her subconscious. She’d never told anyone about the way Derek had humiliated her as a ten-year-old child, but she hated him more every time she saw him and his expression whenever he looked at her made her curl up inside. He might be handsome, as her ma was fond of saying, and he might have the girls running after him, but Emily couldn’t bear him near her.

She finished all her baking, and then went upstairs to make the beds and polish the furniture, glancing in at Jack as he lay in his crib sound asleep for once. In her parents’ room there was a rather nice mahogany chest – or a tallboy, as Pa called it. He’d bought it with some money he’d got from selling the chess set Uncle Albert had left him; it had turned out to be a good one and Pa had bought something decent for once, which he’d given to Ma as a present. Their bed had a brass and iron bedstead but the mattress was soft, made of feathers and covered in striped ticking. When Emily removed the sheets for washing once a week she thought how soft and nice it must be, because her own was lumpy and she needed a new one, but a new mattress was expensive.

Having made the beds and polished the floors and the furniture, Emily had a strip wash in her room, using a blue and white Mason’s Ironstone jug and basin set her Pa had given her for one of her birthdays. Then she dressed in her best skirt of green wool, the hem of which finished just above the top of her black button boots. Emily had made the skirt herself, stitching a band of black brocade about six inches from the hemline. With a white, starched cotton blouse and a coat that came down to about twelve inches above the hemline of her skirt, she looked fashionable – though if you looked at the quality of the material and the slightly uneven hemming on the skirt you could tell it was home-made. However, with a wide-brimmed straw hat trimmed with a black silk ribbon she looked smart – and, her Pa said, pretty.

Emily glanced at her boots. The toes were scuffed and the heels worn down, giving away the truth of her situation. It was Pa’s job to mend her boots and he would when he had time, but he was always so busy that she didn’t like to remind him. Everything she was wearing was cheap, even though the skirt was her best and she’d given two shillings for the coat from a stall selling good second-hand stuff.

She was still the common little farm girl that snooty girl from the manor had said she was, even though she’d tried to improve herself. She knew a lot more these days, because of all the reading she did – but sometimes she despaired of ever being more than she was. How could she be when Ma insisted she stay at home and help with the chores?

Occasionally, she thought about those children in the fields. She knew now that they belonged to the family at the manor. Priorsfield Manor was the property of Lady Prior, so Pa said, but her daughter was married to Lord Barton, who had lost most of his money in some kind of scandal, and the family had come to live at the manor. Since that day in the fields, Emily had not spoken to them again. Emily had seen the family occasionally in a carriage on their way to church, and she’d also glimpsed the youth riding his horse. Of course he wasn’t a youth now but a young man. Through listening to her father talking to friends, Emily knew that there were four young people at the manor, two boys and two girls. They all went away to expensive schools so were only at the manor during their holidays.

Pa was waiting for her when she went down to the kitchen. He looked at her and gave a nod of approval, but didn’t look at Ma. Emily noticed the atmosphere of strain between them. It was there most of the time now but she didn’t know what was causing it. She thought she preferred the old way, when they were shouting at each other instead of this cold politeness. At least then they had made up their quarrels and she’d heard them laughing together sometimes. Now they were just silent – distant.

‘Come on then, Em,’ Pa said. ‘I’ve got the wagon hitched and I want to get going.’

‘I’m coming,’ she said and laughed at his impatience. This surprise must be something special or he wouldn’t be in so much of a hurry to show her. ‘I’ve finished upstairs, Ma. I’ll do the parlour tomorrow.’

Her mother nodded but made no reply. She was looking a bit chastened and Emily wondered what had been said between her parents before she came down, but she wasn’t going to ask. Pa was in a good mood for once and she didn’t want to spoil it.

‘Well, there it is – what do you think?’ Pa asked as he pulled the wagon to a halt near to the pub across from the marketplace in Ely. If you walked through the brick and stone archway you could get to where the cattle market was held on a Thursday and on the following day there was always a faint whiff of horse or cattle droppings from the pens. She could smell it now but she was used to worse, the cowsheds being situated so close to their cottage at home.

Emily looked about her, trying to see what he meant and then she suddenly saw the shop window with a set of chairs and a rolltop desk set out. In the forefront was a blue and white earthenware jug that she was sure she’d seen before and also a brass fender and fire irons that had been in Pa’s barn for ages. Someone had cleaned them up so that they shone like gold.

‘You’ve got a shop,’ she said and looked at him in delight. Emily knew that it had been Pa’s ambition to have a shop for his second-hand goods for years, understanding now the suppressed air of excitement about him. ‘I’m so pleased for you. It’s a lovely surprise, Pa.’

‘It’s our shop, Em,’ he told her with pride. ‘I’m going to have Joe Carter & Daughter painted on a sign over the top just as soon as I can afford it – and when it starts to make a profit half will be yours. One day it will belong to you – and all the stuff in the barns. I’ve been hoarding for years now. Your Ma thinks it’s rubbish but one day it will make you a fortune – you see if I’m not right.’

Emily smiled at him, happy because this meant that Pa did still love her. She thought he’d stopped the day she disappointed him, but he cared underneath, even though he was often grumpy these days.

‘Oh Pa, that’s wonderful,’ she said. She would have said a lot more but he had started to cough. It took a few moments for him to stop and she looked at him anxiously. She’d heard him coughing in the yard a few times, but this time he’d been red in the face and looked as if he were in some distress. ‘Where did that cough come from, Pa? Have you been to the doctor?’

‘It’s nothing, Em, just a bit of a cough,’ he said. ‘Come on, I want you to meet Christopher. He’s going to be looking after the shop for us. He’s an intelligent lad, good with his hands. I think you’ll like him.’

Emily would have liked anyone her Pa told her to at that moment but as soon as she saw Christopher she took to him. His hair was a sandy brown and his eyes were hazel, his brows darker and somehow startling, and he had freckles all over his nose and cheeks. He was wearing dark trousers and a blue shirt with a leather apron over the top and his hands looked grimy, as if he’d been cleaning something with brass polish. She thought he must be about seventeen but she knew he was clever, because Pa said so, and the moment he spoke to her, she was sure they would be friends.

‘I’ve seen you in the market a couple of times,’ Christopher Johnson said and grinned at her. ‘My father is the head carpenter up at Priorsfield Manor. He wanted me to work for Lady Prior but I was looking for something else – and then I got talking to Joe.’

‘And now you’re working for me,’ Pa said. ‘And Em too. This place will be hers one day, Christopher. So you’d best keep on the right side of her.’ Christopher laughed and winked at Emily. ‘I’ll do my best, sir.’