‘I heard you had a hundred servants here,’ Daisy commented as she helped serve up the dinner from a big iron pot. She carried the steaming plates of mutton and barley with cabbage to the table and her mouth watered.
‘You heard right,’ Annie answered. ‘As well as the maids we have the footmen and kitchen brigade, the gardeners and gamekeepers, the grooms and stable lads, and when we have visiting parties they bring their own servants with them and I have to keep the servants’ hall up to scratch for all of them.’
As Daisy became more familiar with the layout she realised that the servants’ hall was not, as she had imagined, some vast chamber but a collection of rooms and buildings where the servants ate and relaxed when they had the time. She quickly learned that where you ate your dinner identified your position and whether you were employed indoors or outdoors.
Annie Brown and her brigade of under-housemaids ate together in the low stone building where Daisy had arrived. They sat around a large old kitchen table while Annie doled out ladles of stew and vegetables and carved up slices of steamed pudding on a dresser. Daisy ate hungrily and talked to the girl next to her.
‘What day is it?’
‘Thursday.’
Three days to Sunday, Daisy thought. Boyd wouldn’t be there yet, but eventually he would return. ‘Where do you go to church?’ she asked.
‘I go home to me mum and dad when I have my half day on a Sunday off. But most others walk to the village. There’s a shortcut across the park. You can see the spire from Home Farm.’
Annie overheard and interrupted, ‘You get one half day off a month, Daisy. But you won’t get yours until you’ve worked a month and earned it.’
Daisy’s face fell. If Boyd didn’t get the same half day off they might never see one another!
‘Don’t look so miserable, lass. If there are no house guests you’ll be free after four on a Sunday to go to evensong.’
‘Do you have many house guests?’
‘Enough to keep us busy! Lord Redfern is too old to join in too many house parties these days but he still has them. Nobody ever dreamed he would live this long. He soldiers on, though.’
‘Oh.’ Daisy listened as the other servants bantered about how rich his lordship was and how miserable too, with no wife and no family to speak of.
‘Now then, lasses,’ Annie warned. ‘He has his ward, Master James.’
‘Have you ever seen him?’
‘He’s away at school,’ Annie said.
‘Schools are closed for the harvest and the shooting, aren’t they?’
‘Well, I expect he’s gone to stay with friends.’
‘I might have seen him,’ Daisy volunteered. ‘How old is he?’
‘Seventeen or eighteen, I believe,’ Annie replied.
‘Oh, same as me.’ It could have been him, Daisy thought.
The horseman she had seen when she had arrived might have been him, but, dressed in the finery of a gentleman, he had seemed older than she was.
Daisy quickly settled into a routine under Annie’s watchful eye and after a fortnight her long working day was lifted by a message from Boyd to say he was well and had heard that she had recovered from her fever. She asked Annie for paper and ink to write him a note but neither were available to her and she returned his good wishes with her own. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing and she looked forward to when the harvest was in and she would see him again.
Her weeks were full and she enjoyed being part of Annie Brown’s family of servants’ servants. Her hands and nails took on all sorts of colours when the Abbey gardeners brought in barrow-loads of produce and Daisy was allocated to a scullery to pick over and prepare it. Sweet sickly aromas of fruit preserves in high summer gave way to a September air filled with boiling vinegar that made her head spin. On her visits to church she met dairy maids, scullery maids, kitchen maids, house maids. So many maids, there seemed to be one for every household task. It was a very large church with grand stained-glass windows and an ancient rector. The maids sat in pews quite separate from the gardeners and stable boys.
Daisy’s excitement bubbled as September wore on and evening shadows lengthened. Disappointingly, Boyd returned to Home Farm the week after her half day off but she hoped to see him at the end of the month.
‘We’ll get our quarter pay on Michaelmas Day,’ Annie explained. ‘Then there’s the harvest festival. But after that it will be hard work in the Abbey because his lordship still has shooting parties and hunts when gentry from all over visit.’
* * *
The Abbey was the largest house Daisy had ever seen, bigger even than the collection of brewery buildings all put together. She saw it only from the rear but it stretched for half a mile from east to west and had underground passages for the servants to get from one end to the other.
‘I don’t understand why his lordship needs such a big house to live in,’ she remarked.
‘Royalty, me ducks,’ Annie told her. ‘We have dukes and duchesses to visit regular for the balls and the hunting. The chambers are huge – you’ll see for yourself when you go inside.’
‘Me? Go inside the Abbey? When?’
‘We all go in for our quarter day pay. You won’t get much but come the winter solstice you’ll get more. It’s right handy that quarter, coming just before the Christmas festival. I’ll keep yours safe until you decide how you want to spend it.’
Annie had a strong box where she put her maids’ money for safe keeping. She noted the amounts in her account book and each maid signed her name against it or put a cross if she couldn’t write. Every Sunday morning, those who had a half day off lined up for coins to take with them home to their parents. Two of the older women, when it was quiet one afternoon in the week, took some of their money and walked into Redfern Village to spend on ribbons in the drapers. Daisy looked forward to coppers of her own to spend in the village shops.
The day before Michaelmas, Daisy spent her free time in the afternoon brushing her gown and polishing her boots so she would look her best to collect her pay. She wished to make a good impression and had kept by a clean cap and apron to wear. On the day, Annie’s maids filed past Annie who inspected the appearance of each and nodded, or made a comment and sent her back. Daisy followed the line of servants through the kitchen passages, up a flight of stone steps and through a wide swinging door into the Abbey proper. They shuffled forward slowly on stone flags down a dark wood-panelled corridor. As Daisy was the newest addition to Annie’s brigade she was last, followed closely by Annie herself.
A succession of men, young and old, passed them in the opposite direction clicking the coins in their hands. One of them, a brawny fellow in riding breeches and with a spring in his step, stopped to exchange a word with a woman near
the front of the queue. The girl next to Daisy turned round and said, ‘Did you see that? Old bossy boots has a follower!’ and the others began to whisper and giggle. Daisy didn’t know the woman well and was quite scared of her because she often checked her work instead of Annie and was very strict about it being just right.
‘Quiet!’ Annie’s strong voice came from behind Daisy’s head. The brawny fellow smiled and was nudged along by the man behind him.
Daisy thought it was nice for her if she did have a follower and began to think of her differently. As she moved towards the open double doors she was fascinated by the chamber in front of her and craned her neck for a better view. There were high stone arches down one side and a vaulted decorated ceiling similar to the one in the church. The walls were covered with wooden panels and the floor – Daisy passed the sole of her shoe over the surface – the stone floor felt more like marble and was laid out in a pattern of light and dark squares. A few pieces of heavy carved furniture stood by the walls. The room was lit by large sash windows that had long velvet drapes held back by tasselled cords. From the middle of the ornate ceiling hung an enormous wrought-iron chandelier filled with candles. If she wasn’t mistaken they were not tallow either, they were beeswax. She started to count them and work out how much they would cost.
‘Daisy!’ Suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder and she was spun round and enveloped in his arms. ‘Oh Daisy, I’ve been so worried about you.’
‘Boyd? Oh Boyd! So have I, I mean about you.’
‘But you were ill, they said, with a fever.’
‘I’m well now. Are you? Wait for me outside.’
‘I can’t. I’m one of the last from Home Farm and the cart
is waiting to take us back.’ He continued to hug her tightly and whispered, ‘I’m staying on for the ploughing. I’ll help with the Shires.’ Daisy heard a riffle of giggles from the line followed by a soft chant, ‘Daisy’s got a sweetheart, Daisy’s got a sweetheart.’
‘Hush, now,’ Annie hissed. ‘His lordship will hear you.’ Her strong fingers prised Boyd and Daisy apart. ‘Stop that now. Remember where you are.’ A severe-looking woman in a plain black gown and lace cap loomed into view in the doorway and snapped, ‘Brown. Keep your brigade in order.’
‘Right away, madam.’
Daisy heard a whispered ‘the housekeeper’ and the group fell silent. Annie was popular with her maids and they didn’t want her in trouble. Boyd let Daisy go and whispered, ‘I’ll see you at the harvest supper.’ He looked at Annie and said, ‘Beg pardon, ma’am,’ then hurried away.
Annie pushed her sharply in the back to move forward but Daisy didn’t mind. She was floating on a cloud of excitement. Boyd was safe and he was nearby and they would meet at the harvest supper, which was Very Soon.
The stream of men was replaced by women, all in sponged and well-brushed gowns and pristine aprons and caps. Housekeepers and parlour maids in their neat lace-trimmed uniforms and dainty aprons and caps, cooks and kitchen maids in more serviceable dress, large aprons and plain caps. As the line moved through the doorway she became interes ted in the table and group of gentlemen at the far end. Her boots slipped along the polished floor.
‘Where are we?’ Daisy whispered to Annie.
‘It’s the small ballroom. We have the servants’ ball in here at Christmas but it’s the counting house today.’
They were shuffling towards a large oblong table with a
polished wooden surface. Three gentlemen were sitting in front of open ledgers, ink pots and quill pens. There were piles of coins in front of the middle gentleman. Two other gentlemen stood around behind them.
‘Who are those people?’
‘The one in the middle, in the Bath chair, is his lordship. The gentlemen each side are his estate clerk and steward. When his lordship gives you your pay, sign the ledger then curtsey and say, “Thank you, my lord”. Watch how the others do it.’
As she neared the table, Daisy listened. The steward called out a name and the girl moved forward to the table. The clerk stated how much pay and the girl signed the ledger, or put a cross if she couldn’t write. Then the clerk counted out the coins and slid them across to his lordship who nodded. Then the steward pushed them across the table. The girl picked them up, muttered her thanks and bobbed a curtsey and backed away before turning round to walk out.
That was easy enough, Daisy thought. His lordship was old, really very old, she thought, and obviously frail. He had a woollen blanket over his knees and a similar shawl about his thin shoulders. She surveyed the gentlemen who were standing. One was old too, nearly as old as his lordship and he wore the black stockings and breeches of old-fashioned clerical dress. But it was the younger of the two gentlemen who caught her eye.
He was the rider who had passed her on the way here, when she and Boyd had peered in the high iron gates at the entrance to the Abbey. She recalled his dark eyes and air of authority. He was dressed in a smart suit of clothes: trousers not breeches and a long velvet jacket that was cutaway at the front. His dark hair was longer but he looked even more
handsome than she remembered. She stared at him and as she did he turned his head towards her and raised his eyebrows.
She looked down quickly and felt herself blush. When she looked up again he was watching her with a grin on his face. Annie had warned her never to look her betters in the eye so she concentrated on the piles of coins and wondered how much his lordship needed to pay all his servants.
Her turn came and she stood to attention as her name was called, walked purposefully forwards and took the quill pen offered to her, writing her name carefully against the ledger entry. As the clerk counted out her coins, the clergyman said, ‘Another servant who can write her own name. How many is that, now? They only cause trouble, you know.’
The younger gentleman frowned and added, ‘They don’t do that here, sir. Most learn in Sunday school before they come here to work. We ought to have Sunday school in our church, Uncle.’
The cleric widened his eyes and nudged him with his elbow.
Lord Redfern watched his steward pass across Daisy’s small heap of coins. ‘I am not dead yet, young James. When I am, you may speak your mind. But until then, have the grace to keep your ideas to yourself.’
‘My humble apologies, sir. It was a thoughtless comment.’ The young man’s tone turned to one of contrition. She recognised the manner of one who had learned how to please his elders and felt sympathy.
‘I trust that the education I have provided for you has not been wasted.’ Daisy was surprised to hear derision in Lord Redfern’s voice.
‘Indeed not, sir. I should like to speak with you about my future.’
‘Now is not the time, boy. I shall listen to you on the due date and not before.’ Daisy thought that Lord Redfern had a very domineering tone for one who was so frail.
‘Of course, sir.’
Daisy noticed that Master James did not appear to be pleased. His grin had disappeared and he was chewing at his lip. At that moment she thought she knew how he felt. You had to be perfect to please some folk. The steward waved her on. Hurriedly she scraped her coins off the table and moved away. Too late, she remembered her curtsey, dashed back and bobbed her thanks.
Lord Redfern did not seem to notice. ‘Wheel me back to my library,’ he ordered. ‘I shall take my tea alone.’ A footman came forward from the shadows behind him.