Chapter 9
“Ugh, what a horrible, run-down place,” said Esther. “I hope the new viscount, whoever it is, pulls it down to build a nice modern house.”
“I think it has character,” said Angela. “And how rude to disparage our shelter.”
“It’s beautiful and gracious; it just needs care,” said Clara.
All was unpacked, and the equipages and horses taken round to the stables, and Mrs. Hymes rang her hands and asked the ladies to come into the kitchen, which was at least warm, whilst she sorted out hot bricks for beds, and bedding for the ladies.
Names being given, as if the Hymes’s did not know, it was determined that the young ladies would have the three bedrooms in the new wing, Elinor Clitheroe would have the room next to them in the older part of the house, with her Betty on a truckle bed; the other maids would occupy the rooms above their mistresses. Edwin accepted the master bedroom rather than his snug overporch room, as it would seem strange otherwise, with Jeb in the room that side of the main house, and Mrs. Partridge in the housekeeper’s room as Mrs. Hymes slept in the butler’s pantry with Hymes. Meanwhile, all sat in exhausted ecumenism in the kitchen.
“Mrs. Hymes,” said Clara, with a crisp, decisive air, “We need a hot meal. You said you had provender; what do you mean by that? If we are here until the wheel needs to be mended, I assume Mr. Annesley will aid towards the household bills, but is there enough food in the house for a large party? As for a hot meal, if all you have is oatmeal and water, then porridge will do, especially if you have some dried fruit to go in it.”
Mrs. Hymes gave Clara an appraising look.
“You know about running a large household, Miss Snowe,” she said.
“Yes, I do; we may have had to retrench, but I have helped my mother when we were better off,” said Clara.
“We’ve a flitch of bacon, cheese, butter, pickled herring, dried cod, salt beef, and extra chickens and geese, in the expectation of the lord having a Christmas party,” said Mrs. Hymes. “There’s eggs in waterglass, onions, potatoes, Swedish turnips, parsnip and carrot and salted string beans in the cellar, oatmeal, dried pease, rice, flour, and dried fruit and mushrooms. There’s turnip tops still in the ground.”
“Good; we will have pease pottage with some of that flitch, with onions in it, and I saw some ramsoms outside, served with roast potatoes and parsnips. If you rinse some beef overnight to get rid of the salt, and soak some dried mushrooms tomorrow, if there’s red wine in the wine cellar, for cooking, we’ll have beef Bourguignon tomorrow for dinner, which will mitigate the toughness of the meat, and if you do a few extra potatoes and roast a few onions tonight, we can have bubble and squeak for breakfast with turnip tops in, and any left over pease pottage mixed in as well, with fried or poached eggs, and I imagine you bake your own bread; I am sure Mrs. Partridge will help you, and we can have slices of bacon from the flitch, and cheese, and pickles if you have any, to go with bread and butter for nuncheon. And if the butter is scarce, we can have dripping on the bread instead.”
“There’s enough butter, ma’am. Thank you, that’s very helpful.”
Clara inclined her head.
“I’m glad you knew what to do,” said Angela. “I wouldn’t know how to order someone like Mrs. Hymes around!”
“Once, I had a housekeeper, not as amiable as Mrs. Hymes, though, she fought Mama on every decision,” said Clara. “Mrs. Hymes, is there milk for Tommy?”
“Bless you, miss, we have a goat as well as a cow, the goat moved in, and she’s still in milk, which is very rare.”
“Splendid. He is used to cow’s milk, but I think goat’s milk would be good for him,” said Clara.
She noticed that the Indian gentleman was looking at her with definite admiration, and blushed.
“Do we have to stay in this dirty old house?” whined Esther.
“No, you can pick up your bags and walk into the village, which I collect is a little further along the road,” said Elinor. “But I won’t let you make that maid of yours go with you unless she wants to do so.”
“It won’t be dirty for long,” said Clara. “One of the things we can do to say ‘Thank you,’ for the hospitality, is to clean house. I am sure Mrs. Hymes can find old linen to turn into pinafores for us all, and we will work alongside our maids, and it will be sparkling and easier to keep clean in no time.”
“What a good idea!” said Angela.
“I’m not going to clean and scrub like a common slavey,” said Esther.
“Well, how would you expect to go on if married if you don’t do some work around the house?” asked Angela. “Goodness, it’s not as if you’re Lady Muckamuck of Noseinairshire! You’re a doctor’s daughter; doesn’t your mother help with the spring cleaning at least?”
A couple of spots of colour showed on Esther’s cheeks.
“Papa has never let Mama make me help,” she said, defensively. “I always expected to marry a gentleman who would not expect his wife to do menial work.”
“Good luck with that,” said Angela. “Very few gentlemen have enough cabbage to have a wife who is bone idle, whether it’s keeping a smallholding, or doing some of the housework as well as directing servants.”
Esther tossed her head.
“Oh, the rectory mouse has no idea of civilised living,” she said.
“Mama made me learn all the jobs the servants did, so I knew how much I could expect of them, and could show new servants how to do things,” said Clara.
“And how many servants did you have?” asked Esther, condescendingly.
“Only eight; it wasn’t a large household,” said Clara, unaware that she had shocked Esther. “One indoor man, two chamber-maids, who doubled as dressers, the girl of all work, a cook-housekeeper, two men outside and in the stables, and a dairy maid, who helped with the cooking. Oh! And Tommy’s nursery maid. But she would have gone anyway when he was old enough for school.”
“Why... you cannot have so many servants on less than a thousand a year!” cried Esther, shocked.
“A little more than that. Papa was clever with stocks and bonds, and I wish I had the confidence to buy and sell as he did,” said Clara.
“Oh, you can learn,” said Edwin. “It’s an avocation of mine.”
“How many servants would you expect to have, sir?” asked Esther, almost grinding her teeth.
“Not less than fifteen,” said Edwin. “Though I can make do with just Ram Gopal, in a pinch.”
“Eh, that’s out of my touch,” said Jeb. “I’ve four hands on the farm and a man and woman in the house. I don’t say but I couldn’t afford a maid for any lass I married, but I’d expect her and her mistress to shift a bit more than concentrating on looking pretty.”
“Any woman with sense would leap at such a proposition,” said Angela. “We had a cook-housekeeper, and I cleaned house and milked the goat and fed the chickens.”
“I might run to a boy or girl to help out Pugh and Mrs. Pugh,” said Jeb. “But I’m a farmer, not a swell.”
“It’s a wise man who knows his limits,” said Edwin. “My mother was used to being surrounded by servants, and my father indulged her. I am more capable than I sound.”
“Well, you ain’t afraid to drive for yourself,” said Jeb. “But I’d be uncomfortable living long in your world, whereas I reckon you could live in mine.”
“Mrs. Hymes, what do you want us doing?” asked Angela.
“I want Mrs. Partridge and Ram Gopal helping me in the kitchen,” said Mrs. Hymes. “Your little maid can go and help Will, our boy of work, looking for eggs in the barn; there won’t be many if any, but we might as well have fresh eggs where we can. And she can help him milk Faith, the goat, and Rosie, the cow. I’ve put the bricks to warm in the oven, and perhaps you ladies and your maids can wrap them in blankets and carry them up to air your beds, and then perhaps you can light a fire in the dining-room so you have somewhere to sit; and the servants will eat out here, and we’ll open up the servants’ lounge tomorrow. You’ll need to take the Holland covers off the beds, and fold them to be put away, and the quilts you brought can be divided up to make sure you have enough covers that are well aired.”
“Lizzy will sort out my bed,” said Esther.
“She will not; she has her own bed to sort out,” said Elinor. “You’ll sort out your own, my girl, or shiver all night without a hot brick and without enough covers. If I can sort out my own bed, and my nevvy sort out his, you can surely manage yours, unless your mother played your father false and you’re a Russian archduchess or something feeble like that.”
“I am not feeble! And my mother would never play my father false!” squealed Esther.
“Well, then, you should be capable of doing as much as anyone else,” said Elinor. “Miss Snowe, will Tommy share your bed?”
“Yes, it will keep him warmer,” said Clara. “He kicks, but if there’s a good down mattress, it hurts less.”
“Nothing wrong with our duck-down mattresses,” said Mrs. Hymes. “And good woollen curtains on the beds, too.”
“Installed when Queen Elizabeth visited, I suppose,” said Esther.
“Oh, no, miss, nothing so new fangled and modern as that,”, said Mrs. Hymes, who had made all the bed curtains herself in her time. “They date to the oldest part of the house, in the time of Henry of Lancaster.”
Esther gave a cry of horror.
“Mrs. Hymes is teasing you, you precious ninny,” said Clara.
“What? But she can’t! She’s only a servant!” said Esther, scandalised. “I’ll have her turned off...”
“Miss Mortimer! You are not too big for me to put you over my knee and introduce you to my slipper where it might do most good!” said Elinor, awfully. “Mrs. Hymes is putting herself out to accommodate us, and all you do is carp and criticise, and then you have the impudence to complain that she amuses herself at the expense of a little peagoose who has the audacity to make snide remarks! You might make such remarks in an inn which expects to be putting people up, and for which you are paying, but to someone with the generosity to take in unexpected guests, it is the height of bad manners, low breeding, and ill nature! Take your hot brick and sort out your bed, and stay there; my Betty will light a fire for you as I will sort out her bed for her, and she will take no nonsense from you, and will slap you if you misbehave. And you shall have nursery tea on a tray as you cannot behave like an adult, and Betty will bring you bread-and-milk. You’re plump enough to miss a meal.”
Esther gaped.
“She can’t do this!” she gasped.
“No, she could send you out in the increasing fog with snow in it to walk to the village,” said Angela. “And Clara and I will carry you, if we have to.”
“Jeb! Save me!” cried Esther, running to her erstwhile swain. He backed away.
“Eh, you’ve shown me your true colours, Miss Mortimer, and I’ve had a right lucky escape in you turning me down,” said Jeb. “I was fooled by you being as nice as pie to me, which seemingly is your way when things go your way; and at school, we knew that someone who was nice as pie when things went their way was another way of saying a bully. You think Mrs. Hymes is beneath you, for being a servant, well, she’s more of a lady than you are, and plenty of housekeepers were born ladies and, being impoverished, prefer it to being governesses. Mrs. Pugh is the daughter of a curate, and thass.... that is, I mean, something I respect.”
“I am the daughter of the rectory from some number of vicars back,” said Mrs. Hymes, quietly. “Like Miss Cubitt, I found myself homeless when my father died, and I came to the old Viscountess as a companion.”
“And that is not the point, really, though we appreciate your position,” said Clara. “The point is that Esther has not the manners of a lady to keep from mocking the servants regardless of their birth. But Angela is right, Esther; we’d carry you up. Go to your room quietly, and you may even get hot supper. And I will light your fire, so Betty is not exposed to your nasty tongue, for I am quite capable, as I am sure you are not.”
Esther retired to a cold bedroom in some dudgeon, not in the least bit impressed to be the only occupant to have a fire in her room.
