Hope at Holly Cottage (6 page)

She carried out her instructions perfectly, but as Mr Jackson advanced into the room with the massive tray, she heard Prudence Ashcroft’s cut-crystal voice.

‘Ah, is that young Miss Millington I see behind the door? Come here, child.’

Oh. What should she do? But she hesitated only a moment before crossing the threshold into the room. She saw Mr Jackson frown and direct his eyes sharply downwards. Did that mean she should curtsey? She bobbed her knees briefly, keeping her gaze on the luxurious carpet.

‘I expect Mrs Davenport has thrown you in at the deep end,’ she heard Lady Ashcroft’s autocratic tone, ‘but you’re an intelligent girl and I’m sure you can cope. Now, we can’t keep on referring to you as Miss Millington, so I want everyone to call you Anna. Is that understood, Mr Jackson?’

‘Yes, Lady Ashcroft.’

‘Very well. You may both go.’

‘Yes, Lady Ashcroft,’ they replied in unison, and dipping her knee once again, Anna backed out of the room following Mr Jackson’s example. Would he praise her for
managing the unexpected moment so well? Not on your Nellie! But Anna felt pleased with herself as they returned to the kitchen. So, she was to be called by her given name – somewhat better than
girl
! At least it was a step in the right direction.

‘Shall I show Anna below stairs now, Mrs Davenport?’ Mr Jackson suggested. ‘Or do you need her urgently for something? And Lady Ashcroft wishes the girl to be called by her Christian name.’

‘Does she now? Encouraging the girl to put on airs and graces, if you ask me. But if Lady Ashcroft wishes it—’

‘Oh, I won’t! Put on airs and graces, I mean.’

‘How dare you speak before you are spoken to!’ Mrs Davenport took a step forward, brandishing the bread knife, and for a fleeting moment, Anna thought she might be attacked! Good God, she had come there to get away from such things! But then she realised that the knife had just happened to be in the housekeeper’s hand as she was cutting more slices of bread. It seemed that the witch managed to contain her anger, though her next words were laced with contempt. ‘You had better teach the girl some manners while you’re at it, Mr Jackson.’

‘This way,’ he barked in reply, and Anna was relieved to scamper after him.

Mr Jackson gave her a swift tour of the maze of small rooms that led off from the corridor, and in his habitually gruff manner, explained each one’s function. There was a boot room, a locked wine cellar to which only he himself held a key, the butler’s pantry, and the housekeeper’s room where Mrs Davenport saw to all the below-stairs accounts but also had a cosy chair by the fire. As far
as Anna could tell, it was the only room below stairs to have a fireplace. The dairy had been made obsolete by the refrigerator, but the laundry was still in use, the washing being done once a week by the daily, Mrs Smudge, who was at this moment cleaning ‘upstairs’. Mr Jackson hoped Anna could iron!

Back in the kitchen, Anna was shown the separate scullery where the washing-up was done, the sinks in the kitchen itself being strictly for food preparation. The house had been built in a bygone age and nothing, it seemed to Anna, had changed since. She would have been fascinated – if she hadn’t gained the distinct impression that she was going to slave in it like a skivvy. And, apart from the kitchen, all the rooms were so dark that she was convinced she would turn into a mole! It was no wonder that the butler and housekeeper were so short-tempered.

‘Well, that’s me done for the day. Alfie’ll be yere in a mo to pick me up. Couldn’t come on me bike in this yere fog.’

Oh, what a relief to hear a cheerful voice! What Anna saw first was a fat, be-aproned behind as Mrs Smudge came in backwards, using her bottom to open the door since her hands were full of her cleaning materials.

‘’Ello, cheel! You’m the new maid?’ she beamed as she turned round. ‘I ’opes you last longer than the last one,’ she whispered with a wink as she struggled past Anna with her dusters, brushes and brooms. ‘See you tomorrow,’ she called as, having stowed her equipment somewhere in the scullery, she came back through the kitchen and disappeared out of the door again.

Well, at least she would look forward to working with
Mrs Smudge, Anna mused, but just then the breakfast room bell clanged once more.

‘That’s Lady Ashcroft finished, so up we go. Anna,’ Mr Jackson added as if he resented using her name.

Anna was appalled. The tray had been set out like a banquet for Lady Ashcroft to choose from, and yet she had hardly eaten anything. And when Anna thought of how her dear mum had struggled through all the years of rationing to put a decent meal on the table, well, it was criminal. She sincerely hoped all that food wouldn’t go to waste. And all the time and effort of preparing the tray for nothing. No wonder Her Ladyship required so many people to look after her!

Once Lady Ashcroft had been served her coffee, the servants were able to sit at one end of the enormous kitchen table to have their own lunch. The one pleasant surprise of the day was that they helped themselves from the ham and cheese that had been returned on the tray – Anna being made to wait until last, of course – and Mrs Davenport reheated the soup on the range so that it was piping hot. And Anna had to admit that it was delicious.

‘Please may I ask when His Lordship will be back?’ she plucked up the courage to ask, most politely, of course.

She saw them exchange glances, and Mrs Davenport rolled her eyes to the ceiling. Oh, Lord, Anna wondered in dismay, what on earth had she said now?

‘Explain to the girl, would you?’ Mrs Davenport sighed in exasperation.

Mr Jackson coughed lightly. ‘There is no His Lordship. Sir Hugh was a baronet, not a lord of any sort. And sadly he died some years ago, so Her Ladyship is officially the
Dowager Lady Ashcroft. Since Sir Hugh’s death, she has preferred to live here rather than in London.’

‘Oh dear, how sad,’ Anna ventured. ‘But I’m sure Mrs Davenport mentioned family?’

‘She may have done. A baronetcy is not part of the peerage, but unlike a knighthood, it can be hereditary. The son may claim the title upon the death of his father. Sir Gilbert comes to stay with his mother quite frequently. No doubt you will meet him soon enough. And Lady Ashcroft also has some distant cousins. But stop asking about things that don’t concern you, and hurry up and finish your lunch. We all have work to do, especially you.’

He wasn’t kidding! It seemed that Anna was to do all the washing-up, scouring and polishing the copper pans until they gleamed. She had to wash and prepare all the vegetables ready for Mrs Davenport to cook, and weigh out all ingredients on some cast iron scales. The housekeeper instructed her in the exact method of making tea – what a blooming waste of time that was, in Anna’s opinion. Tea was tea, for heaven’s sake. Although apparently not.

She seemed to be kept on her feet – running around like a blue-arse fly as Ethel would have said – for ridiculous reasons. The highlight of the afternoon was being taken to Lady Ashcroft’s opulent bedroom to help Mrs Davenport change the sheets, which was done twice a week. Crikey. Surely once a week was enough? When Anna finally fell into her own bed, which she had been obliged to make up for herself as well, it was with strict instructions to present herself in the kitchen at six o’clock in the morning without fail.

She lay in bed in the pitch dark. It was so silent, like nothing she had experienced before, no traffic or people’s voices from outside. She hoped she would sleep all right in the strange room, but she was so exhausted that she didn’t even say her nightly prayer for her mum before she fell fast asleep, clutching her threadbare little teddy.

‘You’m going out with Bert tonight, all dolled up like a dog’s dinner?’

‘I am that!’

Ethel set her face in a grin, hoping it appeared genuine. Thank goodness Bert was on earlies and was free, ’cause she really needed cheering up this evening. The first night for thirteen years, wasn’t it, when Anna wasn’t in hailing distance? Crikey, she were missing her already, and her only gone since that morning. How were she getting on? Ethel didn’t like the sound of the place, even though she were the one who’d encouraged Anna to go for an interview. She didn’t half feel guilty now, as if Anna had been swallowed up into a great big black hole and it were all her fault.

‘Say goodnight to your sister now, Primrose,’ Mabel ordered kindly, stubbing out her cigarette on the cracked plate from which Primrose had just been eating her tea of baked beans on toast.

‘Nightie-night,’ Ethel smiled a little ruefully as her mum heaved little Primrose into her arms. ‘Don’t let they fleas bite.’

‘No fleas in our beds!’ Mabel nodded emphatically, and Ethel grimaced. There had been once upon a time. Well, bed bugs, anyway. She remembered the legs of their beds standing in saucers of something that smelt disgusting to stop the little blighters crawling up at night. It had been when they had returned to the house after the war. Her dad hadn’t exactly kept the place clean. Managed to break his leg, he had, leaving it slightly shorter than the other one, so he’d been discharged from the army. He’d gone back to working longer hours than ever on the railway. Important war work, he often declared proudly – which indeed it was, especially with Plymouth being a major naval port – and often dangerous, with Hitler aiming at the railway routes as well as the city and the dockyards in his air raids. And when Fred wasn’t at work, he’d been a member of the home defences, patrolling the streets, so he’d hardly had time to eat and sleep, let alone keep the house clean. Not that it was spick and span now, but at least you didn’t wake up covered in little red bites. And it was home. Unlike where Anna had gone.

‘Night-night, Daddy,’ Primrose beamed, leaning out from Mabel’s arms to receive a noisy kiss from her dad who was also on earlies that week.

‘Oh, I swears you gets ’eavier every day!’ Mabel grumbled good-heartedly as she shambled out of the door in her worn slippers.

‘Huh, all right for you!’ Billy growled at once at his big
sister. ‘Going out enjoying yersel’ when some on us ’as got flaming ’omework to do!’

‘An’ I didn’t ’ave ’omework when I were at school?’ Ethel retorted sharply. ‘An’ one day you’ll be out at work, too, like Davy an’ Dad, an’ wishing you was back at school!’

‘I likes ’omework,’ little Sammy piped up, wide-eyed with earnest.

‘Yes, us knows you does!’ Ethel saw her dad grin, and he ruffled his youngest son’s mousy hair. ‘P’r’aps us ’as
one
scholar in the family!’

‘You calls that ’omework, reading a page of
Janet and John
an’ doing a few sums, like?’

‘’E’s only eight, Billy—’

Oh, thank the Lord for that, Ethel sighed as she heard a loud knock from the hallway. That was as near to an argument as her family ever got, but she could do without it tonight. That would be Bert at the door, though he was a bit early and she wasn’t quite ready. Hadn’t got her lipstick on yet, but the knock had sounded impatient for Bertie and she didn’t want to keep him waiting on such a dank evening. So as she hurried along the hallway, she pinched her lips to put some colour in them that way instead.

She pulled the door wide, vibrant with expectation, and her fingers turned rigid as they gripped the latch. It wasn’t Bert, and a little gasp escaped her throat as she stared up into Vince Millington’s maddened face.

‘Where’s my daughter?’ he raged. ‘Gone and left me, she has, but I’ll wager you know where she’s gone! And I bet it were you as put her up to it, as well!’

Ethel could smell beer on his breath and stepped backwards, pressing her back up against the open door. Bloody hell, she hadn’t foreseen this, and for once, her brain couldn’t think of an answer.

‘I-I …’ she stuttered, but her shock was so deep that no words came out of her mouth.

‘Who the ’ell does you think you’m be!’ she heard her dad’s voice storm from behind her, and her knees went weak with relief. ‘I’s bin a friend to you, Vince, but I’ll not ’ave you coming into my ’ouse, shouting at my family like this! Now what’s this all about?’

Ethel stared up at Vince, quite petrified. It were no wonder Anna were afraid of him if this were how he could be! But then she saw him take a deep breath after which he seemed calmer, though his lips were still clenched in an angry knot.

‘My Anna’s run off,’ he grated. ‘Packed her bags and gone. And I reckon
she
knows where to!’ he spat, poking Ethel in the chest.

‘Keep your ’ands off my darter!’ Fred at once barked back, and drew himself up to his full height. Although Vince was tall and strong, he couldn’t match Fred, and he knew it. Ethel could see he was backing down, thank God. ‘Now, does you know ort about this?’ she heard her dad’s reasoning voice as he turned to her.

Ethel tried to speak, but still no sound would come from her lips so she shook her head instead. She noticed her dad frown questioningly, but he spoke to Vince without hesitation.

‘If Ethel says she knows nort about it, then she don’t. So don’t you come yere again bothering ’er, like, or you’ll ’ave me to answer to.’

‘Huh!’ Vince snorted back. ‘I’ll go to the police, then.
They
’ll likely get
her
to tell the truth!’

‘You’d be wasting your time. Anna be eighteen, same as Ethel yere. Not a child. From what you says, she’s gone of her own accord. An’ there be nort you can do about it. So I suggests you pushes off ’ome an’ sobers up a bit. Now goodnight.’ And he slammed the door in Vince’s face.

Ethel thought she was about to faint. May God bless her soul, it was over! But it wasn’t, was it?

‘What’s this all about, cheel?’ her dad asked sternly.

‘What’s ’appening?’ Mabel thumped down the stairs as if Beelzebub himself were after her.

‘Seems Anna’s done a runner,’ Fred answered over his shoulder, ‘an’ ’er dad thinks our Ethel were in on it. I thinks us’d better ’ave a chat. In the front room.’

Ethel obeyed, moving like a machine. She was going to have to face the music now! The air in the unheated room made her shiver. It was only used for high days and holidays in the summer, or at Christmas if they could afford to burn some coal in the grate. But her dad’s features had softened, and her mum, well, she sat down next to her on the lumpy sofa and put her arm around her shaking shoulders.

‘Well, cheel?’

Ethel lifted her gaze to her dad’s face, and sniffed. She hadn’t realised she was crying. From sheer terror, she supposed.

‘I knew she were going,’ she admitted, her voice croaky and unrecognisable. ‘’Er dad ’as a bit of a drink problem—’

‘So I sees …’

‘An’ she were frightened. But I doesn’t know where she’s gone, I swear!’ she concluded with conviction. Well, it were only a half lie, weren’t it? Somewhere up on the moor was all she knew. She didn’t know the exact location or the address. ‘Anna said she’d write when she were settled, like,’ she added truthfully.

Her dad’s lips had tightened fiercely. ‘You’m going to ’ave to be careful o’ that Vince. If ’e lays so much as a finger on you, I swears I’ll break ’is bloody neck!’

Ethel stared at her father and shuddered. Jesus, what had she got them all in to?

My dearest Ethel
…

Every morning, Ethel scooted to the front door the instant she heard the postman in case there was something from Anna. She prayed that nothing would ever arrive in the second delivery when she was at work, but today her patience had been rewarded by a letter in the early post, two weeks after her friend had left and the horrible incident with her father. They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since, except for glimpses of him going to and from work. But thankfully he hadn’t shown his face at Number Sixteen again.

Ethel had stuffed the letter into her pocket. She didn’t like deceiving her parents one little bit, but it was best they didn’t know that she had heard from Anna at all. Now she was on the bus, she eagerly tore open the envelope, glad that she had managed to conceal it from everyone else.

Sorry I’ve not written before, but there’s no time during my normal working day. This is my afternoon off. I was
supposed to walk into Princetown, which is about three miles away, because they want me to buy some more suitable clothes for my work here. I’ve got to pay for them myself, but I suppose they’ll always come in handy
.

Blooming cheek, Ethel considered, feeling the anger rising inside her. Anna always looked nice, neat and tidy and with her light-brown hair tied up in a ponytail. Ethel liked it best, though, when she let it down. It had a lovely wave to it, and never seemed out of place, whereas her own hair always looked a mess, which was why she kept it short. But she wanted to have the letter read before she got to work.

But today the rain’s coming down in stair rods and driving across the moor in a howling gale. You’ve probably got the same, but up here, it’s so exposed that, well, it’s hard to describe. Even Mrs Davenport, the housekeeper – and a right old dragon, I tell you – she said it was too bad for me to go. Mind you, she said I’d probably catch a chill and be no use to her, so I think it was that rather than any concern for my welfare!

Oh, love a duck, they sounded awful people! And she, Ethel, were the one to blame. If only she hadn’t seen that advert in the paper! But it were done now, and she supposed Anna didn’t seem completely down in the mouth. But she must read on.

So I’ve ended up sitting in my little attic room writing to you instead. Which is good because I can tell you lots. But I won’t be able to post it for another week when hopefully the weather will be OK and I’ll get into Princetown then.

I do have to work very hard, starting at six in the
morning, and I’m not dismissed until nine in the evening. But there’s a proper bathroom and a flushing toilet up here in the servants’ quarters, which I’m not used to! There are two huge generators that provide electricity, because we’re miles from any mains. There’s no electric in the attic rooms, though, and the cooking’s done on an old range because there’s no gas either. And hot water comes from a coal boiler. We get through loads of coal, and one of my jobs is to keep the scuttles full for all the fires
.

Ethel’s brow creased. That sounded like blooming hard work. Poor Anna, having to make such a move. Ethel wondered if she’d have been able to do it. Probably not. So thank the Lord she had such a wonderful family, and her dear Bert, and all.

Mr Jackson, the butler, he’s quite a stickler but he’s not as openly hostile as Mrs Davenport. I helped him polish the silver. You use some stuff that smells vile and you have to wear gloves because it stains your fingers black. But he said I made a good job of it. Not that he said it with a smile. In fact, I don’t think his face has smile muscles! Mrs Davenport’s the one, though! She seems cross all the time and tries to make me feel two inches tall. I’m learning a lot about cooking from her, though. They use really expensive ingredients and we eat the same as Lady A and it really is delicious
.

Give me fish and chips any day, or a fry up, Ethel scoffed. But then she thought of the lumpy porridge she’d just eaten. She wondered if
cornflakes
might taste better, but they sorts of cereals was dearer. And anyway, her dad said hot porridge stuck to your ribs better.

Some mornings I help Mrs Smudge with the cleaning, and she makes it quite fun. The house is so big that we hardly see the others. She doesn’t go much on them, but she says she loves the house and making it look nice and she says Lady A’s all right. And they need the money. It’s hard being a farmer, she says. And she’s right about Lady A. She demands respect and she can be quite formidable, but she doesn’t treat me like dirt the way Mrs D does.

Anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard quite enough about me. I want to know how everything is with you. Are you still going out with Bert? I do hope so, but I don’t want to know all the details! Please give my love to all your family and tell them how I really appreciate all they did for me when Mum died. At least that’s one thing. They keep me so busy here, it stops me thinking about her so much.

So, now you have my full address, you can write back to me. I’m really looking forward to it!

Take care of yourself

All my love

Anna

Ethel lifted her head and glanced out of the window. A lump had suddenly come to her throat at the picture of Anna in her lonely room at the top of the big, isolated house. Anna were
trying
to be happy, weren’t she? But that were Anna for you. She got on with things. In her own quiet and determined way. It weren’t fair, everything she’d had to put up with. Not that it had stopped the pair of them having a lot of fun together all the years they’d known each other, had it?

Oh, how Ethel missed her! She weren’t a great letter
writer herself, but she’d spend her lunch hour writing back. She’d tell Anna … No. She wouldn’t tell her everything. She wouldn’t tell her how Vince had come over to their house in a foul temper and making threats. Ethel was still a bit frightened. And of course, she hadn’t told her parents how Freda had really come to fall down the stairs. Her dad would’ve gone spare if he’d known!

Life could be proper complicated sometimes, couldn’t it? But there was nothing she could do about it except write a cheerful letter back to Anna. There weren’t any trains on Sundays, but maybe they could work it so that when Anna had some time off, she could take the day’s paid leave she had left and they could meet in Princetown. Yes, that’d be great, and she shoved the letter back in its envelope with a happy smile.

‘Girl, you can take ten minutes’ break,’ Mrs Davenport said resentfully as she poured out cups of hot, steaming liquid for their
morning coffee
. ‘We don’t say
elevenses
,’ she had corrected Anna on her second day. ‘Such a common expression,’ she had added with a sneer.