Читать книгу Ella’s Journey: The perfect wartime romance to fall in love with this summer - Lynne Francis - Страница 13

Ella hugged her secret to herself. The memory of what Mr Ward had said, and the possession of his card, sustained her through several trying weeks in the Ottershaw household. When the children fell ill one after the other, so that the kitchen was awash with bedclothes hanging to dry and the house filled with the crying or moaning of infants, day and night, Ella stoically carried on. She had some sympathy for the children, even when faced with a succession of permanently running or crusted noses, their seemingly endless capacity for being sick and the often-rude manner, learnt from their parents, in which they summoned and treated her.

Mr and Mrs Ottershaw were another matter. They liked to let it be known that Ella was there on sufferance, out of the goodness of their hearts in employing someone whose sister had, in their view and, it would seem, everyone else’s view, committed a hideous crime. It seemed to Ella that their apparent Christian charity was an excuse to misuse her, to pay her even less than the pittance considered a fair wage (‘as no one else will have you’), to work her all hours (‘you will understand the risk we have borne in taking you in’), and to refuse her the right to visit her family (‘the afternoon off? How could you ask this of us after all we have done for you?’).

It was only when they refused Ella a visit home after she had had word that Sarah, too, was struggling with a house full of sick children – Ella’s siblings Thomas, Annie and Beattie having taken it in turn to succumb, with niece Beth now gravely ill – that she finally snapped. Mr Ottershaw, in his usual pompous manner, had denied the request, citing a concern that she would return bearing yet more illness into the bosom of his family, then buried his head back in the newspaper. Ella had retired quietly to the kitchen. Two pink spots of rage burnt in her cheeks. She stood in the centre of the room, fists clenched, and thought but for a moment or two. Then she undid her apron, folded it and laid it over the kitchen chair, and went into the small room off the kitchen that served as her sleeping quarters. She took her few possessions off the shelf along with the dress that hung behind the door, and wrapped them in a woollen shawl. Then she drew her good shawl around her shoulders and stepped back into the kitchen. After a moment’s indecision, she went to the china pot at the back of the dresser shelf, where she knew that Mrs Ottershaw kept coins to pay the small bills of tradesmen, and took what little lay in there. It would have to do in lieu of the money she was owed for the month just worked, for which she reasoned she was unlikely to be paid. She slipped the coins into her pocket, where Mr Ward’s card still nestled reassuringly, and set off for the front door. In the hallway, she hesitated before knocking on the parlour door, and entering. Mr Ottershaw, irritated, looked over the top of his newspaper.

‘I’ll bid you and Mrs Ottershaw a good day, sir. And I hope you will be more fortunate in the future in finding a servant that suits,’ and with a nod Ella left the room, and the house, before Mr Ottershaw could reply.

She was trembling, whether with anger, shock or terror at what she had just done, she could not say.

Sarah listened without comment to her tale when she reached home, then hugged her and sent her to fetch ink and paper. While Ella set to, mopping fevered brows, singing calming songs and bringing cooling drinks of water for the sickly family, Sarah wrote a note to Mrs Ward and took it herself to the post office. When Mr Ottershaw came to the door that evening to demand that Ella should return, having broken the terms of her employment, Sarah informed him that he was putting himself at risk of the fever in coming to their house. Furthermore, she had reason to believe that the Ottershaws themselves had broken the terms of their contract with Ella on many occasions and they should make it their business to look elsewhere for a servant. And with that she shut the door firmly in his face.