Читать книгу Thursday’s Child - Noel Streatfeild - Страница 13

Lavinia drove away the next morning in an estate cart belonging to the Corkberrys. The children did not see her go as they were at school. The young man who drove the cart shouldered her tin box and, though Miss Jones saw her drive away, she neither waved nor smiled. It was a dismal departure.

Lavinia tried hard not to cry but she had to gaze out over the fields so the driver would not see that her eyes were brimming with tears. But if he could not see the young man guessed.

‘Don’t ’ee take on now,’ he said. ‘You’ll like it up to Sedgecombe Place. They be good employers, His Lordship and Her Ladyship. And the grub’s good – far better than you would get in that old orphanage. Cruel hard on the little ’uns they say that be.’

The driver told Lavinia his name was Jem and he worked with the horses. He was a cheerful youth and made Lavinia feel better.

‘Do you think I shall see Lady Corkberry today?’

Jem shook his head.

‘No – not her. There be a Mrs Tanner, she be the one you’ll see. She be the housekeeper. Bit of a dragon seemingly, but they say if you do your work right she’m fair.’

Lavinia’s heart sank. Would Mrs Tanner want to see if she worked well before she promised her every other Sunday?

‘Is it far from Sedgecombe Place – I mean from the orphanage? You see, I want to get back there on my time off, I’ve two little brothers there.’

‘Not far,’ said Jem, ‘maybe four miles – not more. Walk it easy, pretty walk too all along the canal bank.’

Lavinia looked round.

‘I can’t see a canal.’

‘Not from here,’ Jem agreed, ‘but this is canal country, it’s near here where the Shropshire Union Canal runs into the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. I did ought to know for I was born on a canal boat.’

‘Were you? What made you leave it to work at Sedgecombe Place?’

‘The pneumonia,’ Jem explained. ‘Cruel sick I was and down at a place called Autherley my dad had to call the doctor. Well, there wasn’t no hospital near so the doctor told her ladyship about me and she fixed it so I was put to bed in the house. Well, when I was better like, the doctor he said I wasn’t to go back on the canal no more, so that’s how I come to work with the ’orses. I see me dad and mum often enough when they’re passin’. All the way to London my dad goes.’

Lavinia knew nothing about canals. She thought it very odd to be born on a boat.

‘Have you got a lot of brothers and sisters?’

‘Five. Tight squeeze it was when we was all there, but now my eldest brother he has his own boat and the next he give up same as me, then me two sisters got married so now there’s only young Tom left, eleven he is, he leads the horse – not the same one, of course, but the one they give you at the stables.’

‘Doesn’t Tom have to go to school?’ Lavinia asked.

‘No – canal people don’t go to school. I can make me mark because one of the men I work with showed me. Young Tom would have gone to school if he could have been spared, but a course ’e couldn’t be, not with there bein’ nobody else for the ’orse. He don’t like the canal life, Tom don’t. Dad’s dead scared he’ll run off some time.’

‘I must get someone to show me the canal path,’ said Lavinia. ‘It will be nice walking by the water now the spring’s coming.’

‘You’ll see me around,’ Jem promised, ‘and if you tell me when you have time off I’ll put you on your way.’

At the next bend in the road they could see Sedgecombe Place – a grey battlemented building lying in a great park.

‘My word!’ said Lavinia. ‘It is a big place, there must be a lot of servants needed to keep it right.’

Jem whipped up the horse.

‘You’ve said it.’ He did not speak again until he drove the cart through some wrought-iron gates. ‘We go up this path here, it leads to the back door.’

Just as Jem had predicted, Lavinia was taken at once to be interviewed by Mrs Tanner. She was a tall rather severe-looking woman in a black dress with a black silk apron over it. Round her waist was a chain on which hung a bunch of keys. The housekeeper’s room in which she saw Lavinia was, however, cosy, with pretty curtains and primroses in a vase, so perhaps, Lavinia thought, she is gentler than she looks. Mrs Tanner sat upright in a stiff chair while Lavinia stood just inside the door.

‘You are Lavinia Beresford?’

Lavinia curtseyed.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Have you worked in a kitchen before?’

‘No, ma’am. This is my first place.’

‘I see. This is a big place and we all have to work hard. You will receive five pounds a year less what you have had advanced for your uniform. You will share a room with the under kitchen-maid. Between you there will be your room to do and you have to look after the rooms of three footmen. You will rise at six for, as Mrs Smedley the cook will explain, you will have the kitchen range to see to so that the water is hot by the time she comes down. Otherwise your work is to wait on her and, of course, wash up. At night, before you go to bed, there will be the range to blacklead and the kitchen and scullery to hearthstone. At all times you will call Mrs Smedley ma’am. That is all, do your duty and you should be very happy with us.’

Lavinia could see she was meant to curtsey and say ‘Thank you’, and she wished she could have, but she must arrange her days off.

‘Please, ma’am,’ she said, ‘what about my time off?’

Mrs Tanner frowned.

‘Her Ladyship does not give time off to you young girls, but sometimes, if there are no guests, you may go out together in the afternoon providing you do not leave the grounds.’

Lavinia swallowed nervously.

‘I quite understand, ma’am, but you see I have two little brothers at the orphanage. The younger is only six. So I can only take a place where I am permitted to visit them. I had thought perhaps every other Sunday.’

Mrs Tanner, as she told Lady Corkberry later, was so surprised she did not know how to answer.

‘A personable young woman, m’lady, very nicely spoken. I did not know what to answer because I understand she wants to keep an eye on the brothers. Still, it wasn’t for me to go against your rules so I said I would speak to you.’

Lady Corkberry was a good woman. Taking Jem into her house when he had pneumonia was not an isolated kindness. She expected to serve her fellow men when the opportunity offered; that, in her opinion, was what great positions and possessions were for. It was not her custom to meet her junior maids for she left their care to those immediately in charge of them, but this was an exceptional case.

‘Very well, Tanner, I will see the young woman in the morning room after breakfast tomorrow.’

Although it was her first day, Lavinia found that after she had unpacked and changed she was expected to work, but not before she had eaten. Midday dinner was over in the servants’ hall, but there was plenty of food about. Mrs Smedley, a large red-faced woman, pointed to a table by the window.

‘Sit there.’ She nodded at a dark-haired, anxious-looking girl. ‘This is Clara. You share her room. Give her some dinner, Clara.’

Lavinia remembered her instructions.

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ She sat while Clara put in front of her a huge plate of cold meat with a large potato in its jacket, a jar of pickles, a loaf of bread, at least a pound of butter and a great hunk of cheese.

‘Eat up, girl,’ said Mrs Smedley. ‘You’ll find you need to keep your strength up here.’

After the food she had eaten at the orphanage Lavinia needed no encouragement.

‘My goodness,’ she thought, ‘if all the meals are like this it will be a great temptation to take some leavings in my pocket for the boys.’

Mrs Smedley was right about Lavinia needing to keep her strength up for she did find herself very tired before she stumbled behind Clara up to their attic. There had been guests for dinner, and after running to and fro waiting on Mrs Smedley all the evening there had been a great mound of washing-up to do in the scullery. Then, after a supper taken standing, the girls set to at their housework. Blackleading the range, hearthstoning the kitchen and scullery floors and a long passage.

‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ Clara groaned. ‘And we’ve been one short until you came. Sometimes I’ve been that tired I haven’t known how to get up the stairs.’

But in spite of going to bed late and rising early, Lavinia looked, Lady Corkberry thought, remarkably fresh and pretty when Mrs Tanner brought her to her the next morning.

‘The young person Beresford, m’lady,’ Mrs Tanner said, giving a curtsey.

It was clear Mrs Tanner meant to stay, but Lady Corkberry did not permit that.

‘Thank you, Tanner. You may leave us. Your name is Lavinia Beresford?’ she asked.

Lavinia curtseyed.

‘Yes, m’lady.’

‘And you have two brothers in the orphanage?’

‘Yes, m’lady. Which is why I asked if I could have time off every other Sunday. I must see they are all right.’

Several things were puzzling Lady Corkberry.

‘You speak very nicely. Where were you at school?’

Pain showed in Lavinia’s face.

‘We did lessons at home with my mother.’

Lady Corkberry looked sympathetic.

‘She taught you well. A pretty speaking voice is a great advantage.’ She hesitated. ‘You say you must see your brothers are all right. Surely you know they are all right at the orphanage. It is highly spoken of.’

Lavinia did not know how to answer. She did not want Lady Corkberry descending on the place for Matron would, of course, guess who had talked, which might make things harder for the boys. So she hedged.

‘It’s not what they are used to. It will be better when they settle down.’

Lady Corkberry could feel Lavinia was hiding something, but she did not want to bully the child.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Every other Sunday.’ Then she smiled. ‘Perhaps one day in the summer I might have the little boys here for a treat. You would like that?’

A flush spread over Lavinia’s face.

‘Oh, I would, m’lady. It will be something for them to look forward to.’

‘Very well. Now go back to your work. I will see what can be arranged.’