by Valerie Wood
Mrs Francis gazed vacantly out of the window. ‘That’s all right then,’ she sighed.
Chapter Seven
All through the winter Emily was at the mercy of Miss Deborah’s every whim. It must be Emily who helped her dress, Emily who brought her tea, Emily who should walk with her in the snow-filled gardens and if Emily was unavailable, busy with other chores, then Miss Deborah had a vicious tantrum of screaming which sent the whole household into a spin.
‘We should be thankful I suppose that Emily is a patient, resourceful girl,’ Roger Francis remarked to his wife as he handed her into the carriage, as once more they had managed to allay a difficult bout of temper from their daughter over a visit to a neighbour.
‘There’s something about her that I can’t quite make out,’ Mrs Francis began, ‘but she’s patient with Deborah, I agree. She tires everyone else so, with her constant chatter and questions.’ Mrs Francis barely looked at her husband as he placed a rug around her. ‘I am at the end of my tether. I don’t know how much more I can stand.’
Mrs Francis hadn’t wanted Deborah to go with her on the visit, but in a fit of resentment Deborah had insisted and had started to shout and scream when told that she couldn’t. Her father couldn’t calm her and neither could Mrs Brewer. Mrs Francis suggested that she be given a sedative, but Mr Francis demurred. Mrs Francis had stormed up to her room and in desperation Mrs Brewer had sent for Emily.
‘Miss Deborah! I wonder if you would play the piano again,’ Emily had dared to ask. ‘I heard you the other morning and it sounded so lovely. I’ve never heard it played before.’
‘Never heard the piano!’ Deborah stopped shouting. ‘What nonsense, Emily! Of course you have. Everyone plays.’
Deborah was a poor musician, but Emily didn’t know that. She simply thought that the sound coming from the instrument was magical. She shook her head. ‘I’ve never heard it, miss.’
Emily felt Miss Deborah’s eyes staring into hers and wondered if she was going to have another fit of temper at her temerity. But she gave a sudden laugh. ‘Good gracious, girl.’ She unconsciously mimicked Mrs Francis’s voice. ‘Come over here and I will show you.’
Roger Francis was watching by the fireplace as his daughter sat at the piano and arranged her music and fussily told Emily where she should stand so that she could take particular notice. Emily glanced towards him and saw that he was watching, not his daughter, but her. He gave her what seemed to be a sad smile and then turned away.
‘Tell Mama I can’t go with her,’ Deborah called after him. ‘I can’t be bothered with ladies’ gossip today.’
Roger Francis watched from his library window as the carriage bearing his wife rolled away down the drive, leaving wheel marks on the fresh snow. He stood vaguely gazing into space and only half-listening to the discordant jangle of music coming from the drawing room, where his daughter entertained the maid Emily. He looked down at his desk at the pile of papers lying there and as if with a sudden, swift decision, crossed the room and pressed the bell by the fireplace.
‘Tell Brown to saddle up a horse,’ he told Janet. ‘I have to ride into Hull.’
By the early spring Emily was weary of her mistress’s demands. ‘I think I’d rather be scrubbing ’kitchen floor instead of you, Jane,’ she said as they climbed into bed. ‘There’s no wonder that Mrs Francis is always tired. Miss Deborah is exhausting.’
‘Hmph. I don’t think you’d like to swap,’ Jane said cynically. ‘You get excused all kinds of jobs just ’cos Miss Deborah wants you with her.’
‘I still do my other chores,’ Emily retaliated. ‘I still get up as early as you. Anyway, you wouldn’t like it being constantly badgered; do this, Emily, do that, Emily, come here, Emily. I’m prettier than you, Emily.’ She put her chin in her hands. ‘Thank goodness she doesn’t get up early, at least I can have some peace when I’m cleaning out the fire grates.’
The next morning she lit the library fire and laid the sticks ready in the drawing room for lighting later, and crossed the hall to the sitting room. She heard footsteps upstairs and, glancing up, saw Mr Francis crossing the landing. She hurried down the kitchen stairs to tell Cook that Mr Francis was up and would probably want an early breakfast and then rushed back upstairs to the sitting room to clean and light the fire.
She drew the curtains and a smile lit her face, primroses were appearing just below the window and there was a haze of green on the trees in the meadows. Soon she would have a day off and she would go for a long walk, maybe even go as far as the river bank if she had time.
She bent to brush out the dead wood ash from the hearth, leaving a small amount to relight the new fire. She hummed to herself as she worked and didn’t hear the door open, but she stopped abruptly and looked over her shoulder as someone brushed against her and she felt her hair tumbling around her shoulders.
‘Miss Deborah!’ She rose to her feet in dismay. Her mistress was standing behind her, only half-dressed and triumphantly waving Emily’s hairclips in her hands.
‘Miss Deborah, I shall get into trouble, please give them back.’
Deborah snatched at Emily’s hair, which shone like silk and reached almost to her waist. ‘It’s like a curtain, Emily.’ She danced around her. ‘I shall insist that you always wear it like that.’ She stopped abruptly. Then she came a step nearer and gently touched Emily’s cheek. ‘You are lovely, Emily.’ Her mouth pouted. ‘Mrs Brewer says you’re not prettier than me but she’s lying. She’s lying.’ Her voice rose and she turned as the door opened and her father came into the room.
‘Papa! Look at Emily!’
Mr Francis did look at Emily, and Emily didn’t know what to do as Mr Francis gazed at her with her hair hanging loose about her shoulders. She saw an Adam’s apple move in his throat as he swallowed hard.
Deborah stroked Emily’s cheek again. ‘Look at Emily, Papa. Isn’t she lovely? Mrs Brewer says she isn’t, but she is. Isn’t she?’ Her voice was insistent.
‘I am looking at her, Deborah. Yes she is.’ His voice was soft. ‘She’s very lovely indeed. Mrs Brewer was wrong.’ He took a deep breath and, with his eyes still on Emily, said, ‘Now be a good girl, Deborah, and give Emily her hairpins back so that she can fasten up her hair.’
‘No! I won’t! She can buy some more. I shall wear these in my hair.’ She stuck the pins in her own dishevelled hair and screaming with laughter she ran out of the room and up the stairs.
‘I’m sorry, Emily. My daughter can be difficult sometimes,’ he began, but she said swiftly, ‘It’s all right sir, I can borrow some more and get mine back later.’ But her eyes were drawn to the open door and the stairs beyond and the figure of Mrs Francis in her nightclothes coming downstairs.
‘What are we to do with her? There is no consideration for me.’ Mrs Francis’s voice was tense as she came through the door. ‘A decision must be made.’ Then she saw Emily standing facing her husband as if they had been in conversation. Her already pale face whitened even further and she put her hand on the door to steady herself. ‘It can’t be.’ She stared hard at Emily and then her husband and then back to Emily. She shook her head as if to clear it. ‘Not her daughter? Not here?’ She stared at her husband with such a look of hatred that Emily shivered. ‘You wouldn’t do such a thing!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ he burst out. ‘You’re mistaken.’
‘I think not,’ she said slowly and deliberately. ‘I always thought there was something familiar about her.’
‘You are mistaken,’ he repeated, then turning to Emily he dismissed her and she thankfully hurried downstairs to the kitchen, where she burst into tears.
‘Whatever’s wrong? What’s happened to your hair?’ Mrs Castle rubbed her floury hands on her apron and scurried across to the dresser, where she delved into a drawer and brought out a handful of hairpins. ‘Come here, let me pin it up for you.’
She sat Emily on a chair and wound her hair into a bun. ‘Janey, go and get some more coal for �
��fire. Go on! Don’t stand there gawping.’
‘Now then,’ she said, when Jane had left the room, ‘this is Miss Deborah’s doing, isn’t it? She’s at ’bottom of this?’
Emily nodded and wiped her tears and explained what had happened. ‘I’m frightened of losing my job, Mrs Castle. Mrs Francis wasn’t pleased with me. She said something – I don’t know what she meant – about me being somebody’s daughter!’
‘Did she?’ Mrs Castle put in the final pin and patted her shoulder. ‘Well, no point in worrying about owt until it happens. And if she does want you to leave, well I’m sure that Mr Francis will give you a reference.’
Emily stared at her. ‘But – I haven’t done anything! I’ve done what I can for Miss Deborah. I don’t understand!’
‘I told you!’ Mrs Castle rinsed her hands in the stone sink, dried them and then dipped her hand into a bag of flour and sprinkled it on to the table. ‘I told you that there would be things that you wouldn’t understand. This is one of them.’
Emily took a deep breath. ‘Miss Deborah – is she –?’
The question lay unspoken between them. Mrs Castle glanced towards the door. ‘She’s not mad, if that’s what you mean, at least not as mad as her brother. But’, she tapped a finger to her forehead, ‘there’s summat a bit loose in ’top storey.’
Emily whispered. ‘Her brother? She mentioned her brother.’
‘Aye. He’s her twin. He’s in ’asylum for ’insane, poor fellow. But Miss Deborah’s just a bit wild, though sometimes you might think she’s heading ’same way.’ She pounded a hunk of dough. ‘It runs in ’family unfortunately.’
Mrs Francis always looks as if she’s on the edge of something, Emily pondered, though you would think that living with Miss Deborah would be enough to drive anybody over. ‘From Mrs Francis’s side?’ she said urgently as she heard Jane fumbling with the door latch.
‘Bless you, no!’ Mrs Castle stopped her pummelling. ‘From Mr Francis’s family. Onny nobody told him till it was too late!’
* * *
Mr Francis sent for Emily later in the day. She knocked on the library door and entered to find him sitting by the fire in his high-backed leather chair. He looked tired, she thought, his blue eyes were heavy and rather sad, but he greeted her with a smile and invited her to sit down opposite him. She hesitated. ‘Do sit down, Emily. Don’t be afraid. I need to talk to you about my daughter.’
She perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair. It doesn’t seem right, she thought. I should be standing up.
‘What I have to say is not because of anything you have done, you must understand that. We have been very pleased with your work.’ He tapped his fingers against his beard as he considered. ‘But my wife – Mrs Francis and I – in view of Miss Deborah’s attachment to you, which, although it seems amicable at the moment –’. He got up from his chair and started to pace up and down. Emily too stood up. ‘It could turn. She – she gets these attachments to people, but then turns against them.’ He looked almost pleadingly at her and she felt so sorry for him. ‘She is rather – delicate, I’m afraid, prone to moods.’
‘I understand, sir.’
‘Do you, Emily?’ He shook his head. ‘I think not.’
‘What do you want me to do, sir? Would you like me to leave?’ Better get it over and done with, she thought, but where will I go?
He nodded and appeared relieved. ‘It would be for the best all round, I think.’
‘Would you give me a reference, sir? I won’t be able to get employment without one.’ It’s not fair, she deliberated. How has this happened to me?
‘I’ll do better than that.’ He sat down again. ‘I have talked to Mrs Francis about this and we have agreed that this situation is not your fault and therefore we must do what we can for you.’
Mrs Francis wouldn’t care what happens to me, Emily thought. She is not in the least interested in any of her servants. But she listened as he explained what they were willing to do. ‘Mrs Francis has a second cousin who lives in Hull. She often has difficulty in getting good servants and I thought that if you were willing to work in the town, I would write to her suggesting that she takes you – perhaps as a lady’s maid rather than in general service?’
How odd, she thought, that Mr Francis should be doing all of this. I always thought that the mistress of the house dealt with servants.
‘So, what do you think? Could you bear to tear yourself away from the country and live in a town?’ He smiled gently and she thought how handsome he must once have been.
‘I don’t know, sir. I’ve never been to a big town, although I’ve been to Hedon market.’
His eyes crinkled. ‘Hull is nothing like Hedon. It is a big, bustling place. It’s full of sailing ships, seamen and tradesmen. It’s noisy with lots of people. It has theatres and music halls, shops of every description, and a big fair every year, much bigger than the village fairs. But’, he added, ‘you have only lived in the quiet of the country. You may not like it. I don’t want to persuade you against your will. If you don’t want to go then we will think of something else.’
She considered. What other option had she? ‘Could I think about it, sir? Just for an hour?’
‘Of course.’ He pursed his lips. ‘I would rather you didn’t talk to the other servants of the reason for your leaving, perhaps you could tell them that you are considering another situation?’ He saw her hesitation. ‘Except perhaps Cook or Mrs Brewer? They would understand. They have been here a long time.’
Mrs Castle and Mrs Brewer were sitting at the kitchen table having a glass of ale when she went slowly downstairs. Mrs Castle had obviously primed Mrs Brewer about the situation, for she looked directly at Emily and asked bluntly, ‘I suppose they’ve asked you to leave?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. Mr Francis has asked me if I want to go to someone in Hull. He’ll give me a reference.’
Mrs Castle snorted. ‘That’ll be mistress’s doing. The further away the better.’
Emily turned an enquiring eye on her. ‘Mr Francis said I could discuss it with you and Mrs Brewer but not with ’others. I don’t know what to do,’ she pleaded. ‘What shall I do?’
‘Go, my lovely,’ Mrs Castle said, and Mrs Brewer nodded in agreement. ‘It was a mistake you ever coming here.’
‘What do you mean?’ Emily asked in astonishment. ‘Mr Francis suggested that I came. I didn’t ask him for employment.’
‘I know that.’ Mrs Castle looked down at her glass and swirled the bubbles around. ‘I didn’t say it was your mistake. It was his. The master’s.’
Chapter Eight
Brown the groom drove her in the trap to Hedon, where she was to catch the carrier into Hull. She had said goodbye to Mrs Castle and Mrs Brewer and Jane and the other staff and also to Mr Francis, who gave her a shilling. He pressed the coin into her hand and said earnestly, ‘If ever you need help, Emily, do not hesitate to contact me.’
She thanked him and as she was about to leave, she said, ‘I worry over Sam, sir. I hope he’ll always have work.’
He seemed to hesitate as if there was something else he wanted to say, but merely nodded and murmured, ‘Don’t worry over Samuel. I’ll make sure that he is all right.’
Of Mrs Francis and Deborah she saw nothing, they were busy in their rooms with two of the maids, supervising the wardrobes they would need for an unexpected holiday they were taking and Miss Deborah appeared to have forgotten of Emily’s existence already.
‘I’m sorry tha’s going, Emily,’ Brown grinned at her. ‘I was hoping that in a bit I’d ask thee to walk out wi’ me.’
She blushed and turned her head. ‘I’m not quite fourteen yet,’ she said.
‘I know. I’d already asked Cook how old you was and she said even if you was old enough you’d still be too good for likes o’ me! But I expect tha’ll soon find some fellow in Hull who’ll be good enough,’ he added.
‘I don’t know.’ It wasn’t something she had thought about,
although she was aware of Brown’s cheeky grin and saucy comments, and some of the other men who worked about the house and grounds who winked at her or sometimes pinched her cheek. Jane, she knew, already had her eye on Brown. She had said as much already. ‘I’m going to get married and move out of here just as soon as I can,’ she had said, and even when Emily had told her that she would only be exchanging one kitchen floor for another, she said she didn’t care, at least it would be her own floor and not somebody else’s.
They passed the school at Thorngumbald and she pointed it out to Brown. ‘I expect tha was glad to leave there,’ he said. ‘I never went to school, but I was allus good wi’ hosses so it didn’t matter.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘I liked it. I was sorry to leave, it was only because of Granny Edwards being ill that I left.’ She smiled. ‘We learned about ’rest of ’country and where the rivers went, and about other parts of the world. Did you know’, she said enthusiastically, ‘that ships from Hull travel all around the world, even to ’Arctic and America and Australia?’
‘I know that,’ he said scornfully. ‘Didn’t have to go to school to learn that! My da told me that, years ago.’
Suitably chastened, she dropped into silence as they travelled along the road. There had been rain overnight and there was a fresh clean smell of burgeoning growth, of buds and blossom about to open. A spring greening of barley covered some of the fields, where formerly sheep had grazed on winter turnips, whilst in others men and horses were drilling the corn beds on the heavy clay. Rooks were building their nests high in the trees and she could hear the bleat of newly weaned lambs.
‘I’ll miss all of this,’ she murmured, almost to herself, as Brown pointed with his whip to where two Jack hares were up on their hind legs, squaring up to each other.
‘You will.’ He urged the pony on towards Hedon. ‘Hull is full o’ fighting men and foreigners and dirt and noise. I wouldn’t swap places wi’ you for another ten bob a year.’