The Kitchen Maid

by Val Wood

  I was heartbroken. All my dreams were shattered, but I knew what was to be done, even though it was very hard. “You’ll have to find a wife as your parents say, and after a little while when things have settled down, we can become lovers again. If you have a separate house then I could come and work for you, perhaps be the housekeeper?”

  I was beginning to warm to the idea. Being housekeeper would be a big step up for me, and if the new wife was very rich and they lived in a grand house, my status would improve immensely. I never imagined that there would be a difficulty in his finding such a wife, for he was very presentable and charming, though I knew nothing of the dealings in the marriage market.

  He was staring at me with a strange light in his eyes. “You don’t love me! You can’t love me if you can suggest such a thing!” His voice was hoarse and strangled.

  “Christy!” I exclaimed. “Of course I love you. I’m only trying to think of a way out of this dilemma! If your father succeeds in his plan, we can’t marry. And if we run away, what would we live on?”

  He looked at me and his mouth dropped open, and I knew that this hadn’t occurred to him. He’d never had to think about where money came from before. “Well,” he said. “You will be able to find work. There’s always an opening for a respectable servant, and I will do whatever I can to obtain a position, although of course,” he sighed, “I’m not trained for anything.”

  As gently as possible, I explained that I would no longer be considered respectable if I had run away with my employer’s son. “Besides, I wouldn’t have a reference.” And I remembered how I hadn’t known what a reference was when I first came to the Ingrams’ house.

  He was very moody and tense then, and before we parted company he made me vow again that until death did us part, we would always love one another. “I shall think of something, Jenny.” His mouth was set in a tight line. “I will think of a plan. We shall not be separated. I am determined on that.”

  I realized that he had always been rather spoiled by his parents, particularly his mother. They had pandered to his whims and allowed him to do mainly what he wanted, with, I supposed, the view that he would in turn look after them when they needed him. What they hadn’t seemed to realize, and this I found surprising, was that Christy had a very stubborn streak and if he was told he couldn’t have something, then he wanted it all the more.

  They asked him time and again who was the woman he wanted to marry, but he refused to be drawn, and spent many hours locked in his room, unwilling to see anyone. His sister Julia proclaimed he was ruining her life, for no-one would want to marry her if her father became bankrupt. Christy flung open his door, for she had been hammering on it, and shouted at her. I was in the room next door and heard him. He bellowed that it wasn’t his fault if his father had made poor dealings, and he didn’t see why he should ruin his own life just for her. Which, I must admit, I considered was rather a cruel thing to say, and I thought he should have shown more sensitivity to Miss Julia’s feelings.

  Mrs Ingram ventured down the back stairs into the kitchen a few days later, something she never did as a rule, and beckoned to me. “Quickly! You’re Jenny, aren’t you?”

  I was amazed. I’d been in her service for five years, yet she hesitated over my name. But I dipped my knee and said that I was.

  “Mr Christy will take some food in his room,” she said. “But he insists that only you must take it up.”

  I was extremely relieved as I knew that he hadn’t eaten anything for almost three days, nor allowed anyone in his room to clean or change the linen or even bring fresh water for washing.

  “He’ll have a little beef and chicken,” Mrs Ingram continued, “and perhaps put a slice of bread there too, oh and a glass of red wine. He particularly asked for that. It will bring his strength back, I expect,” she added vaguely.

  I prepared a tray and put on it a plate of sweet cake as well as the other food he had asked for. I knew that he wouldn’t refuse to eat that, even if he only picked at the meat. Mrs Ingram was waiting in the hall when I came up the stairs. She put her hand towards me in a pathetic, imploring way. “Do take note of how he seems, Jenny,” she said. “What state of mind he is in. And come to tell me when you come down.”

  I said that I would and felt her eyes follow me upstairs. I was rather sorry for her. She must have been most anxious, not only for Christy but for all of them, and it crossed my mind that if the worst came to the worst, it would be pretty bad for all of us downstairs too, for we would find ourselves without work. It wouldn’t matter too much for Mrs Judson, Mary, Tilly or Lillian. They would find other positions, but Cook was old and Mr Thompson even older. He would never find another place and I found myself wondering if he had managed to save enough money to keep him from the workhouse.

  If this was my house, I pondered, I would do things differently. If I was married to Christy and lived here, I would make sure he went to the office or the bank every day and not leave it to other people to look after my fortune. I daydreamed a little on this and wondered if I could find a solution, but of course I knew that I would never be accepted. The Ingrams would die of shame if their son were to marry a servant girl, particularly one whose name they couldn’t remember.

  I tapped on Christy’s door. “Who is it?” His voice was very sharp.

  “It’s Jenny, Mr Christy,” I replied, mindful of anyone listening. “I’ve brought some food as you asked.”

  He opened the door a crack and on seeing that it was only me he opened it and grabbed hold of me, pulling me inside and then locking the door. “Christy,” I whispered urgently. “You must eat.” I put the tray down on a table and went to open a window. It was extremely stuffy in the room and smelled very stale. But he followed me and taking hold of my shoulders he turned me round.

  “Jenny. I’ve thought what to do!” His eyes were red. They flashed and moved from side to side, and if I’m honest I felt a little scared of him. He seemed very agitated and I wondered if it was because he had been without food or drink.

  “I’ve thought what to do,” he repeated. “My parents can have my money and you and I can be together for ever.”

  “Yes. Yes,” I said. “Why don’t you eat and then we’ll talk about it?”

  “I’m too excited to eat.” He began pacing about the room and I saw that he hadn’t even dressed properly. His shirt buttons were undone at the neck and his hair hadn’t been brushed, and he was barefoot. “We’ve got to do it, Jenny. We’ve got to do it together.”

  “Do what?” I tried to speak softly and patiently for he really was in quite a state. “What must we do, Christy?”

  He turned his head quickly and looked at me with a sly expression. “Shan’t tell you yet. Not until I have thought it through properly. Besides.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and I had to strain to hear him. “If I tell you before I’m ready and anyone suspects us, they may try to worm it out of you.”

  I smiled then. “Christy! No-one suspects anything. We’ve been very discreet.” But even as I said it, I felt uneasy. I didn’t know why. Just a feeling that came over me.

  “Do you love me?” He came very close. “As much as before?”

  “Even more,” I vowed and wondered if I might have even more reason for making a pledge.

  “Promise me then.” He held me close and I was beginning to worry that his mother waiting downstairs might become suspicious. “Till death us do part.”

  “Till death us do part,” I repeated. “Now, please eat, Christy. To please me.”

  “Very well.” He smiled with his lips but his eyes were still startled and wide and I was sure that he wasn’t well. “I’ll do it for you, Jenny kitchen-maid. Then I will make the plan. The final plan.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘It’s so cold in here.’ Jenny stopped writing and rubbed her hands together, squeezing her fingers to bring back the circulation. Then she moistened the tip of the pencil with her tongue and began again. ‘I swear I’ve never felt such
cold. Though our bedroom window in the attic at the Ingrams’ house often had ice on it during winter, it was never like this place where the water runs down the walls and the one and only blanket is damp. My nose is constantly dripping and I shake all the time, though I expect that’s with fear. I’m afraid. Very afraid, for if they don’t believe me and accept what I say as the truth, then I know the outcome. They’ll send me to York and it’ll be the gallows for sure. The Ingrams were, still are, a respected family in Beverley and they’ll want justice. Even now when rumours abound about a possible bankruptcy and Christy’s death, they are considered to be respectable. That’s what Billy told me, anyway.

  Billy, yes. Billy’s been in to see me. He’s the only one who has. Not my mother or father, sisters or brothers, not one of them, even though they must have read about Christy’s death and my remand in the newspaper. Billy said he’d bribed the warder with a joint of meat. He also said that the hearing was to be next week.

  When Christy told me that he was making his final plan, the worry about it and not knowing what his intentions were was making me feel sick and unwell, and I thought that if we were to run away somewhere, then I would like to know about it in advance, so that I could prepare myself. But no. He wasn’t going to tell me until he was ready, he said.

  Then he came out of his room and it appeared that everything was back to normal. He joined his father in the library and I often heard the sound of their murmurings and sometimes their laughter. But I knew that there was something not quite right. Christy had an odd look on his face, though his father seemed relieved that he was at last talking to him and his mother again, though when I was waiting on table, I saw and heard them making conversation which seemed very stilted. Mr Thompson commented on it too when we were having dinner in the kitchen. “I tell you there’s something not quite right,” he said, rubbing his chin in a worried manner. “That young man is too restrained. I feel very uneasy about him.”

  “I’m nearly ready, Jenny,” Christy said one morning. “Another couple of days and we shall be together for always.”

  I was relieved. I would be glad to get away, and without anyone noticing, I washed my clothes and aired them and put them tidily in my drawer, ready to pack when Christy said the word for us to leave the house. Except, that wasn’t his intention. At least, not in the way I had foreseen.

  The library was always Mr Ingram’s private domain. Mrs Ingram or Miss Julia never went in there, but Christy did at his father’s invitation, and as I said, they had both been in there lately with the door firmly closed. When I went in to clean early one morning before the family were up, I noticed that some of the furniture had been moved. The leather chair that was normally kept behind the desk had been put near to the gun cabinet and another chair drawn up next to it. I could only assume that Mr Ingram and Christy had been examining the guns together. As far as I knew, Christy had never before expressed any interest in the guns.

  I looked at the cabinet, which had glass doors, and could see the guns behind them. I’d always thought it dangerous to have them on show like that and that it would be safer to have them behind wooden doors, but Mr Ingram liked to look at them. Some of them had belonged to his father and grandfather who had both been soldiers, so I supposed they were antique and valuable. Once or twice when I had taken tea or coffee in to him, I would find him handling or cleaning the weapons. Once, in an absentminded kind of way, Mr Ingram spoke to me about them. One was a double-barrelled gun, he said, but that didn’t mean anything to me. Another was a fowling piece, and he had several pistols and revolvers. There were also boxes of cartridges stacked neatly on the top shelf. The doors were always kept locked, of course, but whenever I polished the glass, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

  That day I rubbed my duster over one of the doors to remove the finger marks, and felt a slight movement as if the glass was loose. I can’t say I had noticed it before, but it definitely rattled as I rubbed. I heard the library door open and turned round expecting to see Lillian with her brush and ash bucket to clean out the grate. Only it wasn’t Lillian. It was Christy. He was wearing his dressing robe and slippers and as he came in he put his finger to his lips, then locked the door.

  “What are you doing?” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “You’ll get me into trouble.” Though as I said it, I rather feared I was in trouble anyway.

  “Ssh,” he said. “Listen. Tomorrow morning be ready for our journey. Say your prayers, then come down here to me at half past five.”

  “What? In here, do you mean?” I was quite disturbed for once again he seemed wild, with his eyes moving from side to side. Which was unusual for that time in a morning. Most people are half asleep and their eyes are bleary. But not Christy. He was very much awake and his eyes glistened.

  “Of course in here.” He rebuked me as if I should have known, but of course I didn’t. How could I? He hadn’t told me anything about his plan. But then he kissed me on my cheek so I excused him for his sharpness. He’d been under a lot of strain and I knew that once we were gone from here, I’d be able to soothe away his worries.

  I felt guilty though. I would be letting Cook and Mrs Judson down by just going off without giving notice, and I tried to soften the oncoming blow by discussing with Cook what were the chances of a young woman getting a job without references as I had done five years ago. And by asking Mrs Judson how she would manage upstairs if ever either Lillian or myself were taken ill and were unable to work.

  The reply from Cook was that no girl would be taken on these days without a reference. “You were lucky,” she said. “You caught me when I was desperate for somebody. But I could tell that you wouldn’t let us down. You were a plain girl, not at all flighty as some of these young madams are who don’t stop in a job longer than five minutes. You’ve been a good worker and you deserved to go out of ’kitchen and upstairs.”

  I felt worse after this reply. Not because she thought me plain, but because she was wrong in her judgement of me, and I would indeed be letting her down. I didn’t mind so much about Mrs Judson, for she was as sour now as she had been when I first came here, but she surprised me by saying darkly that she could see the day coming when none of us would be needed. “If things don’t change soon,” she muttered, “we shall all be looking for other situations.”

  So you can imagine how I felt. I didn’t know what Christy was scheming, or if he would have any money for us to take on our journey, for he had said before that his plan would mean that his parents would have his inheritance and we would be together. It was a worry that I couldn’t shake off.

  The next morning I rose at five o’clock. Mary had a different room now, nearer to Mrs Ingram. It was much nicer than the one I shared with Lillian, though we had more space now that there were just the two of us. Lillian turned over as I tiptoed out of the room, but I don’t think she heard me. I crept downstairs with my few belongings in a small bag and wearing my thickest shawl, for it was a cold morning. Through the attic window I’d seen a mist hovering over the rooftops and I hoped that it would clear quickly for our journey, wherever that journey was taking us.

  The library door creaked slightly as I entered and I gave a little gasp when I saw that Christy was already there. I was early and I thought I would be the first down, but there he was sitting in his father’s leather chair that was once more placed by the gun cupboard. I wondered who had moved it because Lillian and I had put it back in its proper place only the day before.

  Christy smiled when he saw me and put out his hand to greet me. “Come here, Jenny kitchen-maid,” he said very softly. I put down my bag and moved towards him, putting my hand into his and sitting on his knee.

  “Christy,” I whispered. “Why –”

  “Ssh.” He kissed my fingertips. “I’ll tell you everything now. Now that I’m ready. I wasn’t ready before, you see. I had to gain my father’s trust.” He smiled again. A smug, satisfied kind of smile, as if he had won something to which he wasn’t entitled.
r />   “Are we not going then, after all?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “Of course we’re going. We’re ready at last. Did you say your prayers this morning, Jenny kitchen-maid?”

  I had to confess that I hadn’t. I say them at night, when I remember, but morning prayers, well, there never seems to be any time, what with washing and dressing and everything. Besides, I’ve never been very religious, though I went regularly to church with the Ingram family when it was my turn.

  But Christy insisted that I should kneel down right there and then, and he knelt with me and we said a little prayer that we were sorry for what we were about to do, and asked for forgiveness. I really wanted to just get going and I’d have been happier to say a prayer of thanks once we were out of the house. I knew that if we were found there, then Mr Ingram wouldn’t be very forgiving. I would be sent off at a moment’s notice, and I don’t know what would have happened to Christy if— Well, it doesn’t matter now. That situation didn’t arise, so it’s of no use talking or even thinking about it.

  I got up off my knees and brushed down my skirt and I vaguely wondered if Lillian would brush the carpet as well as clean out the fire. She wouldn’t be very pleased about it, I knew that for sure.

  “So, Christy,” I whispered. “Are you going upstairs to get ready? Folks will be about soon.”

  “I am ready,” he said, and took a small key out of his dressing robe pocket. That was what was bothering me, you see. The fact that Christy was still in his night attire whereas I was fully dressed for a journey.