The Kitchen Maid

by Val Wood

  She nodded. ‘Somebody’s picking me up.’

  ‘’Carriers might be full. They’re busy on a Saturday. I’ll come across with you, if you like. I know some of ’em.’

  They walked to where a group of drivers were waiting and smoking their pipes by the inn door. Billy went up to one of them. ‘Can you drop my friend off in Etton? She needs to get there urgently.’

  ‘Friend o’ yourn, Billy? Aye, I reckon so. I’m setting off in a half-hour, so you’ve time to kiss ’little lady goodbye!’ The carrier grinned as Billy blushed, but Jenny, straight-faced, paid him the fare to make sure he didn’t go without her. They turned back into the market until it was time for departure.

  ‘Why aren’t you at work, Billy?’ she asked. ‘I thought Saturday was your busiest day.’

  ‘I am at work,’ he said. ‘I’ve just nipped out for a hot pie from the baker’s for my dinner. Da’s got an extra lad to help him out, cos when our new shop’s ready in Toll Gavel, I’ll be in there. Well,’ he added, ‘except that my ma’s going to give me a hand. She knows about butchery.’

  ‘I’m really pleased for you, Billy,’ Jenny said. ‘When I next see you you’ll probably own a string of shops!’

  He blushed and shuffled. ‘I hope I see you again before that, Jenny.’

  ‘You might not, Billy,’ she said gently. ‘The magistrates said I had to leave. For my own good, I expect.’

  Billy looked down at his feet. ‘Aye, until folks forget, mebbe.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s it. I’m going now, Billy, and you’d better get back to your customers. Don’t keep them waiting.’ She smiled at him, though she felt like crying. It was hard for them both, meeting again so soon when they had just said goodbye. But worse for Billy; he looked so miserable and she knew he wanted to say something to her, but didn’t have the right words. Which is just as well, she thought as she walked away, for I don’t want to hear them.

  Jenny kept her eyes straight in front as the carrier’s cart drew out of Beverley. There was just one other passenger, who chatted to the carrier, leaving Jenny able to gather her thoughts. They drew out of Saturday Market, along North Bar Within and past St Mary’s church, under the arched North Bar, and on towards New Walk and the hamlet of Molescroft. She closed her eyes as they passed the Ingrams’ house but on opening them saw the chestnut trees where she and Christy had first pledged their love. She put her hand to her mouth to still her trembling lips as she remembered all that had passed. They said that I should leave Beverley, but I vow that one day I will come back.

  It was further than she imagined, and if she hadn’t felt so miserable she would have enjoyed the ride through the green gently rolling countryside. The air was clear and there was a smell of autumn, of wood smoke and crisp falling leaves. Hawthorn hedges were already dressed in bright red berries and in the distance, the cornfields had been harvested and opened to grazing stock. They passed the road marked for the village of Cherry Burton where the other passenger got down and wished her good day, then continued on for another few miles until they came to a road signed to Etton.

  Jenny jumped down with her bag as they came into the village and looked around. ‘Is this it?’ she asked, for it was a very quiet sleepy kind of place with an inn and a collection of houses and cottages.

  ‘Is somebody collecting you?’ the carrier asked. ‘Cos this is the usual stop.’

  When Jenny replied yes, he remarked that he hoped she wouldn’t have a long wait and drove on. She glanced up and down the road, but there was no waggon, cart or trap in view so she settled down on the grass verge and prepared to wait. It was a warm sunny afternoon, and after sitting for some time she put her head on her bag and closed her eyes. She must have fallen asleep for she awoke with a start as a voice called, ‘Jenny?’

  For a second she thought she was dreaming, for the voice was like Christy’s. She gave a gasp and clutched her throat as she sat up.

  ‘Jenny?’ A very tall, thin man stood above her. His dark hair was long and shaggy with grey streaks at his temples. He wore corduroy breeches and a clean but stained flannel shirt. He stared at her from intense blue eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you Jenny?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes.’ She scrambled to her feet. ‘Sorry. I must have dozed off. I didn’t hear you come.’

  He nodded. ‘Come along then. Get in.’ He indicated an old high scarlet waggon, the like of which she hadn’t seen before, with the back wheels larger than the front ones, and pulled by two horses. ‘Where’ve you been? This is the third time I’ve been to look for you!’

  ‘Sorry,’ she apologized as she threw her bag in and sat beside him. ‘I only found out I was coming on Thursday. My ma made ’arrangements.’

  ‘Without telling you?’ He turned to look at her. ‘Does she usually do that? I’d have thought you were old enough to make your own plans!’

  ‘I am,’ she said. ‘I’ve been working in Beverley, but I – I left my employ and went back to Hull. Then Ma told me she’d arranged for me to come to Aunt Aggie’s.’

  ‘Agnes,’ he said sharply. ‘That’s your aunt’s name. Not Aggie!’

  He pronounced the statement in such an authoritative imperious manner that she was startled and realized that this was no common or labouring man. His voice and bearing was as Christy’s had been. He was an educated man, not of her class at all, and she wondered how he came to be collecting her, and why he was dressed in working men’s clothes.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ she said in a small voice. ‘It’s what my mother called her. I’ve never met my aunt. Does she work for you?’

  He gave a wry grunt. ‘No. She doesn’t. We work together.’ Then his mouth tightened into a thin line. ‘Or we did,’ he muttered and she saw him swallow and his Adam’s apple moved in his throat. ‘She’s sick.’ He glanced at her again. ‘That’s why you’ve come, isn’t it? To look after her!’

  ‘I can do, sir,’ she said. ‘Though I’ve no experience of nursing.’

  He made a dismissive sound and stared straight between the horse’s ears. ‘I can’t think why she wrote to her sister. Not after so long.’ He gave a deep breath and groused, ‘But I suppose blood is thicker than water. We won’t keep you on, though,’ he said abruptly. ‘Not if you don’t shape up. You must realize that. Even if you are family.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jenny said quietly. ‘Aunt Agnes might not want me to stay when she meets me. I might not be suitable.’ Especially when she finds out I’m expecting a child, she thought. ‘So – might I ask who you are, sir? Begging your pardon for my ignorance.’

  He nodded solemnly. ‘Certainly you can ask. My name is Stephen St John Laslett. Your aunt Agnes is my wife.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  They travelled for several miles along a narrow road and Jenny asked timidly, ‘How far is it to your house, Mr Laslett?’

  ‘Not much further.’ His tone was clipped and abrupt. ‘We’re quite isolated. We live on the Etton Wolds.’ He shook the reins to encourage the horses up a track. ‘So if you’re looking for the delights of town you’re going to be disappointed. It’s quiet. We don’t get visitors and that’s how we like it.’

  As he spoke, the track widened and rose, with blackthorn and hawthorn hedges and the fading flowers of dog rose on either side. Above the hedges she saw meadows with sheep grazing and heard the cooing of pigeons and the trill of songbirds. ‘Look!’ she exclaimed, as a large white-winged bird flew alongside them behind the hedge.

  He gave a ghost of a smile. ‘Barn owl. Going out to supper.’

  She glanced sideways at him. He must have been handsome when he was younger, she mused. Still is, I suppose, except he seems so tense and withdrawn, as if he can’t smile or laugh. Perhaps he considers it beneath him to be driving a servant girl. It’s odd, though. Why is he driving me? Do they not have any other servants? Ma said Aunt Aggie – Agnes – had run away with a swell. I didn’t realize she meant a gentleman.

  They topped the rise a
nd as they drove through a white farm gate, the thatched roof of a cottage came into view. At least it seemed like a cottage until they drew nearer and the track to it dipped down. She saw that the house was sitting in a hollow and that there were two storeys to it and a barn to the side, making it a substantial building, though not as large as Mr Ingram’s which was her only comparison. It was pleasing to the eye, with sweet-smelling honeysuckle round the door and lavender bushes lining the path from the gate.

  A woman was standing in the doorway. She was middle-aged but pretty and plump and Jenny couldn’t imagine that this could be her aunt, for she was nothing like her own mother. But it was, for she came out to greet her. ‘Jenny!’ she said. ‘Welcome to Lavender Cott. How very nice to meet you. I’ve often wondered about my sister’s sons and daughters. I can see that you favour your father. You have none of your mother in you!’

  Jenny bobbed her knee. ‘And you are nothing like my mother, Aunt Agnes,’ she said shyly, thinking that if anyone looked ill, then it was her mother, who was pale and scraggy, whilst this aunt was not at all.

  ‘No, we were never alike,’ Agnes smiled, ‘not in looks or temperament. But do come in, dear, and take off your things and we’ll have a cup of tea. You must be tired after your journey?’

  ‘She was asleep on the verge when I found her.’ Stephen St John Laslett came into the house and flopped into a chair by the fire. ‘I almost didn’t see her and came on home.’

  ‘Just a bit tired,’ Jenny confessed. ‘I left Hull early this morning.’

  ‘And how is your mother?’ Agnes was about to make the tea when her husband sprang up from his chair and took the kettle from her and poured the water into the pot.

  Jenny was so astounded to see him perform this task, something she had never seen her father do, that she was almost lost for words. ‘She’s well, Aunt,’ she said. ‘But I saw her only briefly before I left. I’ve been working away in Beverley for the last five years.’

  ‘So why did you go back to Hull?’ Stephen St John Laslett placed the tray of tea and cups and saucers close to his wife so that she might pour. ‘Did you not like Beverley?’

  Jenny felt her face flush and was grateful to her aunt who, seeing her discomfort, said quickly, ‘I’m sure Jenny will tell all later when she’s settled in.’

  Jenny drank her tea, conscious of St John Laslett’s eyes on her. What a very long name, she thought. I’ve never come across such a name before. Will I have to say it each time I speak to him? Or maybe he won’t let me stay when he discovers that I have been in prison.

  ‘I liked Beverley very well, sir,’ she said. ‘But my circumstances changed.’

  ‘Mm,’ he said, then, quickly finishing his tea, once more sprang to his feet. ‘Must go.’ He kissed his wife on the forehead. ‘I’ll be in for supper,’ he told her, and crossed the small room with long loping strides like a cat.

  ‘So tell me about your mother,’ Agnes said. ‘She was the only one of my four sisters who replied to my letters.’

  ‘She’s probably the only one who can read or write,’ Jenny said, ‘even though not very well, and I think that one of my sisters probably read your letter to her. But, yes, she seems well enough. Though she doesn’t look as well as you, Aunt. The country air must be beneficial to you?’

  Her aunt sighed. ‘Ah. If that were only so. That’s why I asked for your mother’s help. There’s no-one else I could have asked. I have no children of my own.’ She gazed into the flames of the fire. ‘It’s the one regret of my life that we were not blessed with children.’

  Jenny thought of her own family home, crowded with brothers and sisters, and wondered if her aunt really knew what she was missing, but she saw the sadness in her eyes and knew that she should not discuss the merits of family life. She thought that whilst her aunt’s husband was out, she should confess her pregnancy, and then if necessary be prepared to leave.

  She began her story hesitatingly at first, telling of her employment in Beverley, and then of Christy’s unfortunate accidental death and her imprisonment, and as her explanation gathered speed she saw her aunt’s eyes cloud with sympathy and anxiety, and before she could stop herself she was sobbing, crying as she hadn’t cried before. She had wept on the day of Christy’s death and again at the indignity of being locked up, but she hadn’t poured out her heartache as she did now. Neither her mother nor her sister had asked her about Christy, or about her own feelings, and she had kept them hidden away. Now they were released and fell in an unstoppable torrent of sorrow, rage, and fear of what might happen to her and her child.

  ‘My mother didn’t know about ’child when she wrote to you.’ She wiped her reddened eyes on the handkerchief which Agnes had silently handed to her. ‘So she can’t be blamed, though it was ’first thing she asked me. But I thought I’d take ’chance of coming. I’d nowhere else to go, and I couldn’t stop at home. I’m sorry.’ She blew her nose. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. You’ve troubles of your own, I’m sure, but if you or your husband don’t want me to stay, then I’ll leave first thing in ’morning, if you’ll give me a bed for tonight.’

  Her aunt leant towards her and grasped her hand. ‘I’ll speak to Stephen later and we’ll talk about what we should do. But first you must come upstairs to your room, unpack and have a rest before supper.’ She smiled at Jenny in a sad way. ‘And then I will tell you our story and you will realize that we probably do understand.’

  That night Jenny sat at the table in the small neat room that had been prepared for her, and by the light from a candle she took up her pencil and added, in her best hand, to the continuation of her life that she had started whilst in Beverley prison.

  ‘I knew from what my mother told me that her sister had run away from her husband and set up with a young man, but no more than that; yet there is so much more to tell. Aunt Agnes confided that she had been married at seventeen to an older man, an innkeeper. Her father had arranged the marriage one night when he and the innkeeper were in their cups at the inn. He’d thought it would be a convenient arrangement, particularly as the innkeeper was a crony of his.

  ‘“But John Bolton was a brutal man,” Agnes told me. “I was little more than an unpaid help, and he was cruel. He used to beat me when he was in drink or if I’d displeased him.” She sighed very deeply and said that she’d thought that that was going to be her life for ever. Her only consolation was that she didn’t bear him any children. And then ten years later she met Stephen and they fell in love.

  ‘He was twenty,’ Jenny wrote, ‘and from a good family, and here the story is similar to mine, except that they eventually came to spend their life together, whereas my life with Christy has ended in tragedy as theirs, it seems, will also.

  ‘Stephen St John Laslett’s family are wealthy, and I have discovered from my aunt that his name is spelt not Sinjun as I’d ignorantly supposed when he told me it, but as in Saint. But to continue: his family were horrified that their only son was taking up with an older married woman, especially one from a poor background, and I suppose they would consider her poor, being from a serving class. Stephen, though, was determined to be with her, rather like Christy with me, though poor sad Christy didn’t really know how to go about things. But Stephen borrowed money from a friend to enable them to live, and went out of his family’s life.

  ‘That is as far as I have got with their story,’ she wrote. ‘Agnes’s husband died, and so she and Mr Laslett were eventually able to marry and are now man and wife, though seemingly his father isn’t interested to know that.’

  Jenny put the page with the others. And now she’s ill, she thought. The beatings her first husband gave her have damaged her in some way, and that’s why she’s never had children, though she’s had miscarriages, poor soul. Now her husband can only look forward to sorrow and she to pain.

  She picked up the pencil again and added a postscript. ‘She wants me to stay.’

  Birdsong, the rustling in the thatch and the bleating of sheep wok
e her the next morning, and for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. Then she heard the barking of a dog and a man’s voice calling to it. She rose from the bed and went to the window. Her room was at the back of the house and had a view across the meadows towards low hills, a stream and a small woodland. The windows downstairs looked over a garden surrounded by a briar-rose hedge, but the view was restricted on account of the house’s sitting low. It’s so tucked away, she thought, that no-one would know it was here. Perhaps that is why they chose to live here, away from prying eyes.

  She quickly washed and dressed and went downstairs into the kitchen. She found a white apron hanging behind the door and put it on, then taking the kettle from the shelf beside the fire she shook it slightly, found that it was almost full of water, and put it on the fire bar. The coals had already been riddled and more fuel put on the flames, and soon the kettle was boiling.

  ‘Morning!’ Stephen St John Laslett came in through the kitchen door and Jenny turned from the table where she was preparing a breakfast tray for her aunt.

  ‘Morning, sir.’ Jenny thought he looked sternly at her and she said hurriedly, ‘I was preparing a tray for Aunt Agnes. Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes, perfectly. It’s why I came in. I generally take her breakfast up. There’s tea and preserves in the cupboard. Milk in the larder. Bread in the crock. Agnes doesn’t eat much in a morning.’ In a sudden movement, he put his hand to his forehead and pressed his fingers over his brows and took a deep breath. Jenny bustled into the larder, knowing that he had become emotional.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to carry it up, sir?’ she said when she had set the tray.

  ‘Yes, I would,’ he said. ‘And Jenny, don’t keep calling me sir. Mr Laslett will do.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Laslett. I will. And what would you like for breakfast, sir? I mean Mr Laslett!’