Alone in the farmhouse Betsy wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. It was only half past eight, far too early for bed. Nevertheless she went upstairs to their bedroom and unpacked her clothes, placing them neatly in the drawers and wardrobe space that Daniel had indicated would be hers. She drew the curtains, leaving a two-inch gap so the room would catch the first light of dawn, then she went downstairs and looked at the books on the shelf from which Daniel had taken the Bible earlier. Several were farming manuals but there was some fiction. She took one of these, returned to the armchair and began to read. It was a story about a servant-girl and when the lady of the house was mentioned Betsy closed her eyes, remembering her own days with the lady of the house where she had been sent to work when she was ten years old.
Mrs Wallasey had been kind to her from the beginning, asking about her brothers and sisters, sending little treats home with her on the few occasions when she was able to go. These were usually on Mothering Sunday and Christmas Day if she was lucky, although she actually found it better to be at the big house on Christmas Day rather than with her own family. This did sometimes make her feel guilty.
She had started work in the kitchen at Wren Court and for three months had not seen anything of the rest of the house, except the back stairs leading to the bedroom that she shared with two other girls. They were both older than she was; one was twelve and one fourteen, and they resented having such a young girl with them. At night Betsy was so tired she simply wanted to sleep, but they talked and giggled, mostly about the butcher’s boy who delivered the meat for the house every day.
Jane, the older one, tripped her deliberately on more than one occasion, both in the kitchen and upstairs in their tiny attic bedroom. She thought about that room now and realized that she had never had a space to herself. Before she went into service she slept with her siblings, girls at the top and boys at the bottom of the bed. Then she shared with the two other girls at Wren Court. Jane, the fourteen-year-old, was bossy and spiteful and never tripped her when anyone else could see what she was doing. It was always done slyly and Betsy quickly learned to watch out for this.
Most times she managed to stay on her feet and no real damage was achieved, but one day, when she had a pile of dinner-plates in her hands, taking them from the cupboard over to the stove, she didn’t see Jane’s foot come out and she went sprawling across the floor, while the plates clattered around her.
Cook, standing by the stove and with her back to what was going on in other parts of the kitchen, turned quickly. Hauling Betsy to her feet she said, ‘You are getting so clumsy, child, this is the third time this week you’ve skidded across here like that. How many of those plates are broken? Because it will have to come out of your wages at the end of the year.’
Betsy set about picking up the plates. Miraculously only one had broken, although another was chipped. ‘They weren’t the best set, Mrs Bates,’ Betsy said, while out of the corner of her eye she saw Jane watching her. The older girl quickly turned away and busied herself chopping onions on the long wooden table, while Annie, who always followed where Jane led, kept her eyes on the mixture she was stirring at the other end of the table.
‘Tut, tut, girl, get a move on,’ cook said sharply, ‘and make sure you pick every piece up. Then wash them all and check for cracks or chips.’
Betsy swallowed the words she almost said, for cook would never believe Jane had tripped her up on purpose, and Annie would stick up for her friend, then she herself would be in more trouble for telling tales.
Both girls kept out of her way for the rest of the morning, not even looking in her direction, and her temper rose by the hour. Why were they nasty to her? Because she was young and they thought they could get away with it? Well, she’d show them. She would trip Jane up and deny it when the girl tried to blame her, as she knew she would. The thought of revenge for all the nastiness she had endured in the last few weeks at Jane’s hands made her glow with excitement.
Cook harried her for the rest of the day, but she managed to keep her temper, remembering her mother’s words when she had started here: Watch that tongue of yours girl, because if you lose your place you can’t come back here, I’ve enough mouths to feed as it is.
That was another strange thing, she’d always been the skivvy at home, none of the others seemed to do as much as she did. Out of five brothers and two sisters she was the only one who had had to leave home so early to earn a living. Her two sisters were grown up, they were the eldest of the family, yet Betsy always had the feeling that even when they were young children they never had the sort of treatment she received, but of course she couldn’t know for sure. As for the boys, they were expected to bring in wood for the fire, but very little else.
She closed the book on her lap and let her memories flood her mind. Betsy wondered what her own life would have been like if her lady of the house hadn’t died when she had. She had been sent to see her after the plate-crashing incident and she wasn’t nearly as terrifying as cook had led her to believe. She had a gentle voice for a start, and her questioning was not harsh.
‘Cook tells me you tripped with a pile of plates in your hand and broke some,’ she said. ‘Well, these things do happen from time to time. Perhaps you were carrying more than you could properly manage. Was that it?’
Betsy hesitated, then, ‘No, ma’am,’ she said. Mrs Wallasey was silent for a moment and Betsy thought she was going to lose her job. Instead her lady said softly, ‘Cook also tells me this is not the first time. That you often skid across the kitchen floor. Perhaps you should try to make two journeys instead of one and maybe even be a little slower, Betsy.’
Now, all these years later, Betsy thought it was the use of her name that had triggered the tears then, for even her mother scarcely used it, and cook referred to her as girl or you girl. Whatever the reason she could not stop her eyes from filling and the tears overflowing and running down her cheeks. Mrs Wallasey came closer and touched her hand. ‘It’s all right, Betsy, nothing is going to happen to you. Just be more careful in future, there’s a good girl.’
A week after that encounter Mrs Wallasey sent for her again. ‘How are you getting on here, Betsy?’ she said.
It wasn’t in Betsy’s nature to pretend, and after a moment’s hesitation she answered truthfully, ‘I do my best, ma’am. I don’t seem to please.’
Gently Mrs Wallasey had lifted Betsy’s hands from her side and examined them. They were red and tender, raw with continually washing the kitchen floor, peeling great bowls of potatoes, and generally doing all the tasks the other two no longer did. She remembered how ashamed of them she had been, and as she tried to wriggle them out of Mrs Wallasey’s firm grip her employer said quietly, ‘Do Jane and Annie share the heavier and dirtier tasks with you, Betsy?’
She remembered, even now, how she could not look her special lady in the eyes and not tell the truth. Instead she had concentrated her gaze towards the floor and said, ‘We all do as cook tells us, ma’am.’
She had felt a very soft finger beneath her chin, gently easing her face upwards. ‘I’m glad to hear that. You may go now, Betsy, You’re a good girl.’ She was out of the room before the tears fell and had wiped them away well before she was down the back stairs and in the kitchen.
‘Well,’ cook said, ‘what did Mrs Wallasey want with you?’
‘To – ask how I was getting on with the work, Mrs Bates.’
‘And what did you tell her?’ Cook’s huge body loomed over her.
‘All right,’ she lied.
‘Good. Come on now, you’ve wasted enough time when you should have been working, so get and help Annie with those vegetables. I hope milady isn’t going to make a habit of asking the scullery-maids how they’re getting on. Hmmph.’ She bustled over to the kitchen range.
A week later cook told her that Mrs Wallasey was short of a maid upstairs and that Betsy was being sent up for the time being. She was ten and a half and had worked at Wren Court for three months.
Deciding to ignore the noise she returned to the fire and picked up the heavy poker from the hearth. If whoever it was did manage to get in she would at least have something to defend herself with. The silence as she sat in the chair again was eerie. She knew she could not concentrate on the book, and she didn’t want to wander around the place. The candles gave out a soft glow, but enough for whoever was out there to know the room was occupied. Maybe they had seen Daniel go off and knew she was here alone. The noise began again; it wasn’t a tap, nor yet a knock, more of a scraping sound. Suddenly she knew she had to see who was there. They were, after all, on the other side of the glass at present.
Armed with the poker she returned to the window and although her free hand was trembling she pulled the curtain back with a flourish. She didn’t know who was the more surprised, she or the large black cat balancing on the wide sill and hammering to be let in. She unlatched the window and stood aside as the animal jumped through. It walked across to the fireplace and began to wash itself.
‘My goodness, puss, you gave me a fright,’ she said. The cat ignored her and continued its ablutions. Bending to stroke it she said, ‘You obviously live here, so I hope we’ll be friends. I’m Betsy by the way. Reckon Daniel will tell me your name when he gets back.’ As she straightened up she caught sight of the straw halter hanging on a hook near the door and a grim feeling came over her.
‘I’d best leave it for now, puss, but it’s got to go,’ she murmured, ‘I can’t have it staring at me every time I look over there.’
It was tempting to take it down, destroy it now, but something warned her she shouldn’t. Yet Daniel had taken it off once they had been clear of the market, even if he had hung it there as a symbol.
Biting her lip she turned away and returned to her chair. She seemed to hear Mrs Wallasey’s voice in her head: Betsy, have patience and many of the things you want will happen. It must be done gradually, you simply cannot change such ingrained traditions and customs overnight. But your time will come child, and you must be prepared for it.
To this end Mrs Wallasey had taught her to read and write, lent her books, and talked about so many subjects. They discussed politics and the King while Betsy made herself a new apron from material bought in the market. They talked about the latest fashions while she sewed ribbons on to Mrs Wallasey’s new but rather plain hat, and sometimes they mulled over the sermon the minister had preached in church. Mrs Wallasey had been in her usual pew, and Betsy at the back with the other servants, but it didn’t stop them talking together about what had been said.
‘Well, it was meant for all of us, Betsy, “you in your place and me in mine,”’ was her lady’s comment once when she was shy about this. And Betsy didn’t mind the business of high and low places. It seemed fair. Mrs Wallasey and her family had money and land and could afford to hire people to do the things poorer folk had to do for themselves. This was right and proper. If she, Betsy, one day had money and land, she too would do this she felt sure. No, there was nothing wrong about having a place in life, but it should be a movable place.
It had been a wonderful four years and she had loved her employer dearly. She had still slept in the attic room with Jane and Annie, but they were wary of her and no longer played tricks or tried to get her into trouble. In any case she saw little of them except late at night and early in the morning and her mind was too full of the wonders of learning to give either of them much attention. Once Jane said, ‘What do you do up there all day?’
‘I sew, mend, run errands.…’ She did not tell them that when Mrs Wallasey went for her meal she always left her a book to read, or an essay to write. ‘You have a good brain, Betsy, don’t let it rust,’ she had told her.
‘I was eager for it, puss,’ she said to the cat, who had finished cleaning himself and was lying in front of the fire. ‘I saw the other side of life when my lady was alive. She took me with her to so many grand places and she taught me so much. You have no idea.’
The cat looked up then, its green eyes glittering like the emeralds her special lady often wore. Betsy settled herself once more in the armchair and picked up the book, but within ten minutes she was asleep and the book had slipped down the side of the chair. She didn’t even wake when Daniel returned at almost midnight. He saw the flickering candlelight in the sitting-room and was startled to find his wife sound asleep in the chair.
Chapter 2
A gentle kiss on her forehead woke Betsy. She stirred in the chair, and then looked up, startled to see Daniel gazing at her.
‘Time for bed I think,’ he said, holding his hand out to help her up.
‘Is it all right – whatever the trouble was?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Two cows in difficulty calving. Martin saw to one and I took the other, but it was a long haul. Bad luck to get two of ’em in trouble at the same time.’
‘You – you didn’t lose any?’ she said.
‘No. Now he has three healthy calves. Twins, that’s unusual, and where most of the trouble was, and a single.’
Betsy stood up, ‘I’m so glad. You must be tired. I’ll fetch you a drink and something to eat.’
‘Just a drink, Betsy. There’s some cider in the pantry.’
As she moved away he said quietly, ‘And Betsy I’ll make no demands on you tonight. I’ve had a long day and I’m tired. We’ll simply lie together.’
He was asleep long before she was, and as she lay listening to his regular breathing she returned in her mind to those earlier years she had been thinking about during the evening, and to her previous husband, George Hatton, whom she married when she was fifteen. If Mrs Wallasey hadn’t died and her son and his wife taken over the house who could tell how different her life might have been. She had always been wary of John Wallasey when he visited his mother and took pains to ensure she was never alone with him. When he inherited the property and came to live there with his wife whom, he said, would need a maid, life became nasty. From dodging his wandering hands whenever he could catch her alone, to putting up with his arrogant and overpowering wife, Betsy went from one extreme of working conditions to the opposite. She had determined to go to the next mop fair and seek work in a kitchen again when matters were taken out of her hands.
The new ‘my lady’, it seemed, was not ignorant of the ways of her husband and within six months of taking over she had found Betsy a spouse. George Hatton was nearly thirty years old and had taken over one of his father’s farms. He needed a wife and Sarah Wallasey decided she needed an older and plainer maid.
‘I have spoken to your mother,’ she told Betsy, ‘and she is in complete agreement. We will give you a small dowry and you will wed George Hatton next month.’
Betsy had wondered at the time why they should give her a dowry but there was no time to ponder the question. It was three months before the mop fair would come, and short of running away and trying to fend for herself she had no choice. Her mother would not take her back; she had been only too glad to push her into service, and how long would she last with neither food nor money? It would be foolish to try.
Much later when she thought about the situation calmly she came to believe that the older Mrs Wallasey had made some sort of provision for her and it was this that her son and his wife gave her in the form of a dowry. She was sure that that had not been the intention of the lady she regarded as her special guardian angel but there was nothi
ng she could do about it.
George Hatton had one overwhelming ambition. To have a son. ‘Or two or three,’ he told her. To that end they retired in the early evening and if sheer persistence could have worked, he would have been a happy man. Betsy came to dread the nights, and was thankful they were both so busy on the farm and in the house during the day. His desire dominated his life and she never conceived. Would the man sleeping deeply by her side now be the same? As he moved she felt his arm brush against her and she held her breath, but he did not wake. She closed her own eyes and thanked the Lord for one night of respite.
When Betsy woke the next morning she was alone in the bed, but she could hear sounds from the kitchen. She poured some water from the jug into the large china bowl on the washstand, washed, dressed and went downstairs. Daniel was sitting at the scrubbed wooden table eating egg and bacon and a hunk of bread. ‘Sleep all right,’ he said.
She almost nodded, then remembered the effect this had on him, and said, ‘yes thank you, Daniel.’
The cat came and rubbed against her legs. ‘You are a beauty,’ she said, bending to stroke its sleek glossy back.
‘Dumbo seems to have taken to you, he is not always so friendly.’
‘Dumbo?’ she queried.
‘Because he’s dumb. Can’t make a sound although he does open his mouth and try sometimes. He lets you know what he wants just the same.’ Daniel glanced down at the animal. ‘Makes a heck of a racket with his paws when he wants to be let in.’
The Straw Halter Page 2