Time Travel 02 Nothing but Time

by Angeline Fortin

  They were to make beds, change linens, beat rugs and drapes, dust, scrub, polish and shine. Upstairs and down. All five stories of the mansion’s residential rooms. And when they made it all the way through, Marta said, they would start all over again. Along with the cleaning maids was an army of kitchen staff along with footmen and downstairs maids who fetched and carried for others. Outside were the gardeners and stable staff. In total, over seventy people were employed in this house.

  It was good to know that there were those with the ability to stimulate the economy in such a way, but Kate had to wonder what her new boss did for a living to afford it all.

  At the end of her first – not even full – work day, Kate had wanted nothing more than to take a bath and sleep for a week. However, she was denied both. The staff bathed twice a week on Saturday and Wednesday nights and it was now only Tuesday. And unfortunately, they rose before dawn to start their day so rest wasn’t in the cards for her either.

  At least the food was good and there was plenty of it. Good traditional English food much as she had come to love since moving to England. Food that stuck to your ribs and warmed you from the inside out. Bangers and mash, meat pies, puddings of all sorts, soups, tarts and fish.

  It was the kind of food that let a person fall asleep the second their head hit a pillow as Kate’s did that first night…though it might have been the simple result of sheer exhaustion.

  Now as she lowered the heavy bucket of soapy water to the floor, Kate stood arching her back and rotating her shoulder to relieve the strain. She always considered herself a fit person. She was active and outdoorsy, but this was just plain hard work. Kate hurt in places she didn’t even know she had.

  With a sigh, she lowered herself to her knees and reached for the stiff bristled brush to tackle the sooty brick.

  “It’ll get easier,” Marta told her as the maid dunked her own scrubbing brush into the bucket and set back to work as well. “When I first came ‘ere, I thought I was like to die that first few days.”

  “That sounds about right,” Kate agreed but didn’t stop her work. Mrs. Hendricks seemed to have a talent for rounding a corner just when Kate paused to take a breath, each time giving Kate a glare more chastising than any Sister Anita had delivered in Catholic school when Kate was in the first grade. “Tell me, is Mrs. Hendricks always so terrifying?”

  Marta’s eyes widened before a wide grin broke across her face and she lowered her voice. “Me and some of the other girls call ‘er the Dragon. There ain’t no one in the ‘ouse who ain’t afraid of ‘er. ‘Er temper’s legendary so watch yerself. You know, I’ve been wanting to ask, where are you from because I can tell yer ain’t from ‘round ‘ere?”

  “Originally I’m from Minnesota,” Kate answered as they worked amicably side-by-side.

  “Minnesota?” Marta repeated, shaking her head. “Ain’t never heard of it.”

  “It’s in the Midwestern United States.” The brush went into the bucket and back out. “How about you? Where are you from?”

  “Lickfield, south of here,” Marta answered, dropping her scrubbing brush for a moment to stretch. “Mary and now Nan, too. I helped them get ‘ired. You should come out wi’ us on our ‘alf-day off. We like to go down to The Row Barge – it’s a tavern in ‘enley – to meet wi’ some of our other friends, too. Nice crop of young footmen there sometimes, if you’re looking to find an ‘usband.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She listened avidly to Marta as they worked side by side as the maid told her about how many of the unmarried maids sent all their wages back to their families in nearby towns to help support younger siblings, some still in nappies. Marta, for example, was the oldest child in her family and had seven younger siblings still at home. Going into service and sending their wages back to help their families was what unmarried girls of her class did.

  Most of the staff at Ramble House had started out working in Town – as Kate found out London was referred to – in lesser households and working their way up the ladder to houses like the one in Belgrave Square or off to big country houses like this one. Most of the maids also came with hopes of finding a husband from among the male servants and tradesmen they encountered along the way. On their half day off – that in itself was a bit of news Kate hadn’t yet truly absorbed – they would frequent the local shops, taverns and parks hoping to meet someone new. With their families far off and so much expectation heaped on each of them, Kate could not help but feel for them.

  Once started, Marta talked the day away, through dinner where she introduced Kate to all the other girls she had missed meeting the day before. Her roommates were all friendly, outgoing women like Marta, free with talk about their lives. Most had situations very similar to Marta’s while a few others were married or widowed like Nan. Few had an ambition beyond marriage, a family and home of their own, other than a hope of rising up the household staff. The most ambitious had a goal to become a housekeeper one day, but Kate liked being among them. They cared for each other like sisters, watched out for one another and took Kate into their fold without question. Being a maid might be a step down in her career and the work harder than she expected but Kate thought her co-workers were among the nicest she had ever had.

  As they all gathered in their dormitory at night, Kate thought their nights were like a perpetual slumber party full of laughter and gossip as they braided each other’s hair or mended their clothes.

  The talk eventually turned to the imminent arrival of the new ‘master’ of the house. The new boss was apparently an earl. The Earl of Harrowby to be exact. This Harrowby had only recently inherited the title from his uncle, his father’s older brother. Though it seemed some of the older, senior staff had known him as a boy when his mother had brought him to visit his grandparents, the man hadn’t stepped foot in the house in almost a score of years. There was a rumor resurrected among the staff about the new earl’s mother having had a falling out with her in-laws years before but none of the upstairs maids knew for certain what had kept them away in all the years since.

  The prospect of meeting an English nobleman sent a thrill of expectation through Kate. Being from the U.S. as she was, the idea of royalty and nobility was fascinating to her though the only real earl she had ever seen was Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, who’d been on the TV in the UK quite a bit recently. She could just picture this Earl of Harrowby, though. Given the average age of the senior staff and the family portraits around the house, she envisioned the earl as an aged, distinguished chap with long whiskers who resembled Walt Whitman.

  Chapter Seven

  Four days later

  Kate had to admit that when she got things wrong, she tended to get them really wrong. “Uhh, wow!” she whispered under her breath to Marta as they stood near the end of one of the two rows of household staff lined up to greet the earl that Saturday afternoon. They were all dressed in their best uniforms, the footmen in full livery while Kate and the other maids were adorned in matching grey gowns, tight through the long bodice and arms and complete with a full bustle in the back. Their pristine white aprons and caps gave them a generic appearance and made any one of them easily mistaken for the next.

  Except Marta, who was a bit shorter and more buxom than the rest, it seemed to Kate that most of the maids had been hired, like the footmen, for their height and build. The rest of them were all of upper average height and fairly slim, though it might have simply been the hard work that kept them that way.

  “I’m not familiar with that term but I’d say it sounds ‘bout right,” the other maid agreed and several others around them giggled even as they all stared at the new earl, each one blushing at the thoughts that were no doubt filling their heads much as they filled Kate’s.

  There was no denying that she had been very, very wrong with her pre-imagined picture of the Earl of Harrowby, because the man who descended from the elaborate carriage and strode up the marble stairs into the hall slapping his gloves against his thi
gh was beyond imagination. Not even her assessment of his age had been right. Harrowby was perhaps only thirty, she guessed. He was tall – more than six feet easily, powerful – and… strapping (an old-fashioned word, of course, but it seemed to fit) like a man who worked out daily or was a real sportsman. Kate wasn’t certain what they played at here but a guy had to do something pretty major nearly every day to look like that. If he’d had a hammer in his hand, Kate would have cast him as Thor without a second thought. It was easy to imagine women throwing themselves at his god-like feet in supplication.

  His stride was athletically graceful, showing off his tall, muscular form and hewn thighs with each step, but what had really knocked the ‘wow’ out of Kate had been his face.

  Here was a man who would make angels weep, she thought giving herself a snort of amusement at her poetic waxing. Harrowby’s visage was wonderfully defined with pronounced cheekbones, a distinct square jaw and straight nose. Even from a distance, his eyes were a piercing blue as his gaze narrowed under low brows at them all, but his lips were full and Kate would have wagered a bundle that he’d have devastating dimples when he smiled.

  If he ever smiled, she amended. He didn’t look like the type given over to good humor very often but, even with his mouth set so sternly, Kate was hard-pressed not to sigh and maybe drool just a bit.

  His sandy hair was cropped close to his head unlike the other men she’d seen so far in this time who wore their hair a bit longer but slicked it back with oils. The earl’s hair was shiny clean with just enough length to have a mussed look about it that easily made one woman think that another had recently run her fingers through it. And also unlike the other men who wore either full beards, twisted mustaches or long mutton-chop sideburns, Harrowby was clean-shaven as if he knew that hiding his transcendent good looks would be a sin.

  Brad Pitt might have twice been named ‘sexiest man in the world’ by People magazine, but Kate was very certain that, had People existed in 1876, this man would have broken that record in consecutive years.

  “Hellooo, hotness,” she drawled in a suggestive tone under her breath once again raising a scattering of giggles around her and prompting a glare from that old bat Hendricks from her place at the front of the line.

  The women stifled their laughter and stood at attention as the earl greeted the butler, Geoffrey, and Hendricks who in turn took him away down the line introducing the senior staff. Though it seemed that she meant to come all the way to the end, Harrowby soon waved her off claiming fatigue, etc. stating that he would meet the rest of them in the days to come.

  With that, he strode briskly off down the hall leaving them all behind to stare after him. Each and every set of female eyes watched him go and, Kate would wager, some of the male eyes as well because there was no denying the earl’s general appeal.

  When he was gone, the air went out of the staff and they all collapsed into whispers about Harrowby, most of the younger girls giggling amongst themselves. Hendricks sailed toward them and caught Kate painfully by the ear and dragged her off to scrub the servants’ lavatory as punishment for her rabble rousing, as the housekeeper put it.

  At least it was a Saturday night and, after that disgusting duty, Kate was able to line up with the others for her bi-weekly bath.

  That was an experience Kate didn’t think she’d ever get used to.

  The sharing of bathwater was almost as bad as not bathing at all. The water was tepid and the soap harsh and all Kate could think about while she scrubbed was that there had to be some alternative to this lackadaisical approach to personal hygiene. She certainly couldn’t imagine only bathing twice a week for the remainder of her life.

  At least she was finally cleaner if not truly clean and in bed for the night earlier than usual. The other girls snored softly around her, but Kate couldn’t sleep even knowing that the next day would send more labors her way. For half the day, at least. The staff had the morning and early afternoon off on Sundays, presumably to attend church and visit their families. Like all the other women, Kate was looking forward to it, wondering if the day would whizz by like all the others or if the free time would be as long as her nights.

  Evenings here were long for her. At home, she’d usually curl up with a book and a glass of wine to unwind after a long day’s work or watch TV though she hadn’t been as obsessed with that since moving to England. She’d just been unable so far to get used to the new shows and missed her favorites back home.

  However, there was no time for unwinding here. They worked, they ate and they slept before they got up to do it all again. Some of the other maids could fall asleep in moments and Kate envied them that ability as she lay awake staring at the ceiling.

  Thinking of that huge library she had dusted on the first floor, Kate flung back the covers and pulled on the warm velvet dressing gown David had provided for her. Stuffing her feet into matching slippers that were finer than those most of the maids owned, she slipped silently out the door and into the darkness. Moonlight lit the halls, streaming in the long windows and casting long rectangular patches against the carpets but it was enough for Kate to make her way by as she descended four floors to the first where the library was located. It had taken her most of the week to learn to call it the first floor, when to her it was the second. The first was on the ground level where she came from.

  Shaking her head at all the differences between now and then, America and England, Kate felt her way down the dark hall to the library. There were candles and a box of long matches there and even an oil lamp also on the desk if she remembered correctly.

  The library door opened with barely a creak and Kate entered, turning to where she had seen the lamp earlier. A drawer in a nearby table held matches and Kate struck one. Holding it up, she lifted the dome on the lamp and set the wick ablaze remembering to turn the knob to allow more light. Satisfied, she held it aloft in the darkness illuminating the bookshelves. Kate tried to remember how the books were catalogued because it had seemed that they were in some order. But what to read? The English Lit course she’d studied during her freshman year seemed far away as she tried to recall some popular English novelists. Sure, there was H. G. Wells, but that poor boy hadn’t gotten old enough to write any of his books yet and might not ever after David’s tutelage.

  “Let’s see,” she murmured to herself. “Jules Verne? I doubt that’s out yet and it would probably be all in French if it hasn’t been translated yet. Dumas is probably out but same problem. Let me think… Robert Louis Stevenson, he was big.” She scanned the shelves but couldn’t find anything by that author. “Ugh, who would have written by now? Oh, I know! Jane Austen would have. Austen, Austen….where are you Austen?”

  “Lower and to your left, I believe.” A deep male voice broke through her wonderings and Kate spun about to find the earl leaning casually against the doorjamb. A squeal of surprise escaped Kate and she jumped back, nearly dropping the oil lamp. She saved it though her hand was still shaking and she feared that she might burn the whole place down if she dropped it. The earl apparently felt the same concern as he rushed forward in long strides to remove it from her trembling hand and place it on the desk.

  “Oh geez!” Kate swore as he neared, backing herself against the shelves, his size and strength overwhelming her. He was certainly a dominant guy, she thought. Very lordly, aristocratic. Though she’d never known those qualities in anyone else, they were easily recognizable. Entitled might best describe it, but what could you expect from a guy who owned everything around him? Wondering what to do, Kate bobbed an awkward imitation of the curtsey she’d seen the other girls make and had half-heartedly attempted for Hendricks. It was wobbly though and the earl’s firm hand saved her from making an even bigger fool of herself by falling to the floor.

  “It doesn’t seem that you’ve had much practice at that.” His face and voice were serious as they had been that afternoon but Kate somehow got the impression he was laughing at her.

  “I haven’t.�
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  “You’re American,” he said in surprise. “Your voice was so low before I didn’t notice.”

  “I am.” Kate stared up into the earl’s face. It never occurred to her that she should cast her gaze away from him, as any good servant would do. She was already well aware that she wasn’t the best at true subservience and had really never been put in a situation where it was expected of her. In her line of work, employers valued a certain independent, go-get-it attitude. Instead, she studied him much as he studied her, taking in the details that her distant assessment had missed before.

  His eyes were bright, crystalline blue under thick, light brown brows. There were creases like parentheses framing his mouth. More winged out from the corners of his eyes making her think that she was perhaps wrong about his ability to show humor. Or it might be that he merely squinted a lot. Overall though, he was even more handsome up close, so close she could see the day’s growth of whiskers roughening his cheek, sweeping across his jaw and chin before arching up to touch the bottom of his full lower lip. Kate was tempted to chafe her palm against those whiskers, to follow the path up to that tempting lip.

  Unlike the austere appearance he’d presented that morning with every button done up and his tie neat and tidy, the earl look pleasantly relaxed now, his tie gone, his coat and waistcoat hanging open. She’d caught sight of the hollow of his throat ever so briefly before those magnetic blue eyes had caught and snared hers.

  “You don’t look away,” he said softly, still staring down at her. His nearness required Kate to tilt her head back to look at him making her realize that she came only to his chin. She felt strangely sheltered standing in his shadow, petite and fragile, yet safe. She wondered if it was his physical strength or the aura of power that made her feel that way as he leaned in propping himself with one hand on the shelves next to her head. “Why not?”