Hidden Currents

by Rowena Summers

  If only John Travis could make his fortune and marry her … if only they could live in a fine house, and Wilf and Pa could be set up in their own workshop and have people begging for their craftsmanship … if only pigs could fly …

  ‘Do you really think Miss Helen has a gentleman-friend who’s causing her bother?’ she asked Cook, when the witchhazel had been dabbed onto her cheek and she had shivered at its refreshing chill.

  ‘So it seems. Daisy said there were all sorts of discussions going on above stairs a day or two ago. As soon as she took the tea-tray in, it all stopped, of course. And Mr Jackson forbade her to listen at the drawing-room door.’

  ‘What a shame,’ Carrie grinned. ‘Perhaps we could persuade him to do the listening and report back to us?’

  She giggled at the thought of the po-faced butler doing any such thing. He was every bit as stiff and starchy as one of the penguins strutting around at the zoological gardens nearby.

  ‘Perhaps you’d best get on with your work, Carrie,’ Cook said, suddenly businesslike, and as Carrie glimpsed a dark shape entering the outer door she knew Mr Jackson had returned from whatever mission he’d been on.

  * * *

  It was interesting though, she thought later, up to her elbows in hot soapy water and squeezing it through the delicate lace of Miss Helen’s underpinnings. She wondered if she dared ask the young lady if anything was amiss, and hope to get a reply. It would be even more interesting to hear the details of Miss Helen’s love-life, always presuming she had such a thing. She must be about twenty years old, Carrie surmised, so it was high time she was thinking about getting wed.

  Her eyes went soft for a few moments, letting dreams of love and romance replace the memory of Elsie’s sadness that morning, and the ugliness of death … until the clatter of the delivery wagons at the kitchen entrance, and the scampering of the kitchen maids to do Cook’s bidding in hauling in the heavy crates and sacks, reminded her that she had a task to do.

  That evening, she was fiddling with Miss Helen’s hair in readiness for a country dinner party that the family was attending. Finding that none of her attentions was pleasing her ladyship, she could stand the biting censure no longer. She stood with her hands on her hips, and said the first thing that came into her head.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know what ails you, Miss Helen, but perhaps if you cared to confide in me, we’d all get a bit o’ peace. If there’s a young gentleman on the horizon, then I’m sure he’d rather see a smiling face that that scowling one!’

  She gave a final tug at the unruly lock of hair that refused to stay in its proper place inside the pearl and silver hair clip, and stepped back defiantly as she saw the mixture of astonishment and rage on Helen Barclay’s face.

  ‘You insolent young wretch. I should send you packing immediately for that!’

  Without warning the rage fizzled out, and she was suddenly laughing, amusement dancing in her blue eyes. Carrie backed away uneasily, wondering if her mistress was losing control of her senses, and if she could call someone.

  ‘Oh Carrie, don’t look so worried. I’m not heading for the asylum, I promise you!’ Helen said, almost gasping as she tried to contain her mirth. She stretched out an elegant arm towards her maid and beckoned her forward. She looked a picture of beauty and sweetness in her bronze foulard evening gown, but Carrie knew how quickly that mood could change.

  ‘Come here — if you want to know just why I’m so out of sorts. I suppose I’ve been the source of kitchen gossip lately, which is a necessary evil of the gentry, but as usual the servants have got it all wrong,’ she finished mirthfully.

  ‘I assure you we don’t spend all day discussing you, Miss Helen,’ Carrie said indignantly. That much was true, at least. They didn’t have time to speculate every minute of the day, when there was so much work to be done, especially the poor little kitchen maids with their endless scrubbing and polishing and servitude to Cook and Mr Jackson.

  ‘Never mind all that,’ Helen said impatiently. ‘Now then. You think I have a beau, do you? And that I’m pining for his affections, the way you’re presumably pining for your own young man?’

  ‘Well, something like that,’ Carrie said uneasily, not sure how much agreement Helen wanted from her, nor if she really meant to compare her own situation with Carrie’s.

  ‘Well, you’re completely wrong,’ Helen said. ‘There is a gentleman, a Mr Victor Thornton, but I’ve no possible desire to marry him, or even to be sociable with him. He’s perfectly eligible, but he’s old, and he’s my father’s choice, not mine. And I simply refuse to be married off to an elderly and bumptious country squire on my father’s whim.’

  ‘I see,’ Carrie said, taken aback by her vehemence. ‘And is it Mr Victor Thornton’s home where you’re going tonight, miss?’

  ‘It is,’ Helen said, her lips tightening. ‘And I have to smile and be pleasant and accept the old fool’s arm to go into dinner — and if you dare to breathe a word of this below stairs, I shall have your hide!’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. No-one will hear of it from me, I promise you.’

  Helen gave a faint smile. ‘I haven’t always been fortunate in my choice of maids, but somehow I believe you. Well then. You are now my confidante, and you may wait up for me in my dressing-room until I return home and I shall tell you all that happened. It will be a relief to confide in someone.’ She was becoming more charmed by the minute at the thought of sharing the secret that had been such an unwanted burden until now.

  ‘Very well, miss,’ Carrie said dutifully, hardly knowing how to take this change of mood. She’d half expected to be thrown out on her ear for her cheek, and here she was, being taken into the young lady’s confidence. And Miss Helen could trust her. She had vowed not to reveal below stairs a single word of what was said.

  * * *

  Cook glared at her. ‘Well, I never. You’re more of a sly one than you look, ain’t you, young Carrie?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Cook sniffed. ‘Neither that baggage whose place you took, nor the maid who was here before her was ever invited to wait up in Miss Helen’s dressing-room. They was always summoned down from their beds in the early hours to remove the young lady’s finery, or whatever. Privileged you are, and no mistake.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t ask for it! And I don’t particularly want to wait up, neither. It will give me too much time to think about tomorrow.’

  She couldn’t help thinking about Elsie, alone in that miserable hovel, with the smell of her granpa still lingering, and the fear of death still hovering. She prayed Elsie hadn’t changed her mind about staying with the Stuckeys.

  And here was Cook, and the rest of the below stairs staff, scowling at her as if she’d somehow stolen a march on the rest of them, and wheedled her way into Miss Helen’s good books. It wasn’t fair, when they were the ones who’d started all the gossip about Helen being thwarted in love, as the penny dreadfuls called it.

  ‘Well, I hope it won’t be too late. I need my beauty sleep,’ she said, hoping to provoke a mocking remark in response. Instead, she got a snappy reply from Mr Jackson.

  ‘There’s not much hope of that, miss. The Thornton estate is twenty-five miles from here, and these dinner parties go on very late. They say Mr Victor Thornton is a keen gambling man, and will almost certainly cajole Mr Barclay into a card-playing session while the ladies twiddle their thumbs. I doubt that the family will return much before three o’clock in the morning.’

  From Cook’s furious face, Carrie saw that she realised, like the rest of them, that Mr Jackson had known far more about things than he’d let on. Carrie hid a secret smile, as some of the heat was taken away from her. All the same … three o’clock in the morning …

  * * *

  It was all that and more, when she heard the click of Helen’s bedroom door. She struggled up from the sofa in the dressing-room where she had been dozing, prepared to help the young lady undress for bed, and hoping she didn’t look to
o muzzy from sleep.

  ‘Goodness, are you still awake, Carrie?’ the unpredictable Miss Barclay said. ‘I thought you’d have been chasing sheep long ago. Anyway, I don’t need you. I’m almost dead with fatigue and I shall sleep the sleep of the just tonight.’

  Carrie looked at her furiously. All this time, and now the bitch didn’t want her services at all. Nor was she going to tell her any juicy little tid-bits of gossip, she thought indignantly … it was too much.

  ‘But what about Mr Thornton’s unwelcome attentions, miss?’ She dared to speak his name, her eyes unblinking as she faced her mistress. If her curiosity got her a cuff around the ear, so be it. She heard Helen laugh gaily, and to her complete amazement, she was suddenly caught by both hands and swung around the room.

  ‘He cooked his goose tonight, the old fool,’ she said inelegantly, when they were both out of breath and breathing heavily. ‘He drank too much at dinner, and when they went into the gaming room, Papa caught him cheating at cards. He tried to bluff his way out of it, of course, and said it had been a misunderstanding, but Papa’s such a stickler about that sort of thing, that he’s severed all connection with the Thorntons. Isn’t it wonderful?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Carrie echoed. She couldn’t dash the excitement in Helen’s eyes, but she couldn’t help wondering who her father would have lined up for her next. It must be hell to be rich, and have to have every suitor inspected like a piece of meat on a slab, she thought suddenly. As Helen moved away from her, she wondered if she could decently retire now, when she realised Helen was foraging in her jewel-box.

  Thoughts of that other maid’s dismissal, and the fact that no trace had been found of her or the missing items, surged into her mind. Surely she wasn’t about to be accused of theft, since she had been alone in these rooms for so long.

  Helen turned, a string of gleaming jet beads draped over her fingers. She held it out to Carrie.

  ‘I want you to have this. Wear it tomorrow at your friend’s funeral. I’ve been perfectly beastly to you lately, Carrie, and I don’t usually apologise to servants, so this is my way of making it up to you. Take it and go, before I get too humble and disgrace myself. Go on — take it!’

  She pushed the beads into Carrie’s unwilling hands. She mumbled her thanks and stumbled out of the room, clutching the gift. And all she could think about, was the hope that by tomorrow, Miss Helen wouldn’t have forgotten giving it to her.

  Chapter 11

  Carrie had once witnessed a far posher funeral than Granpa Miller’s, and seen how the gentry decked themselves out in black furs and jewels and the blackest of jet beads and ornaments as if trying to outdo each other.

  It wasn’t the time nor the place to be so done up to the nines, according to Ma. She had always averred that if Christ had seen fit to go to his Maker with his followers unadorned, then there was no need for lesser folk to make such a poppy show of the occasion.

  Carrie remembered that now, and seeing Elsie’s plain apparel at her granpa’s burying, was more than thankful she hadn’t flaunted the jet beads that Helen Barclay had given her.

  She glanced surreptitiously at the pitifully few mourners around the pauper’s grave in the corner of the churchyard. Elsie was snivelling into a torn handkerchief, as befitted the chief mourner, garbed in her usual clothes that Ma had washed and ironed for her. She’d decided to stay in Carrie’s old room after all, and Carrie had found it oddly disturbing to go home that morning, to find Elsie’s things strewn about in a haphazard way.

  But this wasn’t the time to be thinking of such things. To swell the crowd, all the Stuckey family was in attendance, apart from Frank. Wilf was working as a railway navvy now, to Pa’s intense disapproval, and had begged to change shifts with another man to attend the burying. There was the usual group of city urchins lurking about to watch the goings-on. Aside from those, there were a few old stalwarts of Granpa Miller’s ilk, who didn’t look as if they’d last out the day in the keen wind.

  Ma too, looked paler than usual as she dragged her thin coat around her body. If it wasn’t for the promiment lump beneath it, Carrie would swear she was nought but skin and bones, and she felt a stab of alarm. The birth was only a couple of months away, and she should be looking far more robust by now, since Cook sent down as much food as was reasonable from the Barclay kitchen.

  Carrie caught the disapproving eye of the minister. She bent her head quickly, as the words were said over the coffin before it was lowered into the ground. Seconds later, Elsie threw a handful of dirt into the grave. She shuddered at the hollow sound as it hit the coffin Pa had made. A slanting rain had begun to fall, making the day even more dismal.

  ‘We’ll go back to the house now for a bite,’ Ma said briskly. Billy lingered behind in a kind of fearful fascination, alongside the city urchins peering down into the hole that was already being filled in by the gravedigger.

  ‘Will ’e stay down there for ever, boss?’ one of the raggamuffins asked in awe. The gravedigger gave a raucous laugh and scratched his head as if pondering on the question.

  ‘Well, I ain’t seen one that came up again yet, young feller. Though there’s them that reckon they hear a bit o’ nightly moaning from these ’ere graves. I ain’t never put it to the test, mind, and I don’t aim to be startin’ now, but if you’ve a mind to come back around midnight —’

  ‘Come away, Billy,’ Wilf snapped, seeing the boy’s eyes grow rounder and his face whiten, as the gravedigger warmed to his tale.

  He glared at the man, who merely shrugged and continued with his task, while the urchins crowded around him, clearly hoping for more gruesome stories. Wilf pulled Billy along to rejoin the rest of the family.

  Truth to tell, Wilf was none too pleased that the irritating Elsie Miller was going to spend a couple of nights under their roof, and he was glad he’d be out of it for most of the time. But it was hardly right to object when the girl was mourning her granpa. He was cynical enough to suspect that she wouldn’t be mourning for long. Such girls had their own ways of getting over grief.

  His suspicions were confirmed when Elsie sidled across to him as they made the slow procession back to Jacob’s Wells Road, and she slipped her cold hand into his for a moment.

  ‘If you’ve an hour or two to spare, Wilf, I’d be glad of a hand in getting rid of some of me granpa’s old stuff,’ she said huskily. ‘I can’t pay you nothing — leastways, not in money — but you’re welcome to taking the bed and the old wardrobe, if the wood will be of any use to you. You can take anything else that takes your fancy.’

  He extricated his hand from hers. He’d never been in the least charmed by Elsie’s flirtatious posturings and come-hither eyes. It disgusted him that even now she couldn’t help putting it into effect, whether it was done knowingly or not. He’d never be tempted by her in a million years, even if he didn’t already have a sweet girl of his own.

  ‘Pa and me will come back to the house with you and see what’s to be done,’ he said firmly. ‘’Tis no task for a girl, and I doubt that you’ll want any of the bedding and clothes left behind, will you?’

  He saw her shudder, and regretted his harshness. But she obviously realised she wasn’t going to get Wilf back to her cottage alone, and perhaps his curtness had done her a service, because her voice hardened.

  ‘I will not! I’ll be glad to get the smell of ’em out of the house.’

  ‘Then we’ll take ’em away and get ’em burnt,’ he told her more mildly.

  Carrie caught up with them then, and he left the two girls together while he went to take hold of the dawdling Billy’s hand. They wanted no more tripping into the river on this damp and miserable day.

  ‘Your Wilf don’t like me, Carrie, and that’s a fact,’ Elsie said sullenly to her friend.

  Carrie squeezed her hand, and tried to be tactful on this day of all days. ‘It’s not just you, Elsie. He’s already got a girl, though I’m not supposed to talk about it, so don’t go letting on while you’re in the
house, mind. Pa wouldn’t take kindly to it.’

  She stopped, wishing she hadn’t started on this tack. It seemed ludicrous to think that her Pa would object to a healthy young man like Wilf having a girl. It would seem odder if he showed no interest in girls at all. But it would be a different matter if Pa knew it was Nora Woolley who held the key to Wilf’s heart. And as long as Elsie didn’t know that, she couldn’t innocently give the game away.

  It didn’t occur to her to wonder why Elsie didn’t pursue the subject. Nor to notice how Elsie’s eyes flashed, as she remembered the cosy scene of Wilf Stuckey and that Woolley girl in a tea-room. Then Elsie’s eyes got suddenly calculating. Carrie was too concerned over the way Ma kept stopping and holding her side, and how Pa was looking anxious. She ran to Ma’s side.

  ‘Do you want the doctor, Ma?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Ma said. ‘’Tis only the stitch, that’s all. It’ll pass once I’m indoors out of this cold wind and get some hot tea inside me.’

  Carrie knew she hated any fuss, but there were times when she needed to be fussed over, and times when she shut out her own family because of her very self-control. It angered and frustrated Carrie, and as she dropped back to fall into step with Elsie, she turned her anger onto the weather, as a steady drizzle began to seep through their clothes and into their bones.

  ‘This damn awful weather,’ she muttered savagely. ‘Our Frank’s in the best place, somewhere where it’s warm and sunny all the time.’

  ‘Oh ah, and where’s that?’ Elsie said, pulling her shawl around her more tightly. ‘I bet you ain’t even heard from him since he went away.’

  ‘No, we ain’t, but he’d signed up on a trading ship bound for the south of France, so he won’t be having this miserable wet weather, that’s for sure.’