‘You, of course!’
He laughed. ‘Whatever are you on about now? I can’t drive a motor-car.’
‘No, but you can learn. Get Monty to show you - it can’t be that difficult. Why, you could even pay him.’ The more I thought about the idea, the more sense it made. ‘The Vyes are off to London this weekend, and they usually go up by train. If you buy the petrol and throw in a bit extra, I’m sure you could get Monty to stay on here till Sunday and take you out driving. At least that would be a start. Once His Lordship sees you know the basics, you can always practise.’
Father shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Grace. Could you really see me behind the wheel of one of those great things? You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’
‘Of course you can!’ I was beginning to lose patience. ‘We’re all doing different things - look at Ma and me in the gardens, and Tom learning how to be a soldier. The world’s changing, Da, and we have to change with it or get left behind. Motoring’s the way of the future, it has to be. Who’ll bother with a horse and carriage when a motor-car is twice as fast and half as much bother? Apart from old Lady Vye, that is, and the world won’t arrange itself according to her liking.’
Father pondered for a while until he managed to come up with another objection. ‘We still don’t have a groom, though. How could I manage the car and the horses, single-handed? I’m hardly keeping my head above water as it is.’
‘You’re bound to get some help sooner or later,’ I said. ‘It’ll be a lot easier to find a groom than a chauffeur. Anyone who can drive has probably gone off to the Front by now.’ The thing was, a most extraordinary idea had been growing in my head about that, too, but I wasn’t ready to risk sharing it with my father. One step at a time…
‘All right, I’ll give it some thought,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m not saying yes, but I’m not saying no. You’ll have to make do with that.’
Well, it was a start.
I should have liked to mull over this extraordinary idea of mine for a little while longer, but it was not to be. The very next day (a Thursday, it was - I remember clearly), Mrs Jeakes decided I was ready to make puff pastry, for eccles cakes. She’d gone through the recipe and I’d helped Florrie with it several times in the past, so I was quite confident. Sift the flour, mix it to a paste with water (not too much), chop a quarter of the butter into pieces, fold the paste over them and roll it out. Repeat four times until all the butter has been used up, remembering not to press too hard on the rolling pin and dusting it with flour each time.
All that buttering and flouring and rolling took for ever, but I was pleased with myself by the end, and presented the pastry slab to Mrs Jeakes with an idea that she might have to eat her words about my heavy hand.
‘Right, now you can go and throw that straight into the pigswill,’ she said, fixing me with her little curranty eyes. ‘Start again from scratch, and do it properly this time.’
‘What do you mean?’ I stammered. ‘What have I done wrong? I’ve been ever so careful with the rolling.’
‘Oh, your rolling’s all right, more or less. It’s what happened before the rolling that I’m worried about. What did you do with the butter? Or rather, what did you forget to do with it?’
I’d cut the butter into quarters and then little pieces; what else should I have done? It had been covered in salt to keep fresh. Had I remembered to sluice off the salt? Surely I wouldn’t have forgotten that! Mrs Jeakes was still glaring at me; I had to say something.
‘I washed the butter and then cut it up - ‘ I began, hoping for the best.
She pounced. ‘That’s it, you daft nincompoop! How many times have I told you? You have to wring the butter out in a cloth to get rid of every drop of water and buttermilk, or the pastry ends up heavy as a housebrick. The only thing those eccles cakes would have been good for is firing at the Germans.’
I looked down at the pastry, which had taken me the best part of an hour to make. ‘But you saw me, Mrs Jeakes,’ I said, unable to hold back the words. ‘You were watching all the time. Why didn’t you stop me at the beginning?’
‘Because this way, even a feather-brained halfwit such as yourself won’t forget to wring out the butter in future!’ she roared. ‘Now get on with the next batch before I take that rolling pin to you.’
I started to untie my apron strings.
‘What in heaven’s name are you doing now?’ Mrs Jeakes asked, her voice dangerously quiet.
I took the apron off and laid it on the table, and then I looked her straight in the face. ‘It’s time to give up the challenge, ma’am,’ I said. (How did I find the nerve?) ‘You’ve done your best with me, and I’ve done my best with you, but I’ll never make a decent kitchenmaid and we both know it. You’d be better off without me.’
You could have heard a pin drop in that kitchen. Florrie stood at the other end of the table with her mouth open and a knife poised in mid-air above the chopping board. Dora froze in the scullery doorway. Mrs Jeakes stared at me for what seemed an age, but I didn’t look away. Everything had become suddenly clear. I didn’t give a fig for puff pastry, or duchesse potatoes, or stewed carrots, or any of it. Aunt Lizzie’s words echoed in my head: it was time to get out of the kitchen and make something of myself.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Mrs Jeakes said at last. ‘But may I enquire, as a matter of interest, what you intend to do with yourself instead?’
‘I’m going to the stables, to work as a groom for my father,’ I said.
The look on her face almost made my year and a half in the kitchen worthwhile. Almost, but not quite.
Five
The disappearance of the younger male servants in big establishments steadily continues. A post is waiting at the Labour Exchanges for a woman willing to go to the North of Ireland to do the work of a coachman and one, as has already been noted in The Times, has already replaced a man where a groom was kept at Taplow.
From The Times, 22 April 1915
‘It’s absolutely out of the question.’ Mr Braithwaite, the land agent at Swallowcliffe, stared at me with a very similar expression to the one that had been on Mrs Jeakes’ face, when I stood in front of him an hour or so later in the estate office. ‘What do you think Lord Vye would say about having a girl in his stables? You belong in the house.’
‘But there are ladies working in the gardens now, sir.’ I tried not to sound too desperate. The thought of going back to Mrs Jeakes with my tail between my legs was not to be contemplated, and she probably wouldn’t have let me over the threshold into the kitchen anyway. What could I do instead? Lie about my age and ask for a job on the omnibus alongside Ivy? Ma would be over the moon about that.
I had to win Mr Braithwaite round; he was already looking at the clock and pushing back his chair. Luckily he brushed a sheaf of letters off his cluttered desk in the process, which delayed him a little. I dropped to my knees and began picking them up. The office was in a dreadful mess, with papers heaped everywhere in drifts, and I’d been shocked by the state of the yard outside. Weeds were growing up through the cobblestones, the wood cart was half in and half out of the shed, and an untidy pile of logs sat waiting to be split by the carpenter’s workshop, getting nicely soaked in the drizzle. Nobody seemed to be about. The woodsman and the carpenter must have gone the way of the garden lads: off on a troop ship to France.
‘Please give me a chance, Mr Braithwaite,’ I begged, shuffling the papers together and stacking them on top of an existing pile. ‘I’ve been helping Father out in the stables since I was little. The horses know me, and I can ride perfectly well.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ he sighed, running his hands through his oily black hair, ‘and goodness knows, your father’s in terrible need of a groom. But it’s no job for a young lady, outside in all weathers and cleaning out dirty stalls - quite different from baking sponge cakes in a nice warm kitchen. You wouldn’t last five minutes.’
I almost laughed. Is that how he imagined we passed our time? He should try ske
wering a whole suckling pig on a spit, or scouring a sinkful of copper pans with yeast and silver sand. ‘Just give me a week to prove myself,’ I said. ‘That’s all I’m asking.’
He got to his feet and started towards the door. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. I honestly think you’d be better off back in the kitchen. Or why not see whether Mrs Maroney needs another housemaid?’
The thought of that made me desperate. I stood in front of the door, blocking his way. ‘Please, just give me some kind of a test. I know! Let me clean up the yard. Then you’ll see what I can do.’
He frowned at me. I widened my eyes and implored him with a smile, trying my best to look winsome. Mr Braithwaite has an eye for the ladies, it’s well known. He danced with Florrie three times at the servants’ party and tried to kiss her afterwards in the corridor, though he didn’t take it to heart when she pushed him away. He’s not so bad, all in all.
Then he smiled too, and my heart leapt. ‘Well, I never could resist a pretty face,’ he said, reaching past me to unhook his hat from the back of the door. ‘I shall be away for a couple of hours. If you insist on pottering about here while I’m gone, I shan’t stop you. But look, it’s raining. Your hair will get wet, and you won’t like that one little bit.’
‘Oh, I’ll manage,’ I assured him. We went out of the office together and he locked the door behind me.
‘Until later then, young lady,’ he said, tipping his hat to me. ‘If you’re still here when I get back, that is.’ I could hear him chuckling under his breath as he walked away.
I waited until he was quite out of the yard. Then I threw my shawl over my hair, rolled up my sleeves and set to work.
‘Grace! Put that down, for goodness’ sake, before you do yourself a mischief.’
The only one in danger of being hurt was Mr Braithwaite himself, grabbing my arm like that when I was about to bring down the axe. ‘But I’ve nearly finished, sir,’ I told him, slightly out of breath. ‘Only a couple more logs to go. They’ll need drying out for a while before they’re ready for the fire, though.’
I’d found a couple of baskets in the carpenters’ workshop, which were now brimming with freshly split logs. There had also been a hoe propped against the wall in the gardeners’ bothy which I thought Mr McKinley wouldn’t mind me borrowing (luckily I hadn’t run into Ma), and all the weeds that had been standing up so proudly between the cobblestones lay in a forlorn pile on the compost heap. I’d swept the yard, carried a stack of broken chairs from the wood shed into the carpenters’ workshop, and then rolled the cart into its proper position so the door could be properly bolted. That was a job and a half, but a combination of pulling and pushing with my whole weight against the heavy old thing had eventually got its wheels moving. The effort had half killed me, but I reckoned it was worth it for the sake of a job in the stables.
Mr Braithwaite stared around. The whole place looked quite different now that someone had paid it a little attention. ‘Did you do all that yourself?’
I nodded.
‘Who taught you how to use an axe?’
‘My father. I’m a handy sort of person to have about the place, Mr Braithwaite, you’ll see. I’m fit and strong, and a drop of rain doesn’t bother me. I’m happy to muck out the stables, or clean harness, or wash down the carriages - whatever’s required. And Father will keep me in line. We’re used to working together.’
‘I take it you’ve discussed this with him?’
I couldn’t say yes but I couldn’t bring myself to say no, either, so I made a kind of ‘hmm-hmm’ noise in my throat which could have meant anything, and hoped that would do.
Luckily, it seemed to. ‘The final decision rests with His Lordship, of course,’ Mr Braithwaite said, still looking around the yard. ‘I shall be seeing him later this afternoon and I’m prepared to put the idea to him. That’s the best I can do. If you go to the stables for the time being, I’ll let you know in due course.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ I curtseyed and hurried off before he could change his mind.
Da was nowhere to be seen in the stables and the gig wasn’t in the coach-house; he must have been taking it out and about. I fetched a pitchfork and wheelbarrow and began mucking out the dirty stalls, exhausted though I was, wondering what I had started with one rash remark to Mrs Jeakes. The words had come out of my mouth before I’d thought twice, yet now the possibility of becoming a groom was within reach, my heart was set on it. This was what I wanted more than anything in my life before. There would be a few details to sort out, of course, like where I’d take my meals and what I should wear (my sodden, muddy dress flapped around my ankles and seemed to attract hay seeds like a magnet), but they weren’t important. Working here with my father was all I cared about. Could such a wonderful thing ever happen?
Well, yes, apparently it could; I started the day as a kitchenmaid, and ended it as a groom.
‘Whatever possessed you?’ Florrie demanded, bursting into our bedroom that night to find me lying on the bed, resting my weary bones. ‘Talking to Mrs Jeakes like that! She’s been muttering about it ever since. She won’t have you back, you know.’
‘I don’t want to come back,’ I said, propping myself up on my elbows, and then I told Florrie and Dora the whole story.
‘G-g-good f-f-f-or you,’ Dora said, but Florrie wasn’t nearly so enthusiastic.
‘Look at the state you’re in!’ she said, picking up the hem of my dress between her finger and thumb. ‘You’ll have to give those hands a thorough scrub, and your frock’s ruined. Why would you ever choose to work in such a dirty old place? It’s not worth it, just to spite Mrs Jeakes.’
‘That’s not why I’m doing it!’ I swung down my legs and sat up. ‘Honestly, Florrie, it’s my idea of heaven, spending all day in the stables. It might not suit you, but everyone’s different, aren’t they? And you have to admit, I was never a very good kitchenmaid.’
‘That’s true enough.’ She sat on her bed and looked at me. ‘It still doesn’t seem right, though, having a girl for a groom. What did your father say?’
‘Oh, Father’s so grateful for any help that he came round to the idea in the end. Besides, he probably thinks he can keep a closer eye on me if we’re working together. It’s all turning out perfectly, Florrie - I can’t tell you how happy I am! I’m to be given two pairs of riding breeches and some decent leather boots, and Da’s going to fetch our dinner from the yardhouse so we can eat in the harness-room.’ (The yardhouse was where the remaining outdoor staff - the gamekeeper, gardener, handyman and so on - took their meals, but they were all men and it wouldn’t have been right for me to join them.)
‘Riding breeches!’ Florrie was scandalised. ‘You can’t go about in those! Whatever will people say?’
‘Breeches will be much handier around the stables than a print frock, and Her Ladyship thinks so too. I’ve never got on with riding side-saddle.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’re all cock-a-hoop, though heaven only knows why,’ Florrie said, taking up her towel. ‘I should imagine you won’t give us poor creatures a second thought, slaving away in the kitchen, but we shall miss you. Won’t we, Dora?’
Dora nodded vigorously.
How could I have been so stupid? Crowing about my new job without a care for anyone else’s feelings. ‘But you’ll still be seeing more than enough of me,’ I told them both, ‘since I’m to carry on sleeping here. Will you visit the stables sometimes, too, for a proper chat?’
Florrie sniffed. ‘Perhaps, if we’re not too busy.’
I fetched my towel too and linked arms with her so we could go to the bathroom together. ‘I shall miss you like anything,’ I said when Dora was out of earshot, not wanting her to feel left out. ‘Of course I will. Think of all the laughs we’ve had together behind old Jeaksy’s back. I won’t be far away, though.’
‘I know,’ she said, sitting on the edge of the bath while I started to wash in the basin. (The colour of that water!) ‘It’s just, what with Alf going off, and
now you … It won’t be the same in the kitchen if you’re not there. Everything’s up in the air, Grace, and I don’t like it.’
‘It’ll all work out for the best, you’ll see,’ I promised, drying my hands and coming to give her a hug. ‘Just because things are different, doesn’t mean they’ll be worse.’
‘Do you really think so?’ She held me tight. ‘Sometimes it feels as though I’m at the edge of a cliff and there’s nothing I can do to stop myself falling over - only wait for it to happen.’
My heart went out to Florrie, but my head was too full of plans and possibilities to feel so hopeless. It seemed to me that I was leaping forward, like a salmon swimming upstream, and how could that not be exciting? Doing something - anything, almost - was better than sitting around, moping. Of course I was worried to death about Tom and this dreadful war, but surely it was better to seize whatever opportunities came my way than to let them pass by. Besides, what was the point in us both being sad? So I did my best to cheer Florrie up. When we were back in the bedroom, I made her repeat everything that Mrs Jeakes had said after I’d left the kitchen. There’s no one who can imitate Mrs Jeakes like she does, and I think she went to sleep in a happier frame of mind.
Florrie wasn’t the only one to be less than delighted at the prospect of my new position. Ma had to be sat down with a strong cup of tea in the harness-room to get over the shock of seeing me in my breeches, forking up dirty straw into the wheelbarrow. She’d dropped by the stables unexpectedly to bring Da the snap tin of bread and cheese for elevenses he’d left at home that morning.
‘How could you let her do it, Will?’ she asked him, hardly able to bring herself to look at me. ‘You should have sent her back to the kitchen, lickety split. The idea of it! Our little Grace, dressed up like a man and getting her hands filthy dirty. She should be turning into a young lady, not a labourer.’
‘No one’ll see me in breeches except Father,’ I said, trying to reassure her. ‘I’m to be given a riding habit for driving the gig. Anyway, you’re working in the gardens. How is this any different?’
Grace's Story Page 5