Chaff upon the Wind

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  Closing Mrs Franklin’s bedroom door behind her, Kitty took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders and marched across the landing to the opposite wing and knocked on Miss Miriam’s door. When there was no answer, she opened the door and stepped into the room. Glancing around, she saw at once that Mrs Franklin was quite right. Miriam had left her room looking as if it had indeed been hit by a tornado. The bedclothes were pushed back into an untidy heap and clothes were strewn around the room. The wardrobe door was open and two drawers in the dressing table were pulled out, their contents tossed on the floor as if she had been searching for something in frantic haste. Face powder was littered on the carpet and the glass stopper of a perfume bottle lay in the middle of it. Handkerchiefs, combs and hairpins were scattered everywhere.

  Surveying the chaos, Kitty shook her head and made a little noise of disapproval. Miss Miriam certainly knew how to test her maid’s patience one way or another. Then she smiled wryly, pushed her sleeves up above her elbows and set to work. After all, Kitty reminded herself, this was what she was being paid to do.

  An hour later, the bedroom was restored to order. As Kitty was laying clean underwear in the huge chest of drawers, the door opened and Miriam, dressed for riding, poked her head round it. ‘There you are. I’ve just been to see Teddy and he’s asking for you.’

  Kitty turned and stared at the girl. ‘But I—’

  Miriam, obviously thinking Kitty was about to make an excuse that she had too much work to do, waved her hand airily. ‘Oh leave all that. You can do that any time. Go and spend half an hour with Teddy. He gets so fed up being on his own.’

  To Kitty’s surprise, the girl glanced down and fiddled with the whip she held in her hands. ‘I know I ought to spend more time with him, but I can’t.’ She bit her lip and added, ‘I – I tried to stay with him just now, but it upsets me to see him suffering so. He’s bad this morning.’

  For a brief moment, the selfish pout to Miriam’s mouth softened and a look of sadness flitted across her bright eyes. She turned away swiftly and Kitty was left staring at the closed door.

  So, she thought with amazement, Miss Miriam has a soft spot for her sickly younger brother. For the first time, Kitty’s heart warmed towards her new young mistress. If she was kind to him, even if to no one else, then Kitty could forgive her a great deal.

  Edward was sitting up in bed against a mountain of pillows, his lips parted as he fought to pull in the next breath.

  ‘Oh Master Edward, can I get you anything? Shall I fetch your mother?’

  He shook his head and gasped his reply in short, staccato phrases, pulling in a rasping breath between each one. ‘No – it’s all right. It’s just an asthma attack.’

  It was very frightening to watch the young boy fight for each breath, his skin shining with sweat, his lips tinged with blue, yet Kitty was not afraid. Before she had come into service, she had often sat through the night with her younger brother, Timothy, while her mother had a few hours’ rest.

  ‘My mother says – you’re her new – maid. And Miriam’s too.’

  Kitty avoided a direct answer by saying, ‘I don’t think you ought to try to talk, Master Edward. Lie quietly. Shall I come back when you’re feeling better?’

  ‘No . . .’ His voice was high-pitched. ‘Don’t leave me. Please – stay. I – don’t want to be alone.’ His hands plucked at the edge of the bedclothes covering him.

  She moved to the side of the bed and hitched herself up to sit on the edge. ‘My brother Timothy gets asthma. Me mam always tells him to lie ever so still and try to let himself go limp all over. Ya know, like this.’ Kitty slumped her shoulders, dropped her head and let her arms and hands relax completely. ‘And try to breathe gently. Don’t try to take in deep breaths, just little ones.’

  The boy let out a breath and his hands lay still. He closed his eyes and for a moment there was no sound in the room. Kitty watched him. Now he wasn’t breathing at all.

  ‘Ya’ve got to breathe a bit, though, Master Edward.’

  A small smile twitched the corner of his mouth and his eyes opened. He tried to taking a gentle, shallow breath and then pushed it out again, wheezing as he did so.

  He followed her instructions for several minutes, not saying anything, while Kitty sat beside him, just watching.

  ‘It’s a horrid feeling,’ he said at last. ‘As if someone’s sitting on your chest.’

  Kitty smiled. ‘Timothy always ses it’s like being buried in a haystack.’

  ‘I know – what he means.’ He paused for another few moments, concentrating on his shallow breathing and trying to lie still. Then he said, ‘Talk to me Kitty. Tell me about your family.’

  ‘Why should you want to know about my family? We’re not anybody interesting.’

  ‘You are to me, Kitty Clegg,’ he murmured, so softly that she scarcely caught his words.

  Kitty shrugged. Maybe, she thought with sudden intuition, any conversation was preferable to the lonely hours he spent shut away in his sickroom.

  ‘Well, now,’ she said settling herself more comfortably on the bed beside him. ‘There’s me mam and dad and us eight kids.’

  ‘Eight? Heavens!’

  ‘Lie still, Master Edward, and don’t talk, else I won’t stay.’

  ‘Please, Kitty. Go on. I won’t say another word.’

  ‘Promise?’

  The boy pressed his lips together and nodded.

  ‘Me dad’s the stationmaster and we live in one of the station houses. Me mam cleans the waiting room and the offices, an’ that.’ She paused and then added, ‘I didn’t know until I came to work here three years ago that me mam used to work for your grandmother.’

  The boy’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth, but remembering his promise just in time he closed it again, giving a slight shrug with his thin shoulders as a negative reply.

  Kitty nodded, as if understanding what he had been going to say. ‘No, you’ll not remember it, ’cos it was before I was born, before me man and dad were married. Anyway,’ she went on, ‘I’m the eldest at sixteen, then there’s our George who works on the land. Then there’s Timothy, he’s the one who has asthma, then Milly, she’s thirteen and she’s just come to work here to take my place as kitchen maid. After her, there’s Grace, Jane and the little one, Bobbie.’

  Silently, Edward held up seven fingers and looked at her questioningly.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Kitty murmured and a note of sadness crept into her voice. ‘There was eight of us. Little Connie died not long after I started working here. She – she got whooping cough. Connie, Gracie and Timothy all got it, but she was so bad . . .’ Her voice faltered, still remembering the dreadful day when Mrs Grundy had sat her down on a kitchen chair and broken the awful news to her that her little sister had died. ‘The mistress is giving you a week off to go home and help ya mam,’ the cook had said. ‘Isn’t that kind of her, now?’

  Kitty felt again the lump in her throat that she had felt then. It had been her first direct experience of her mistress’s thoughtfulness.

  Now Edward did speak, the painful rasp of his breathing already easier. ‘I had whooping cough too, three years ago. That’s when this asthma started. Maybe Timothy too?’

  Kitty nodded. ‘Yeah. Me mam said it left him with a weakness. Maybe you’re right, maybe . . .’

  Heavy footsteps sounded on the landing and the bedroom door flew open.

  Kitty twisted round and her heart thumped as the booming voice of Mr Franklin filled the room with anger. ‘What on earth are you doing in this room, girl? Out, at once.’

  Kitty slid down from the bed and scuttled out of the room, but not before she had heard Edward’s breathing once again become harsh and agonizing.

  Eight

  ‘I thought I told you that girl was never to work above stairs?’

  Kitty, on her way down to the kitchen, her arms full of Miss Miriam’s laundry, paused outside the drawing-room door at the sound of
the master’s voice raised in anger and knew instinctively that she was the subject of their discussion. She held her breath. Now it would come. Now she would hear the master telling his wife what Miriam must, by this time, have told him about their battle.

  But Mrs Franklin was speaking calmly. ‘I didn’t think you would object.’ She was quite unruffled by her husband’s temper, adding, with mysterious but deliberate intention, ‘In the circumstances.’

  Mr Franklin grunted. ‘It’s one thing to employ the girl, quite another for her to have free run of the house where I might encounter her.’

  ‘Henry, the girl cannot help being who she is. She’s a good child and she has already shown that she can handle Miriam.’

  Kitty winced as she continued to eavesdrop. Surely now, it was going to come out what had happened between her and Miss Miriam!

  To her surprise, Mrs Franklin was saying instead, ‘I am thankful to have her here. I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but I am. She has always been a good little kitchen maid, and now she’s worthy of something better. And she’s so good with poor Edward too.’

  ‘ “Poor Edward”, be damned! The boy’s a milksop, a mother’s boy. He’ll never amount to anything worthwhile if you continue to mollycoddle him.’

  ‘Edward will be a fine young man,’ Mrs Franklin said in a voice so quiet now that Kitty scarcely heard her words, ‘if he lives long enough.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ Mr Franklin boomed. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the boy that a day’s riding in the fresh air wouldn’t cure. Thank God for Miriam, I say. Now that girl’s got spirit. Takes after me . . .’

  Kitty had never imagined that the mistress – that lovely, gentle creature – could be so authoritative and towards, of all people in the world, her husband, but now, there was silence as Mrs Franklin made no reply.

  ‘Clegg. Clegg! Where are you?’ Miriam’s voice echoed shrilly from the first-floor landing and Kitty nearly dropped the tea tray she was carrying down the stairs from Mrs Franklin’s sitting room.

  ‘Coming, miss.’

  She hurried up the steps into the kitchen and banged the tray down on to the kitchen table. ‘Wash them pots for us, our Milly. Miss Miriam’s shouting for me and she don’t ’alf sound in a temper. I’d best go straight up.’

  ‘But I’ve got all these taties to peel for Mrs Grundy. I can’t—’

  But Kitty was gone, through the door and up the stairs two at a time.

  Miriam was sitting at her dressing table, her long auburn hair cascading down her back in a wild tangle of curls.

  ‘And about time. I want you to brush my hair and put it up. I suppose you do know how to put hair up, don’t you?’ The girl eyed Kitty sceptically through the mirror.

  Silently thanking Mrs Franklin for the hour’s instruction, Kitty said, ‘I’ll do my best, miss.’

  ‘Get on with it then,’ Miriam said, tossing the hairbrush towards her.

  As Kitty stood behind her young mistress and brushed the long shining hair with easy, rhythmic strokes of the hairbrush, Miriam said softly, ‘So, neither of us went telling tales, then?’

  ‘Evidently not, miss.’

  Miriam’s eyebrows rose fractionally and she pulled her mouth down at the corners and repeated mockingly, ‘ “Evidently not.” Such big words for a kitchen maid.’

  Kitty, without pausing in her task, took a deep breath. It was time to take a firm stand. ‘Am I? Is that what I am, then, Miss Miriam? Just a kitchen maid?’

  She could see the girl struggling with an inner conflict, could see Miriam debating with herself, realizing that, despite the disadvantages, it was better to have Kitty Clegg as her maid then no maid at all.

  In the girl’s green eyes there was a sudden glint of mischief, which Kitty saw at once and understood.

  ‘Well,’ Miriam drawled, ‘if you are so determined to be my maid, then you’d better learn to speak properly. No more “I aren’t” or “ya mam”.’

  Kitty bridled. ‘I aren’t ashamed of the way I talk,’ she began, but then, with the same spark of devilment, she mimicked the speech and mannerisms of her betters. ‘But I can, if I so wish, talk like the gentry, m’lady.’ She waved her hand in the air in an affected gesture.

  Miriam’s eyes widened as she stared at Kitty in the mirror. Then suddenly she threw back her head and laughed. ‘Do you know, Kitty Clegg, I think, after all, that we might do very well together.’

  There was no fear that Kitty could not have time off to be Jack’s Harvest Nell, for it was the custom at the Manor Farm that when nearly all the corn had been cut, a small circle of uncut wheat was always left in the centre of the last field. On the Saturday of Harvest Festival weekend, this would be cut and the thresherman would fashion a sheaf-high corn maiden from it. In triumph the last load would be carried to the farm’s stackyard amid much shouting and laughter and merrymaking, with the Harvest Queen sitting on top. On the Sunday, the Franklin family and all their servants, including the threshermen, would attend the Harvest Festival service in the church in the centre of town.

  ‘I’d like you to come to the church with me today, Kitty,’ Mrs Franklin told her on the Thursday morning before the weekend of the festivities. ‘Bemmy will drive us and carry everything in for us.’

  ‘You mean I’m to help you decorate the church, madam, for Sunday?’

  When Mrs Franklin nodded, Kitty bit her lip. ‘What about Miss Miriam? She wants me to cut her hair this morning and . . .’

  Mrs Franklin waved her hand. ‘That will have to wait, Kitty. We must decorate the church. All the ladies will be there this morning. We must not be late.’

  ‘Yes, madam – I mean, no, madam.’

  ‘Run along and get ready then, Kitty. We’ll be leaving in ten minutes.’

  Kitty ran lightly up the back stairs to her bedroom to fetch the short cape she wore over her maid’s uniform when walking into the town.

  ‘Clegg, where the hell are you?’ She heard Miriam’s angry shriek as she came down the stairs from her bedroom under the sloping thatch to the floor where the family’s bedrooms were.

  Pushing open the door to Miriam’s room she began, ‘I’m sorry, miss, but—’

  ‘Oh there you are. Come along, I want you to wash my hair for me and then trim the ends with these scissors.’ She turned on the stool to face Kitty. ‘Well, what are you standing there for, dithering in the doorway? Come along. I’ve been waiting long enough.’

  ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ Kitty began again, ‘but ya mam – your mother – wants me to go with her to the church to help—’

  Miriam sprang up from the stool and launched herself across the room. Grasping Kitty’s arm, she dragged her away from the door. Caught off balance Kitty stumbled and fell and when she had scrambled to her feet, it was to see that Miriam had slammed the door, locked it and was now holding the key in her hand and waving it towards Kitty in triumph.

  ‘There! Now you’ll have to stay and help me.’

  Kitty felt righteous anger surge through her. Miriam had no thought of the trouble she was causing for Kitty, making her disobey Mrs Franklin’s orders. The girl was completely and utterly selfish.

  ‘No, I won’t. Give me that key this minute.’

  Miriam laughed and dropped the key down the front of her corset. ‘Come and get it, if you dare.’

  ‘Oh I dare,’ Kitty said grimly and stepped towards her.

  Miriam raised her hands across her bosom and grinned defiantly at the advancing Kitty, her green eyes flashing with excitement. Kitty tugged her arms away and grasped hold of the top edge of the girl’s laced-up corset.

  ‘Ow, you little bitch! That hurts,’ Miriam screeched and lashed out at Kitty, catching her on the shoulder. Kitty held on, undaunted by the blow. That was one advantage of being part of a large, boisterous family, she thought, you learned to take care of yourself.

  ‘Let go. Do you hear me?’ Miriam tried being the imperious mistress, but to no avail as slowly the corset began to giv
e under Kitty’s grasp.

  Suddenly, Miriam twisted away, wrenching Kitty’s hands painfully so that the maid was forced to release her grip. Miriam flew across to the dressing table and picked up the scissors, holding them in her clenched hand like a dagger, ready to strike a blow.

  ‘Now see if you’re so brave, Kitty Clegg.’

  Kitty stood her ground and sighed. ‘You’re being silly, miss,’ she said, managing to keep her voice sounding far more calm than she felt inside. ‘Put them scissors down afore one of us gets hurt.’

  ‘Them scissors, them scissors?’ Miriam mocked, her voice rising in something approaching hysteria. ‘Ain’t you learned nuffin’ yet, you scurvy little kitchen maid?’

  Kitty opened her mouth to reason once more. There was a knock on the door and, startled, both girls looked towards it.

  ‘Miriam? Kitty?’ came Edward’s breathless voice. ‘What’s – happening? Open the door.’

  ‘Go away, Teddy dear,’ Miriam said, her tone at once gentle and so normal that Kitty could not help but marvel. My word, she thought, Miss Miriam is certainly a good actress. Though which was reality and which was the act, Kitty could not begin to guess.

  But it seemed that Edward was not to be dismissed so easily. ‘Please, Miriam, do – open . . .’ Clearly, even through the thick oak panels, they heard his rasping breath. ‘Open the door.’

  Kitty looked towards her young mistress, but now she said nothing. She was watching her intently, waiting to see what the girl would do.

  Slowly, Miriam’s hand was lowered and she dropped the pair of scissors on to the dressing table with a clatter. She looked up and met Kitty’s gaze. Softly, in a tone that could not be heard beyond the door, she said, ‘You win – for now, Kitty Clegg. But only because of Edward.’ She raised her voice and called, ‘It’s all right, Teddy dear, I’m just coming. We – we were just having a bit of fun.’ She was raising her arm to an awkward angle and trying to thrust her hand down the front of her corset. ‘I can’t feel it . . .’ Then suddenly she was convulsed with helpless laughter. ‘Come here, Kitty,’ she spluttered, ‘you’ll have to get it for yourself after all.’