by Mira Stables
“Philip, Philip! Manners, my child! Here is Miss Beverley travelled all this way to look after us all and teach you your lessons, and all you can do is babble about ponies. Make your bow like a gentleman, if you please.”
The child turned reluctantly to do his bidding. Ann wondered a little that Mr. Delvercourt should so far have forgotten his own childhood as to expect proper courtesy from an over-excited child. But it would never do to begin by questioning his methods of training, so she slid down to the ground, looped the rein over her arm and acknowledged the introduction with due formality.
By this time Mr. Delvercourt had turned away to speak to a middle aged man who had suddenly materialized from nowhere and was leaning on the yard wall explaining something about, “t’strawberry roan”. Philip was dancing up and down with impatience but the slow-spoken rustic was absorbing all his brother’s attention.
“Yes, Philip,” said Ann, suddenly making up her mind. “He did indeed buy you a pony, and it seems a great shame that I should have seen him before you did. But your brother will tell you all about him when he is less occupied. And I think our first lesson will have to be about some of the famous horses of history. There are a great many of them, you know, and they have some splendid sounding names. You might like to name your pony for one of them, though I must confess he doesn’t look quite like a Pegasus or a Bucephalus. You will have to get to know him before you decide.”
The child’s face cleared magically. “Patrick said you were a reg’lar right ’un,” he told her earnestly. “Will you make us puddings and cakes? And not say I have to eat up my meat if it’s fat?”
“I like making cakes and puddings,” Ann told him, carefully avoiding the vexed question of fat meat. “Which are your favourites?”
But Philip was scarcely launched on what promised to be an exhaustive catalogue when a deep amused voice said gently, “I thought you laid no claim to the knack of managing small children, Miss Beverley. Yet here is Philip who, I may tell you, is strongly opposed to the idea of education, already—almost literally, in fact—eating out of your hand.”
Ann looked slightly guilty. “I’m afraid I stole your thunder, sir. Since you were so busy, I told him that you had bought him a pony. Which naturally predisposed him in my favour. The idea that his first lessons should be about horses also took well, while cakes and puddings to a small boy”—
He smiled. “Let us see if you show equal skill in dealing with Janet’s prejudices,” he suggested, and lifted the latch and stood aside for her to precede him into the kitchen.
Chapter Five
It was a long low-pitched room, and even on this bright afternoon the light was dim, save immediately under the windows. It had a heavily beamed ceiling that caused its owner to duck his head with the unconscious familiarity of long usage, and the floor was stone flagged and innocent of any covering save for a home made list rug in gay colours that was spread in front of the fire.
So much Ann had time to notice before she realized that someone was sitting in the high-backed chair that was drawn up to the fire. She heard the click of knitting needles but the knitter had her back to them and obviously had not heard them come in. Mr. Delvercourt crossed to the hearth saying, “Here we are at last, Janet. Had you given us up?” He raised his voice a little, and Ann realized that Janet must be hard of hearing.
She was considerably startled to see that the old lady who now rose to greet them was wearing a black silk gown that, save for its out-moded style, would not have demeaned a Duchess, and had further embellished her appearance by donning a beautifully laundered lace cap and putting a heavy gold locket about her throat. It was plain to be seen that Janet was very much on her dignity and did not take kindly to the notion of being superseded by some impudent upstart wench. She had summoned all the resources of her wardrobe to her aid in her determination to depress the intruder’s pretensions. It was an attitude that evoked Ann’s sympathy, even while she knew that it might make things difficult for her. After all—who would want to be shown, however kindly, that they were past useful work?
She acknowledged her introduction to Mistress Howson with quiet courtesy but waited for the older woman to take the conversational lead. But it was Mr. Delvercourt who plunged into the breach, saying in a puzzled voice, “You’re very fine today, Janet. Don’t tell me I’ve forgotten your birthday again!”
“I put on my best to honour to Miss Beverley’s coming,” said Janet stiffly.
Instinct warned Patrick that the next half hour might be a little awkward. It was no place for a mere male. “And very becomingly you look,” he told her. “But I must go and shed my respectable clothes and get into working rig. I’ll leave Miss Beverley in your charge.”
Left to their own devices, the two eyed each other warily. “You’ll take a cup of tea, Miss Beverley?” enquired Janet primly.
“Oh, please!” said Ann. “Do you know, it is the best part of a week since I last enjoyed a cup of tea. In the posting inns it is much safer to order coffee. When Mistress Hartley offered me tea last night I had not realized that hers would probably be drinkable.”
There was the faintest discernible thaw in Janet’s attitude. “Yes, you could trust Isabella Hartley. A gradely woman and a rare cook.” She went competently about the business of filling the kettle at a pump over the sink, proudly pointing out the advantage of having water laid on to the kitchen, “Mr. Patrick had it done after we were frozen up for two months one winter,” hanging the kettle on a hook over the fire and setting out two cups of a delicacy that seemed oddly out of place in this workaday setting. “And you can safely trust my tea,” she told the newcomer. “It’s one luxury that Mr. Patrick insists upon, though I doubt me that’s mainly for my sake, for it’s rarely he drinks it himself.” Her lips snapped shut on that, as though already she feared she had unbent too far.
Ann knew better than to offer assistance, or even to comment on Janet’s remarks, in so far as they concerned her master. It seemed safer to speak of tea. “If the tea is worthy of these cups, it will be the finest tea I ever tasted,” she said, lifting one carefully in both hands to examine it more closely.
“Brought back by Mr. Patrick’s grandpa, so he says, from eastern parts where the tea grows,” volunteered Janet, pleased, and poured hot water into a clumsy earthenware teapot. She waved it under Ann’s gaze before tipping the water into the slopstone. “Those fine chaney cups are well enough for drinking, but there’s nothing like this for making a good brew.”
They drank their tea in the appreciative silence which, as Janet had indicated, was its due, Ann studying the big farm kitchen with frank interest and occasionally stealing a covert glance at her companion. Since Janet seemed disinclined for talk, she too kept silence. Moreover she was beginning to feel a trifle daunted at the magnitude of the task that she had so light-heartedly undertaken. There was so little here that was familiar. The furniture was sparse—a large, well-scrubbed table in the middle of the room, a high-backed oak settle, three windsor chairs and a couple of roughly made stools pushed back against one wall and two large meal arks ranged against another. These latter were much superior to the chairs and stools, being beautifully made and even decorated with a simple carved leaf design.
The focal point of the room was the huge, deeply recessed hearth, and it was this that Ann found the most alarming, for of all the equipment standing within it or arranged on shelves and hooks at either side, the only things she recognized were the bellows, a Dutch oven and what she took to be an antiquated roasting spit. For the rest, the very pans looked strange, solid heavy iron where she had been accustomed to copper. The strings of onions, the bunches of dried herbs and a side of bacon hanging from a beam at the far end of the room were reassuring, but she had never dreamed that she would be expected to cook on an open fire. Not even a coal fire, at that. They seemed to burn some kind of turf. How did one manage about bread and pies and cake? There was something that looked like an oven door set in the wall at one
side of the fire, but how in the world was it heated? By the time that she had drunk her tea, the future bristled with unforeseen difficulties. She began to wonder how long it would be before she was dismissed for sheer incompetence.
“I daresay you’ll be wanting to change your gown,” said Janet presently. “Yours is the room facing you at the head of the stair. You’ll find water for washing in the jug, but there’s a sup of warm left in the kettle if you choose to carry it up.”
But Ann declined the offered luxury, rightly suspecting that it would be taken as evidence of Southron softness.
The bedroom was shiningly clean but very bare, and at the moment strongly redolent of beeswax. The narrow pallet was covered with a patchwork quilt which contributed a welcome touch of colour to scrubbed boards and whitewashed walls. There was a three drawer dressing chest with a standing mirror and a jug and basin jostling each other on top of it, and a stool with a padded seat. Closer investigation revealed that the sheets, though old, were snowy white and lavender scented, and that a feather bed had been laid on top of the straw mattress. The one window was small and was not made to open, but Ann guessed that this might well be an advantage in these northern heights. It gave her a magnificent prospect of the dale, and, deeply recessed in the thickness of the wall, formed an alcove of golden light so dense that you felt you could scoop it up in handfuls like water.
But this was not the time to be indulging in whimsical fancies. Hastily she unpacked her belongings, shook out the grey alpaca and laid it on the bed. Her hair would have to do. It would take too long to brush it out and re-braid it, but luckily her cap would cover it. She stripped off her habit, washed her hands and face and dressed again as quickly as possible, putting her few possessions in one of the drawers and hanging her habit on a peg behind the door. A swift glance in the mirror assured her that she looked reasonably neat. She wondered if Janet would be willing to lend her an apron until her other luggage arrived. Then, with an unconscious stiffening of her shoulders, she went down to the kitchen again.
She had need of all her resolution. As Janet led her from room to room, pointing out such items of interest as a mill for grinding corn, a stand churn and a cheese press, her heart sank lower and lower. It was not that she had boasted her capabilities without good grounds. She was well trained in household management. She was even pretty well acquainted with dairy work, since Papa Fortune had removed his household into the country every summer. He had a rather pretentious residence in Hertfordshire—very gothic—but possessing the advantage of its own home farm. Here his two step-daughters had been set to learn how to dress poultry, to milk the cows and to make butter and cheese. And Ann, despite her resentment of this tyrannical disposition of her time and her energies, had secretly rather enjoyed the change from the monotonous routine of the town house.
But even in the country she had never been called upon to handle such primitive equipment as this. Why! That stone cheese press was so vast it had an alcove all to itself, and looked as though it would take two men to lift it. Papa Fortune, nip-farthing that he was in many ways, had never begrudged money spent on up-to-date domestic appliances. He had been one of the first to install a Rumford closed stove in his town house, and then, satisfied of its efficiency, had ordered another for the Hertfordshire place, boasting that not only did it save coals, but that he had also reduced the expenses of his establishment by dispensing with the services of an under cook and a scullery maid.
Her response to Janet’s explanations grew more and more stilted, and as the old woman opened the door that led from the dairy to the yard she saw that the girl’s pretty, apple blossom colouring had faded and that she looked quite frightened. Beneath her severe appearance, Janet’s heart was warm and tender to all young creatures. If, on this one occasion, her welcome had been less than cordial, it was because she herself had been afraid. But so far she was quite pleasantly impressed. This was no uppity brass-faced wench, but a young woman of sense and good manners. One, moreover, who didn’t mumble her words so that one was for ever asking her to speak up. The prospect of congenial company, especially during the long dark days of winter, seemed suddenly attractive. She said brusquely, but kindly, “But no need to be worrying about cheese making yet awhile. It’ll be June before we can make a start, maybe July. And by then you’ll be into the way of things.”
The girl turned to her swiftly, her face strained, her hands clasped in mute appeal. “If you will help me,” she begged, on a note of desperation. “If you will teach me. I can work hard, and truly I can cook and bake as I said. But it is all so strange. I’ve never been used to an open hearth and I’d be afraid of spoiling the food while I’m learning. But you—if only you would—could show me how to manage.”
Deliberate artifice could scarcely have put more potent words into her mouth. Janet would never have been deceived by a pretty pretence of seeking her help and advice. But the near-panic in the young, anxious face was utterly convincing. She capitulated without more ado.
“I might have known Mr. Patrick’d choose a right ’un,” was her way of phrasing it, in comical echo of young Philip. “One that doesn’t think she knows it all but is willing and eager to learn of her elders. ’Course I’ll help you, my lass, and glad to do it. I’ve not forgot my own first sight of this place. Fair scunnered me it did—and me never a cook any way. But young Robert’s mother was alive then, dear kind soul that she was, and she put me in the way of things. It’s just a knack. You’ll soon get accustomed. As for spoiling the food—I’ll never forget the first batch of clap-bread I made. We don’t often eat wheaten bread. Oats are what we mostly use, both for bread and porridge. Well—I doubt you could have soled your boots with mine, and that’s about all it was good for. But just you leave that to me to start with, lassie, and you’ll soon learn to manage the rest.”
So it was that Patrick, coming rather warily into the kitchen after setting the milk pails in the dairy, heard Janet say, “That’s it, Miss Ann. Just blow gently or we’ll have a smother of dust everywhere. It’ll soon be hot enough for the potatoes,” and found Ann on her knees plying the bellows, one of Janet’s aprons tied over her grey gown and an expression of deep absorption on her face.
“I was just telling Miss Ann that we have to be saving with coals,” Janet informed him, “seeing as they have to be packed in from Garsdale. And even then,” continuing her exposition, “the ponies can’t manage that last steep bit and men have to drag the stuff the rest of the way on sledges. For myself I like a peat fire just as well, now that I’ve learned how to manage it. And you will, too, Miss Ann, come winter time. Just wait till you come down on a bitter frosty morning. Just a lift with the poker, a puff or two from the bellows, and there’s your fire, all ready to boil the kettle. And a cosy warm kitchen to greet you. Aye. There’s a deal to be said for a peat fire.”
“And just wait till you come down on a bitter frosty morning and the damned thing’s gone out on you,” interpolated Patrick, forgetting to guard his tongue in his delight at the friendly relations that had obviously been established between the pair. He had known it was all right as soon as he heard ‘Miss Ann’ instead of the formal ‘Miss Beverley’. “Nothing but a heap of cold grey ash staring at you and a four foot drift between you and the stick house. She’ll just love it then, won’t she Janet?”
“And well you know that I always keep a few sticks handy in the bread oven,” retorted Janet with dignity. “And it’s not seemly, Mr. Patrick, to be using strong language in front of a lady.”
He grinned unrepentantly. “Miss Beverley was bred up in military circles,” he said cheerfully. “I dare say she has heard worse, despite that demure expression.” And as Ann laughed despite herself, went on, “And the children are not here to be corrupted. I left Philip garnishing the pony’s stall yet again. He’ll be running off with your hearth rug to make it a good warm bed, if you don’t watch him. Where are the girls?”
“I sent them off to Far Riggs to wash the bed linen. Th
at’s no job for men folk and it was a grand day for the drying. Besides, it’s some small return for the loan of Robert and the horses. They went off as merry as grigs. You’d have thought they were going to a fair. But they’re good lasses, though it ill becomes me to praise my own kin, and I’ll warrant they’ll have made a good job of it. They’ll be back any minute. Supper’ll bring them.”
Patrick nodded approvingly. “A good thought, Janet. In that case I’ll see to the milk before I clean up for supper.”
“That you’ll not, sir,” exclaimed Janet indignantly. “Miss Ann and me’ll do it and plenty of time to spare before supper’s ready. Be off with you and leave us to get on in peace.”
Ann blinked. It was a strange household she was come to, where a servant, even one so trusted and venerable as Janet, might bespeak the master so. But there was no sharp reprimand. Instead Mr. Delvercourt flung up one arm as of a culprit deflecting a sharp box on the ear and made a laughing escape, while Janet bustled through into the dairy and began to set out the pans into which the milk must be poured. Ann, her hands assisting nimbly with this familiar task, felt that there was a good deal about this remote dales farm that needed further elucidation.
Chapter Six
The next month was the strangest and the busiest that Ann had ever known. She was granted a whole week of the halcyon weather that had marked All Fools’ Day, and every minute of it was crammed with new experiences. She learned how to fire the beehive oven that was set in the thickness of the wall, burning the carefully prepared faggots inside the oven itself until the bricks were hot enough, then raking out the glowing embers and putting in the loaves and pies that she had made, though at first she suffered many an anxious moment until the time came to take them out, fearing to find them either scorched or still half raw. She made porridge and broth and stews thick with dumplings in the heavy iron pans hanging over the turf fire. She checked the stores and drew up a list of deficiencies to be made good next time someone went to market, and she tackled the neglected gardens. At one time the kitchen garden had been well stocked. She discovered rhubarb, already gleaming pink and yellow through last year’s dead leaves, and there were currant bushes and raspberry canes breaking into leaf. There was a herb garden, too, where she recognized thyme and sage and rosemary among others. But the vegetable patch was matted with weed, and Patrick, coming upon her unawares, promptly forbade any further attempts to dig it over. One of the men would do that. Then she might plant what she chose. But no more attempting of tasks beyond a girl’s strength. If she needed help she was to ask for it, and it would be given as promptly as the overriding demands of farm work permitted. Conscious of blistered palms and an aching back, Ann submitted thankfully.