A Loving Family (3 page)

Jacinta answered her with a kiss on the cheek. ‘It is a pretty name. We will have many babies, I am sure.'

COOK'S FLORID FACE
was beaded with perspiration and her temper was fast reaching boiling point. Stella knew the signs only too well and she took two steps back from the scrubbed pine kitchen table, out of reach of Cook's arm and the wooden rolling pin which was never far from her hand. Her use of it as a method of punishment for errant kitchen maids was legend in Portgone Place, and the soup ladle came a close second. In fact, anything from a wooden spoon to a wet dishcloth when clutched in Mrs Hawthorne's chubby fingers was a weapon to be reckoned with and avoided at all costs.

‘It's all very well for her upstairs acting like lady bountiful,' Cook said through gritted teeth. ‘She doesn't have to bake half a dozen cakes for you girls to take home to your mothers. I don't recall any mistress being as generous when I was first in service.'

‘That must have been a hundred years ago,' Annie Fox whispered in Stella's ear.

Stella bit her lip in an attempt to stifle a giggle. Annie was the only kitchen maid who was not terrified by Mrs Hawthorne's bursts of ungovernable rage when she ranted and raged at the unfortunate transgressor for the smallest of misdemeanours. One unlucky scullery maid had been castigated for having mud on her boots even though Cook had sent her to the kitchen garden to fetch fresh herbs on a particularly rainy day. Poor Gertie had burst into tears and declared that it was not fair and that was the last they had seen of her. Gertie had been sent packing without a character and everyone knew that her widowed mother had ten other children to support. No one crossed Mrs Hawthorne and got away with it. Stella could see a vein throbbing in her temple and her breath was coming in ragged gasps as if she were about to have a seizure.

‘There now, see what you've made me do,' Cook said, slamming a cake tin onto the table. ‘I've burned me fingers and all for the sake of charity. How am I supposed to manage on the twenty-second of March when you girls have a day off to visit your mothers? No one brings me a present on Mothering Sunday.'

Having been employed at Portgone Place for nearly a year Stella was well aware that Mrs Hawthorne had never been married, but cooks and housekeepers were always addressed as if they were matrons. She kept her gaze lowered for fear of catching Annie's eye and giggling.

Cook snatched the last cake tin from the oven. ‘It's bad enough that Sir Percy chose to entertain a house party this weekend without leaving me with only Annie and Tess to help in the kitchen.'

Annie bowed her head and her shoulders shook. Stella was not sure if her only friend in the household was laughing or crying, and she closed her ears to Cook's angry tirade. Poor Annie was an orphan taken from the foundling hospital and expected to be grateful for living a life of drudgery and servitude with little hope of bettering herself. Stella knew only too well the pain of losing a much-loved parent. She could still remember the day when the news came that her father's ship had gone down with all hands off the Cape of Good Hope. Ma had cried for weeks, refusing to be comforted, and the life had gone out of Granny even before she succumbed to a fatal chill a few months later.

Stella reached out to give Annie's hand an encouraging squeeze, but withdrew it hastily when Cook fixed her with a hard stare.

‘Have you got something to say, Stella Barry?'

Stella shook her head and averted her gaze. It was best not to look Mrs Hawthorne in the eye. Annie said she could turn you to stone if she got into a real rage and judging by the expression on Cook's face this was imminent. ‘I should hope not.' Mrs Hawthorne flipped the cakes out of their tins onto a cooling tray. ‘That's done. Make yourselves useful and scour these pans until I can see my face in them, and make sure you dry them properly or they'll be eaten away with rust.'

Annie leapt forward and scooped the hot tins into her apron. ‘Yes, Cook.'

‘That's not the way to do it, you stupid girl,' Mrs Hawthorne said, scowling. ‘I don't want to see you in a soiled apron. You'll miss supper and spend the evening in the laundry if you make it dirty. Lord have mercy on me. I'm surrounded by idiots. Where are Tess and Edna? Why do the kitchen maids disappear the moment they're needed?'

Annie was silent and Stella felt bound to answer. ‘You sent them to the meat larder to pluck the geese for dinner tonight, Cook.'

‘That's enough cheek from you, miss.' Cook snatched up a wooden spoon and pointed it at Stella. ‘Speak when you're spoken to. Now get on with those pans and don't let me see you again until they're shining like new.' She broke off as the kitchen door opened and Lady Langhorne wafted into the kitchen, seeming to glide across the floor like a beautiful swan on a moonlit lake.

Stella bobbed a curtsey, keeping her eyes downcast as she had been taught on her first day in service. She remembered the lesson well, repeating it in her head like a mantra. The scent of lilies and jasmine clung to her ladyship's person in a fragrant cloud and her silk gown rustled as she moved. ‘I'm glad to see that you've made the cakes, Cook. They look quite delicious and I'm sure the girls' mothers will be delighted to receive them.'

‘Thank you, my lady.' Cook acknowledged the compliment with a jerky movement which might have been a clumsy attempt at a curtsey, or else one of her feet had gone to sleep and she was suffering from pins and needles. Stella gave her a sideways glance and then looked away quickly. She did not want to be turned to stone before she had had a chance to visit her mother, whom she had not seen for nearly a year, although it seemed much longer. She had sent her wages home each quarter, keeping only a small amount to pay for a new pair of boots when her old ones were outgrown and down at heel. Mrs Dunkley, the housekeeper, had taken her to Brentwood to purchase a new pair, but as these had proved costly Stella had opted for a good second-hand pair from a dolly shop. Mrs Dunkley had tut-tutted and frowned, but there had been no alternative and the fact that the boots were a size too large was a point in their favour as they would take longer to outgrow. Stella jumped as Annie poked her in the ribs.

‘The mistress asked you a question, you ninny.'

Stella raised her head slowly. ‘I'm sorry, my lady.'

Lady Langhorne bent down so that her face was close to Stella's and her smile was so beautiful that Stella's eyes filled with tears. She has the face of an angel, she thought, sniffing and wiping her nose on her sleeve.

‘Stella Barry, where are your manners?' Cook demanded angrily.

Lady Langhorne produced a scented handkerchief trimmed with lace and pressed it into Stella's hand. ‘There's no need to cry, my dear. I was just asking if you had far to go tomorrow.'

Stella buried her face in the soft folds of the cotton lawn, but the lace tickled her nose and made her want to sneeze. ‘London, my lady.'

‘My goodness, that's a long way to walk. In which part of London does your family reside?'

Stella was at a loss. She looked to Annie, who shook her head, and cast an agonised glance at Cook, hoping that she had put the rolling pin away. ‘I – I don't understand, my lady.'

‘Where does your ma live, you silly child,' Cook said impatiently.

‘She has a couple of rooms in the lighterman's house on Broadway Wharf, Limehouse, my lady.'

‘I'm not familiar with that part of London.' Lady Langhorne smiled vaguely and moved towards the doorway. ‘I hope you girls enjoy your time with your mothers tomorrow.' She ascended the stairs, leaving a hint of her expensive perfume in her wake.

Cook tossed a pan in Annie's direction and it caught her on the side of her head, making her howl with pain. ‘That's for nothing. See what you get for something. Go to the meat larder and tell Tess and Edna that there'll be trouble if I don't have those birds prepared and ready for the oven in two minutes. They'll be in there gossiping and giggling and wasting time because they think I can't see what they're doing. Well, I've got eyes in the back of my head and I know everything that goes on in this kitchen.'

Rubbing her sore head Annie ran from the room and her small feet clattered on the flagstones as she headed for the meat larder at the far end of the corridor. Stella fled to the comparative safety of the scullery and climbed onto the wooden pallet in front of the stone sink, plunging her arms into the rapidly cooling water which already had a thin film of greasy scum floating on its surface. The only thing that kept her from bursting into tears of desperation was the fact that she would see her mother the next day. Ma would be overjoyed with the present of the cake. Stella could not remember the last time they had been able to afford such a luxury. Her younger brother and sister would make sure that not a crumb went to waste. She wondered if Freddie and Belinda had grown much in the past eleven months and twenty-nine days. She had been counting them off with tiny pencil marks on the wall in her corner of the attic bedroom she shared with Annie, Tess and Edna. She longed for the day to end so that she could curl up in her narrow truckle bed beneath the eaves and allow sleep to rescue her from the drudgery of domestic service. Tomorrow was going to be wonderful and she was determined to rise before dawn and set off on the thirteen-mile walk to Limehouse with a good heart. She had worked out the sums in her head: if she left Portgone Place at five o'clock next morning she might reach home by ten or eleven, depending on how fast she could cover the ground. She would have a few precious hours with her family before she had to set out on the return journey.

She had walked for almost an hour in complete darkness, but it was Sunday and the roads and lanes were deserted. She had seen no one until long after daybreak when she came across people on their way to church, but by this time her legs were aching and her new boots had rubbed blisters on her heels. She was, she realised, still several miles from the outskirts of the city and she was tired and hungry. She sat down at the roadside and took out the bottle of water and a slice of bread that she had wrapped in a piece of butter muslin. She did not think that Mrs Hawthorne would miss just one slice thinly smeared with butter and a little jam. She was just finishing off the last mouthful when she heard the rumble of cartwheels and the clip-clop of a horse's hooves. She moved out of the way in case the mud thrown up splashed her one and only good frock, but to her surprise the man driving the trap drew it to a halt. He was dressed like a prosperous farmer in heavy tweeds and a billycock hat and his gingery mutton-chop whiskers gave him a benign, almost comical appearance. It was impossible to be afraid of a genial gentleman with a red nose and rosy cheeks who smiled at her with such warmth. ‘Where are you going, poppet?' He glanced at the wicker basket containing the cake, and he grinned. ‘I know. You're taking a present to your ma for Mothering Sunday.'

Stella scrambled to her feet. ‘I am, sir.'

‘And I'd say by the amount of mud on your boots that you've already walked a fair way.'

‘From Havering, sir.'

‘And where are you heading for, my dear?'

The kindly twinkle in his eyes gave her confidence. ‘To Limehouse, sir. Broadway Wharf, where my mother lives.'

‘That's a long way for a child of your age to walk.' His brow puckered into a thoughtful frown. ‘I have sons who are fairly close to you in age and I wouldn't like to see them in a situation such as yours. I can take you as far as Stratford. Would that help?'

Stella hesitated, and then she smiled. ‘My feet hurt, sir. I'd be very grateful.'

He extended his hand. ‘Come along, then. There's no time to waste as I'm going to see my own mother on this special day and I'd say she's a great deal older than yours.' He hoisted Stella onto the seat beside him and flicked the reins to encourage his horse into an ambling gait.

By the time they reached Stratford railway station Stella had discovered that the gentleman's name was Mr Hendy and he owned a farm near Navestock. She in turn had told him of her father's death by drowning which had left his family to face poverty and near starvation. ‘If it hadn't been for Mr Walters, the man who owns the house on Broadway Wharf, we would have been living on the streets,' she said, sighing. ‘He was my pa's friend and he let us keep the two rooms on the top floor after my gran died.'

‘And you have been sending all your money home to help your poor mother.' Mr Hendy cleared his throat and urged the horse to walk a little faster. ‘I'd say you are a very good daughter, Stella.'

‘No, sir. I spent a half-crown on these boots in the dolly shop. I should have saved the money and given it to Ma. She needs it more than me. I get three meals a day at Portgone Place and a nice clean bed to sleep in at night. There ain't no bedbugs in Sir Percy's house.'

She saw his lips twitch and she was annoyed. ‘Bedbugs is no laughing matter, Mr Hendy. My gran used to tell us how some of the corpses she had to lay out was running with the little buggers, and head lice too.'

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘My word, Stella. You've brightened my day.' He made an effort to be serious but his eyes were bright with amusement. ‘I'm not laughing at you, and I know that bugs of any sort are a dreadful pest.'

‘They most certainly are, sir. I don't suppose you've ever suffered that way.'

‘No, but I can imagine what it must have been like for your poor grandmother, who doubtless was a worthy soul.' He drew the horse to a halt outside the railway station. ‘Now, I have a suggestion to make, Stella. You must hear me out and allow me to help you.'

‘I don't understand, sir.'

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a leather pouch. ‘I am going to give you the fare to London. I want you to catch the train to Bow, which is much closer to your destination. I'm giving you enough money for the return fare to Brentwood, which is near to where you've come from. I want you to promise me that you will keep this money for that purpose and that purpose alone.' He closed his large fist over the coins and held her gaze with a purposeful stare. ‘Promise.'