Emily (8 page)

‘What are we to do with her? There is no consideration for me.’ Mrs Francis’s voice was tense as she came through the door. ‘A decision must be made.’ Then she saw Emily standing facing her husband as if they had been in conversation. Her already pale face whitened even further and she put her hand on the door to steady herself. ‘It can’t be.’ She stared hard at Emily and then her
husband and then back to Emily. She shook her head as if to clear it. ‘Not her daughter? Not here?’ She stared at her husband with such a look of hatred that Emily shivered. ‘You wouldn’t do such a thing!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ he burst out. ‘You’re mistaken.’

‘I think not,’ she said slowly and deliberately. ‘I always thought there was something familiar about her.’

‘You are mistaken,’ he repeated, then turning to Emily he dismissed her and she thankfully hurried downstairs to the kitchen, where she burst into tears.

‘Whatever’s wrong? What’s happened to your hair?’ Mrs Castle rubbed her floury hands on her apron and scurried across to the dresser, where she delved into a drawer and brought out a handful of hairpins. ‘Come here, let me pin it up for you.’

She sat Emily on a chair and wound her hair into a bun. ‘Janey, go and get some more coal for ’fire. Go on! Don’t stand there gawping.’

‘Now then,’ she said, when Jane had left the room, ‘this is Miss Deborah’s doing, isn’t it? She’s at ’bottom of this?’

Emily nodded and wiped her tears and explained what had happened. ‘I’m frightened of losing my job, Mrs Castle. Mrs Francis wasn’t pleased with me. She said something – I don’t know what she meant – about me being somebody’s daughter!’

‘Did she?’ Mrs Castle put in the final pin and patted her shoulder. ‘Well, no point in worrying about owt until it happens. And if she does want
you to leave, well I’m sure that Mr Francis will give you a reference.’

Emily stared at her. ‘But – I haven’t done anything! I’ve done what I can for Miss Deborah. I don’t understand!’

‘I told you!’ Mrs Castle rinsed her hands in the stone sink, dried them and then dipped her hand into a bag of flour and sprinkled it on to the table. ‘I told you that there would be things that you wouldn’t understand. This is one of them.’

Emily took a deep breath. ‘Miss Deborah – is she –?’

The question lay unspoken between them. Mrs Castle glanced towards the door. ‘She’s not mad, if that’s what you mean, at least not as mad as her brother. But’, she tapped a finger to her forehead, ‘there’s summat a bit loose in ’top storey.’

Emily whispered. ‘Her brother? She mentioned her brother.’

‘Aye. He’s her twin. He’s in ’asylum for ’insane, poor fellow. But Miss Deborah’s just a bit wild, though sometimes you might think she’s heading ’same way.’ She pounded a hunk of dough. ‘It runs in ’family unfortunately.’

Mrs Francis always looks as if she’s on the edge of something, Emily pondered, though you would think that living with Miss Deborah would be enough to drive anybody over. ‘From Mrs Francis’s side?’ she said urgently as she heard Jane fumbling with the door latch.

‘Bless you, no!’ Mrs Castle stopped her pummelling. ‘From Mr Francis’s family. Onny nobody told him till it was too late!’

* * *

Mr Francis sent for Emily later in the day. She knocked on the library door and entered to find him sitting by the fire in his high-backed leather chair. He looked tired, she thought, his blue eyes were heavy and rather sad, but he greeted her with a smile and invited her to sit down opposite him. She hesitated. ‘Do sit down, Emily. Don’t be afraid. I need to talk to you about my daughter.’

She perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair. It doesn’t seem right, she thought. I should be standing up.

‘What I have to say is not because of anything you have done, you must understand that. We have been very pleased with your work.’ He tapped his fingers against his beard as he considered. ‘But my wife – Mrs Francis and I – in view of Miss Deborah’s attachment to you, which, although it seems amicable at the moment –’. He got up from his chair and started to pace up and down. Emily too stood up. ‘It could turn. She – she gets these attachments to people, but then turns against them.’ He looked almost pleadingly at her and she felt so sorry for him. ‘She is rather – delicate, I’m afraid, prone to moods.’

‘I understand, sir.’

‘Do you, Emily?’ He shook his head. ‘I think not.’

‘What do you want me to do, sir? Would you like me to leave?’ Better get it over and done with, she thought, but where will I go?

He nodded and appeared relieved. ‘It would be for the best all round, I think.’

‘Would you give me a reference, sir? I won’t
be able to get employment without one.’ It’s not fair, she deliberated. How has this happened to me?

‘I’ll do better than that.’ He sat down again. ‘I have talked to Mrs Francis about this and we have agreed that this situation is not your fault and therefore we must do what we can for you.’

Mrs Francis wouldn’t care what happens to me, Emily thought. She is not in the least interested in any of her servants. But she listened as he explained what they were willing to do. ‘Mrs Francis has a second cousin who lives in Hull. She often has difficulty in getting good servants and I thought that if you were willing to work in the town, I would write to her suggesting that she takes you – perhaps as a lady’s maid rather than in general service?’

How odd, she thought, that Mr Francis should be doing all of this. I always thought that the mistress of the house dealt with servants.

‘So, what do you think? Could you bear to tear yourself away from the country and live in a town?’ He smiled gently and she thought how handsome he must once have been.

‘I don’t know, sir. I’ve never been to a big town, although I’ve been to Hedon market.’

His eyes crinkled. ‘Hull is nothing like Hedon. It is a big, bustling place. It’s full of sailing ships, seamen and tradesmen. It’s noisy with lots of people. It has theatres and music halls, shops of every description, and a big fair every year, much bigger than the village fairs. But’, he added, ‘you
have only lived in the quiet of the country. You may not like it. I don’t want to persuade you against your will. If you don’t want to go then we will think of something else.’

She considered. What other option had she? ‘Could I think about it, sir? Just for an hour?’

‘Of course.’ He pursed his lips. ‘I would rather you didn’t talk to the other servants of the reason for your leaving, perhaps you could tell them that you are considering another situation?’ He saw her hesitation. ‘Except perhaps Cook or Mrs Brewer? They would understand. They have been here a long time.’

Mrs Castle and Mrs Brewer were sitting at the kitchen table having a glass of ale when she went slowly downstairs. Mrs Castle had obviously primed Mrs Brewer about the situation, for she looked directly at Emily and asked bluntly, ‘I suppose they’ve asked you to leave?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. Mr Francis has asked me if I want to go to someone in Hull. He’ll give me a reference.’

Mrs Castle snorted. ‘That’ll be mistress’s doing. The further away the better.’

Emily turned an enquiring eye on her. ‘Mr Francis said I could discuss it with you and Mrs Brewer but not with ’others. I don’t know what to do,’ she pleaded. ‘What shall I do?’

‘Go, my lovely,’ Mrs Castle said, and Mrs Brewer nodded in agreement. ‘It was a mistake you ever coming here.’

‘What do you mean?’ Emily asked in astonishment.
‘Mr Francis suggested that I came. I didn’t ask him for employment.’

‘I know that.’ Mrs Castle looked down at her glass and swirled the bubbles around. ‘I didn’t say it was your mistake. It was his. The master’s.’

Brown the groom drove her in the trap to Hedon, where she was to catch the carrier into Hull. She had said goodbye to Mrs Castle and Mrs Brewer and Jane and the other staff and also to Mr Francis, who gave her a shilling. He pressed the coin into her hand and said earnestly, ‘If ever you need help, Emily, do not hesitate to contact me.’

She thanked him and as she was about to leave, she said, ‘I worry over Sam, sir. I hope he’ll always have work.’

He seemed to hesitate as if there was something else he wanted to say, but merely nodded and murmured, ‘Don’t worry over Samuel. I’ll make sure that he is all right.’

Of Mrs Francis and Deborah she saw nothing, they were busy in their rooms with two of the maids, supervising the wardrobes they would need for an unexpected holiday they were taking and Miss Deborah appeared to have forgotten of Emily’s existence already.

‘I’m sorry tha’s going, Emily,’ Brown grinned at her. ‘I was hoping that in a bit I’d ask thee to walk out wi’ me.’

She blushed and turned her head. ‘I’m not quite fourteen yet,’ she said.

‘I know. I’d already asked Cook how old you was and she said even if you was old enough you’d still be too good for likes o’ me! But I expect tha’ll soon find some fellow in Hull who’ll be good enough,’ he added.

‘I don’t know.’ It wasn’t something she had thought about, although she was aware of Brown’s cheeky grin and saucy comments, and some of the other men who worked about the house and grounds who winked at her or sometimes pinched her cheek. Jane, she knew, already had her eye on Brown. She had said as much already. ‘I’m going to get married and move out of here just as soon as I can,’ she had said, and even when Emily had told her that she would only be exchanging one kitchen floor for another, she said she didn’t care, at least it would be her own floor and not somebody else’s.

They passed the school at Thorngumbald and she pointed it out to Brown. ‘I expect tha was glad to leave there,’ he said. ‘I never went to school, but I was allus good wi’ hosses so it didn’t matter.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘I liked it. I was sorry to leave, it was only because of Granny Edwards being ill that I left.’ She smiled. ‘We learned about ’rest of ’country and where the rivers went, and about other parts of the world. Did you know’, she said enthusiastically, ‘that ships from Hull travel all around the world, even to ’Arctic and America and Australia?’

‘I know that,’ he said scornfully. ‘Didn’t have to
go to school to learn that! My da told me that, years ago.’

Suitably chastened, she dropped into silence as they travelled along the road. There had been rain overnight and there was a fresh clean smell of burgeoning growth, of buds and blossom about to open. A spring greening of barley covered some of the fields, where formerly sheep had grazed on winter turnips, whilst in others men and horses were drilling the corn beds on the heavy clay. Rooks were building their nests high in the trees and she could hear the bleat of newly weaned lambs.

‘I’ll miss all of this,’ she murmured, almost to herself, as Brown pointed with his whip to where two Jack hares were up on their hind legs, squaring up to each other.

‘You will.’ He urged the pony on towards Hedon. ‘Hull is full o’ fighting men and foreigners and dirt and noise. I wouldn’t swap places wi’ you for another ten bob a year.’

He lifted her bag down from the trap when they reached the Market Place and then put his hand up to help her down. ‘Wilt tha give us a kiss then, Emily?’ he grinned, keeping his hand on her waist. ‘Just this once.’

‘All right,’ she agreed and put her cheek towards him. But she gave him a sharp push away when he sought her mouth with his and she felt his slippery tongue in her mouth. ‘Stop it!’ She slapped his arm. ‘You’re horrid!’

He laughed and smacked her rear. ‘No I’m not! Tha’ll get worse than that from ’fellows in Hull, so don’t think tha won’t!’

She turned away, her cheeks burning with shame. Poor Jane, she thought, if he’s the man she wants to marry!

It was the middle of the afternoon when she arrived in Hull and the carrier deposited her at the Black Swan in Mytongate, from where she walked to the Market Place. She had expected the town to be busy, but she hadn’t expected such a cacophony of noise, of people shouting, of traders calling their wares, of dogs barking, and the rattle and jingle of harness from the horses which clip-clopped down the cobbled road pulling carts, traps and coaches. She asked the way to Parliament Street, where Mrs Purnell, the cousin of Mrs Francis, had her home.

‘Cut across by Holy Trinity Church, love, then down Whitefriargate and then you’re there,’ said the woman she asked. ‘No more’n a couple o’ minutes.’ She looked Emily up and down. ‘You from ’country? A servant lass?’

‘Yes. I’m going to Mrs Purnell,’ she volunteered, thinking that as in the country everyone would know who was who. ‘Is it always busy like this?’

The woman laughed. ‘This is nowt! You should see it in a morning. Can’t move for folk. Listen,’ she bent towards Emily, ‘tek care. There’s allus somebody on lookout for a green lass like yourself. Not that I suppose you’ll get out much if you’re working for posh folks like them in Parliament Street. They’ll want their pound o’ flesh, I don’t doubt.’

She waved a cheery goodbye and Emily, feeling heartened by her friendly manner, pressed on the way she had been told. Parliament Street was a street of tall houses with scrubbed white steps
leading up to doors with shining brassware, just off the main thoroughfare of Whitefriargate, which was filled with busy shops. She stopped to look at the hats and gowns, the embossed silks and cottons which were displayed, at the shoes and boots made from the softest leather and then looked down at her own clumsy boots, her flannel skirt and shirt and her thick wool shawl. I’ll never be able to afford any of these things, she mused, but at least I can look. I have never, ever seen such things before.

She looked at the piece of paper in her hand to check the number of the house and then walked down to the end of Parliament Street to find the rear entrance. There was a cramped, narrow passageway behind the houses with a high wall bordering another building, and after checking the number again she opened a gate into a small yard, went down the steps to the kitchen door and rang the bell.

‘So why did you see fit to leave Mrs Francis’s employ?’ Mrs Purnell, a stout, rather jolly-looking woman, with several wobbly chins which escaped from the strings of her silk cap, interviewed Emily herself. She was nothing at all like her aloof relation, Mrs Francis. She wore a magnificent gown of ruched maroon silk which emphasized her size and spread all over the sofa on which she sat drinking tea.