Noel Streatfeild - Thursday’s Child

‘Doesn’t Tom have to go to school?’ Lavinia asked.

‘No – canal people don’t go to school. I can make me mark because one of the men I work with showed me. Young Tom would have gone to school if he could have been spared, but a course ’e couldn’t be, not with there bein’ nobody else for the ’orse. He don’t like the canal life, Tom don’t. Dad’s dead scared he’ll run off some time.’

‘I must get someone to show me the canal path,’ said Lavinia. ‘It will be nice walking by the water now the spring’s coming.’

‘You’ll see me around,’ Jem promised, ‘and if you tell me when you have time off I’ll put you on your way.’

At the next bend in the road they could see Sedgecombe Place – a grey battlemented building lying in a great park.

‘My word!’ said Lavinia. ‘It is a big place, there must be a lot of servants needed to keep it right.’

Jem whipped up the horse.

‘You’ve said it.’ He did not speak again until he drove the cart through some wrought-iron gates. ‘We go up this path here, it leads to the back door.’

Just as Jem had predicted, Lavinia was taken at once to be interviewed by Mrs Tanner. She was a tall rather severe-looking woman in a black dress with a black silk apron over it. Round her waist was a chain on which hung a bunch of keys. The housekeeper’s room in which she saw Lavinia was, however, cosy, with pretty curtains and primroses in a vase, so perhaps, Lavinia thought, she is gentler than she looks. Mrs Tanner sat upright in a stiff chair while Lavinia stood just inside the door.

‘You are Lavinia Beresford?’

Lavinia curtseyed.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Have you worked in a kitchen before?’

‘No, ma’am. This is my first place.’

‘I see. This is a big place and we all have to work hard. You will receive five pounds a year less what you have had advanced for your uniform. You will share a room with the under kitchen-maid. Between you there will be your room to do and you have to look after the rooms of three footmen. You will rise at six for, as Mrs Smedley the cook will explain, you will have the kitchen range to see to so that the water is hot by the time she comes down. Otherwise your work is to wait on her and, of course, wash up. At night, before you go to bed, there will be the range to blacklead and the kitchen and scullery to hearthstone. At all times you will call Mrs Smedley ma’am. That is all, do your duty and you should be very happy with us.’

Lavinia could see she was meant to curtsey and say ‘Thank you’, and she wished she could have, but she must arrange her days off.

‘Please, ma’am,’ she said, ‘what about my time off?’

Mrs Tanner frowned.

‘Her Ladyship does not give time off to you young girls, but sometimes, if there are no guests, you may go out together in the afternoon providing you do not leave the grounds.’

Lavinia swallowed nervously.

‘I quite understand, ma’am, but you see I have two little brothers at the orphanage. The younger is only six. So I can only take a place where I am permitted to visit them. I had thought perhaps every other Sunday.’

Mrs Tanner, as she told Lady Corkberry later, was so surprised she did not know how to answer.

‘A personable young woman, m’lady, very nicely spoken. I did not know what to answer because I understand she wants to keep an eye on the brothers. Still, it wasn’t for me to go against your rules so I said I would speak to you.’

Lady Corkberry was a good woman. Taking Jem into her house when he had pneumonia was not an isolated kindness. She expected to serve her fellow men when the opportunity offered; that, in her opinion, was what great positions and possessions were for. It was not her custom to meet her junior maids for she left their care to those immediately in charge of them, but this was an exceptional case.

‘Very well, Tanner, I will see the young woman in the morning room after breakfast tomorrow.’

Although it was her first day, Lavinia found that after she had unpacked and changed she was expected to work, but not before she had eaten. Midday dinner was over in the servants’ hall, but there was plenty of food about. Mrs Smedley, a large red-faced woman, pointed to a table by the window.

‘Sit there.’ She nodded at a dark-haired, anxious-looking girl. ‘This is Clara. You share her room. Give her some dinner, Clara.’

Lavinia remembered her instructions.

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ She sat while Clara put in front of her a huge plate of cold meat with a large potato in its jacket, a jar of pickles, a loaf of bread, at least a pound of butter and a great hunk of cheese.

‘Eat up, girl,’ said Mrs Smedley. ‘You’ll find you need to keep your strength up here.’

After the food she had eaten at the orphanage Lavinia needed no encouragement.

‘My goodness,’ she thought, ‘if all the meals are like this it will be a great temptation to take some leavings in my pocket for the boys.’

Mrs Smedley was right about Lavinia needing to keep her strength up for she did find herself very tired before she stumbled behind Clara up to their attic. There had been guests for dinner, and after running to and fro waiting on Mrs Smedley all the evening there had been a great mound of washing-up to do in the scullery. Then, after a supper taken standing, the girls set to at their housework. Blackleading the range, hearthstoning the kitchen and scullery floors and a long passage.

‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ Clara groaned. ‘And we’ve been one short until you came. Sometimes I’ve been that tired I haven’t known how to get up the stairs.’

But in spite of going to bed late and rising early, Lavinia looked, Lady Corkberry thought, remarkably fresh and pretty when Mrs Tanner brought her to her the next morning.

‘The young person Beresford, m’lady,’ Mrs Tanner said, giving a curtsey.

It was clear Mrs Tanner meant to stay, but Lady Corkberry did not permit that.

‘Thank you, Tanner. You may leave us. Your name is Lavinia Beresford?’ she asked.

Lavinia curtseyed.

‘Yes, m’lady.’

‘And you have two brothers in the orphanage?’

‘Yes, m’lady. Which is why I asked if I could have time off every other Sunday. I must see they are all right.’

Several things were puzzling Lady Corkberry.

‘You speak very nicely. Where were you at school?’

Pain showed in Lavinia’s face.

‘We did lessons at home with my mother.’

Lady Corkberry looked sympathetic.

‘She taught you well. A pretty speaking voice is a great advantage.’ She hesitated. ‘You say you must see your brothers are all right. Surely you know they are all right at the orphanage. It is highly spoken of.’

Lavinia did not know how to answer. She did not want Lady Corkberry descending on the place for Matron would, of course, guess who had talked, which might make things harder for the boys. So she hedged.

‘It’s not what they are used to. It will be better when they settle down.’

Lady Corkberry could feel Lavinia was hiding something, but she did not want to bully the child.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Every other Sunday.’ Then she smiled. ‘Perhaps one day in the summer I might have the little boys here for a treat. You would like that?’

A flush spread over Lavinia’s face.

‘Oh, I would, m’lady. It will be something for them to look forward to.’

‘Very well. Now go back to your work. I will see what can be arranged.’

Because she enjoyed the school and truly was getting to love both Miss Snelston and Polly Jenkin, Margaret, though she still meant to run away, had no immediate plans to do so. This was not only because of her promise to Lavinia and that she was growing fond of Peter and Horry, but also because of her Sunday underclothes. Whenever she thought of that lace-edged petticoat and those drawers she was so full of rage she felt she could not run away until in some way she had paid Matron back. Poor Susan, on the walk to school, would have been bored to exhaustion with the lace on Margaret’s Sunday underclothes only Margaret was always inventing new things she would like to do to Matron and Susan enjoyed hearing about those.