Lynne Francis - Ella’s Journey - The perfect wartime romance to fall in love with this summer

Ella was suddenly vividly reminded of how her sister Alice, who also suffered from unruly curls, had deftly pinned up her hair for her. A rush of sorrow and homesickness made her sway a little in front of the speckled glass of the mirror and she grasped at the chest of drawers for support.

Doris looked at her with concern. ‘You’ve gone very pale. Are you going to be all right? You’ve a long day ahead of you, you know?’

Ella nodded, unable to speak.

Doris shook her head and set off down the steep stairs, which led directly from the servants’ quarters in the attic to the servants’ hallway several flights below. The kitchen, heated by the range overnight, was noticeably warmer. Doris began work at once, showing Ella how to stoke up the range for the morning, before filling great pans with water and setting them to heat.

‘We’ll be needing water for the whole family for washing, when they get up.’ She pointed to the big china jugs, lined up ready for the different family members, plain and severe for Mr Ward, decorated with flowers and bows for the women in the family.

‘They’ve got a bathroom up there, you know,’ Doris confided while Ella nodded, uncomprehending. Whatever was a bathroom? ‘But the water’s never hot enough in the morning so hardly anyone uses it. Mr Ward sometimes does, just to prove it was worth all the expense of putting it in. Never on a winter’s morning, though.’ Doris chuckled to herself, before showing Ella what she needed to lay out for Mrs Dawson who would be coming down shortly to get the family’s breakfast underway.

‘Right, upstairs next.’ Doris seized the cinder pail, brushes and pans from the scullery. ‘There are fires to do in the breakfast room, parlour and library, then while the family are breakfasting you’ll need to be up the back stairs to sort out the bedroom fires and the beds.’

Ella’s stomach growled with hunger but she knew only too well there’d be nothing to be had for a while yet, until the house was ready for the family to start their day. A glass of water would have to tide her over for now.

Doris laid a warning finger to her lips as she pushed open the heavy door that separated the servants’ domain from the main house. Holding the metal pails carefully to avoid any clanking that might wake the family prematurely, Doris led the way. Ella followed then stopped, transfixed. She was standing in what must be the hallway. Wood panelling lined the walls, and those of the main staircase that swept upwards to a vast window, the width of the half-landing and the height of what appeared to be the whole house – Ella couldn’t say for sure because it vanished upwards, out of her range of vision. Although it was still early and the gloom had barely lifted outside, she could tell that light would flood in and fill this space once the sun was up. It reminded her of a church window but it was certainly larger than anything she had seen in the Northwaite village church.

Doris was holding open the door on the other side of the hall, making impatient jerking motions with her head.

‘You need to get on,’ she hissed, as Ella came closer. ‘Clean the fireplace in here while I do the one in the parlour. Then I’ll show you the library one while I go down to fetch the water jugs.’

Ella had to stop and stare again when Doris drew back the heavy curtains in the breakfast room. She couldn’t help herself. The window looked over the gardens at the back, bleak and stark on a November morning but, again, what a window! It ran nearly the full length of one wall. Ella revolved slowly, taking in the vases of flowers on the tables, the fine polished furniture, and the paintings on the wall. Doris was over by the fireplace, hand on hips, her peaches-and-cream complexion flushed, tapping her foot impatiently.

‘Ella, we really haven’t got all day.’

Obediently, Ella spread out the cloth that Doris handed her, to protect the fine rug before the hearth, before she set to raking out the ashes and piling them into the pail.

‘Not too rough, mind,’ Doris warned. ‘Here, put the lid over the pail to stop the dust rising. I’ll be in the hall when you’re done,’ and with that she hastened out.

Ella concentrated hard on cleaning out the grate, leaving just a fine sprinkling of ash as she had been taught to do as a base for lighting the new fire. The kindling, paper spills and coal scuttle, filled the night before, were already in place and Ella had prepared and lit the fire in no time. The chimney had a good draw on it, she noticed, as the flames took hold and the wood began to crackle. Adding the coal a little at a time, she sat back on her heels to observe her handiwork. Glancing briefly around the room again, she was hardly able to comprehend the contrast between the cottages she was used to and such a grand room. The ceiling of this one room must be as high as the roof of the cottage she grew up in, she thought to herself as she gathered together the brushes and the pail and folded up the cloth. She arrived in the hallway at the same time as Doris, who stuck her head back into the breakfast room to check on Ella’s efforts.

‘Well done,’ she murmured. ‘But you’ll need to be quick in the library upstairs. The household will be up and about before long and it wouldn’t do for them to see you abroad. We can risk using these stairs just this once, but Mrs S would be furious if she caught us. We’re supposed to always use the back stairs.’

Ella followed Doris up the broad polished steps of the main staircase, barely having time to register the view revealed through the great window as dawn broke. A formal garden was spread out below, while beyond the garden wall fields stretched off into the distance. A glimpse, then they were in the dark, panelled corridor and Doris was opening the heavy door of the library, which this time overlooked the front of the house. Doris folded back the panelled shutters from a pair of huge windows to admit the daylight, which revealed several floor-to-ceiling bookcases, with leather-bound volumes on every shelf. Ella, standing in the middle of the room, had the feeling that today was going to be a day of marvels unfolding but, as Doris reminded her, ‘there was no time to waste.’

The library fireplace suited the grandeur of the room. Rather than the wooden mantel and decorative tiles of the breakfast room, this fireplace had a more masculine stone hearth and surround. There was still faint warmth in the embers, suggesting to Ella that Mr Ward probably sat up late in here, after the rest of the family were abed. She dealt swiftly with the cleaning and re-laying of the fire and, although she longed to loiter and take a proper look around, she dared not. She was on her way down the main staircase when she met Doris and Rosa coming up, bearing a china jug of steaming water in each hand as they headed for the bedrooms.

‘Hurry,’ Doris hissed, whilst Rosa frowned at Ella. ‘They’ll be getting up any moment now. No one must see you here.’

Back in the kitchen, all was a hive of activity. Ella barely had time to sort out the ashes (some for the roses, the rest of the cinders to be kept for the cinder man), before she was washing her hands in the scullery and helping Cook to prepare the eggs, cold cuts, toast, coffee and tea.

‘We need more help,’ Doris muttered as she loaded up the trays for Mr Stevens. She had swiftly laid the breakfast table upstairs in a spare five minutes after delivering the hot water. Rosa, as Mrs Ward’s lady’s maid, remained upstairs a little while longer to help her to dress. Now it was Ella’s turn to lay the table downstairs. There was just chance to take tea and bread and jam, perhaps an egg or two if they were lucky, while the family breakfasted – hopefully without summoning them to provide more tea, coffee or toast. Ella found the routine little different so far to a typical morning at the Ottershaws’, although without all the young children, but the scale of the house and the formalities to be observed added to the workload.