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

John sought out Ella whenever he could. She became used to the door of the kitchen creaking slowly open in the afternoon and John poking his head shyly around it. If he couldn’t see Ella, usually to be found sewing or folding laundry, he would ask Doris or Mrs Dawson where ‘Lella’ was. He seemed determined to use this baby name for her, no matter how many times he was corrected, so eventually everyone let him be. Nor did he pay much heed to his governess, who would appear in the kitchen within five minutes of his arrival, looking cross and requesting that ‘Master John should leave the women to their work and come back upstairs at once.’

Each time, Mrs Dawson would say comfortably, ‘He’s not bothering us, Miss. Why don’t you let him be, sit yourself down and have a cup of tea?’ Each time, Miss Gilbert would demur and haul John, protesting bitterly, up the stairs. Ella found it upsetting to watch and felt a sense of guilt, as if she had somehow encouraged his presence in the kitchen. Finally, when he appeared for the fourth time within a week, she had the wit to speak before the cook. She poured tea from the big brown pot into one of the fine china cups, pressing the cup and saucer into Miss Gilbert’s hands.

‘Why don’t you take this upstairs and enjoy some peace and quiet in your room?’ Ella suggested. ‘I can bring John up to you in half an hour or so. We’ll use the back stairs. It can be our little secret.’ She turned to John. ‘Does that sound all right?’

Miss Gilbert needed little further persuasion. The dignity of her position as governess, a cut above the serving staff, was maintained and she was happy enough to hand John over to the care of someone else for a while. Although she was an excellent governess, she was less successful in keeping a small boy, who longed for a playmate, entertained at this stage of the day.

So it became an established routine that John would be found in the kitchen, gravely folding sheets with Ella or, when the weather was fine, out in the garden collecting vegetables for dinner. Ella made a point of keeping him out of sight of the house windows as much as possible, unsure of whether Mr and Mrs Ward would approve of him fraternising with the servants. If Ella was called away to answer a call from the youngest daughter, Grace, or to deliver a tea tray, John would talk politely to Mrs Dawson, his eyes always on the door, waiting for Ella to return.

‘I don’t know what it is, Ella,’ Mrs Dawson marvelled. ‘You’re more like his mother than –’ ‘– his mother is.’ Rosa helpfully filled in, when the cook became stuck for words.

Ella blushed. ‘Don’t say that. I looked after children in my last employment. I expect I’m just used to being around them. Maybe John recognises this somehow.’

She couldn’t bring herself to mention her niece Beth, whom she missed so badly and who was growing up without her being there to see any of it. Every time she thought of her family back in Nortonstall it gave her a pang. She wondered how Beth was getting on, and how her mother was coping with a small and lively grandchild to care for. Reading between the lines of her last letter, which Mr Stevens had kindly read out to her, her mother wasn’t as well as she would have Ella believe. Although they were well into springtime now, spending winter in a cold, dank cottage was cruel when you were hale and hearty, and nothing but a feat of endurance if you were ailing. It would be a long while before she had earned enough leave to give her time to travel home to stay the night, and see the true state of things.

She loved spending time with John, but it was also bittersweet – or at least at first. After a month or two, she appreciated it for what it meant to him – a respite from the loneliness of being in a big house with siblings so much older – and for the pleasure it brought to her amidst the routine of her working day.

Miss Gilbert’s employment as governess only covered weekdays and Saturday mornings, and for the rest of the weekend a young girl, Betsy, from outside the city was engaged to come in and keep John company. However, it soon became apparent that he was devoting his energies to giving her the slip so that he could roam the house and grounds in search of his ‘Lella’. As he sat and watched the work going on around him in the kitchen, or trailed around after Ella as she returned laundry to bedrooms, he chattered constantly. They would hear plaintive cries of ‘John!’ echoing around the house and garden as Betsy, the poor child, as Ella thought of her, searched high and low for her missing charge.

Mr and Mrs Ward seemed to have lost the inclination to involve themselves in John’s upbringing. It was as though their older children had exhausted all their parental feelings, leaving none for John at all. As Mr Ward’s business had grown, their weekends revolved around entertaining, attending dinners or leaving York to spend the weekends at house parties around the country. When they came across John as they drifted down for a late breakfast or returned after a weekend away, their luggage piled in the hall as they divested themselves of the coats, hats, scarves and gloves that their car journey demanded, and Mrs Ward’s perfume wafting around her with her every movement, Mr Ward would bend slightly to ruffle John’s hair, murmuring ‘All right, son?’ as if he had forgotten his name, before heading upstairs to his library and shutting the door. Mrs Ward would crouch down to John’s level and look him in the eyes, saying ‘Darling! Have you had a lovely weekend? What have you been up to?’ before standing up to adjust her hair in the mirror or look through the post, while making absent-minded, although encouraging, noises as though she were listening to his responses.

It upset Ella to see the hurt on his face as his efforts to engage with his parents were ignored, and she would hover as discreetly as possible in the background, waiting to bustle him down to the kitchen for cake, or out into the garden to see the hens that their gardener had introduced into a pen tucked away at the bottom of the kitchen garden, out of earshot of the house. The servants’ duties were lighter at the weekends when the Wards went away, so Ella was free to spend more time with John, by common consent. Eventually the older Ward girls, who generally remained at home during their parents’ absences, chaperoned by an aunt on the maternal side, remarked that the ‘little miss from Tadcaster’ was a rather pointless addition to the staff given that John preferred to spend his time with Ella – and so it was that Betsy was quietly let go. Ella took over her role, in addition to her other duties and at no extra pay. She didn’t mind though. John had become a substitute for her own family whom she missed so very much.

‘Ella, didn’t you mention that you were from a village somewhere near Halifax?’

Busy with her own thoughts, Ella was startled to realise that she was being addressed. She had carried the tea tray into the parlour and, as always, was admiring the delicacy of the cups as she poured. The porcelain was so fine, you could almost see your fingers through it. Boughs of painted cherry blossom wreathed each cup, with stripes as blue as a summer sky edging the saucers. Ella paused as she prepared to set the tea cups in front of the visitors.

‘Why, yes miss, thereabouts.’

‘I have forgotten the name of it. Where was it again?’ Grace persisted.

‘It was a town, miss, not a village. Nortonstall.’ Ella answered cautiously, economical with the truth, not sure that she had divulged these details to Grace previously. She had a sudden premonition of danger. Mr Stevens had told her that Grace had a visitor and that they would both require tea in the parlour, but she had had no inkling as to who the visitor might be. She stole a glance at Grace’s friend as she set her cup in front of her. A little older than both Ella and Grace, she was neatly dressed in a restrained, rather than fashionable, manner. She was unmarried, Ella gathered, as she wore no ring on her wedding finger, but Ella could glean nothing else from her appearance.