Elizabeth Elgin - I’ll Bring You Buttercups

Mind, you couldn’t expect much else from the likes of Elliot Sutton. Not real gentry, the Place Suttons. Not like Rowangarth, so you couldn’t entirely blame Pendenys for their lack of refinement, them being half trade, so to speak, and liable because of it to throw a wrong ‘un from time to time. But the atmosphere over at the Place was cold as charity if talk was to be believed. Something was going on there, or why had the laundrymaid been ordered to wash all Mr Elliot’s linen and boil and starch his shirts – every last one of them? Taking himself off, was he? Away to London again, out of the reach of his mother’s tongue? And a fair wind to his backside if it were true, thought William with grimmest pleasure. A good riddance, and no mistake.

There had better, warned Mrs Shaw, getting things straight right from the start, be no idling this morning. Indeed, they should all count themselves lucky there had been time for breakfast, so pushed were they going to be. True, the soup was well in hand, two salmon lay cooling on the cold slab in the meat cellar, and the four ribs of beef – any less would have seemed penny-pinching – had been quickly browned in a hot oven to seal in the juices, and now cooked in slow contentment on the bottom shelf.

The ice-cream and sorbet were Cook’s biggest worry, though both were safely packed with fresh ice now, and should turn out right, as they almost always did.

‘That’s the soup and salmon seen to, the beef doing nicely, and the savoury part-prepared …’ Cook was in the habit of thinking aloud on such occasions. ‘And the meringues for the pudding done yesterday, and please God that dratted ice-cream is going to behave itself. Tilda!’

‘Yes’m.’ Tilda gazed mesmerized at the pile of vegetables brought in by the under-gardener at seven that morning; a pile so enormous it had set her longing for the day she would rise to the heights of assistant cook – or even under-housemaid would do – and so be able to watch some other unfortunate scrape carrots, peel potatoes, slice cucumbers and pod peas. Yet, she conceded, as the scent of strawberries – the first of the season and straight from the hotbed in the kitchen garden – teased her nostrils, being a kitchenmaid did have its compensations, for no one would miss the plump half dozen that would find their way to her mouth when no one was looking.

‘Think we can manage a breather,’ Cook murmured, hands to her burning cheeks. ‘Might as well have a sup of tea.’ Heaven only knew when there’d be time for another. ‘Put the kettle on, Tilda, then pop upstairs and fetch Mary and Bess and Ellen …’

Mrs Shaw’s long, dramatic sigh masked the excitement that churned inside her. Dinner parties at Rowangarth again! Oh, the joy of it, and herself thinking she would never live to see another. Goodness gracious, what a hustle and bustle and delight this day would be.

Ellen had arrived early that morning, leaving her children in the care of her mother-in-law, walking the half-mile to Rowangarth with a lightness of step. In the brown paper parcel she carried were her carefully folded frock – her best one, in navy – and a stiffly-starched cap with ribbon trailers and a bibbed apron, wrapped carefully around a rolled newspaper to prevent creasing. It would be grand to be with them all again, and tomorrow there would be a knock on her front door – her ladyship was always prompt with her thanks – and William would deliver a letter marked By Hand in the top, left-hand corner; a letter signed Helen M. Sutton and containing five shillings for her pains.

Five beautiful shillings. Ellen’s step had quickened, just to think of it. It would buy material for a Sunday-best dress and tobacco for her man, and a bag of jujubes for the bairns.

Now, in what had been her second-best uniform, and which still fitted her even after two pregnancies, she and Mary and the head gardener, his feet in felt slippers so as not to leave marks on the carpet, were setting a table splendid to see, with sweeps of fern looped around the table edges and, at each corner, a ribboned posy of carnations – carnations being known to keep fresh the longest. And thank goodness for Rowangarth’s heated glasshouses: peaches and nectarines, ready long before nature intended, made up part of a magnificent, two-feet-tall centrepiece of fruit, roses, lilies-of-the-valley and maidenhair fern. Already she had checked the fingerbowls, laid ready to be filled with water and sprinkled with rose petals later in the afternoon, and now, menu in hand, she checked the cutlery for correctness, walking round the table unspeaking.

‘Will it do?’ Nervously, Mary moved glasses a fraction of an inch, wondering if she had folded the table napkins into anything less than perfect waterlilies. ‘Have I done anything wrong?’

Ellen continued her progress from chair to chair, then looked up, smiling.

‘It is perfect, Mary. I can’t fault it. It would seem I taught you well. You can tell Miss Clitherow that only the place-cards need to be seen to now, for where guests will sit is nothing to do with us. Then we shall do as Tilda bids, and be off to the kitchen for a sup.’ She took the parlourmaid’s arm and tucked it in her own. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Mrs Shaw hasn’t made cherry scones: she always used to on dinner-party days. I still remember those scones. Oh, but this is going to be a rare day for me, Mary. It’s so good to be back at Rowangarth.’

Mrs Shaw sat herself down in the kitchen rocker and, taking a corner of her apron in each hand, billowed it out like a fan to cool her burning cheeks.

‘You can pour now, Tilda, and pass round the scones, for I’m fair whacked already …’

And loving every minute of, Ellen thought, washing her hands at the sinkstone; loving it as she always had before Sir John was taken and there had been a dinner party at least once a month.

‘Come now, Mrs Shaw,’ she admonished with a forwardness permitted only because of her marital state and her past years of service at Rowangarth. ‘You know you’ll be queen of the kitchen tonight, and all of them upstairs exclaiming over your cooking.’ And though she knew that a parlourmaid must never repeat table talk, it would be expected of both herself and Mary to pass on overheard compliments. ‘I can say for certain that Judge Mounteagle will allow himself to be persuaded to take another of your savouries, and you’ll have seen to it there’ll be extra, especially for him.’

Glowing, Cook accepted the plate and cup placed at her side, knowing everything Ellen said to be true, for wasn’t she indeed queen of her own kitchen, and as such had never seen the need for wedlock when all her heart could ever want was at Rowangarth. Here, she could go to bed master and get up next morning her own mistress, for the title of ‘Mrs’ was one of kindness, allowed to unmarried cooks and nannies. Truth known she was Miss Shaw and for ever would remain so.

‘Aah,’ she murmured, drinking deeply, smiling secretly. ‘Queen of nothing I once was. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was my twelfth birthday and the next day I left school. There were nine of us bairns; all to keep on a sovereign-a-week’s wages. I was one of the middle three, the fifth, right in the middle, and middle children had a hard time of it, I can tell you.’

She closed her eyes, calling back the firstborn brothers, well able to stick up for themselves, and the three youngest, petted like the babies they still were.

‘Us in the middle were all girls, all mouths to feed and backs to clothe; so Mam had no choice. Taken to Mother Beswick at the Mop Fair all three of us were: in them days, servants was hired at the Mop Fairs. I remember when it was my turn to go, and Mam telling me to work hard and not complain and say my prayers at night. Then she kissed me and gave Mother Beswick a florin and asked her to place me with an upright family if she could manage it. I never saw my mother again …’