Candles in the Storm Page 11

  ‘Donald!’ Ellen’s cheeks were scarlet, and the coachman, realising he had gone too far, was suitably chastened.

  He was still apologising when Daisy exited the cottage, standing for a moment by the carriage until Ellen said, her voice clipped now, ‘Climb up then, we haven’t got all day.’

  Daisy wanted to fiddle with her hair and clothes - she had noticed a black blob which was obviously tar on her skirt - and not least her nails on the way to Greyfriar Hall. She had scrubbed and scrubbed them in the few hectic minutes she had had before she’d left the cottage, but the minute or two with the big scrubbing brush and washing soda had only served to make her red hands even redder, and still her broken nails were black-rimmed.

  She only had one change of clothes which fortunately had been clean, or as clean as the poss-stick and plenty of elbow grease could make them, and her calico cloak covered the worst of the darns in her thick linen blouse. She couldn’t do anything about the tar stain though.

  She restrained herself from fidgeting, painfully conscious of the two stiff backs in front of her. The others might not be looking at her but she felt as though they had eyes in the back of their heads. Consequently Daisy sat as still as the deep potholes in the road would let her.

  It was the first time she had ever ridden in a vehicle - unless you counted Farmer Gilbert’s great hay wagon which was pulled by his two huge shire-horses - and in spite of her nervousness at what lay ahead, the experience was thrilling. The fields on either side of the lane fairly sped by, and they passed East Boldon and West Boldon and then Laverick Hall before turning sharply south, and within a short time were passing through the massive iron gates of Greyfriar Hall and into the estate.

  The wheels of the carriage scrunched on the gravel drive and then Daisy saw the big house which seemed to stretch away endlessly beyond the smooth lawn in front of it. The carriage skirted the lawn, driving round the side of the house and into a huge courtyard in which were two more carriages, a covered coach, and what was clearly the stable block by the number of horses peering out of their stalls.

  The carriage stopped, and Daisy noticed the woman in front jumped down quickly without waiting for the assistance of the man next to her, ignoring his, ‘Ellen, please. I’ve said sorry, haven’t I?’

  When Daisy was standing on the cobbles the woman said, her voice still abrupt, ‘You’ve got to come with me to the kitchen and then they’ll ring when they want you upstairs. And wipe your feet well on the cork mat outside the door. Cook doesn’t like her floor messed up.’

  Daisy looked down at her heavy hobnailed boots which were very different from the maid’s neat trim ones, and something in her expression caused a softening in Ellen’s tone when she said, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be all right. They’ve got a lot to thank you for after all.’

  ‘I only did what anyone’d do if they saw someone drownin’ in front of their eyes.’

  Did she really mean that or was she just saying it for effect? Ellen stared hard into the unusually lovely young face before her. ‘Lass, I can assure you few would do what you did,’ she said, her tone very dry. And when no reply was forthcoming added, curiosity overcoming the need to keep herself at a distance, ‘The authorities told the master that a number of fishermen were drowned in the same storm that sank the Aquitania. Did you know any of them?’

  The smoky grey eyes with their thick lashes gave the maid her answer, even before Daisy said quietly, ‘Me da an’ two of me brothers, an’ another three from our village.’

  ‘Oh, how awful.’

  Daisy’s heart was beating painfully as she scraped the mud off her boots before following Ellen into the house. She found herself in what appeared to be a large scullery, part of which seemed to be used as a cloakroom by the number of rough coats and shawls hanging on wooden pegs along one wall, under which stood lines of boots, large and small. She watched as Ellen stopped at one peg, taking off her coat and hat and smoothing her hair before she changed her footwear for a pair of thin-soled shoes. Then they walked past the big boiler, poss-tubs and deep white sink set to one side of two large rough tables piled high with vegetables and a number of dead chickens, pheasants and other game.

  ‘The cook’s name is Mrs Preston but she’s mostly just called Cook. Keep on the right side of her, she can be a tartar if you start off on the wrong foot.’ Ellen whispered this in an aside just before she opened the kitchen door, leaving Daisy no chance to enquire why she should be expected to keep on the right side of anyone in the house. She was only here for a brief visit after all.

  Once in the kitchen she stared round her in amazement, completely overawed. It was vast, enormous; the range alone seemed to be as large as the living room at home and it was beautifully black-leaded with shining brasswork. There were marble-topped units down one wall upon which sat pots and pans of every shape and size, cupboards galore, shelves everywhere, two big sinks and numerous small tables holding quantities of food and large wicker baskets and the like, and in the middle of it all, the biggest table in the world with long benches down either side of it. The room seemed full of people at first, but when Daisy was pushed down on a cracket by Ellen and told to ‘keep still’, she realised after a minute or two that in spite of the hustle and bustle there were just seven people present. They all seemed to be doing something, and although there had been a brief lull in the noise and conversation when she and Ellen had first appeared, activity had quickly resumed.

  Daisy was conscious of several veiled glances in her direction but only one girl, a young lass who couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen, smiled at her from where she sat peeling an enormous pile of potatoes, and then it was a quick nervous smile before she lowered her head to the task in hand. The personage who seemed to be in charge, a tall, eagle-eyed woman with sharp features whom Daisy took to be the cook, ignored her completely.

  It was only a minute or two before Ellen reappeared but it seemed much longer to Daisy’s tightly stretched nerves. Bending over her, Ellen said, ‘Jack - he’s the first footman - will come for you shortly.’ And then as before her tone softened a little as she added, ‘You all right, lass? You don’t look too good.’

  She didn’t feel too good. Her heart was thumping against her ribs with enough force to crack them and she felt dizzy, whether from the heat in the kitchen which was excessive or dread of what was to come, Daisy wasn’t sure.

  ‘You want a cup of tea?’ Ellen was still bending over her and when Daisy shook her head, the other girl said, ‘Oh, go on, I’ll have one an’ all,’ whereupon she walked across to a huge brown teapot sitting on two flat steel rods over the range. She lifted it, shaking it slightly, and then poured two cups of black liquid into a couple of mugs she took down from a long rack on the wall.

  ‘And what do you think you’re doing, Ellen Mullen?’ The woman Daisy had taken to be the cook stopped her pummelling of a basin of dough.

  ‘She’s feeling bad, Cook,’ Ellen said shortly, spooning sugar into each cup and adding a good dollop of milk. ‘You want her passing out up there and the master saying we didn’t look after her properly?’

  The cook moved closer to Ellen, lowering her voice as she said, ‘Mr Kirby won’t be best pleased if he catches you fussing round her. You know what he thinks about all this.’

  Daisy imagined the cook thought she couldn’t hear what was being said but she had always had cuddy lugs - according to her granny - and when Ellen whispered back, ‘Aye, well, I’m not so sure he’s got her right. She seems a nice young lass to me,’ she was glad her cheeks were already burning from the heat. So the valet had been nasty about her, had he? Perhaps she should have expected that.

  ‘She’s no better than she should be and an upstart with it, and you’re too trusting by half, me girl.’

  ‘The fact remains she saved Mr William from drowning, and perhaps Mr Kirby had better remember that when--’

  ‘What do you mean, I’m no better than I should be?’ Daisy had risen to her feet, and
the hubbub in the kitchen turned to absolute silence in the space of a breath. ‘Well?’ She advanced on the cook as the assistant cook, the kitchen maids, the vegetable maid and the two scullery maids watched with bated breath, not daring to move. To speak to Cook like that!

  ‘She didn’t mean anything, lass.’ Ellen was distraught. She had been sent ’specially by Sir Augustus and Lady Fraser themselves to fetch this girl with the minimum of fuss - those had been the master’s exact words - and now for this to happen! She would get the blame, sure as eggs were eggs. ‘Did you, Cook? You didn’t mean anything.’

  The cook, her thin-lipped mouth set tight, stared at the fishersnipe who had dared to challenge her in her own kitchen, and what would have happened next if the first footman hadn’t appeared on the scene, no one knew.

  As it was, Jack Mallard - a protégé of the butler, Mr Middleton, who had been coached by that same gentleman in the art of detecting and averting awkward incidents which might embarrass or upset the family - acted swiftly.

  ‘Come along, lass.’ He had taken hold of Daisy’s arm and whisked her out of the kitchen before she knew what was happening. Once the door was closed and they were in the long corridor which led to the hall door, he said, ‘You having a run in with Cook? You don’t want to take no notice of her, lass.’

  ‘She - she said--’ Daisy found she couldn’t repeat to this stranger what the cook had implied, however kindly he seemed. ‘Mr Kirby has told lies about me and she believed him.’

  Jack Mallard wasn’t surprised. From the first day he had come to work at Greyfriar Hall some fifteen years ago, he’d known that there was no love lost between Josiah Kirby and Stuart Middleton. The valet and butler vied for supremacy both with their master and the rest of the staff, and you were either for one and against the other or the other way round. He’d decided to throw in his lot with the butler and had never regretted it. Josiah Kirby was a nasty piece of work and vicious with it, but certain of the staff - of which Cook was one - thought the sun shone out of his backside.

  Now Jack had no compunction about saying softly, ‘Look, lass, I don’t doubt what you say is true, but Mr Kirby has the master’s ear and you won’t do yourself any favours if you repeat what you just said to me, all right? You’re here to see the master so forget about Mr Kirby, he don’t matter.’

  Daisy stared at the footman and nodded slowly. He was trying to help her, she could see that, but the thought of Mr Kirby’s lies made her blood boil.

  And then her escort opened the door and they stepped out into the hall, and all thoughts of Josiah Kirby fled.

  She was standing at the entrance to another world, she had to be, and she had never imagined anything like it in her wildest dreams. Daisy stood quite still, her gaze struggling to take in the great expanse of polished mahogany panelling and seats and small tables, the enormous gold-framed pictures on the walls and the acres and acres of deep rich red carpet. The footman had to repeat himself twice before she heard him, and then the words themselves were lost on her until he said again, ‘The master and mistress and Mr William and his sisters are in the morning room, all right? Don’t speak except to answer anything they might say, and curtsey to Sir Augustus when you first go in. Have you got that?’

  Had she? Daisy stared at him, her eyes wide, and for a second the urge to bolt was strong. She saw herself running back down the corridor and through the kitchen and scullery until she was outside again, and only the thought of how much Mr Kirby and the cook would love to see her at such a disadvantage kept her where she was.

  The sensation of the thick carpet under her feet was strange as she followed the footman down the hall, and never had she felt so tiny and insignificant. A huge and winding polished staircase rose up out of the centre of the endless space, but they passed this before her escort stopped at the last door on their right before the grand entrance directly in front of them.

  ‘I’ll knock and then open the door and announce you. Got it?’ Jack Mallard was feeling sorry for this young lass who was so clearly out of her depth and scared to death. He had been expecting someone quite different from all that Josiah Kirby had intimated. If this lass was on the game he’d eat his hat. ‘And just remember, all you have to do is speak when you’re spoken to.’

  ‘Aye, I’ll remember.’ Daisy was grateful for the solicitude she sensed but it had the effect of putting iron in her backbone. She was just as good as these folk, any of them - including Mr Kirby. She glanced at the liveried clothing of the man next to her which was intimidating in itself, and swallowed silently.

  The footman didn’t wait for an answer to his knock on the morning-room door, something Daisy thought odd because why bother to knock at all if you were going to open the door immediately? His voice was flat but penetrating when he said, ‘It’s the fishergirl, Sir Augustus.’

  ‘Thank you, Mallard.’

  The footman stood to one side for Daisy to pass him, and as she did so hissed out of the side of his mouth, ‘Don’t eyeball the master, lass, what are you thinking of? Keep your eyes on the floor,’ but for the life of her she couldn’t obey the order.

  Beneath her feet was another carpet, this time a blue one, again so thick she couldn’t hear herself walk, but it was the room in front of her and not least the five people in it which held her spellbound. The wooden panelling was a lighter colour than that in the hall and more intricately worked, being almost entirely festooned with leaves and flowers carved into it. An enormous full-length window with blue curtains took up half of one wall with a bookcase to either side of it, and a large cabinet, an occasional table, a screen partly obscuring another door and several very grand high-backed upholstered chairs were dotted about.

  A roaring fire was burning in the marble fireplace, and to the side of this in an alcove was a large writing desk at which sat a grey-haired man. Directly in front of the fire in a position to catch all the heat were two chairs. The young man she had rescued from the sea was in one, a thick blanket over his knees, and an impassive-faced woman in the other. Two equally impassive but considerably younger women were sitting on a chaise-longue placed at an angle in the other alcove to that which held the desk. All five persons were looking at Daisy and she, in turn, found her eyes darting from one to the other.

  William, she noticed, was very pale and even more handsome than she remembered. But after this one thought Daisy kept her eyes from returning to his chiselled features and didn’t allow herself to think of Sir Augustus’s son by name.

  She had expected the master of the house to speak first, and when the young man spoke up, saying, ‘I owe you a great debt, Miss Appleby. Please, won’t you be seated?’ Daisy felt the shock of hearing that deep pleasant voice for the first time register in her body.

  She looked full into his face then, the piercing blue of his eyes striking her anew, but before she could answer or make any move towards the chair he had indicated, Sir Augustus said coldly, ‘William? We agreed I would deal with this,’ and the tone of his voice brought all Daisy’s attention to him.

  Sir Augustus Fraser considered that life had dealt him a series of blows in his latter years. Born a baronet, he had been encouraged from birth to remember the immemorial antiquity of his line and to look down upon nobility of more recent vintage. When it had come to choosing a wife, he hadn’t even considered taking a female from one of the wealthy families of Low Southwick, Monkwearmouth, Sunderland and surrounding districts, who had mostly made their riches and titles in the nineteenth-century development of the area and were therefore shipbuilders, glassmakers, coalmine owners and the like.

  Sir Augustus was a landowner, a member of one of the oldest county families, and only a wife of equal breeding would do. So Gwendoline had been selected and they had duly married. She had found the procedure involved in producing an heir more than a little distasteful, but that had neither surprised nor worried him. He had his mistresses for entertainment, a wife wasn’t supposed to enjoy that kind of thing.

  What
had surprised and worried him, however, and more so as time had gone on, was Gwendoline’s inability to produce an heir. One female child after another had been born, and to add insult to injury his daughters, without exception, had inherited neither their mother’s fair graceful comeliness nor his darker good looks, but had fallen somewhere between the two and were remarkably plain. And then, at last, he had heard the words, ‘You have a fine healthy son, Sir Augustus.’

  As soon as Gwendoline had risen from her bed after the four weeks of confinement following the birth, she had moved into her own quarters in the west wing, making it clear all intimacy was finished with, and he had been content to let her go. He had his son. His wife had persevered in her duty, and he wanted nothing more from her from that point on but to be a graceful hostess and a worthy recipient of his name.

  But Sir Augustus had found as the boy had grown that his long-awaited heir irked him. Although tall, William had taken after his mother in colouring, having her fairness and blue eyes, and bore nothing of the strong dark looks characteristic of the Frasers. And it wasn’t only the boy’s outward appearance which irritated him. William was seemingly unable to grasp the implications of his position. Sir Augustus’s daughters had no problem in accepting that they had been born to be looked up to and served as of right, but his son, his heir who bore in his loins the seed of future Frasers, seemed intent on consorting with common people.