Free Break of Dawn by Rita Bradshaw Page A

were also sent up to the dining room. When the boys were home, the dishes invariably returned to the kitchen empty. Other times, if anything was left, Kitty was expected to use it for the servants’, and Sophy’s, lunch.
    Mary had a bee in her bonnet that the breakfast beverage had to be cocoa. Her father had always insisted that because cocoa contained cocoa-butter and starch, it would make up for the waste which had occurred during the fast of the preceding night, and would also maintain the body during the day. Tea was drunk at breakfast only when the bishop was a guest, since he had a dislike of cocoa.
    Another of Mary’s pet hates was pre-packed coffee. Although tradesmen were forbidden by law to adulterate coffee with chicory, Mary didn’t trust them, therefore she insisted that the family’s coffee was roasted and ground in the kitchen. Every three of four days, Kitty would take half a pound of the raw coffee berries, put them in a clean frying pan with a little fresh butter and stir them round and round until the whole was done, before grindingthem immediately. Kitty often complained to herself during this process, muttering that the freshly packed coffee was just as good and she had enough to do as it was, but Sophy loved the mornings when the roasting coffee beans filled the kitchen with their luscious aroma.
    Porridge, followed by thick wedges of Bridget’s crusty bread spread with butter and two rashes of bacon apiece was the se rvants’ breakfast as decreed by the mistress of the house. However, Kitty saw to it that a boiled egg – two for Patrick – along with several of the potato hashes, was added, having little time for what she called ‘the mistress’s parnicketies’.
    It was one of Sophy’s jobs to wash and prepare the vegetables for the whole household’s meals each morning before the servants’ breakfast. Kitty left the required amount in the scullery’s huge square sink every evening before she retired, and Sophy always got to work as soon as she was up. She had to stand on an orange box to reach the sink, and however warm the kitchen was, the scullery was always freezing and gloomy, but with Bridget bustling about seeing to her various tasks the time passed quickly enough. Today though, Sophy had had to clean and scour a couple of pans and kitchen utensils left over from the dinner party the previous night before she could start on the vegetables. As far as Mary was concerned, it was one of Sophy’s many duties to scrub all the stewpans, saucepans, sauté pans, frying pans and other kitchen equipment each day, but between them Bridget and Kitty saw to it that the majority of this was taken off Sophy’s small shoulders. If the child had been forced to carry out all of Mary’s orders, it was doubtful if she would have got to bed each night before the early hours of morning.
    Sophy had just finished the last of the vegetables when Kitty called her through to the kitchen for breakfast, and when she took her place at the table there were two packages by her bowl of porridge, a slim long one wrapped in bright paper and another bulkier one in brown paper tied with string. She glanced at Bridget whose soft brown eyes were waiting for her. ‘Happy birthday, hinny.’ And then, as Sophy leaped up and hugged her, planting a kiss onher cheek, before doing the same to a smiling Kitty and Patrick, Bridget added, ‘Now afore you open ’em, the smaller one is from the doctor, Dr Lawrence.’
    ‘Dr Lawrence?’ Sophy returned to her seat, her eyes wide, touching the bright paper as though it was going to bite her. ‘Why would Dr Lawrence buy me a birthday present?’
    After talking the matter through with her mother in hushed whispers while Sophy finished the last of the vegetables, Bridget had decided to say nothing of the past gifts, feeling it would somehow take the shine off the present. Now she cleared her throat before saying, ‘I suppose it’s because you’re ten and that’s quite a