Free House of Angels by Freda Lightfoot Page B

And did he always talk in thee’s and thou’s? Ella had never noticed that in him before, but then she’d hardly exchanged half a dozen words with her husband, save for the few words he’d spoken on their journey here, and hearing him read his Bible at the kitchen table last night.
    He was still speaking, issuing further instructions, or so it seemed. ‘Now tha’d best get theesen over to the dairy.’
    She looked at him askance. ‘The dairy? But it’s Saturday.’
    ‘There’s still work to be done. It’s not Mrs Rackett’s job to do it, not now we’ve got thee.’ He glowered down at Ella’s ineffectual efforts with the broken eggs. ‘Nor is it her job to clean up after thee. You might find a drop of water would help.’
    Ella considered this, wondering where she might find such a thing as a tap.
    ‘The pump is outside,’ Amos informed her, reading her mind.
    She looked at him blankly. ‘Pump? Outside?’ As if she couldn’t quite work out where that might be, or what, exactly, a pump was. Angel House was equipped with the very latest in bathrooms and plumbing, even in the kitchen. Ella suddenly recalled that the privy, once she’d finally been allowed to relieve herself the night before, was tucked behind the house amongst a patch of nettles. She shuddered at the recollection. What sort of a place had she come to?
    ‘Aye, where else would it be?’ Amos was saying. ‘And look sharp about it,’ he grumbled, turning to walk away. Ella remained on her knees for a full heart beat, then jumped up to hurry after him. ‘But, Amos, what is it, exactly, I’m supposed to do in the dairy?’
    He blinked at her as if she were suddenly speaking an unknown language. ‘Churn butter, mek cheese, do whatever needs doing a’ course.’
    ‘B-b-but…’ She was stammering now, uncertain, fearful, as she had used to do when she was a child and her father had been cross with her over some supposed misdemeanour. ‘I’ve no idea how to do those things, how to make b-butter or cheese.’
    ‘Then tha’d best look sharp and learn,’ he calmly informed her. ‘This isn’t Angel House, and we don’t have no servants here. As well as the dairy, there’s the calves to feed, and the hens to see to. Mrs Rackett will show you what’s what, so look sharp.’
    Looking sharp, by which he seemed to mean the necessity for both speed and the facility of learning, appeared to be his byword, although what all the rushwas for, Ella really couldn’t imagine. Even had she the first idea how to set about making butter, didn’t she have all day in which to manage it? What else was there to do in this godforsaken place? She could quite see herself being bored out of her mind by nightfall.
    Watching her husband stride away in his lolloping gait, Ella thought that perhaps this might not be the moment to mention the problems she’d encountered dressing and attending to her hair by herself, or to ask for a personal maid.
    Instead, she toasted two slices of bread at the kitchen fire for her breakfast, spread them lavishly with fresh butter and honey, and began making plans for a visit to town. She certainly had no intention of languishing here for very long, nor of spending her days churning butter. Nor did she have any intention of becoming involved with whatever it was you were supposed to do with calves or hens. The very idea made her shudder.
     
    Ella chose to ignore his instructions to find either Mrs Rackett or the dairy, and went back to her room where she set about unpacking her few belongings. She shook out her dresses, left in a crumpled heap after her indecision over what to wear, and hung them in the cavernous wardrobe beside Amos’s best Sunday suit and an old tweed jacket. She put the few books she’d brought with her on the table by the bed, and her shoes and other possessions, such as her writing case and sewing box, in an empty chest which stood at the foot of the bed.
    If she’d known how stark her surroundings