Free The Maid's Secret by Val Wood

Chapter One
1830
    Ellen had been in service since her mother had told her that she could no longer keep her at home. She was twelve then, and from the age of five she had known that this day would come. At ten she had been allowed to go to school for six months to learn to read and write, but once those lessons were mastered she had had to leave and continue to learn the rudiments of housekeeping from her mother.
    ‘You’re a girl and must earn your own keep until such time as you find somebody to marry you,’ her mother had said bluntly. ‘Any spare money we had has gone towards your brothers’ apprenticeships.’
    There was no arguing with her mother: not even Ellen’s father did that. His wages as a bargeman were put on the table and his wife gathered them up to pay the rent and buy food, which year by year was getting more and more expensive. Bread and flour, the most staple of necessities, were hard to come by. They lived in the small town of Brough on the Humber estuary, and although in times past it had been important its chief claim to fame now was that the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin had boarded at the Ferry House Inn until he was captured and taken to York in irons, where he was subsequently executed for horse theft.
    Ellen found work as a general maid in a house in Brough, where she discovered that she was even lower in the pecking order than she had been at home. After twelve months of scrubbing floors and vegetables, cleaning the grates and lighting fires, washing windows and floors, dusting and polishing and, it seemed to her, being blamed for everything that went wrong, she was determined to get away.
    Quite by chance, when sent by the mistress to buy strong thread and be quick about it, she met Susan Tyler, who had attended school with her. Susan told her that she was applying for a position as a kitchen maid in a manor house near Broomfleet, a few miles up the river.
    ‘What’s it called?’ Ellen asked. ‘Because I’ve put in for one as well.’
    ‘Hart Holme Manor,’ Susan told her. ‘It can’t be ’same; ’job’s onny just come vacant. My sister knows ’brother of ’girl who’s just left.’
    ‘It’s ’same one,’ Ellen lied. ‘I heard about it ’other day and wrote straight away. I’ve got a really good reference, so ’job’s practically mine. They wanted somebody who could read and write well,’ she added, knowing that Susan could do neither.
    ‘Oh!’ Susan’s expression fell. ‘So no use me asking then?’
    ‘None,’ Ellen said sorrowfully. ‘I’m so sorry, Susan. But tell you what, leave it about a fortnight and then apply to ’place where I am now; they’ll be that desperate for somebody you’ll be sure to get ’job.’
    Susan frowned at the backhanded compliment, and not sure how to respond simply said that she would.
    Ellen hurried back with the thread and breathlessly told the mistress that she had to go home immediately as she’d heard that her mother was very ill.
    ‘You can’t,’ Mrs Burton said. ‘I need you here.’
    ‘I’m sorry. I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ she said, letting her lips tremble and blinking as though to hold back tears. ‘But I’m that worried; I don’t want to leave it too late.’
    She packed a bag with her few belongings and then scurried round to the stable to find the young stable lad.
    ‘Quick,’ she said. ‘I’ve to go on an errand for ’mistress. She said you’d to take me in ’trap.’
    She had never been to Broomfleet, and Susan had only said near Broomfleet, so as soon as they were on the right road she told the lad to pull up and ask a man for directions to Hart Holme Manor.
    ‘Drive on for another two miles,’ he said, ‘and you’ll see a long track; look up it and you’ll see ’house at ’top. Can’t miss it.’
    ‘Thank you.’ Ellen smiled at him, and because she was a pretty girl he smiled back and touched his hat.
    ‘You can stop here,’ she told the lad when they reached the