Free The Maid's Secret by Val Wood Page A

bottom of the track, ‘and I’ll walk up. Then you get off back to ’house. If ’mistress asks just say you dropped me off but you don’t know where.’
    ‘I don’t know where,’ he snuffled. ‘I’ve no idea. I’m from Hessle.’
    ‘We’re still in Brough,’ she lied again. ‘Vicinity of.’
    ‘Am I coming back for you?’
    She decided there and then. She would lose her wages if she didn’t go back; she’d been given a shilling when she’d started work and the rest she’d get at the end of the year, but she was willing to gamble, especially as she’d glimpsed the manor house at the top of the track and known instantly that she wanted to be there. ‘No. I’ll mek my own way,’ she said. ‘I know how.’
    Metal gates opened on to a gravelled drive that ran between large trees and bushes and neatly clipped grass and then divided, one drive leading to the front of the house, the other to the back. The house was solid and dignified, with stone steps leading to the front door, which had a balcony over it. An additional wing had been built on the left hand side with a large bay window in the centre.
    ‘It’s beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘I want to work here.’ She also wanted to live here, and, if given work, then she would, up in the attic.
    She took the side drive towards the servants’ entrance. I know my place, she thought. I’ll do everything right to make sure I get taken on. She knocked on the door, placed her bag on the ground and stood demurely waiting with her hands folded in font of her.
    ‘Just a minute!’ a woman’s voice shouted. ‘Is it Mr Hanson?’
    ‘No, ma’am,’ she called back. ‘It’s not.’
    A flustered-looking woman clad in white apron and cap opened the door. Surely, Ellen thought, Cook doesn’t usually open ’door herself? In the Brough house Ellen had to drop everything to answer both back and front doors.
    ‘I thought you were ’butcher,’ the cook said, wiping her forehead with the back of a floury hand. ‘Who are you?’
    Ellen dipped her knee. ‘Ellen Fletcher. I heard there was a vacancy for a kitchen maid and I came straight away. I’ve allus wanted to work at ’manor, Cook, and although I know it’s not ’way it’s done, I just dared to come.’
    ‘Did you now? Well, you’d better come in.’
    Cook sat down at the wooden table and gave a deep huff of breath. ‘Don’t know where everybody is. I’ll have somebody’s hide,’ she muttered. ‘Nobody to answer ’kitchen door and me in ’middle of baking for afternoon tea.’
    The door into the kitchen opened again and a young maid rushed in. ‘Sorry, Cook,’ she said. ‘Call o’ nature.’ She looked at Ellen. ‘Who’s this then? New kitchen maid?’
    ‘She might be. Put ’kettle on, Letty, and mek me a cup o’ tea. Now then, young woman. I’m Mrs Marshall. Cook in this household and my word is law. Now let’s hear about you and how you come to be here.’
    Ellen confessed to Mrs Marshall that she had met someone that morning who had told her about the vacancy at the manor. She left out the fact that the girl had been going to apply for it herself, and embroidered her reasons for rushing here immediately before anyone else took the position.
    ‘You mean that you’ve left without giving notice?’ Mrs Marshall was aghast. ‘Now that won’t do, it won’t do at all.’
    ‘Oh, no,’ Ellen said. ‘I left a message with one of ’other staff that I’d be back as soon as I could.’ She found that lying was coming quite easily to her and she didn’t disclose that the ‘other staff’ was a humble stable lad she had coerced into bringing her. ‘I wouldn’t let ’mistress down. I know how important I am to her, but neither could I miss ’opportunity to better myself.’
    ‘Mmm.’ Mrs Marshall seemed suitably impressed. ‘Which house in Brough? I don’t know one of any size.’
    Ellen gave a disarming smile. ‘You wouldn’t know it, Mrs Marshall,’ she explained. ‘It