Free The Maid's Secret by Val Wood Page B

isn’t in this class at all. Mr Burton is in trade, but a very decent hard-working man, although Mrs Burton gets a bit above herself sometimes, begging her pardon,’ she added, in case she’d overdone it.
    ‘Aye, well, some folks do,’ Mrs Marshall agreed. ‘We all need to know our place. All right then,’ she said. ‘I’ll tek you on, on a month’s trial. When can you start? And what about a reference? I can’t tek you without a reference.’
    Ellen put her fingers to her lips as if considering. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I could start today, except that Mrs Burton won’t give me a recommendation unless I work a month’s notice and you might decide to tek on somebody else who onny has to give a week.’ She pouted as if she were going to cry and took a deep sobbing breath. ‘And I’d be devastated if I lost ’chance of working here.’
    ‘A month! I can’t wait a month,’ Cook declared. ‘And you’d be prepared to start today? What would your mother say? What would she think about it?’
    ‘She wouldn’t care,’ Ellen claimed. ‘She’s not really bothered about what I do.’
    Mrs Marshall was quite soft-hearted in spite of her bluster, and she was drawn to this young girl who had taken matters into her own hands to better herself. She nodded. ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do then. I’ll tek you on today and you must write to your employer and explain that you’ve accepted another position. How you explain it is up to you, but ask her for a reference cos ’month’s trial still holds. And if you don’t fit in then you’ll be given notice.’
    ‘Oh, thank you, Cook.’ Ellen spontaneously gave the older woman a kiss on her floury cheek, and Mrs Marshall was quite overcome. ‘You’ll never regret it. Never.’
    And she didn’t. Ellen became the surrogate daughter that Mrs Marshall had always wanted, and Ellen found someone who, unlike her own mother, listened to what she had to say and took time to answer her questions. In other words, as one of the other maids hinted jealously, they became as thick as thieves. The month’s trial came and went and the reference was never asked for, which was just as well, for Ellen had written to Mrs Burton only to say that she had left and wouldn’t be coming back, but if a Susan Tyler should apply for the position she would highly recommend her.
    She felt that she was almost rich. She was to be paid ten shillings a year and supplied with two grey cotton dresses, three coarse aprons and caps and her food and lodgings, and although she didn’t get the room in the attic she had imagined, she was given a mattress in the kitchen in front of the range.
    The housekeeper, Mrs Whitton, didn’t allow the kitchen staff upstairs, but in any case Mrs Marshall kept her busy learning the way she liked things to be done, from scrubbing floors, washing windows and cleaning out cupboards to stoking the fire under the range, as well as preparing vegetables for cooking, and washing a sink full of dirty dishes and pans. Many of her tasks were similar to the work she had done at her former employer’s house, but now she did them willingly, for she liked the thought of being part of the staff in this mansion and hoped that she would eventually become an upstairs maid.
    Sometimes she helped in the laundry, lighting fires and filling the tubs with water for Mary the washerwoman, who came in every Monday to wash and Tuesday to iron. Mrs Marshall told her that Mary had a hard life, as she was the only daughter left at home to look after her demanding father and earn a living for the two of them. She was also a self-taught midwife, often called upon to attend the labours of local women in spite of never having had any children herself. She was strict with Ellen but taught her which sheets needed boiling and which needed only a warm wash, as well as the correct way to iron shirts, press linen sheets and pillowslips and look after Mrs Hart’s lingerie.
    ‘One day you’ll mebbe