Free Off the Rails by Beryl Kingston Page A

aside.
    I can’t let this go on, Jane thought, she’ll wake the baby. ‘How would it be if we all had our breakfast together in the nursery?’ she said. ‘We couldset the table in there, couldn’t we, Polly, and I could tell you stories while you ate.’
    ‘Yes,’ Sarah said firmly. ‘That is a very good idea. Get up, Emma. We’re going to have breakfast in the nursery.’
    So the table was set and chairs were carried in for the sisters and a pretty little highchair was found for Milly and they all sat round the table in the sunshine and breakfasted together and Jane told them all the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, which Emma pretended she wasn’t the least bit interested in – but enjoyed very much, especially when Milly echoed ‘Bear, bear, bear’ and clapped her hands.
    From then on they breakfasted together every day and Jane told them every fairy story she could remember, and after that they spent their time gossiping. She found out more about her fellow servants from her two outspoken guests than she would ever have done simply from her own observation – that Mrs Denman was firm but fair, that the house steward was called Mr Glendenning, that their governess was horrid, ‘the sooner they get rid of her, the better,’ that grooms were always larking about and gardeners touched their forelocks. ‘That’s how you know they’re gardeners.’
    Now and then, they mentioned their parents but they seemed to know far less about them than they did about the servants. They said they rode to hounds and had lots of parties, that their mother had had a good seat and had worn beautiful dresses and their father went to parliament and rode a white stallion, but that was all. They showed no sadness at their mother’s death, which Jane found most peculiar. But they were entertaining company and Milly loved them, clapping her hands and shouting ‘Umma, dumma dumma dumma’ when they appeared.
     
    Towards the end of August, when Felix was three months old, had learnt to smile and chuckle and to recognize that Jane’s arrival by his crib meant food and cuddles, she had a sudden visit from her employer, the great Sir Mortimer himself. He arrived like royalty, with Mr Glendenning attendant at a discreet distance from his elbow and Mrs Denman three paces behind him. Jane was so overawed by the sight of him that she dropped an instinctive curtsey.
    He was the tallest man she’d ever seen and handsome in a foreign sort of way, with the same thick fair hair as his daughters, dark, shrewd eyes, a long nose, a protruding chin and a decidedly haughty manner, polite but distant, as if he were looking at her from a long way away. He wore the most beautiful clothes, his coat and waistcoat all-over embroidery, and his boots were a wonder to behold. But it was his voice that made her awareof what a great man he was, for the English he spoke was nothing like the Yorkshire accent she heard all around her and spoke herself. It was quiet, firm, and very definitely superior. She noticed that he seemed to drawl, that he dropped the Gs on the end of his words as if he was swallowing them, that he used words she’d never heard before.
    ‘I trust you are settlin’,’ he said, ‘Mrs …’ And he looked at Mr Glendenning to supply him with her name.
    ‘Smith.’
    She curtseyed and thanked him kindly at which he inclined his head towards her. Then he walked over to the cradle and looked at the baby.
    ‘He is a deal less pale than he was the last time I saw him, Mrs Denman,’ he observed. ‘Looks strong enough. Feedin’ well, is he?’
    As the question seemed to be addressed to her, Jane answered it. ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘No sickness or incapacity of any kind, I trust?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    The great man walked to the window and gazed out at his estate. ‘You have been carin’ for my daughters too, I believe,’ he said, without turning his head.
    The question was courteous and seemed kindly but she was suddenly afraid he