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Mr. Hicks didn’t comment on Baron Harcourt’s surprising orders. He didn’t say very much at all until he led her to the servants’ hall, below stairs. “You’ll have rooms of your own, separate from staff. On the ground floor they. Office, bed chamber, but you got a window what looks upon the moor. You’ll find the keys on the chatelaine ring. Down here, this is Mon-sieur Did’rot’s domain, the kitchens and all. He’s from London.”
Elizabeth wished a half-hour to herself. She had stood on her feet for over an hour and a half. The mail coach had jostled every ache she’d ever had loose and started them again. She’d snatched bread and cheese before the carter said time to leave. The rain had drowned her. Yet she didn’t dare ask for that brief time alone.
“Tell me about Cook.” She gave a sniff. “Cinnamon and apples, I think. Wonderful. How does he do here? Most London cooks have particular ways of doing things.”
“Ah, Did’rot’s a good `un, for all he’s a frog. He’s got his ways. Better if you learn `em yourself.”
Cook was M’sieur Diderot, all the way from Paris. How had Baron Harcourt managed to employ a French chef? The British Army was fighting Emperor Napoleon, and these hinterlands would normally dissuade any Londoners from employment. Short and bone-thin, the man had a heavy brow and a crowning thatch of black hair. He barely acknowledged Mr. Hicks’ introduction.
Any kitchen was chaos before the evening meal. This one appeared to be organized chaos. The chef stood between the Rumford fireplace and the table, building a sauce. Behind him, a spit boy assiduously turned a cockerel. Two kitchen maids eyed the chef more than their fingers as they chopped potatoes and carrots. A woman shaped yeast and dropped the rolled dough onto a flat pan. As Elizabeth watched, the spit boy thrust a ladle into a pot, gave two quick stirs, then resumed turning the cock.
On the near side of the kitchen, a fireplace shared its unlit hearth with another room. That hearth had not been updated in the Rumford style, but a small brazier held coals, ready for lighting.
As she and Hicks lingered, the chef pointed a fork at the older man. “No one—no one! comes in my kitchen before dinner service.” His accent was faint, a hint rather than thick syllables. “Go. Go now.” The fork swerved to Elizabeth. “You. I will speak with you at table. You interfere with the sauce. Quitter ma cuisine maintenant! Partez!”
Elizabeth retreated. Hicks clomped after. “You see how he is. Tyrant.”
“Who serves at table?”
“I manage myself. It’s just his lordship of an evening. Breakfast and nuncheon, we put out dishes and he serves himself. Any guests come, I got a footman to help.”
She nodded and continued to nod while he talked about wines in the cellar and displayed his key. He walked her through a tour of the servants’ hall: linen press, laundry with its windowed door to the rainy outside, a variety of side rooms for Boots and sewing and the like.
They returned to a room on the other side of the kitchen hearth with its turning spit and redolent kitchen. She could see the spit boy’s wood clogs and the larger leather shoes of the chef. Dominating this room was a much-scarred long table. Side benches would easily accommodate twelve servants. Straight-backed chairs stood at either end. As Hicks lit a lamp on the table, she peered out of the rain-drenched high window. She could see trees rather than moor and knew this room and the kitchen were on the front side of the great house.
Hicks pointed to the chair with a faded blue cushion on its hard seat. “I sit there. You there,” was the other end, her back to the hearth.
“M’sieur Diderot, where does he sit?”
“Wherever he wants, but he don’t join us for dinner, just breakfast.”
“When do the staff dine?”
“After tea. This way. I’ll take you to your rooms.”
That was common. She had missed dinner, though. Her stomach grumbled at the lack. The tea she’d shared with Lord Harcourt might be her only supper. Every day of her travel, she’d only had bread and cheese, the occasional meat, all washed down with watered beer.
Her rooms were on the ground floor, tucked down a narrow side hall off the cross-hall and on the moor side of the Grange. She didn’t try to understand the floor plan; that would come. Elizabeth found it curious that she wasn’t housed with the other staff.
Hicks indicated he would return after dinner. “Staff gathers at table for day’s end” was his only comment.
She explored the anteroom, her office. She lit the oil lantern on a corner of the desk before she began. The desk was a massive kneehole style, dominating the space, obviously a reject from the library, for it duplicated the one there. Two chairs, neither cushioned. A blotter hid scratches and nicks and stains on the desktop. The key to the desk was in the lock and opened easily, revealing the usual desk items. At the fore of the desk was a quill in an inkstand, the former not sharpened and the latter empty. Foolscap in a side drawer. In another locking drawer was a box for petty cash, with a little key in its lock. She determined to keep that on a ribbon around her neck.
Like the kitchen there was a small hearth between the rooms. A boy had laid the fire but not lit it. She hurried to do that, wanting the room’s chill knocked back before she had to retire.
She lit a candlestick and carried it to the interior room. Here was the bedchamber, with her trunk placed in the center of the floor. A small table and upholstered chair sat before the sole window with its heavy curtains. She tugged back the faded fabric and saw the broad bulk of the moor.
Half an hour later she returned downstairs, not waiting for Hicks to find her way. She peeked into the table room and saw two men with rolled shirt sleeves, sitting across from each other. She passed on to Diderot’s domain. The maid who’d been making rolls came quickly to prevent Elizabeth from coming further into the kitchen.
“May I help you?”
Elizabeth smiled. “Forgive me, but I’ve had no dinner. I’ve not really had a meal at all since I left London. That feels like ages ago.”
“You miss the meal?” Diderot called from where he basted a sauce over the fowl. “Vous n’avez pas diné?”
“No. My apologies for invading your kitchen again. I hoped to get some soup and bread, perhaps a few vegetables.”
“You do not eat; this we cannot have. Go. Sit there.” He pointed to the hearth, and she knew he meant at the long table. “We will serve you with his lordship. The soup, il a déjàs repris.”
“Some bread, then? And cheese?”
“Non. You will have le bon diner, oui? Celly. Mary.”
“Thank you,” but she said it to the air. He had returned to his sauce.
The kitchen maids turned to obey, divining what he wanted without needing orders.
Elizabeth retreated before she offended the chef and returned to the other room. She sat at the chair Mr. Hicks had indicated was hers. The two men stared, so she introduced herself, quite proud to add “the new housekeeper”, and they returned with their names, Ian Rodgers and Jackman.
She started to pepper them with questions, then the soup came, smelling wonderful, along with a plate with two of the rolls and pats of butter. She sighed happily. Before she finished the soup, a plate arrived with the cockerel’s thigh, surrounded with a few vegetables, artfully arranged. A tiny serving of wilted greens for the sallet. Then came apples, sliced thin, baked with butter and cinnamon and served with a spoon of whipped cream.
Stuffed, she sighed again, and when M’Sieur Diderot appeared, she freely complimented him and thanked him once more. He smiled, looking like a benevolent uncle, then returned to his kitchen.
A maid set a demitasse cup before her, the coffee aroma as strong and rich as its taste. While she sipped, she returned to her questions of the men, jumbling their work and their lives, the moors and the village, the estate and other dependents. The method kept them from planning answers. When other servants began trickling in, taking seats around the long table, she knew enough to understand how Feldstone Grange worked inside and out.
Then Hicks appeared. His smile died when he spied her. “Miss Fortescue. I would have sent for you.”
“M’sieur Diderot was kind enough to provide me with a glorious dinner. I especially love his touch with spices, strong but not overwhelming. The cinnamon on the apples was divine. If I were you, I would stay at the Grange for the food alone.” She smiled around the table.
No one returned her smile.
The chef cleared his throat. “On Friday evening we will have a salmon with beurre blanc. The fish, Jackman will catch in our own river, n’est ce-pas, mon ami?” and the older of the two men with rolled sleeves answered him.
“Jack Birman,” he introduced himself. “Folk call me Jackman. Makes it easier.”
“He is Jacob Birman,” Hicks supplied. “He does the heavy lifting. Takes trips into Widderby for us.”
Elizabeth spent the rest of the evening learning names. The baron’s tally of his servants was accurate—fewer than she’d anticipated for such a sprawling manor.
“T’baron,” said Jackman, who volunteered that he’d carried in her trunk, “spends wages to work the land, not to live high and mighty.”
“Sure it ain’t the ghost?” asked the spit boy.
“Ghost?” The man laughed.
No one else at the table laughed.
“Oh!” the sole housemaid cried. “You’ll be having her scared of the woman. She ain’t scary, Miss Fortescue, ma’am. She’s sad.”
“A sad ghost?”
“She is that,” and Elizabeth noticed the other women and the spit boy and even Jackman solemnly nodded. “She weeps. All silent-like and looks at you with those great hollow eyes.”
“Goodness. I will shiver in my bed tonight.”
“No need to be scared, ma’am. She’s harmless, like I said. You can go weeks without seeing her. Mr. Hicks never has.”
The old man shrugged. “I don’t prowl about at night.”
“This ghost is a night-time haunt, then?”
In a ghoulish voice, Mary said, “She died in the entrance hall, when the Roundheads did burn the grand house and found the family here, when they came back looking for his lordship. That were day.”
The third kitchen maid rubbed her arms, as if the story chilled her. “I’ve walked through cold patches on the stairs. That’s her place. The stairs and the entrance hall.”
“I’ve seen her,” Jackman said, voice low, eyes on the table. “Staring out the window. Heard her crying.”
Hicks clapped his hands, startling them all. “Nonsense! You’re frightening our good housekeeper. She won’t stay long if she hears such talk.” And he chivvied them on to their last tasks.
Only afterwards did Elizabeth realize that the butler hadn’t denied the presence of the ghost.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Her new duties occupied her for the next days. She had no encounters with any ghost.
Elizabeth brokered a co-existence with Hicks and Diderot that neither man noticed as a negotiation.
She discovered before the end of the first week that the baron lived a lonely existence. She had started by calling it solitude. She spied him striding out to work in the fields. A couple of times he walked out with a musket, and on both evenings they had game. At times he rode onto the moor. He was always alone.
Hicks kept a wall between Elizabeth and Lord Harcourt except for their Friday and Monday conferences. The baron greeted her cordially, never straying into amiability. Yet he always asked two or three unexpected questions. She hadn’t yet taken up more than brief answers. Longer ones would delay her return to her duties. What would he do if she did give him longer answers? She guessed Hicks’ reaction, for he was ever jealous of his lordship’s time.
Her first difficulty came on her second Thursday when the sole housemaid, Jessa, requested an interview.
She directed the young woman to her anteroom office. That very morning Jackman had turned the desk for her, putting its back to the wall.
The maid planted herself on the hooked mat, like an accused facing the judges’ bench.
Elizabeth brought a chair beside her desk. “Please sit down, Jessa.” She scooted her own chair, angling it to appear open to the maid.
Jessa looked at the offered chair. “Ma’am?”
“I think ‘Miss” would serve better since I have never been married. Do sit, Jessa.” Once she had perched on the hard seat, Elizabeth asked, “What concerns you?
“I can’t stay here, ma’am—miss. Miss Fortescue.”
“I know the work is too much. I intended to speak with Lord Harcourt tomorrow morning. He has given permission for me to speak freely of my concerns. I trust he will allow me to hire two more housemaids. I do not know how you managed before I came. You are overworked. How can you find time to make candles and clean and mend, and oh, a dozen other things? How can we even attempt the seasonal chores? You barely have time for your regular duties. You certainly do not have time to help Mrs. Beatty with the laundry.
“Two more maids?”
“Yes, I think two is the bare minimum. Of necessity, some tasks have fallen aside, but two more helpers would enable us to blow away the dust and wash away the grime.”
“That’s—fine of you, ma’am—miss.” Her tone remained glum. “I’ll still need to leave.”
“Leave? Must you? Jessa, have you another position? Do you wish to marry? Is it—?” She stopped abruptly, for Jessa shook her head steadily. She dared not ask outright if the maid were in the family way. Elizabeth struggled to find words to hint at her meaning. “Is it something else that you think we will not accept? We would not turn you off.”
Jessa stared, mutely repeating some of Elizabeth’s words. Then the meaning hit. She colored. “Miss! I would never—! No!”
“Then I fail to understand your reason for leaving us. You say you must leave. Need to leave. Jessa, what is it?” She shuddered as she thought of another cause. “Is someone bothering you? Tell me. I will make him stop. I will see him turned off, no matter who he is.”
“No, Miss Fortescue, it’s nothing like that. Oh, you’re so sweet and—.” She used her apron to wipe her eyes and dab at her nose.
“Jessa, please tell me. Do you need more pay? Please. I want to retain you as head maid.”
“You can’t fix this, Miss Fortescue. You don’t have the power. I can’t stay.”
A wild idea flashed. The servants had talked of ghosts. Jessa had been the one to first mention the Silent Lady. If the maid had taken fright, then Elizabeth indeed had no power to talk Jessa out of her superstitions.
She might possibly allay them. She’d encountered no cold spots, heard no weeping, seen nothing untoward—but she also didn’t wander the halls late at night.
“Jessa, is it a ghost? I thought that was just talk.”
“No, ma’am—miss. A ghost, right enough.”
“I thought you said the Silent Lady is harmless. To encounter her would certainly be unsettling.”
“It’s not the Lady, Miss. It’s a different ghost.”
A different ghost. Can we have two? “No one mentioned another ghost.”
“I know what I heard, Miss. I can’t stay here. I can’t.”
What could Elizabeth do to counter this? “Has it—is it—focusing on you, Jessa?”
“No, Miss.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Not yet.”
“But you want to leave.”
“I heard it.”
“Heard her crying?”
“No, ma’am. Miss. Scratching about, knocking. It’s not a mouse or—or anything like. I looked. And I heard whispers. Whispers and whispers.”
“When?”
“Last night. Last Saturday, too.”
A couple of the servants had poor ideas about tricks. Perhaps they had involved themselves in some nefarious industry. “Can you understand the whispers?”
“No, Miss. I don’t like it, Miss.”
“If we moved your room—,” she started, and Jessa perked up. “Would moving you to another room solve the problem? You would be away from the whispers and the knocks and the scratching.”
“I’d know they were there.”
“But they wouldn’t be near you. They wouldn’t be focused on you, Jessa. You’d be away from them.”
“I’d be away from them at my grandda’s farm.”
“Could you try a new room? Would you? Give this new room a week or two? Please, Jessa. I do not want to recruit Mrs. Beatty or one of the kitchen maids. M’sieur Diderot would never forgive me.”
That won the barest smile. “That frog `ld skelp your hide if you did that, Miss.”
“Will you stay then? Another fortnight, at least. I will send Jackman up in a half-hour to shift your things to a new room.”
“I ain’t got nothing that heavy, Miss Fortescue. I can move it. But where?”
“I must consult with Hicks.”
Jessa sniffed. “He’s gone to market today.”
“So he has.” And Jessa had waited until Hicks was gone before she came to Elizabeth. Coincidence? Or deliberate choice? “Shall we look at the available rooms for ourselves? You will need one with a key.” She jangled the chatelaine ring suspended from her belt. “I will inform Hicks on his return.”
Jessa’s eyes opened wide at that breach of servant protocol. Yet when Elizabeth started out, the maid followed with alacrity.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Hicks harumphed and groused about the change. Other than threatening to tell the baron, though, he didn’t overrule the room change, and Elizabeth breathed easier.
That evening, as they sat around the table, drinking a last cup of tea before retiring, Elizabeth asked about servants who had recently left.
Family was one excuse, marriage was another.
“T’baron,” Jackman said, he who had carried in her trunk on the first day then removed it to the box room when she finally unpacked it, “he spends his wages to work the land, not to live high and mighty. Don’t need lots of servants in the house.”
“Sure it ain’t the ghost?” asked the spit-boy.
Diderot buried a laugh in his wine glass. “Ghosts!” Jackman scoffed. The footman, who had only been in service a couple of months, chuckled.
No laughs came from the others. They’d served at the Grange longer.