Ella’s Journey: The perfect wartime romance to fall in love with this summer

CHAPTER TEN

Immersed within a dream in which she was trying to scrub a floor that kept getting bigger and bigger, black-and-white tiles stretching off into the far distance and her bucket of water improbably small for such a task, Ella was aware of someone shaking her. Eyes heavy and gritty, she struggled awake and tried to work out where she was. It took a moment to recognise Doris standing over her in the gloom.

‘Come on, up you get. We need to get a move on.’

The chill of the room struck Ella as she swung her feet out of bed and onto the cold floorboards. There was only time to splash her face with the water that Doris had brought up the night before in a china jug: the iciness woke Ella immediately. She gasped and groped blindly for her towel, patting her face with the familiar rough and threadbare fabric. Then she pulled her dress over her head, manoeuvring her nightdress off underneath it, trying to trap as much residual body warmth as possible. Dragging her brush through her hair, she considered herself ready.

Doris looked at her critically. ‘You’ve no need of stays, I see. That dress is like a sack on you. Did they never feed you at your last job? And Elsie – Cook – will have words to say about your hair. Here, I’ll pin it up for you; she’ll find you a cap to hide the most of it.’

Ella was suddenly vividly reminded of how her sister Alice, who also suffered from unruly curls, had deftly pinned up her hair for her. A rush of sorrow and homesickness made her sway a little in front of the speckled glass of the mirror and she grasped at the chest of drawers for support.

Doris looked at her with concern. ‘You’ve gone very pale. Are you going to be all right? You’ve a long day ahead of you, you know?’

Ella nodded, unable to speak.

Doris shook her head and set off down the steep stairs, which led directly from the servants’ quarters in the attic to the servants’ hallway several flights below. The kitchen, heated by the range overnight, was noticeably warmer. Doris began work at once, showing Ella how to stoke up the range for the morning, before filling great pans with water and setting them to heat.

‘We’ll be needing water for the whole family for washing, when they get up.’ She pointed to the big china jugs, lined up ready for the different family members, plain and severe for Mr Ward, decorated with flowers and bows for the women in the family.

‘They’ve got a bathroom up there, you know,’ Doris confided while Ella nodded, uncomprehending. Whatever was a bathroom? ‘But the water’s never hot enough in the morning so hardly anyone uses it. Mr Ward sometimes does, just to prove it was worth all the expense of putting it in. Never on a winter’s morning, though.’ Doris chuckled to herself, before showing Ella what she needed to lay out for Mrs Dawson who would be coming down shortly to get the family’s breakfast underway.

‘Right, upstairs next.’ Doris seized the cinder pail, brushes and pans from the scullery. ‘There are fires to do in the breakfast room, parlour and library, then while the family are breakfasting you’ll need to be up the back stairs to sort out the bedroom fires and the beds.’

Ella’s stomach growled with hunger but she knew only too well there’d be nothing to be had for a while yet, until the house was ready for the family to start their day. A glass of water would have to tide her over for now.

Doris laid a warning finger to her lips as she pushed open the heavy door that separated the servants’ domain from the main house. Holding the metal pails carefully to avoid any clanking that might wake the family prematurely, Doris led the way. Ella followed then stopped, transfixed. She was standing in what must be the hallway. Wood panelling lined the walls, and those of the main staircase that swept upwards to a vast window, the width of the half-landing and the height of what appeared to be the whole house – Ella couldn’t say for sure because it vanished upwards, out of her range of vision. Although it was still early and the gloom had barely lifted outside, she could tell that light would flood in and fill this space once the sun was up. It reminded her of a church window but it was certainly larger than anything she had seen in the Northwaite village church.

Doris was holding open the door on the other side of the hall, making impatient jerking motions with her head.

‘You need to get on,’ she hissed, as Ella came closer. ‘Clean the fireplace in here while I do the one in the parlour. Then I’ll show you the library one while I go down to fetch the water jugs.’

Ella had to stop and stare again when Doris drew back the heavy curtains in the breakfast room. She couldn’t help herself. The window looked over the gardens at the back, bleak and stark on a November morning but, again, what a window! It ran nearly the full length of one wall. Ella revolved slowly, taking in the vases of flowers on the tables, the fine polished furniture, and the paintings on the wall. Doris was over by the fireplace, hand on hips, her peaches-and-cream complexion flushed, tapping her foot impatiently.

‘Ella, we really haven’t got all day.’

Obediently, Ella spread out the cloth that Doris handed her, to protect the fine rug before the hearth, before she set to raking out the ashes and piling them into the pail.

‘Not too rough, mind,’ Doris warned. ‘Here, put the lid over the pail to stop the dust rising. I’ll be in the hall when you’re done,’ and with that she hastened out.

Ella concentrated hard on cleaning out the grate, leaving just a fine sprinkling of ash as she had been taught to do as a base for lighting the new fire. The kindling, paper spills and coal scuttle, filled the night before, were already in place and Ella had prepared and lit the fire in no time. The chimney had a good draw on it, she noticed, as the flames took hold and the wood began to crackle. Adding the coal a little at a time, she sat back on her heels to observe her handiwork. Glancing briefly around the room again, she was hardly able to comprehend the contrast between the cottages she was used to and such a grand room. The ceiling of this one room must be as high as the roof of the cottage she grew up in, she thought to herself as she gathered together the brushes and the pail and folded up the cloth. She arrived in the hallway at the same time as Doris, who stuck her head back into the breakfast room to check on Ella’s efforts.

‘Well done,’ she murmured. ‘But you’ll need to be quick in the library upstairs. The household will be up and about before long and it wouldn’t do for them to see you abroad. We can risk using these stairs just this once, but Mrs S would be furious if she caught us. We’re supposed to always use the back stairs.’

Ella followed Doris up the broad polished steps of the main staircase, barely having time to register the view revealed through the great window as dawn broke. A formal garden was spread out below, while beyond the garden wall fields stretched off into the distance. A glimpse, then they were in the dark, panelled corridor and Doris was opening the heavy door of the library, which this time overlooked the front of the house. Doris folded back the panelled shutters from a pair of huge windows to admit the daylight, which revealed several floor-to-ceiling bookcases, with leather-bound volumes on every shelf. Ella, standing in the middle of the room, had the feeling that today was going to be a day of marvels unfolding but, as Doris reminded her, ‘there was no time to waste.’

The library fireplace suited the grandeur of the room. Rather than the wooden mantel and decorative tiles of the breakfast room, this fireplace had a more masculine stone hearth and surround. There was still faint warmth in the embers, suggesting to Ella that Mr Ward probably sat up late in here, after the rest of the family were abed. She dealt swiftly with the cleaning and re-laying of the fire and, although she longed to loiter and take a proper look around, she dared not. She was on her way down the main staircase when she met Doris and Rosa coming up, bearing a china jug of steaming water in each hand as they headed for the bedrooms.

‘Hurry,’ Doris hissed, whilst Rosa frowned at Ella. ‘They’ll be getting up any moment now. No one must see you here.’

Back in the kitchen, all was a hive of activity. Ella barely had time to sort out the ashes (some for the roses, the rest of the cinders to be kept for the cinder man), before she was washing her hands in the scullery and helping Cook to prepare the eggs, cold cuts, toast, coffee and tea.

‘We need more help,’ Doris muttered as she loaded up the trays for Mr Stevens. She had swiftly laid the breakfast table upstairs in a spare five minutes after delivering the hot water. Rosa, as Mrs Ward’s lady’s maid, remained upstairs a little while longer to help her to dress. Now it was Ella’s turn to lay the table downstairs. There was just chance to take tea and bread and jam, perhaps an egg or two if they were lucky, while the family breakfasted – hopefully without summoning them to provide more tea, coffee or toast. Ella found the routine little different so far to a typical morning at the Ottershaws’, although without all the young children, but the scale of the house and the formalities to be observed added to the workload.

When she had first arrived, Ella had been sceptical that such a number of servants could be required to run a house of so few people. Now she could see what Doris meant by her heartfelt plea for more help and, as the day progressed with the washing of the breakfast dishes and the immediate commencement of preparations for lunch, Ella felt she had a clearer insight into the workings of the house. Every servant had to know and perform their role like clockwork for the house to function at all. Orchestrated by Mrs S, the household moved through its day. Dirty laundry was sent out, clean laundry counted back in. Food for the evening was ordered by Cook once Mrs Ward had made her decision about the menu. The grocer’s boy came to collect the list as, although there was a telephone, another innovation for Ella to marvel at, it was in Mr Ward’s study and for his personal use only.

Lunchtime came and went in a blur and Ella was glad to be able to sit down in the afternoon for the hour that Mrs S insisted on to allow her staff a chance to rest, provided there were no visitors and the family didn’t need them. It was a chance to talk with Mrs Dawson while she baked, or to do some sewing for the household, but not to do any of the heavy work or cleaning or any other of the myriad duties likely to arise during the course of an average day at Grange House.

Ella was used to long days of hard work. At the Ottershaws’ she never stopped from five in the morning until she fell into bed around ten or eleven at night. She supposed the difference was that there she had fulfilled all the roles – cook, maid and nursery maid. As if reading her mind, Mrs Dawson, stirring egg yolks into a custard for the evening dinner, commented ‘You’ll be finding this very different from your previous employment? I heard you were a maid-of-all-work over near Leeds?’

‘Not so close to Leeds,’ Ella replied, sewing steadily as she took up the hem of a nightgown, back from the laundry and in need of repair. ‘Out in the country, in Nortonstall. Yes, I worked for a family with four small children and you’re right, it was hard work. But I’m not sure this isn’t harder…’

‘You’ll get used to it,’ Mrs Dawson said. ‘It’s your first day and there’s a lot to learn in a big house like this. And we’re short-handed at present. We need a new kitchen or scullery maid then you’ll be above stairs, I’ll be bound. Doris and Rosa are run off their feet up there. So much for this being a labour-saving house. Mrs Ward was convinced we could manage here with fewer servants, not like the last place in Micklegate.’ Mrs Dawson paused and looked at her critically. ‘It looks as though a breath of wind could blow you away. Here, have another piece of cake; you need feeding up a bit if you’re to have enough strength for the work upstairs.’

She pushed a plate of sponge cake towards Ella and patted her own hips ruefully. ‘The curse of the cook – too much sampling of our own food. Who would trust a thin cook, though?’ and she chuckled to herself as she strained the custard into a large bowl, the rim patterned with a trellis of roses.

That night, as Ella fell into bed, she barely had a moment to reflect on all the tasks she had accomplished during the day, and all the amazing sights she had seen, before her eyes closed and she was seized by sleep.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It took very little time before Ella stopped feeling like the awkward new girl. Familiar with most of the duties expected from her, after her years spent at the Ottershaws’, she was also quick to master anything new. As Mrs Sugden had foretold, she soon found herself drafted in as an upstairs maid in the afternoons, initially to help out when the family had visitors for afternoon tea. She wore the smarter dress, with apron, cap and cuffs, for these occasions. Mrs Ward had nodded approvingly the first time she appeared in it. A glamorous woman, taller than her husband, she kept herself at a distance from her staff. Ella had been introduced to her formally, shortly after arrival, when Mrs Ward had looked her up and down and asked Mrs Sugden whether she was the one whose mother had written. Answered in the affirmative, she had thanked Ella for coming to her husband’s aid when his car broke down, then had turned and walked away to signify that their conversation was over.

‘I hear from Mrs Sugden that you are doing well,’ she said now, as Ella paused with the tea tray to let her precede her into the sitting room. ‘I expect we will find plenty of employment for you above stairs.’

So it was to prove. Ella frequently helped out on lunch service, which, taking place as it did under the fierce gaze of Mr Stevens, she initially found terrifying. An affable man at the servants’ table, he adopted a very different persona in his role of butler above stairs, where he had status as the key servant in the household. His manner and demeanour, the result of years of experience, led Ella to believe that he was much older than she was, although it became apparent in time that there was barely a ten-year age difference. Aware of his sharp scrutiny, Ella found her hands shaking so much that the serving spoon rattled against the tureen as she went around the table with the vegetables. Some of the serving dishes were so heavy that she longed to rest them just for an instant on the table while a guest deliberated over-long as to whether or not they would take the soup, or dithered over which vegetables to have. Whenever she glanced up, though, she would find Mr Stevens’s eyes upon her and she would straighten up and try to remain composed while her shoulders and arms burned with the effort.

One of her favourite roles in the household was spending time with John, the Wards’ youngest son, who was a frequent visitor to the kitchen. Only that morning he had appeared, a large book clutched to his chest, and settled himself at the kitchen table.

He was silent for a little while, deeply absorbed as he turned the pages, before he said: ‘What sort of bird is this? Where can I see one?’

Ella had paused, broom in hand. ‘What do you mean, Master John?’

John stabbed his finger at the page of his book. ‘This one. Look.’

Ella peered over John’s shoulder at the illustration of a small black-and-white bird, with a preposterous brightly striped beak. It looked ridiculous, quite unlike anything she’d ever seen in the Yorkshire woods and fields of her childhood, or in the back gardens of these houses in York for that matter. She was thankful for the illustration though; the words beneath were a meaningless jumble to her.

‘You’d best ask your governess,’ Ella said. ‘I’ve no book learning. Miss Gilbert is the one to help you.’ She was brisk, sweeping the crumbs from beneath his feet as they dangled from the kitchen chair, but she felt very sorry for him. She ruffled John’s hair, poured more milk into his glass and cut him another piece of cake. She knew Mrs Dawson wouldn’t begrudge it. ‘Such a shame,’ she’d confided in Ella, her arms dusted with flour almost up to the elbows as she set about rolling the pastry for an apple tart, ‘barely seven years old, and small for his age, and they’re talking about sending him to boarding school. Why have the child if you can’t be bothered with him, I ask you?’ She’d sniffed and wielded the rolling pin more vehemently.