Hope - Lesley Pearse [15]
‘Maybe I could marry Master Rufus,’ Hope giggled. ‘Then I could live at Briargate.’
‘Don’t be foolish, child,’ Meg said sharply. ‘The only way you’d get to live at Briargate is by working there like Nell does.’
Although Nell understood why Meg had to squash that particular idea, she felt sorry for Hope when she saw her face fall. She hadn’t been brought up in ignorance about the world beyond this village as her brothers and sisters had. She not only knew about Briargate, she had been to Bristol once on the cart with her father. For weeks she talked of nothing but the ships, the crowded streets, fancy carriages and shops full of things she’d never seen before. Was it surprising she had fanciful notions?
‘Why don’t you, Joe and Henry walk back with me to Briargate later?’ Nell suggested impulsively. ‘I’m always telling Cook about you, and she’d love to meet you. You could see Ruth and James too.’
Hope clapped her hands gleefully. Meg shot Nell a disapproving look.
‘Better for her to learn her place is only in the kitchen there,’ Nell said as Hope rushed headlong down the field to tell the boys.
Meg sighed but made no comment. That was her way.
Mrs Cole had left Briargate soon after Rufus was born, and Lady Harvey decided she didn’t need another housekeeper. As Nell had moved into Bridie’s old position as Lady Harvey’s personal maid, she had become third in line after Baines and Cook in the household hierarchy. There weren’t so many staff now – when someone left they weren’t necessarily replaced – which meant they all had a few more duties. Rose, who had been the upstairs maid, was now the parlourmaid, and Ruby the kitchenmaid had taken Rose’s old position. Cook had a new kitchenmaid called Ginny, and all the roughest work was now done by Ada, who came in daily from Woolard. Ruth as nursemaid and James, now the only groom since John Biggins retired, plus the new gardener, Albert Scott, and his assistant Willy, made up the full complement of staff.
Nell took some pleasure in knowing she had the easiest and most pleasant job of all. Lady Harvey wasn’t demanding, and Nell had only to dress her and look after her hair and clothes. If the mistress went visiting, shopping in Bath, or even just for a ride in the carriage, Nell went too. When there were visitors at Briargate, Nell filled her time with mending or pressing clothes but if she had no chores to do, the time was her own. Mostly she felt she was very fortunate.
Yet on the way back to Briargate later in the afternoon, with the children trotting along beside her, she was thoughtful. That feeling she’d had of aging ten years the night Hope was born had never really gone away. It was as though it had robbed her of her girlhood, made her too cautious and fearful.
She was twenty-two now, and nearly all the girls in the village she’d grown up with were married with children. Would that ever come to her?
It was what she wanted more than anything. Most nights she fell asleep imagining her wedding, the cottage she’d live in and even naming her children. Yet maybe she was already past her prime?
That frightened her for she didn’t want to end up like Bridie, an old woman who lived entirely for the family she served.
Nell wasn’t without admirers. She knew Baines had a soft spot for her. But he was in his early fifties and he could never make her heart race. There was Seth O’Reilly too, who brought groceries from the shop in Pensford; he got so flustered whenever he saw her that he could hardly string a sentence together. But he seemed a bit weak, she couldn’t imagine him being able to chop wood or milk a cow, and besides, he walked with a limp. She wanted a man like her father, a happy, easygoing man who wouldn’t complain after a long day’s work out in the cold or wet. The kind of man who could turn his hand to anything, wasn’t feckless with money, didn’t drink too much, but also had some passion in his soul.
Nell thought Albert