Hope - Lesley Pearse [64]
‘He’s never been right since his wife died,’ Martha said as if she knew him personally. ‘That poor man all alone in that vast mansion!’
Hope bit back a sarcastic remark. Martha was a decent enough woman, but Hope thought she ought to give her sympathy to those who really deserved it. Squire Dorville had a huge staff taking care of him and his estate, while less than a mile from here there were whole families living on a few shillings a week. They had a struggle to feed their children and could never afford to call a doctor when they were sick.
‘Did the mistress say if Nell was to go with her?’ Hope asked.
‘Of course she is, a lady doesn’t travel without her maid.’ Martha sniffed. ‘Not even here where standards are slipping a bit more every day.’
Hope didn’t ask any more questions for she found Martha’s superior attitude very irritating. Yet she was right with regard to the slipping standards at Briargate.
She hadn’t been here in the old days of course, when there were some fifteen servants, but in recent years, when anyone left, the remaining servants divided up that job between them. Martha was the only new member of staff, taken on to replace the old cook when she died.
When Rufus had gone off to school in Wells over a year ago, this situation, which they’d all accepted cheerfully enough because it wasn’t particularly onerous, suddenly deteriorated further. Within a month of Rufus leaving, Ruth departed in anger because she had been asked to become a maid of all work. James was dismissed when Sir William sold all but two of his horses, and Ruby left to get married.
Hope and Nell missed Ruth and James dreadfully, but they had to admit it had turned out for the best for their brother and sister. Ruth went to Bath as housekeeper to a widower with two daughters aged seven and nine, and within six months she was married to him.
He was a stonemason called John Pike, and although it seemed very sudden, Nell and Hope had visited Ruth twice since the wedding and found her to be very happy. John Pike was a kind and hard-working man with a very nice home, and his two daughters were thrilled to have a new mother. Just last week Ruth had written to say she was expecting a baby, which had delighted both Nell and Hope.
Sir William had secured James a new position as head groom at Littlecote Manor in Berkshire, perhaps because he felt guilty at being compelled to make cutbacks. Albert could take care of Merlin and Buttercup, the mare who pulled the trap; he had no reason to keep horses for the carriage when he could take the train from Bath to London.
Whatever reason the servants were given for the cutbacks, everyone knew the truth. Sir William was in serious financial difficulties. The London house had gone a few years earlier, and there had been a gradual decline in parties at Briargate since then. Nell said she could hardly remember what it was like to prepare for a big dinner party or even weekend guests.
Lady Harvey scrutinized the household accounts now. She suggested to Baines that maybe they didn’t need a fire in rooms that were seldom used and she shocked Martha by telling her she must cook simpler meals. On several occasions the wine merchant and the butcher had come to Briargate to demand settlement of the account, though Baines passed this off as mere oversight.
Lady Harvey’s melancholia wafted around the house, affecting them all. Nell claimed she was still grieving for her mother, and maybe she was, but she didn’t go out visiting or shopping any more and often stayed in bed all day.
Sir William didn’t seem to care what went on in the house. He was rarely home, and when he was he drank heavily and quarrelled with his wife.
Every one of the servants was too nervous about their own security to complain about the extra jobs they were expected to do now. Albert didn’t grumble that he’d lost Willy, his assistant, or that he now had grooming and driving duties too. Nell said nothing about being expected to clean the master’s and mistress’s bedrooms,