A Brighter Tomorrow - Maggie Ford (thriller novels to read .txt) 📗

Even so, it was better than being out on the street or bundled into an orphanage. There she’d have had to do as she was told and no argument. Here she was still doing as she was told, but she was free to walk out any time she fancied. She didn’t wish to, of course, but in this lay the difference. And who could say what the future had in store for her here.

‘How did you get on?’ Ellie whispered as she and Dora lay side by side in the narrow bed with its hard mattress. A similar bed by the other wall of this tiny attic room, leaving just enough space for a body to pass between, held only Florrie. But then the housemaid’s plump girth took up as much room as two slim ones.

She’d fallen asleep the second her brown tousled hair had hit the unforgiving pillow and was already snoring, a soft, snorting, nasal inhalation followed by a sort of whiffled exhalation.

Ellie tried to ignore it as Dora whispered back, ‘I like Mrs Lowe. She’s very kind.’

Again Ellie experienced that earlier prick of jealousy. All she’d seen today was Cook’s broad back or Florrie’s full bosom and broad hips when she bustled into the kitchen to fetch something or other to do with her chores around the house. Not once had Ellie left that kitchen and it looked as though this would be all she’d ever see of the house, except to climb the back stairs to sleep, while Florrie enjoyed the freedom of the whole house and Dora was allowed to trail after her mistress like some little spoiled house cat.

‘She gave me a boiled sweet from a dish in her bedroom,’ Dora added to her sister’s silent envy. ‘And I was given my lunch and dinner in the ante-room next to hers where I’d been mending some sheets. How did you get on?’

‘All right,’ Ellie snorted tersely and turned over with her back to her sister. She had no intention of discussing her day, having to eat in the same place in which she worked. Even though it was a plate of delicious soup with new bread, Cook saying, ‘One thing, dear, down here we do eat well, all the leftovers from cooking for the master and mistress and I make sure they eat well, don’t you worry,’ this said with a fat, crafty finger laid significantly alongside her stubby nose, Ellie had felt trapped.

‘Don’t you want to tell me what you got up to?’ came Dora’s voice.

‘I need to go to sleep,’ Ellie answered shortly, dragging the sheet and thin coverlet up over her ears. ‘Goodnight!’

‘Goodnight, Ellie,’ came the quiet response and she couldn’t help hearing a ring of bewilderment in it. Poor Dora, it wasn’t her fault, but too late to explain now.

The next day proved exactly the same as the previous one. Day followed day, each spent endlessly washing up, scrubbing the wooden table free of flour and other bits of preparation, wiping down the side tables, blackleading the kitchen range and eternally scrubbing the flagstone floor. She found herself bitterly resenting tradesmen and carters who came in leaving muddy footprints. The nearest she came to breathing the open air was the small blast that followed behind someone entering through the kitchen back door.

A week passed. She hadn’t seen hair or hide of her employer or his wife, nor had she been outside the house except to empty slops or pay a visit. She’d stand at the sink and stretch her neck to see over the opaque windowpanes to the clear panes above. That gave her a narrow view of sky and anyone passing along the back alley. She would stand there mesmerized until Cook called to her to get on with her work. She hadn’t seen the sun for a week, the kitchen facing north so that the sun never came round at all. She felt trapped.

Added to this was a growing resentment when Dora told her one night that she and Mrs Lowe had visited her dressmaker, since Florrie, who usually accompanied her, was having her half-day off. Servants, it seemed, were allowed one halfday per fortnight and one whole day per month. At that rate she’d have to wait ages for her half-day. Even Dora had seen the great outdoors. It wasn’t fair.

‘Ellie, there’s someone here to see you.’ Mrs Jenkins’s stem voice made her look up quickly from washing the kitchen floor. ‘I made him stand outside. He says he’s your brother but I don’t—’

Ellie’s squeal of delight cut her short as she sprang up, almost tipping over the pail of dirty suds in running past her to yank the door open. There stood Charlie. His ready smile faded as he surveyed her in mob cap and apron.

‘What’re you doing?’ The question was harsh and sharp.

It was then she realized she still held a dripping scrubbing brush and that her apron was soaking wet.

‘Washing the kitchen floor,’ she said inanely, formal words already smothering what should have been excited reunion.

‘Who for?’ came another harsh question.

‘I work here. For Doctor Lowe.’

‘Scrubbing floors?’

‘Not only that,’ she replied, deflated. ‘I work in the kitchen, washing up – that sort of thing.’

‘A skivvy!’

‘Well… yes. Dora works here too. She does sewing.’

She broke off, bewildered and angry at this turn of events that should have been full of joy. Instead here she was, being questioned by a brother who’d appeared completely out of the blue.

She fought the feeling of degradation with a show of outrage.

‘What right’ve you got coming ’ere looking at me as if I was dirt?’

The question was ignored. ‘What’re you doing working for a bloody doctor when you should be at ’ome with Mum? And where are you all living? There’s other people in our ’ouse.’

Ellie’s face went bleak. He didn’t know. He’d gone off in a temper after that fight with Dad. Now he’d come back to find his family not there.

‘How did you