Chapter 17
Seventeen
Eleanor
“I’ve never had staff before,” Eleanor whispered to her employer as Greybourne lined up an entire row of applicants who had magically appeared in the parlor of their new home.
By the time she and Andrew had returned to the inn from the market, ordered new bedding, loaded the newly-repaired curricle, and traveled to Bradford House, Grey had already set up an office in the dining parlor and gathered potential staff. How did he do that?
At least, servants expected a female to do the domestic hiring, so she was treated with a modicum of respect.
Studying the lot of candidates for maybe four positions, at most, Eleanor swallowed nervously. Old and young, male and female, they all looked so eager. . . She knew the desperation to find decent employment, but she couldn’t possibly hire everyone. “May I just choose by their references?”
“Certainly not. One must judge character.” Grey planted his solid self in the one comfortable seat in their new home’s parlor, crossed his arms, and waited—much like a lion prepared to pounce.
“Character.” Sitting on a wooden chair appropriated from the kitchen, El sighed in resignation and scanned the reference letters. Only one had applied for the position of cook, the one the lady had sent down from the manor. An easy place to start. “Miss Catherine Fields, you applied as cook?”
Her braided brown hair neatly capped, a petite young woman stepped forward and curtsied.
“Can you make fish pies?” Grey demanded, not waiting for El to form a question.
“Of course, my lord, with white sauce.” She anxiously bobbed another curtsy.
“I’m a professor, not a lord. I earned one title and not the other,” he said gruffly, increasing the anxiety of the already nervous group. “Miss Leonard, have you anything to ask?”
“Will you be able to prepare food upon request and not necessarily to schedule?” El knew Grey’s habits. He’d never recognized a proper dinner hour in her memory. A proper any hour, she recalled. He’d slipped pages under her door at midnight once.
“Yes, ma’am. Lady Elsa taught us all the tricks for pleasing a gentleman’s habits.” Her gaze flicked anxiously between both of them, most likely having no idea of how they were related or how she should address them, since neither of them were dressed in the height of fashion.
“Is that all, Miss Leonard?” At her nod, Grey gestured as if he wielded a scepter or magic wand. “You’re hired, Miss Fields. Go take a look at the kitchen and give us a list of what you’ll need.”
Looking suddenly more terrified, the girl curtsied and rushed off.
“She can’t write,” El whispered, realizing she had a better understanding of the laboring class than he did. Before he could react, she quickly sorted through the references for housekeeper. “Mrs. Barton?”
“How can she read a recipe then?” Grey grumbled.
“She can’t.” El regarded the stout older woman with interest. “This says you’ve kept your own house and your daughter’s. You’ve not worked at the manor?”
“No, ma’am.” The housekeeper’s lined face beneath a cap of snowy white hair didn’t reveal concern over the question.
“My daughter married a right proper gentleman with a big house up to Birmingham. I trained her staff when she was newly wed, but she don’t want the likes of me around when she entertains, so I came home. ”
The daughter’s rudeness might be a boon to Grey’s household. El studied the crudely written letter in her hand, searching for a polite way to question.
Grey grabbed the references from El and shuffled impatiently, apparently not impressed with an inexperienced housekeeper.
Before he could shout next, El stayed his hand. “Can you read and write Mrs. Barton?”
“I can,” she affirmed. “I wrote that letter you’re looking at.”
That’s what she’d suspected. Grey snorted.
El smacked his hand. He wasn’t wearing gloves again, but she was.
The contact was still electrifying enough that he shut up long enough to allow her to finish speaking.
She’d ponder their inexplicable electricity later.
Right now, she concentrated on properly doing the job she’d been assigned.
“We don’t have room for a live-in housekeeper. This will only be daily work. Will that suit you?”
Mrs. Barton nodded eagerly. “I live down by the green, not far from the doctor’s place.”
Although the green was little more than a chicken-infested patch of weeds on the main road, it meant the housekeeper was in easy walking distance. Villages had definite advantages.
With that much verified, El continued, “We will be a very small household, too small to allow for a proper division of duties. Will you mind helping in the kitchen as needed?”
The old woman proved her intelligence by glancing in the direction the illiterate cook had taken. “I been working in my own kitchen all my life, bringing up five children and two husbands. I know my way around.’’
“Thank you. A wife and mother suits us better than a housekeeper.” El studied the rest of the remaining applicants.
“Anyone else can read or write?” She’d just learned her first lesson in hiring staff.
A household of scholars required literacy, which meant finding people who worked for Grey’s needs, not the requirements of the manor or a farmhouse.
“I can count and do sums, ma’am,” one of the young boys said eagerly.
“Most ambitious of you, but unless you’re a housekeeper, I’ll have to pass. We are only in need of a cook, housekeeper, and possibly a scullery maid and laundress.” When none of the other crestfallen women responded, El ignored Grey’s growl at her literacy requirement. “You’re hired, Miss Barton.”
One woman volunteered as laundress, if she worked once a week. El winced, knowing she had to wear the same gown all this week or buy more clothes that would eat into their savings.
Grey hired the boy who could count, just because it pleased him, she suspected.
Mrs. Barton recommended one of the girls as a maid since she lived nearby and could go home at night too.
The remainder were hired for a week to scrub the house from top to bottom and help arrange furniture once it arrived.
The nervous strain of performing as an authority over so many people left El exhausted. She sent Mrs. Barton to help the new cook write lists, then turned to creating her own lists of household necessities—a much easier task than hiring.
Grey prowled about and eventually disappeared, leaving her in charge of staff, who were already scrubbing and polishing. At this rate, she’d more than earn her elevated salary. She might ask for an increase.
Thank heavens they need only set up living quarters for one servant. Miss Fields had been rooming at the manor and had no means of traveling to her parents’ distant croft. With the aid of the very young scullery maid, they created a makeshift bed in the service room next to the kitchen.
“I thank you for taking me on, ma’am,” the new cook said as they examined the shelving and lack of serving pieces.
“Miss,” El corrected idly, taking notes. “I’m Miss Leonard. And you may not thank us once you understand the irregularity of our routines. We are accustomed to established staff. You will be in charge of bringing order out of chaos.”
“Yes, ma’am. Miss. I can do that. Before I went to the manor, I worked for five brothers. They was out all hours and expected me to have food on the table when they returned. Plain food, mind you, but it didn’t allow for much sleep.”
“Difficult,” El muttered, hunting in her pocket for a knife to sharpen her pencil. Once she had it sharp again, the conversation sank in. “All hours? What kind of work does one do at midnight?”
“Not sure, miss.” The petite cook folded the tablecloth the twins had brought with them from their former life.
It had once been their mother’s. “One worked on boats, I think. Another sometimes delivered livestock what had trouble being born. This and that, like everyone. They was cousins of the ones what used to live here, long time ago.”
El had lived in a city all her life. She had very little notion of rural this and that. She supposed, with a population this small, it wasn’t unusual for half the villagers to be related. “Do they still live hereabouts? We might need to hire labor occasionally.”
“Oh, no, miss, that’s why I started as scullery at the manor. The bank took their farm.”
Oh dear. El imagined five big men with grievances set loose on the countryside. . . “Are they still around somewhere, do you think?”
“Don’t know, miss. Shall I make a pottage for this evening? We can’t keep the milk for long in this heat and that’s a good use for it. Do you suppose there’s a key to that door into the cellar? Dairy will keep better down there.”
“The cellar? The door all the way around to the side? I think they nailed that shut.”
“No, miss. The door behind the cupboard. I don’t know why anyone would set a cupboard in front of the cellar.”
El, unfortunately, could imagine any number of reasons, none of them she wished to dwell on. She contemplated leaving the door blocked, but then she’d only fret for their entire stay, wondering what the cellar might conceal. Was it connected to the one the thieves had used?
The house had been added onto, they’d already noted. So it was possible there was an old and new cellar. Maybe this one was little more than a root cellar, as expected.
In resignation, she went in search of Andrew. It wasn’t quite twilight yet, but the trees surrounding the overgrown yard shadowed the windows, casting the house’s interior into early darkness. They’d need more lanterns and lamps.
When she couldn’t find her twin upstairs or down, she reluctantly ventured out to find him scrubbing the well house with the counting boy. “There is a hidden door in the kitchen.”
Her twin dropped pails and scrubbers, ordered the boy—Silas—to do the same, and they followed her into the low-ceilinged kitchen addition. The young cook and scullery maid had removed all the supplies they’d shelved in the cupboard earlier.
As they made room to move the tall cabinet, Grey wandered in. “Rearranging before the furnishings arrive? Are there the makings of a cold collation about?”
El nodded at the anxious cook, who raced to set out bread and cheese on the wobbly wooden table.
While Miss Fields was thus occupied, El gestured at the door Andrew and Silas were slowly revealing as they shoved the heavy cabinet aside. “Cellar door, sir.” She left him to think what he would.
Studying the cobweb-encased panel, Grey’s thick dark eyebrows soared. “How did you discover that?”
El glanced at Miss Fields. “Our cook wished to have a cellar for the dairy.”
“And the tatties and so forth.” The girl hastily sliced bread and ham. “A good kitchen has a pantry and a cellar. So I looked under them shelves what really ought to be in the other room.”
With the door uncovered, Andrew rattled the latch. “Locked.”
“Ah, the anticipation of discovering the hidden idiosyncrasies of an old house,” Grey drawled, leaning over to examine the latch. “It’s nailed. Have you something to pry it loose? I don’t believe potatoes require locking up.”
Silas ran off to procure a tool. El clasped her hands nervously under Grey’s scrutiny. It was as if he could see right through her skull to her fears.
“Would you like to see how I’ve arranged my study, Miss Leonard? You might wish to establish a filing system, once additional furnishings arrive.”
Yes, she would very much like to be elsewhere when they opened that door. And no, she wasn’t a coward. “Where did you set up an office, sir? The service room has no table.” And he hadn’t been anywhere near it.
“The dining room is too public. I decided on the attic, with a view of the river. Will that be a problem for you?”
The attic, away from the rest of the household. It sounded like heaven—except they’d be alone together all day.
Better than using the large space in his bedchamber, she supposed. Although the preying lion was probably watching for more river pirates. They’d have to lock his lordship in to keep him from getting his head bashed again.
Silas ran in with a crowbar, and Grey didn’t wait for her reply. He took the iron piece, inserted it under the wooden plate, and pried the nails out with ease. The man might be a scholar, but he was not helpless.
“Oh, thank you, sir! Now I can stock more goods so we don’t run out before market day.” Utterly oblivious of the air of doom the unlocked door released, the petite cook held a plate of sandwiches and pickled vegetables and waited for Grey to take a seat somewhere.
“Just leave the plate on the table, Miss Fields,” El requested, hiding her fear as Grey took the stairs first and Andrew followed.
More sensibly, Silas lingered behind, eyeing the bread and ham with hunger.
“I think a cold collation for everyone tonight,” El suggested.
Realizing she was now responsible to seeing everyone properly fed distracted her from the cellar.
She would not have hungry staff. “It’s been a long day.
Feed poor Silas before he expires on the spot.
Then call down Mrs. Barton and Peg. I believe we shall be very informal this evening.
” The extra staff had departed before the sun set, promising to return in the morning.
The cook rightfully looked confused but set about slicing, buttering, hunting more jars of relish and pickled vegetables from the supplies they’d purchased earlier, while ordering Silas to set out their meager dinnerware.
El and Andrew had packed their own cheap plates, thankfully, because the house had few.
She forced herself to stay calm as the men stomped up from the cellar.
Grey didn’t look in her direction as he crossed the kitchen to wash his hands at the pump. “Nothing to concern ourselves with. Miss Fields, refrain from moving anything into the cellar tonight. I’d like to have that foundation inspected for mice.”
El had worked with the professor for a year. He was lying through his pearly white teeth.