Break of Dawn

‘Right you are, ma’am.’ Bridget nodded and smiled at the woman she privately termed as ‘that poor soul’, but once on the landing she stood for a moment before making her way downstairs to the kitchen with the tray.

‘What’s up with you, lass?’ Her mother was standing at the large range which was the heart of the vicarage kitchen. Bridget had been thirteen years old when she and her parents had been taken on as servants, and for months before that they had been tramping the roads looking for work. The memory of that time, the cold, the gnawing hunger and terror she had felt at being homeless was burned deep inside her soul, as was the sheer bliss of their first night at the vicarage when her mother had got the range going and she’d toasted her feet on the fender whilst eating girdle scones dripping with butter. She had thought she’d landed in heaven that day, and still the security and comfort the two-oven range gave was something she would have been unable to put into words.

The kitchen itself was a fairly large room, the walls whitewashed and the floor made up of flagstones. Its ceiling was irregular and somewhat grimy, with several beams running across it. Besides the range, the rest of the furniture comprised of a long scrubbed table with a low wooden bench either side of it, a row of floor-to-ceiling cupboards the length of one wall, and two old Windsor chairs which sat on the clippy mat in front of the range. On the left wall was a doorway, without a door, leading to the scullery in which vegetables were prepared and washing-up done, and beyond this was a small walk-in larder with stone slab shelves which were an asset in summer in keeping food and milk cool. They were also dark and hard to clean, a playground for mice and beetles.

Once daylight began to fail, the kitchen was lit by candles and oil lamps – as was the whole house. There were certain establishments in Sunderland where gasoliers had replaced chandeliers in the drawing room, and gas geysers had been installed for heating water. The vicarage could not boast such modern inventions, but Bridget and her parents did not object to this. They had heard reports from other servants that gas lighting was messy, smelly and noisy, and had no wish to use a commodity they considered intrusive and dangerous.

‘Bridget?’ Kitty O’Leary left the soup she was preparing for lunchtime and took the tray out of her daughter’s hands. ‘What’s the matter? You look like you’ve lost a penny and found a farthin’.’

‘It’s her, the master’s sister, Mrs Lemaire. She don’t look right, Mam.’

‘Don’t look right?’ Kitty put the tray on the table and then returned to the range where she poured her daughter a cup of strong black tea from the teapot permanently stewing on the hot plate. Handing it to her, she said comfortingly, ‘She’s all right, lass. Her time’s about due, most likely.’

‘I’ve seen the mistress when she had her bairns an’ I tell you, Mam, something’s wrong. Mrs Lemaire don’t look the same as she did when she first came here. She’s all puffy an’ swollen, an’ she’s eaten next to nothin’ again.’ Bridget plumped down on one of the wooden benches. ‘She’s not right,’ she said again. ‘Her lips have got a blue tinge. Like an old man’s.’

‘She’s tired, lass. She came a long way, after all, and in her condition. And the loss of her husband and home must have hit hard. Not only that, she finds her mam an’ da have gone and everything’s changed. It’s enough to send anyone doo-lally-tap, if you ask me.’

Bridget stared into her mother’s round, rosy face. She couldn’t explain the feeling of unease that had grown stronger over the last day or two, but she knew Mrs Lemaire was ailing. And the master and mistress didn’t seem to care. The master hadn’t looked in on his sister once, as far as she knew, and the mistress paid a brief visit each evening before dinner but that was all. There was something queer about all this, and Mrs Lemaire never spoke about her husband or cried as you’d expect.

Kitty sat down beside her daughter. ‘I’m sure if the mistress thinks anything’s wrong she’ll send for Dr Lawrence.’

‘Are you, Mam? Sure, I mean?’

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