The Wanderers of the Water-Realm (34 page)

The man who came to the door and ordered her to follow him inside was short and of stocky build, yet he possessed a gimlet gaze that seemed to pierce directly into her mind. The witches mental barriers immediately sprang shut and she knew instinctively that here was a man who would butcher his fellow human beings, without the slightest spark of remorse.

He took her into his small personal office, situated beneath the main stairway and ordered her to be seated.

“So you’re Piggin’s sister.” He said, in a hoarse sounding voice. “You are less hard-bitten in your appearance than some of those who seek employment in this house!” The head of the household remarked bluntly. “But that is perhaps to be expected, since you are a widow woman rather than an ex-jail bird. Very well, it matters little to me provided that you obey your orders to the letter and without question.”

Again his chilling gaze swept over her. “There are parts of this house that are forbidden to ordinary servants, such as yourself, and are governed, at all times, by a strict set of rules; these rules you will learn from an experienced member of the staff, who will now conduct you on a tour of the house.”

He paused, and flicked a speck of dust from his coat.

“I have given thought to the nature of your employment, and I have decided to assign you to the kitchen where you will assist Mrs O’Day the cook. Be sure that you do your work well, and in return, your life here can be pleasant and rewarding.”

The butler rang a small hand-bell and a diminutive grey-haired woman entered the office. Crowther never spared her a glance.

“Rachel, give this woman the usual newcomer’s tour of the house, then deliver her to Mrs O’Day!” Then, with a brief wave of his hand, he dismissed the two women from his presence.

The grey-haired woman said nothing to the wisewoman as she conducted her through the house, save what she had been instructed to say. Using short rapidly delivered sentences, she described the purpose and importance of every room and corridor through which they passed.

It immediately became obvious to Hetty as she moved from room to room, that the Grange’s grim external appearance bore absolutely no relationship to the house’s pleasant and luxuriously appointed interior. Brightly coloured velvet curtains hung at every window, whilst expensive furniture and furnishings of crystal, silk and marble adorned every room in the main living quarters.

The wisewoman also noticed that gas-lighting had been installed throughout the house, and it appeared that Oldshaw had spared no expense, in piping town-gas to his isolated residence.

Rachel conducted her to a door connecting the principle hallway of the house, to the much older east wing.

“Never attempt to pass through this doorway.” Rachel said, with a hint of fear in her voice. “This wing is strictly forbidden to the entire staff, with the exception of Mr Crowther. The wing contains the Master’s workshops and laboratory. It’s the place where he tests out the textile processes that have made him rich. Our master guards his secrets from the eyes of his competitors with great care, for the research staff who live in the east wing are allowed no contact with those of us who live here in the main house.”

Rachel led her up a narrow back-stairway to a small attic room, whose window looked out across the valley towards the distant mill-chimneys of Stalybridge and Ashton-Under-Lyne.

“This is your room!” Rachel said. “One of the best, your bed has a soft feather mattress and you have a gas light for your own personal use, during the hours of darkness. Our master looks after us well. Good food and lodgings and a decent rate of pay. What other master was ever so good to his servants?”

The pair descended the stairway and followed a short passage opening into a large kitchen. At the far end of the room stood a big iron range and a plump woman in a white apron was slowly stirring a pot of soup standing upon one of the simmering plates. She turned and faced the wisewoman with her hands upon her hips.

“My kitchen help has arrived at last!” She said. “Thanks be to providence, for I’ve been on my own for the past three weeks, aye and without help from any of the other servants!”

The cook dismissed Rachel with a casual wave of her hand, and then pointed towards a teapot that stood on the edge of the range.

“Help yourself to a cup.” She invited. “For you must be as dry as snuff after your journey here; so take a seat and rest awhile, before you don your working cloths and prepare to serve the staff dinner. The staff are the only ones who will be dinning today, for the master is absent on business and the mistress is confined to her bed with a bad cold. Poor thing, she never seems well these days!”

“Are there children to be tended?” Hetty asked.

Mrs O’Day shook her head. “No my dear, the master and mistress are childless and servants are never allowed to bring their children within these walls.”

“Sad, I say.” The cook remarked wistfully, “Nothing like a few little ones for brightening up a house.”

Mrs O’Day then became serious and pointed towards a small closet.

“You’ll find a working dress and an apron in yonder clothing store. Then you had best set a dozen places in the servant’s dining room. Very soon, twelve hungry workers are going to pile in here and start eatin’the master out of house and home!”

Hetty spent the following week accustoming herself to the routine of the kitchen and household.

She rose at five o’clock in the morning, cleaned out the coal fired range and lit the fire. She then roused Mrs O’Day with a cup of tea, before assisting her in preparing breakfast for the servants that usually consisted of porridge, followed by fried potatoes and a little bacon.

About nine o’clock, Mrs Oldshaw’s personal maid would arrive to collect a breakfast tray consisting of tea, thin-sliced bread and marmalade for her mistress.

She spent the remainder of the morning peeling vegetables, cleaning the kitchen and its numerous cooking utensils, and in helping the cook to prepare a substantial meal for the household staff. The afternoons passed in a similar manner, until the servants arrived for their final meal of the day, at about seven in the evening.

Crowther, the butler, never dined with his underlings, and the wisewoman always served his meals in the privacy of his own personal office. The sinister ‘Head of the Household’ never uttered a single word, as he accepted the tray of food that Hetty brought three times a day, and he always dismissed her from his presence with a single casual wave of his hand.

The routine of the kitchen was occasionally broken by the arrival of ‘May’ the mistress’s personal maid, who sometimes collected a light meal of poached fish, or some other form of invalid food, whenever Mrs Oldshaw felt inclined to eat something. However, the pace of work was leisurely and the two women were able to enjoy a pot of tea whenever the mood took them. Hetty remarked upon the unhurried pace of work, during one of their numerous tea-breaks, and Mrs O’Day had laughed.

“Aye, it’s steady at the moment,” the cook explained, “but we’ve plenty to do when the master is at home, especially when he entertains his Chapel friends for dinner.”

Mrs O’Day’s voice fell almost to a whisper. “I shouldn’t mention it, but you’re bound to find out sooner or later. The master, you see, has his own little whimsies and he’s a fair devil for the boxin’ and the cock fighting. Love’s it, he does.”

She took a sip of her tea. “There’s a big basement down below this house. It stretches almost the whole width of the building, so it does. That’s where the master and his friends hold their fights. No harm in it I say, man like him can’t be expected to get all his fun from preaching down in the Stalybridge Chapels.”

She paused. “Its hard work then, lass, two full days and nights of solid work lookin’ after the master’s guests.”

“You think a lot of the master?” The wisewoman remarked cautiously, and Mrs O’Day responded by nodding vigorously.

“I do indeed!” The cook answered quietly. “I wouldn’t repeat this to just anyone, but I certainly owe Mr Oldshaw my life. When I was young, I served in many fine houses until, one evil day; I was tempted to steal money for the sake of a blackguard who sometimes shared my bed. I was caught, imprisoned, and thrown upon the street without a position or a reference. I would surely have starved or had to drown myself in Liverpool Bay, had not a friend of the master’s found me and brought me to the Grange, some five years ago.”

Tears filled the plump cook’s eyes. “Do I think a lot of the master? You ask. I owe him everything and so do many who dwell beneath his roof.”

Mrs O’Day emptied her tea-cup “Enough of idle chat.” She said briskly. “Now we had best get back to work.”

Later, in the privacy of her bedroom, the wisewoman pondered over Mrs O’Day’s confession and she realized that she would have to pursue her inquiries with extreme caution; for it was obvious that the majority of the household staff would go to extreme lengths to protect the interests of their beloved master; however, she knew that some risks where unavoidable and she resolved to leave her room, in the dead of night, and examine as much of the house as possible.

On her first night abroad, she carefully perused the upper attic levels of the building, and, thanks to her witch’s inner-eye, she succeeded in identifying the bedrooms occupied by each member on the household staff.

In the following nights, Hetty silently extended her range until she had minutely searched every portion of the Grange, with the exception of the master and mistresses personal suite, situated on the first floor of the main house.

Yet, despite her extreme caution, the witch was almost discovered during one of her nocturnal forays.

She had been moving down the main stairway, when her foot accidentally depressed a creaking floorboard and she had immediately crept back onto the first floor landing, in case the sudden noise had been overheard. The precaution proved to have been very wise for, moments later, the door to the butler’s under-stair office had swung open and Crowther had stepped out into the moon-lit hallway.

Hetty had tip-toed into an unoccupied bedroom and taken refuge behind an antique screen occupying the far side of the room. With baited breath, she had listened to the butler’s footsteps as the man ascended the polished main stairs, and bitten upon her lip as he passed down the carpeted passageway only a few feet from where she stood.

Crowther had returned some five minutes later, but he appeared to have been still suspicious, for his footsteps had periodically halted and it was plain that he was listening for any unusual noise. Hetty had finally heard the door of Crowther’s room close, but she had waited a good hour before creeping back to the relative safety of her own room. During later night-time forays, the wisewoman had taken care to give the main stairway a wide berth.

Hetty discovered nothing unusual during her night-time investigations of the Grange, yet the master and mistresses personal suite remained unexamined, and she therefore attempted to nurture a friendly relationship with May, the girl who was Mrs Oldshaw’s personal maid. This proved to be fairly easy, for the servant frequently visited the kitchen on her employer’s behalf and, unlike many other members of the staff; she seemed to enjoy a cup of tea and a good chat.

One day, the wisewoman assisted the maid in the laborious task of carrying Mrs Oldshaw’s bath-water up into her employer’s personal suite and it was in the course of this visit that Hetty had her first opportunity of viewing the mistress of the house.