Langdown Manor Read Online Free PDF Page A

I wasn’t a lady, and just as sure I’d never be one.

D OWNSTAIRS

    â€˜She never!’ gasped Sarah. Her big eyes grew huge. ‘Fancy you letting her talk to you like that!’
    â€˜What choice did I have?’ I said, shrugging.
    â€˜Well I can tell you I’d not want to be a maid in India,’ Sarah said, ‘if that’s how they talk to their servants.’
    â€˜And then there are all the diseases.’
    â€˜Snakes.’
    â€˜Ugh!’
    I was sitting in my favourite room – the maids’ sitting room – my friends curled up on the sofa next to me. There was always a scramble for it. Bits were bursting out of the arms and the back was worn dark and shiny, but it was the only comfortable seat there was. A fire had been lit in the grate and we’d dragged the sofa up close to it. I could hear a voice singing in the scullery. Young Ivy was still there, up to her elbows in soapsuds. She could sing, I thought. I smiled wryly when I thought of the entrance she had made earlier.
    Here we could say what we liked, safe from the watchful eyes and ears of the upper servants. They never came in here. Barrett ruled the servants’ hall and you didn’t dare talk about your betters there. Not that we thought the family upstairs was better than us. Only different.
    I drew up my knees under me. ‘She’s all right, I suppose,’ I said grudgingly. ‘She’s just not used to our ways. Actually, I feel a bit sorry for her.’
    â€˜I can’t think why,’ said Sarah. ‘She’s rich, isn’t she? She’ll never have to work, like the rest of us.’
    â€˜But she’s no older than me and she’s come all that way to live with a family she doesn’t know.’ My dad would never send me halfway round the world to live with strangers. Sometimes I just don’t understand posh people.
    â€˜It’s Miss Arabella I feel sorry for,’ Sarah said, as if I hadn’t spoken.
    â€˜You feel sorry for Arabella!’ I looked at her in astonishment. ‘Whatever for?’
    â€˜She’s the young lady of the house, isn’t she? She’s coming out this year. Now she’s got to share her big moment with a cousin she doesn’t know. I wouldn’t like that.’
    How did Sarah learn all this?
    â€˜She’s a haughty creature, that Miss Arabella,’ said Maisie. ‘Gives you the run around. Will do her good.’
    â€˜Miss Clementine is quite different,’ put in Ellen. ‘Lovely manners. Such a sweet child.’
    â€˜She’ll change. Arabella was sweet at that age,’ said Maddie. Sarah and I exchanged a glance. We didn’t agree. We all loved little Miss Clemmie. I couldn’t imagine her ever changing.
    But Maddie knew the family better than we did. She’d been here longer than all the rest of us.
    â€˜She asked me to put aside some carrots for the horses,’ said Maisie. ‘She told me she’s taking Miss Penelope to the stables tomorrow. Apparently Miss Penelope loves riding.’
    I saw Sarah blush. You only had to say the word ‘stable’ or ‘horse’ to Sarah for her to blush. I knew that it was Fred, one of the stable hands, that she was thinking of. They’d known each other almost since childhood – like Sarah and me – and everyone knew that they were hoping to marry, when they could afford to.
    I smiled looking around at my friends. I wished I didn’t have to attend on Miss Penelope. I’d been much happier when I was just a housemaid. The work was hard, and the hours long, but there wasn’t so much of that bowing and scraping I hated so much. ‘Yes, Miss Penelope. No, Miss Penelope.’ And most of all I hated being called Baxter! But you had to put up with it, Mam had told me. I’d not wanted to go into service, but I’d had no choice. Maybe there were other choices for girls now, but I didn’t