Beyond the Veil of Tears Read Online Free Page B

months’.’
    ‘And references, Mr Fairley?’ Molly Davidson, the cook, was clutching the collar of her frock as though she was attempting to strangle herself, her round, fat face stricken.
    ‘Oh, we’ll all get a good reference, Mrs Davidson. The master left instructions on that score, apparently.’
    Hilda Lee wiped her eyes with a trembling hand. She’d been weeping on and off since the accident that had taken her husband, as well as her employers. ‘I shan’t need mine. My
sister’s offered me a home with her – the one that was widowed last year. Her Ike left her comfortably off and, with the nest egg I’ll take with me, the pair of us will want for
nothing. I said no to her when she asked me last week, after Simon’ – she gulped audibly – ‘after she heard the news. I thought I was set up here. But I’ll have a word
with her tomorrow, when she comes for Simon’s funeral, and tell her I’ve changed my mind.’
    The other staff looked envious. None of them were in such a fortunate position that they could choose not to work, and this blow was alarming. Each of them knew they’d be hard pressed to
find another establishment like this one, where the mistress had been kind and the master fair and generous.
    Myrtle was sitting very quietly, counting her blessings, as she glanced round the unhappy faces at the long, scrubbed kitchen table. The servants had just sat down to their own dinner when Elias
Fairley made his announcement, and now plates of hot, steaming panackelty – made with meat left over from the funeral luncheon earlier in the day – sat untouched. Panackelty was one of
Mrs Davidson’s specialities, cooked long and slow so that the sliced potatoes absorbed every bit of flavour from the beef or bacon or corned beef and stock, and the onions almost caramelized,
and the whole lot went deliciously crusty at the edges. Tonight, though, the plates could have been piled with cardboard, for all the interest the others were displaying in their meal. Feeling
somewhat ashamed that her mouth was watering, Myrtle listened to the ongoing conversation as patiently as her growling stomach would allow.
    After all, she told herself guiltily, as question after anxious question was put to Elias, few of which he had an answer for, if she’d been told that she’d lost her job, she’d
be feeling sick with worry, too. The eldest of ten children (the youngest of which was just three months old, and the brother next to her having just turned fifteen), Myrtle gave every penny she
earned to her mother each month on her half-day off, when she went home to the two-up, two-down miner’s cottage in Monkwearmouth. Even though her brother had got taken on at the mine with her
father, Myrtle knew the family barely had enough to eat, and her mother was always weeks behind with the rent. She had been thirteen years old when she’d come to work for the Stewarts, nearly
five years ago, and from the first day she had known that she’d landed on her feet, when she’d sat down to eat with the other servants. The food was good and plentiful, and she had gone
to bed feeling that she had landed in heaven.
    At last Mr Fairley picked up his knife and fork and began to eat. This was the signal that the other servants might do the same. It was a sombre meal. Even Mrs Davidson’s baked jam roll,
golden and oozing with strawberry jam made from fruit from McArthur’s walled fruit and vegetable garden near the small orchard, didn’t bring forth the usual appreciative comments.
    They’d almost finished their pudding when one of the row of bells fixed to the kitchen wall near the door rang. Elias glanced at it, before saying flatly, ‘That’ll be His Nibs
wanting something or other.’ Angeline and Miss Robson had retired to their rooms directly dinner was finished, but Hector had gone through to the drawing room, taking his coffee and brandy
with him. Now Elias didn’t get to his feet and answer the summons, as he