Page 6

Chapter 6

January 1911

Ursula had insisted on walking Ann to school on the first day of the new term.

She wasn’t sure she would do it every day, but it had seemed important to make an effort at least once.

On her way back she glanced surreptitiously through the iron railings of the other houses in Library Terrace and tried to get a sense of who her new neighbours were from their taste in curtains and furniture.

As she reached number 25, she paused, still not quite believing that this was now her home.

The stained glass in the inner door to the hall gleamed and sprinkled blue and green across the floor as she entered.

Her umbrella, neatly furled and ready to use, was propped up against the coat stand.

The recent spell of dry weather had stopped her taking it with her on every trip, but as she hung up her coat and removed her hat, she reflected that she was bound to be caught out eventually.

The hall smelled of beeswax polish with a hint of roses.

It wasn’t an unpleasant scent, but it was the choice of another woman, and one of the many things that she planned to change, a little at a time.

The pace would need to be slow and imperceptible, unlike the breakneck speed of events since their wedding just before Christmas.

It was scarcely believable to her that she had been married to John for only a matter of weeks, and in the space of a few words in front of a minister, she had become the wife of her former employer and taken on two almost grown children.

Life with a live-in maid was already proving to be rather different from living on her own in a compact tenement flat, with just a little help from the laundry service.

She looked at the hall clock; at this hour John would be delegating the organisation of the second print runs to his supervisors, and doubtless he would be being awkward with the new secretary Ursula had selected to replace her.

In time, Wilma Jackson would manage him well enough, she thought.

With Finlay and Ann at school, and John at work, she realised she was alone in the house for the first time since the wedding.

There was Isobel, of course, but she didn’t count.

Not really.

At the end of the hall, past the big staircase on the right, was the first of a pair of doors that led to the kitchen and scullery, one door set at right angles to the next.

She opened each one in turn; a curious arrangement, she thought, but clearly designed to avoid noise and cooking smells from making their way into the house, while at the same time preventing any glimpse of the place where the work really happened.

She could see Isobel standing at the draining board in the scullery, peeling carrots, swaying from side to side and singing, slightly out of tune.

Labelled canisters of flour and sugar and oatmeal had been set out on the wooden kitchen table, along with a green tin of treacle, in preparation for the morning’s baking session.

Ursula watched the young woman working.

In the short time since the wedding, she had waited to see how things were done in the house.

Her experience as John’s secretary had taught her that there was no point in rushing to change what might not be broken.

Isobel had served basic meals which might be described as satisfactory rather than exciting.

Even Christmas dinner had been quite a simple affair.

Ursula hadn’t felt able to start any new traditions, but it had turned out there were no old ones worth keeping anyway.

It was time to be a little more assertive.

She needed to understand everything there was to know about the running of the house: ordering the groceries, doing the accounts, arranging the laundry collections, and supervising the cooking and cleaning.

Other married women managed their households efficiently so there was no reason she shouldn’t be able to accomplish it, even though she had come to the job rather later than most. It was the start of a new year, and a new life, and it was time to take charge.

She tried to ignore the butterflies in her stomach.

Isobel finished the carrots and swept the orange slivers into a bucket with the side of her hand.

She turned to walk back into the kitchen and stopped suddenly when she saw Ursula.

‘I beg your pardon, Miss Smith. I mean Mrs Black. I didn’t hear you come in.

’

Ursula smiled briefly.

Even smiling was a worry.

How to be polite and command respect, but at the same time never be over-friendly, which, she had been told by her mother many years earlier, was the worst thing to do when you were dealing with staff.

‘I suppose I will get used to walking into this house without knocking, now that I live here.’

Isobel blushed.

‘I am sorry, Miss, Mrs Black. I didn’t mean .

.?.’ She lowered her head and rubbed her hands dry on her apron.

‘We are both going to have to get used to this new situation.’ Heavens, but this is complicated, thought Ursula.

‘You worked for the late Mrs Black for some time. She selected and employed you and she will have had her own ways of doing things. I’m a stranger and this is different for both of us.

’

‘I promise I’ll do my best. I’m a good maid and a hard worker.

You’ll not be disappointed.

’

‘Isobel, I have been visiting this house every week for more than six months. I have no concern whatsoever about your work. Anyone who can manage Mr Black as well as two children without it all going to pieces deserves a medal in my opinion.’ She smiled.

‘Not that Finlay is really a child any more. He is taller than any of us.’

Ursula picked up a parcel which was lying on the long table next to the flour and sugar, a brown paper-wrapped box about nine inches by six, tied securely with string.

‘Did this come today?’

‘Yes, miss. First post. The postman didn’t want to let it fall through the letterbox onto the floor in case it was something fragile, so he brought it round to the back.

’

Ursula frowned. ‘He came to the scullery door? Did you not hear him knock at the front?’

‘I was taking in the kitchen cloths from the washing line. I thought I might as well take advantage of nature’s bleach.

’ Isobel put her hands behind her back and crossed her fingers to protect herself against the lie.

She and the postman had an arrangement, and he sometimes called in on his route and used the scullery lavatory in return for the occasional quarter-pound of cinnamon balls from the confectioners on the High Street.

Or it might sometimes be Edinburgh Rock.

Either way, it suited both of them.

Ursula put the parcel down again.

‘I suppose he’s a tradesman, of sorts, and it’s certainly better than taking packages back to the sorting office and causing delay.

’

She looked around the room.

It was not an inspiring place; the putty-coloured walls were serviceable but drab and seemed to suck the life out of the weak winter light outside.

On a cloud-heavy day it was positively gloomy, and in the evening the gas lighting did a less than adequate job.

‘I should probably do an inventory,’ said Ursula, with no enthusiasm.

Opposite the window was a large built-in dresser; she opened a drawer and saw neatly organised rows of knives and forks – the everyday sort, not the best silverware, which was kept in the sideboard in the dining room.

The drawer beside it held kitchen tools: a potato masher, a grater and a rolling pin, among other things.

‘There’s no need,’ Isobel replied.

‘The ledgers are in the last drawer, the one with the key. Everything is written down, and the order book and the invoices are kept there too. Mrs Black,’ she paused before correcting herself, ‘the late Mrs Black was very particular.’ She straightened her back.

‘She was always checking up on things.’

Ursula didn’t reply, wondering briefly if her predecessor had good reason for scrutinising the work of the young woman in front of her.

Isobel tried again. ‘I can take the ledgers out for you so you can go through them, if you like? I could put them in the dining room. It’s warmer than the parlour upstairs.

’

‘What did the late Mrs Black do?’

‘She did it all on a Monday, sitting in the drawing room at Mr Black’s desk – before she got too unwell, of course.

’

‘And is the fire lit in the drawing room?’

Isobel shook her head and hastened to explain.

‘I thought everyone was going to be out all day today and if that’s the case I don’t light it again until three o’clock in the winter, and only then if Mr Black is entertaining.

Everyone usually just goes straight upstairs to the parlour after dinner.

’ She began to undo her kitchen apron.

‘I’ll go and light it now.

’

‘That won’t be necessary.

’

‘But I thought—’

‘The dining room is warm because the fire is still alight from breakfast, yes?’

Isobel nodded.

‘I need to add more coal, though, and open up the damper if you’re going to be in there.

’

‘Perhaps for today, I will just sit here at this table in the kitchen and work my way through all the papers and books.’

‘You want to sit in the kitchen?’

Ursula looked at Isobel’s scandalised face.

‘It’s warm. It’s clean.

You have scrubbed the floor this morning; the mop is drying out there,’ she pointed towards the scullery, ‘I can see it from where I’m standing.

’

‘Yes, Mrs Black. I wash it down twice a day.’

‘I will undoubtedly have many questions and I don’t want to walk back and forth from the dining room every time there is something I need to clarify.

There is no point in me asking John,’ she corrected herself, ‘Mr Black, because judging by the fullness of the drawer, all he has done is pay the bills without filing anything.’

‘He has been very busy.’ Isobel was defensive.

‘And it’s been nearly eighteen months since Mrs Black .

.?.’

‘Eighteen months of muddle, by the look of these papers.’ Ursula turned back to the table and moved the tin of treacle and the flour canister to one side.

‘You don’t need to make excuses for how things are; I have eyes and I do understand how it’s been.

But it’s time for me to sort out the housekeeping so things will run more smoothly in the future.

I’ve waited until the year has turned, just to let everything settle down, but the sooner I start, the better.

’ She lifted the ledgers and papers out of the drawer and set them out in piles on the table.

‘I’m well used to organising offices, after working as Mr Black’s secretary for the last three years here in Edinburgh, and at another company in London before that.

Organising a household is not going to be so very different.

I will try not to disturb your cake making.

It is cake, I take it?

’

‘Yorkshire parkin, miss.’

‘Very good.’ Ursula glanced at the parcel.

‘And I’ll open that later. ’