The Woman from Kerry by Anne Doughty Page A

adjacent store rooms and slip away through the empty corridors and staircases of the darkened house to the privacy of her own small lodging place.
    The first days of entertaining were always the worst. The guests themselves were still unsettledand their servants disrupted the regular routine of the house. Those guests who’d not brought their own servants had to be provided for. The senior house servants had to organise more carefully, maids and kitchen staff barely got time to eat their meals. It only wanted one member to fall ill, even of the junior staff and the boots and shoes would not be cleaned by eight o’clock, the downstairs rooms would not dusted before the ladies gathered after breakfast to write letters or diaries, the silver would have to be used unpolished and the meals would be delayed. After nearly fourteen years of summer visitors, seven of them as housekeeper, Hannah still breathed a sigh of relief when the last of the carriages departed at the beginning of August and Lady Caroline and Nanny took the younger children to the seaside.
    ‘Ma, how long are the people from the north staying?’ said Rose, her thoughts straying once more to John Hamilton.
    ‘Lady Ishbel and Sir Capel?’
    Rose nodded, her mouth full of bread and jam.
    ‘Well
he
hasn’t appeared yet. He usually gives his wife a week’s start to make sure things are the way he likes them. It’ll probably be a fortnight or three weeks from when he actually arrives,’ said Hannah wryly. ‘Not that their going helps very much. As soon as they leave, Lady Violet is coming with the three eldest girls and theirgoverness, a coachman and
two
grooms. Poor old Sam and Tom won’t get their quarters back till the end of August.’
    Rose looked at her, grateful she hadn’t asked why she’d been so late last night. Of course she would tell her she’d gone walking with John Hamilton, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to mention his name just yet. For some strange reason, she could hardly say it over even in her own mind without blushing.
    ‘Time we were moving, more’s the pity,’ said Hannah standing up and carrying their plates to the small sink in the corner of the room.
    Rose drank up the rest of her tea quickly, her eyes never leaving her.
    ‘Ma, you’re limping. Is your back bad?’
    ‘It’s weary,’ she admitted, turning back to face her. ‘It was one thing after another, all day yesterday,’ she went on, the tiredness plain in her voice. ‘Never worry, you know as well as I do, the first day’s always the worst,’ she said, with a smile. ‘How’s Lady Anne taking it?’
    ‘Better than I’d expected, so far. But it may not last …’
    They tidied up the room with practised skill. Hannah donned a fresh white apron over her plain black dress and settled her cap on her head. As she tidied a few straggling hairs back from her face, Rose realised her mother was now not only grey butalmost white. Only at the very back of her head was there any trace of her once strong fair hair.
    ‘I’ll maybe see you this evening, dear. She kept you very late last night. The poor girl’s in such a bad way she can’t really think of anyone but herself,’ she said sadly.
    They hurried across to the house, parting outside the servants’ hall as the stable yard clock struck seven. Hannah went up to her room on the next floor to get cleaning materials ready for the housemaids when they came for their instructions. Rose turned into the short corridor leading to the boot-room. By collecting Lady Anne’s riding boots herself, she could be sure she would find no fault with them.
    As she made her way along the corridor, she heard a bell ring in the almost empty servant’s hall behind her.
    ‘Someone’s up early this morning,’ she said to the unshaven boot man. ‘We don’t usually hear much before nine, do we?’
    A glance at the boots was enough. You could almost see yourself in the shiny toecaps.
    ‘Thanks, Charlie. Hope the gentlemen