Beauty or Brains Page 6

  “Now don’t you be puttin’ ideas into her head,” Mr. Hopkins said. “I hopes this young lady’ll stay and she tells me she be a good cook.”

  “That be just what ’is Lordship needs and I’ll see these fine ’orses be as comfortable as she’ll be.”

  Iona smiled at the groom.

  “Thank you very much. I know the horses, which are very precious to me, will be safe and happy with you.”

  “You can be sure of that, miss,” the groom said, “and I promise you the ’orses ’ere always ’as enough to eat even if their Master don’t!”

  Iona thought this was the first kind thing she had heard about the Earl, but she did not say so aloud.

  The two men were now taking her luggage out of the dog cart and, carrying her cases, Mr. Hopkins walked across the stables to where Iona saw there was a narrow path leading, she supposed, to the kitchen quarters.

  Her own house was built in much the same way and she thought that it would not be too difficult to find her way around.

  They walked in through a side door and down long passages, passing larders and sculleries before they came to the kitchen.

  It was exactly like the one she had at her home with a huge beam over the top from which hung dead birds and animals and a large number of onions.

  There were two big stoves just as they had at home and, although there were some pots and pans on the table, it appeared as if Mrs. Jones had indeed left in a hurry.

  However, the room was clean and the fire in the stove was still burning and Mr. Hopkins was looking round as if to make sure that everything was correct and present.

  Then he said,

  “I suppose I should have told you that there’s no help in the kitchen as his Lordship cannot afford to pay anyone.”

  Iona thought for a moment and then replied,

  “I tell you what I will do. If you send me someone just to help with the washing-up and anything else that I may need, I will pay her myself. I have a little money with me.”

  Mr. Hopkins looked at her in surprise.

  “Are you sure you can afford it?” he asked.

  “Quite sure. I have been lucky lately and, as I love cooking and hate the washing-up, I will be very glad if you could send someone from the village to help me tomorrow, if not tonight.”

  “All right,” Mr. Hopkins agreed. “I’ll do what you ask me, but don’t go spendin’ all your money here in case you has to leave in a hurry.”

  Iona smiled at him.

  “I hope I will not be thrown out nor have to leave in the same rage as Mrs. Jones did. You have been so very kind in letting me stop the night somewhere where I know I will be safe and where my horses will be looked after.”

  She felt a shiver go through her.

  “I was very scared,” she went on, “that there would not be a place I could stay except perhaps miles away.”

  “Well, you’ll be safe here at any rate. If there be any trouble you come back to me. I shouldn’t go lookin’ for his Lordship. Just put the food on the table.”

  Iona did not speak for a moment and then she said,

  “I did not think to ask, but surely there are other servants in this large house, even though he has quarrelled with the cook.”

  “I should have told you,” Mr. Hopkins answered, “but I didn’t think of it.”

  There was a short pause before he carried on,

  “Yes, there are a couple, a man and his wife, who live here.”

  Iona looked at him in surprise.

  She was thinking of the large number of servants she had at The Hall and even then they often complained that they were overworked.

  He was obviously thinking over his words.

  “I’d be dishonest if I said more were not wanted,” he replied. “But, as his Lordship cannot pay them, not unless he sells some more of his treasures and he’s eking out what he’s got on the sale of the last one, he won’t employ any more.”

  He sighed before he added,

  “I suppose he’ll soon have to sell a bit of the silver what’s been in the family for years.”

  “I can understand,” Iona said, “that is what he has no wish to do.”

  She knew how much she would mind if she had to sell any of the treasures at The Hall and felt very sorry for the Earl.

  “Well, you do the best you can,” Mr. Hopkins said in a brisk manner, as if he was afraid to talk any further on what was obviously a controversial subject.

  “I promise you I will do,” Iona replied. “Please do come and see me tomorrow morning and by that time I will know whether the meal I will cook his Lordship tonight is good enough or if I have to leave.”

  “If you asks me, his Lordship will be glad to have anythin’ to eat tonight. I don’t suppose he knows that Mrs. Jones has really gone, otherwise he’d be on his way to me to find him someone else.”

  “Well, perhaps I will surprise him,” Iona said. “I will try to do so because it will help you and I am very grateful to you, Mr. Hopkins, for being so good to me.”

  She put out her hand as she spoke and he took it.

  Then he said,

  “You’ve got a lot of pluck for a young girl. Good luck to you and I hopes things will seem quite different in the mornin’.

  He walked towards the door as he spoke and Iona smiled at him.

  “Goodnight,” she said, “and thank you.”

  “It’s me to be thankin’ you,” Mr. Hopkins replied, “and so it’s goodnight and good luck!”

  With that he was gone.

  Iona looked round the kitchen with a faint smile on her lips.

  ‘Whatever else I was expecting for tonight,’ she told herself, ‘it was not this!’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Iona looked at the basket she had brought with her from the village shop and saw that it contained what she considered quite enough to make a good dinner.

  Then she poked the fire and added some more coal and wood to it before she started to look for the pans she would require to cook the food in.

  All was going well and she was just wondering if she ought to find the dining room, as she supposed that it would not have been made ready for his Lordship.

  Suddenly the door of the kitchen opened slowly and a man peeped in.

  Because he was obviously doing it surreptitiously, she only saw the top of his head which was grey.

  Then, as he saw her, he stood up and walked in with an expression of surprise on his face.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “I suppose Mr. Hopkins sent you to take Mrs. Jones’s place.”

  “You are quite right,” Iona replied.

  “Well, I’m the butler,” the man said, “and I’ve been here for more than thirty-five years. My Missus, who’s the housekeeper, be afraid when his Lordship loses his temper. So I takes her away and we hides till he’s himself again.”

  Iona looked at him in astonishment.

  It was surely the strangest behaviour she had ever heard of in all the years when her father had the house filled with servants.

  As if the butler was surprised, he said,

  “Of course we must do things properly. My name’s Newman and I’d be glad to hear yours, miss.”

  Iona, during her drive, had already decided that on no account must she use a name that would be recognised by her family.

  At the same time she wanted to be sure that she would remember it herself.

  She therefore called herself ‘Ida Lang’ which she was sure no one would connect with her real name.

  “My name,” she told Newman, “is Lang, Ida Lang, and I obliged Mr. Hopkins by coming here and taking the place of your cook as I was present when Mrs. Jones told him in no uncertain terms that she had walked out.”

  “As they all do sooner or later,” Newman replied bitterly. “I were thinkin’ that unless Mr. Hopkins comes up trumps there’d be no supper for any of us tonight!”

  “Well, you need not worry any more about that,” Iona said. “I have brought a basket f
ull of food and I was just beginning to plan a meal for his Lordship.”

  “And for me and the Missus too, I hopes,” Newman asked hopefully. “Now me legs be playin’ up I can’t walk down to the village as I used to and his Lordship usually sends the groom with a list of his requirements.”

  He gave a laugh as he added,

  “Usually that’s when we’ve nothin’ and no one, not even his Lordship when he’s in a temper, wants to starve.”

  While Newman was talking, Iona was placing on the table everything she needed to cook the meal.

  She thought of using only a little from the basket, but she now realised that there were two others to be fed.

  “I sees,” Newman said, “that you’re goin’ to give his Lordship enough to fill his stomach, so I’ll go to lay the table in the dining room. I’ll also tell the Missus that the coast is clear and she can come out of hidin’.”

  He was gone before Iona could reply.

  She thought this was certainly a place for surprises and she could hardly imagine the housekeeper at The Hall hiding from anyone, least of all her father or herself.

  ‘I had better give his Lordship a good dinner and then perhaps he will be in a good temper,’ she told herself.

  Next she started filleting the bones off a large fish that she thought might have been caught locally.

  She was standing at the stove with a frying pan in her hand when Newman came back.

  Holding onto his arm was an elderly woman who Iona guessed must be his wife.

  She had a kindly face and must have been pretty when she was young, but now she looked rather frail.

  Her hand, when she put it out to Iona, was shaking.

  “I am thankin’ God,” she said in a quavering voice, “that you are here, otherwise his Lordship might go hungry and then he would be even angrier than he was today.”

  “I don’t think he will go hungry with the dinner I have prepared for him,” Iona answered. “There will be plenty for the three of us, unless Mr. Hopkins does find us someone, as I have asked, to help with the washing-up.”

  She paused before she added,

  “I love cooking, but I hate the mess it makes.”

  She laughed and then she saw that Newman was looking at her with a worried expression on his face.

  “I don’t want to frighten you away,” he said, “but Mr. Hopkins has as much chance of findin’ someone to come here and do the washin’-up as flyin’ in the sky.”

  Iona stared at him.

  “Is it as bad as that?” she asked. “Surely, however angry his Lordship may be, it need not affect those he pays to work for him.”

  “That be just the point, miss. His Lordship don’t pay anyone. Those who’ve come and helped clean up the place out of kindness or rather respect for the house itself have gone away empty-handed.”

  “You mean he does not pay any wages?” she asked.

  Newman shook his head.

  “He just ain’t got the money. It be as easy as that. He’s sold almost everythin’ he brought here when he came and, as you must have heard, in big houses everythin’ of value be entailed onto the next owner when this one dies.”

  Iona gave a little cry.

  “Of course it does, how stupid of me. I did not think of it. Mr. Hopkins did say things were very difficult and the Earl is desperate as he is so in need of money.”

  She stopped for a moment before she added,

  “I did not think of anyone living in a house as large and as impressive as this as being completely penniless.”

  “Well, that’s the truth, miss, and there be no way of makin’ it better not unless his Lordship finds the treasure his uncle’s hidden, which we’ve all searched for without findin’ a sign of it.”

  “It’s the most extraordinary story I ever heard. Are you quite certain the treasure was buried in the house?”

  “We thinks it must be,” Newman replied, “because his Lordship has searched everywhere outside.”

  He sighed again before he continued,

  “His late Lordship, before he died, wrote in his will that, when the treasure was found at last, there were certain people he admitted owing money to and two others who he wished to benefit by what he had left behind him.”

  “So he said that in his will?” Iona asked.

  “Yes, it were written soon after he comes here. All I can tell you is that I sees him year after year, getting’ more mean about partin’ with as much as a single penny and ever more secretive as to where he put his money.”

  “But you know that he actually did hide it here in the house?” Iona queried.

  “He hides it all right, miss, but, when he was doin’ so, we were told to go into the kitchen and stay there. It were not worth riskin’ our jobs to be a peepin’ Tom.”

  “I can understand that!” Iona exclaimed. “But you must have some idea of where it was hidden.”

  Newman made a helpless gesture with his hands.

  “This house be as big as any Army Barracks. The estate be the largest in the County so how are we to know.”

  Iona laughed because it sounded so ridiculous.

  And she knew by the expression on Newman’s face and the way his wife was trembling that they had all been terrified of upsetting his late Lordship.

  “But you personally,” Iona said softly, “must have some idea where he would hide the money. After all, if there was so much of it, it would not be so easy to hide.”

  “It weren’t all gold sovereigns. There were notes as well and I suggested to his present Lordship that they might be under the carpets.”

  “Of course they might,” Iona remarked.

  “But he then turns the carpets up in every room and there were not a sign of anythin’.”

  “It does seem a difficult problem, but I am going to think of all the places I would hide treasure if I had it. Then you can suggest it to his Lordship or look yourself.”

  “All I wants is to be paid a little bit for the work we does for him,” Mrs. Newman said in a frail voice. “Me husband and I are always alone. People from the village pop in and out and that be the right word for it.”

  Her husband laughed.

  “It is indeed! They comes in and when they finds there ain’t no pay and he rages at them because the treasure be still hidden, they goes away and vows never to come back again. So there be only us and us!”

  He put out his hand as he spoke and placed it on his wife’s shoulder.

  “My wife knows I’m tellin’ the truth when I says we haven’t had a penny to call our own for six months.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Iona exclaimed.

  Equally she knew it was the truth and that Newman and his wife were not lying to her.

  Then impulsively, as she was so sorry for them, she suggested,

  “Let’s for the moment talk business. I went to Mr. Hopkins’ shop to ask where I could stay for the night in a quiet respectable Posting inn where they would welcome my ponies and I would have a comfortable bedroom.”

  She was just about to add where she would not be chased by a common man as happened last night, but then thought it wise to say nothing about it.

  Instead she went on,

  “I have been reckoning that if I had a good dinner, a nice bedroom and my horses were looked after and fed, it would cost me at least five pounds.”

  She hesitated for a moment before she said,

  “So that is what I will give you now, because you are kind enough to welcome me here and, as I have already told you, I was hoping that Mr. Hopkins would send me someone I could pay to do the washing-up.”

  She opened her handbag, took out five sovereigns and pushed them across the table to Newman.

  He stared at them in astonishment and then said,

  “Do you really mean what you be sayin’, miss?”

  “Of course I mean it,” Iona replied. “I would feel very dishonest if I did not pay for staying here in what I hope will be reasonable comfort.”

&n
bsp; Newman drew the money towards him slowly as if he could hardly believe that the coins were real.

  Then he said,

  “I swear to you, Miss Lang, that the Missus and me will make you as comfortable as it’s possible to be in one of the best State rooms.”

  Iona smiled.

  “It certainly sounds most luxurious and thank you both for being so kind to me. Now you had best go and tell his Lordship that dinner will be ready in an hour.”

  Newman looked up at the big kitchen clock.

  “I’ve to go and put on my uniform, so the Missus’ll lay the table and perhaps, miss, you’ll give her a hand.”

  “I will. I want to see the dining room anyway.”

  Mrs. Newman opened the door and Iona followed her along a narrow passage past a huge pantry and then through a door covered in thick green baize.

  Now she was in the grand part of the house and she realised at once that it was full of extremely fine furniture and the pictures on the walls were magnificent.

  She only had a brief look at the hall and the wide passage beyond it, before Mrs. Newman opened a door.

  Iona followed her into the dining room and it was even more impressive than she had expected.

  There was an exceptionally fine fireplace of white marble and any owner would be proud to eat here.

  The walls were panelled in what she thought was Elizabethan style and there were pictures that she thought must be of the Earl’s ancestors. They had obviously been painted during their lifetime by an artist whose work today would be of great value.

  In the centre of the room was a large polished table on which Mrs. Newman placed four gold candlesticks.

  On the table there was a superb gold bowl in which there was fresh fruit that she thought must have come from the garden earlier in the day.

  Mrs. Newman arranged the knives and forks at the head of the table.

  It was all fascinating and Iona wanted to examine the pictures more closely as well as the mantelpiece which she was sure was at least three hundred years old.

  Then she saw that the clock on the mantelpiece was at one minute to eight and felt that it would be a mistake if the Earl came in and found her and Mrs. Newman there.