Don't Look Now Again Part Three

TT here . I have had to take a rest before going on with the letter. It was very disconcerting to know that at the times I was having those senses of foreboding or whatever the backward version of a foreboding is ( a back bodeing ?)  that I had been standing near the very spots where the two horrible killings had occurred. Sheldon said he didn't feel anything but warmth and welcome from the house. But then he, along with no visual sense, has no psychic antennae.   So I will now print the next page of the letter. Hold on to your wigs.

So you found the kitchen. The very place where my Mother, Polly, washed and peeled and sweated and hunched so the the privileged few who never ventured below stairs could grow fat on the produce my family could never afford in their wildest fantasies. One dinner they threw in the autumn of 25  could have kept the village of Lummerlea alive for two years if they hadn't already been dead!
How many miles of pastry would she have rolled on that table?

How many pounds of sausages did she fry on these old stoves? The new gas one on the right was added when the legs of the wood fuelled model collapsed and crushed the little boot boy, Peebles, to death as he was retrieving his tiny tin of Dubbin.  How many Thanksgiving birds? How many angel cakes? How many Tuffledorf's?  How many gallons of eldergoose marmalade were stirred lumpless on these ancient appliances. My Mother, Polly could have told you. But there is one thing that can be said of this kitchen and scullery. Nothing really bad happened in here (Peebles excepted) It was a haven from the charnel house which was Spadina. 

My Mother, Polly and Aunts Albania and Caen (Con) returned to Spadina House in 1927 when a new family bought the damp and abandoned home. The weather had already started to deteriorate the roof and ivies had taken hold of the walls.  Little animals made their homes in the remaing furniture and the well was full of all sorts of tipped no-have-no mores. Locals stayed well clear of the place after night had fallen and those who did cut across the weed infested tennis courts after the sun had dipped swore they heard screams and strangled gurgles booming from deep within.
But then the St Veyetus family bought Spadina, rennovated it completely and advertised for staff. My Mother and Aunts were first to apply for their old positions and walked into the rooms they were to occupy for the rest of their lives

This was their room.  They slept on the three pull out levels of that cupboard dresser type piece on the left. Caen was on the bottom drawer, Albania was in the middle and Mother on the top. She would roll off first thing in the morning walk across her sisters and poke the kitchen embers into life and make tea for the  St Veyetus's.
And there you can see the one remaining item of clothing from my family's days in service. Caen's uniform 


 And what did they get for it?

Scalds!  This is Abigail's scalding while making eldergoose preserve. She dropped the spoon in  and was so absorbed in a radio serial she plunged her hand in just as the car was going over the cliff

Limb loss!  My Mother's finger which went into the meat slicer. She later had it sewn back on but it didn't take

And the dreaded housemaids knee.  This of Caen's left leg  was taken by Dr Raj after only a week in service.
But there were happy times too

The three loved stocking the cupboards with provisions from Gaunts the Grocer

Their favourite game was "Guess What Rich Things Taste Like"  The hated Mrs St Veytus had made it clear that nothing in the Family pantry was to be tasted let alone eaten by any of the household staff. When the first can of New Era potato chips came in she personally opened and counted the entire contents and marked them in a notebook. When they were to be served she came down and watched as seven per side plate were placed for serving upstairs. On the day the last chip was to be eaten one plate came back with one uneaten chip.  The three women stood around it and decided that if the pet dog did not want it then they would share it among themselves.  After the great dane sniffed  and rejected it they broke it and sat and stared at it for a good while until their "Dust Off The Warehouse Floor Brand" tea brewed. Then they tasted and swallowed their tiny  pieces.  My Mother finally broke down, threw her apron over her head and wept for the sheer beauty of the taste of the New Era.  She never tasted another again in her life.

So when you next open the door of your gleaming dishwasher or tumble drier have the image of my dear Mother and Aunts bent double over this primitive stone sink, ankle deep in suds and grease and see them as their tears and skin flush away with their lost dreams.