Read Online Magic Below Stairs by Caroline Stevermer - Free Book Online

nothing like the cream from the home farm at Skeynes, and she was right.”
    Frederick stared at the dried beans. “Or maybe it’s just the wrong time of year for pease pudding.”
    â€œWhat is this on the floor? This is sour milk!” Mr. Grant’s shouting made the kitchen rafters ring. “Who spilled milk and walked away without mopping it up? Am I among savages? Is this the way one makes cheese here in the howling wilderness? Has this kitchen never seen a scrub brush until now?”
    â€œHop it,” Bess advised, “or we’ll both be stuck here scrubbing.”

7
    IN WHICH FREDERICK FEELS AT HOME
    Skeynes was, Frederick discovered, the center of a whole new world. In addition to the great house and its stable block, there were outbuildings, a home farm, and what seemed like miles upon miles of gardens, fields, and forest.
    Night and day, dozens of servants and farm laborers were busy at Skeynes. In London, Frederick had grown used to the divide between upper servants and lower servants. Now he discovered another divide, this one between London servants and local servants. All the London servants knew each other. All the local servants knew each other. But more than that, if the local servants weren’t all blood relations, they behaved as if they were.
    Bess had cousins aplenty among the local servants. The moment her work was done each day, they swept her off to catch up on family news and gossip. Frederick missed her. Strangely, he did not feel lonely. Although Skeynes might as well have been a foreign country, Frederick felt at home there from the very first morning.
    In London Frederick’s work had begun at daybreak, when the delivery wagons rumbled past and the cabs and carriages started the endless scurry of their day. At Skeynes, Frederick’s work also began at daybreak, but there was not a sound of traffic anywhere. Not that it was quiet. If anything, Skeynes was noisier than London. For one thing, there were the birds. Frederick had seen birds in the city, sparrows mostly. In the countryside, there were more kinds of birds singing at once than Frederick had ever heard of before, more than he could count. There were also roosters, hens, and the occasional screaming peacock.
    From Lord Schofield’s bedchamber and dressing room, windows looked out over gardens, but Frederick had little chance to admire the view. He was too busy bringing the rooms into a proper state of cleanliness and order. With Lord and Lady Schofield expected any day, there was a tremendous amount of work to be done, from the attics and box rooms at the top of the house to the cellars beneath it.
    The state of the cupboards in his lordship’s dressing room was dreadful. Frederick spent his time clearing cobwebs and dusting. There would be no point in unpacking his lordship’s wardrobe in a place that would dirty the clothing immediately. He took his time and did a thorough job. Frederick liked the sense of drowsy peace he found as he worked. Sometimes he felt that old sense of companionship, as if someone worked near him, just out of sight.
    Before long, Frederick had Lord Schofield’s dressing room looking as neat as a pin. The whole staff worked as hard as Frederick did and soon, in the matter of comfort and cleanliness, there was little to choose between the London house and Skeynes.
    But in Lord Schofield’s dressing room one morning, Frederick noticed soot in the grate of the fireplace. From the look of the debris he found, he suspected a bird was nesting up the chimney. Frederick wondered when the staff at Skeynes last had a proper chimney sweep in.
    That evening at the long table in the servants’ hall, Frederick remembered the soot. “Mr. Kimball, may I ask when the chimneys were last swept here?”
    Mr. Kimball, seated at the far end of the table, was listening to Mrs. Dutton and did not hear the question. Frederick was too far away, seated with Bess and the