‘But it’s true… I swear it!’ protested the astonished Amy. ‘I ain’t being fanciful… not this time. The mistress really did say all those things.’ She kept her distance from Cook’s anger, her bottom lip quivering and the curiosity gone from her eyes; in its place was the same expression Cook had seen on a big stray dog that she’d found sitting on the kitchen step some days ago. Lost it was, and starved of both food and affection. The constable had later returned it to its rightful owner, but Cook still recalled how it touched her old heart with its round, soulful eyes. ‘Oh, you gormless thing,’ she told the cowering maid, ‘sit yourself down. I’ll make us a brew of tea, and you can tell me what the mistress did say, word for word.’ Amy waited until Cook had dropped the ladle on to the surface of the big pine table, then, quietly snivelling, she slid into one of the stand-chairs and pulled it up to the table. ‘It were just as I told you,’ she mumbled, carefully watching Cook’s every move. She could do with a cup of tea now, she thought miserably, because the old bugger had frightened her so much that her mouth had gone all dry!

‘You’re a silly, innocent little fool,’ Cook placed the tray on to the table and edged her ample frame into a chair set directly opposite the maid, ‘but I shouldn’t have jumped at you like that… and I’m sorry.’ She cut a wedge of apple pie and scooped it on to a small china plate, which she then pushed in front of the little woman. ‘Get that down you,’ she ordered in a kindly voice, and, shaking her grey head, she added more severely, ‘You’ll never change, will you, eh? What were you when you first came to Breckleton House… fifteen… sixteen? That were over twenty years since, and you’re still as daft as a brush!’

‘I ain’t daft.’

‘Aye well… happen not “daft”… but you’ve still not learned the way of things.’

‘What do you mean, Cook… the way of things?’ Amy didn’t feel quite so threatened now, so she took a hearty bite of the apple pie and leaned forward, the better to hear Cook’s next words. For the life of her, she couldn’t see what she’d done wrong.

‘First of all… I don’t doubt for a minute that the mistress said those things.’ Cook smiled to reassure her. It was sad but true that Amy had never been what might be considered ‘intelligent’. And the older she got, the less she seemed to stop and think things out. ‘But there’s sommat you need to realize, Amy, and it’s this.’ She chuckled good-humouredly when the maid began frantically nodding her head and urging Cook, between mouthfuls of pie, to ‘go on… I’m listening.’ Poor, misguided soul, thought Cook, as she went on in a discreet voice, ‘What you heard upstairs… well, it could likely affect all our livelihoods, and that’s a fact!’