Marta's Legacy Collection Read online

  Ever your friend,

  Rosie

  Marta wrote back and asked where Papa had buried Elise. She wept at the thought of Elise buried somewhere other than beside Mama, but she knew the church would not want a suicide laid to rest in consecrated soil.

  Marta bundled up the next morning, walked to a coach stand, and rode down to Westminster Abbey. She sat on a pew, wondering what Mama would think of this magnificent coronation church. Massive gray columns rose like enormous tree trunks holding up a shadowed canopy above. A rainbow of color splashed across the marble mosaic floors, as sun shone through the stained-glass windows. But the light quickly faded. She listened to the living walking among the shrines to the dead, standing and whispering in the naves lined with crypts holding the bones of great poets and politicians, or gazing at some bronze effigy tomb or sarcophagus.

  Oh, God, where does my sister sleep? Can You show mercy and carry her home to heaven? Or must she suffer the agonies of hell because she lost hope?

  A woman touched Marta on the shoulder and spoke. Startled, Marta wiped tears away quickly. The woman spoke to her in English. Though unable to comprehend the words, Marta took comfort in the woman’s gentle smile and tone. Mama might have comforted a stranger in the same way.

  Marta went to Hyde Park the next day and sat on the grass, watching the boats drift by on the blue Serpentine. Even in the open air and sunshine, Marta felt grief weigh down upon her. Mama said God offered her a future and a hope. But what did that mean? Was she supposed to wait until God spoke to her from the heavens? “Go,” Mama had said, but Marta didn’t know where to go anymore.

  She only knew she couldn’t continue this way, drowning in sorrow and living with regret. She had to remember what had driven her away from home in the first place. She wanted freedom to become all she could be. She wanted something to call her own. She couldn’t have either of those things by sitting and feeling sorry for herself.

  Before heading back to the Swiss Home for Girls, Marta went to the Swiss consul’s offices.

  “Fräulein Schneider!” Kurt Reinhard greeted her warmly. “It is good to see you. I heard you left the consul’s house.”

  Surprised he remembered her at all, Marta told him what had transpired. “I would like to put my name on your list again, Herr Reinhard. But may I request an English household this time, preferably one away from the soot and smoke of London?”

  “Of course. How soon will you be able to work?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “Then I think I have just the place for you.”

  9

  Marta rode to Kew Station and walked the rest of the way to Lady Daisy Stockhard’s three-story Tudor house near Kew Gardens. She expected to meet with the mistress of housekeeping. Instead, a stooped butler showed her into a parlor with daybeds and wingback chairs, and a large, low, round table covered with books. Every wall boasted a gilt-framed landscape. The floor was covered with a Persian rug. Curved, carved-legged tables with marble tops held brass lamps, and a pianoforte stood in the far corner with a marble bust of Queen Elizabeth. Over the fireplace hung a portrait of an English army officer in dress uniform.

  It took but a few seconds to take it all in and redirect her attention to a white-haired lady dressed elegantly in black, sitting in a straight-backed chair, and another much younger, plump and dressed in frothy folds of pink, sitting on a chaise, her back to the windows and a book open on her lap.

  “Thank you, Welton.” The older woman took Marta’s documents from him and put on tiny, wire-framed glasses as she read.

  The younger woman, whom Marta took to be the lady’s daughter, said something in English and sighed. Her mother answered pleasantly, to which the daughter lifted her book and made a dismissive sounding comment. The only part of the conversation Marta was fairly certain she understood was that the young woman’s name was Millicent.

  Lady Stockhard removed her glasses carefully and looked up. She addressed Marta in passable German. “Don’t stand in the doorway, Fräulein Schneider.” She beckoned. “Come in and let me have a good look at you.” Marta came a few steps into the room and stood with her hands clasped in front of her. “Mr. Reinhard tells me you don’t speak English. My German is limited. Enid, my cook, will teach you English. Honore and Welton will help as well. He takes care of the gardens. I used to love gardening. It’s good for the soul.”

  Millicent sighed in annoyance. She said something that Marta didn’t understand.

  Lady Stockhard answered pleasantly and then indicated that Marta should sit in a chair close to her. “I like to get to know the people who would join my staff.”

  Her daughter glowered and spoke again in English. Marta had no difficulty understanding her condescending tone or dismissive look.

  Lady Stockhard said something to her daughter, then smiled and spoke to Marta. “I told her you have training as a dressmaker. That will please her.”

  Millicent snapped her book shut and rose. A rustling of skirts announced her departure.

  “Do you like gardens, Fräulein?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She didn’t know what to make of Lady Stockhard with her inviting attitude.

  “Kew Gardens is a short walk away. I used to spend hours walking there. Now I can only just manage to walk around the house. Someone must take me to Kew Gardens in a wheelchair. Welton is too old, poor dear, and Ingrid met her handsome coachman. I have Melena, but she misses Greece and her family so much, I doubt she’ll stay long. Are you homesick for your family?”

  Marta couldn’t hide her surprise that an English lady would talk to her as though passing time with a friend. “I’ve been away from home nearly two years, ma’am.”

  “And your mother doesn’t miss you?”

  She felt a stab of pain. “My mother died in January, ma’am.”

  “Oh.” She looked dismayed. “Please accept my condolences. I don’t mean to pry.” The lady looked down at the documents on her lap. “Marta. A good Christian name. Mr. Reinhard writes you are a good worker, but Swiss girls always are.” Lady Stockhard raised her head and smiled. “I’ve had three in my employ over the years, and not one has disappointed me. I’m sure you won’t either.” She took a small silver bell from her side table and rang it.

  A dark-haired, dark-eyed maid appeared. “Yes, Lady Daisy?”

  “Honore, please show Marta to her quarters, and then introduce her to Enid and Melena.” She leaned over and put her hand on Marta’s knee. “English from now on, dear. It will be difficult at first, but you will learn more quickly that way.”

  Enid, the rotund and loquacious cook, spoke German, English, and French. When Marta said she had never met anyone like Lady Stockhard, who treated a servant so kindly, Enid nodded. “Oh, our lady is someone very special. She’s not like so many others who look down their noses on those who serve them. Not like her daughter, who gives herself airs. Lady Daisy always hires foreign servants. She says it’s an inexpensive way to visit another country. Melena is from Greece, Honore comes from France, and I’m from Scotland. Now, we have you, our little Swiss maid. Lady Daisy says if people can get along, then countries can also.”

  “And Welton?”

  “British, of course. He served with Sir Clive in India. When Welton returned, he came to pay his respects to our lady. He had retired and needed work. Of course, Lady Daisy hired him immediately and gave him the room over the carriage house. Welton and my late husband, Ronald, became good friends. Enough talking in German. I find it exhausting. And we have much to do.” As they worked side by side, Enid pointed out objects, said the English word, and had Marta repeat it.

  The next morning, the more reticent Honore taught Marta English phrases while they made beds, freshened rooms, and folded away clothing Miss Millicent had cast on chairs and floor that afternoon before going to call on a friend.

  “Good morning, Miss Stockhard.” Marta repeated the phrase. “Do you wish the drapes drawn, Miss Stockhard? May I bring you breakfast in bed,
Miss Stockhard?”

  Even the taciturn Welton became Marta’s instructor. When Enid sent her out for fresh vegetables from the garden, Welton carried on with names posted at the ends of rows. “Lettuce, cucumber, string, pole, beans, gate,” he told her, then shouted, “Rabbit!” He followed the last word with a string of others Marta knew better than to repeat.

  Every afternoon, Lady Stockhard rang her little silver bell, sat in her wheelchair, and waited for Melena to come and take her for an outing to Kew Gardens. Marta helped Enid prepare savories and sweets for high tea. As soon as Lady Stockhard and Melena returned, Marta wheeled the tea cart into the conservatory. She set a table with a silver pot of Ceylon or India tea spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves and plates of cucumber sandwiches, Scotch eggs, and currant brioches.

  “What would you like, Melena?”

  Lady Stockhard never ceased to surprise Marta. “She’s serving tea to Melena, as though she’s a guest and not a servant,” she told Enid.

  “She often does when Miss Millicent is out of the house. Sometimes, when her daughter goes traveling, Lady Daisy will even join us in the kitchen.”

  Enid, like Warner Brennholtz, shared her culinary knowledge openly. She didn’t mind when Marta wrote notes in her book, even going so far as to read what she wrote and add tidbits Marta may have forgotten. Marta filled pages with recipes for crumbly scones, Scottish shortbread, Chelsea buns, Yorkshire pudding, steak and kidney pie, and Lancashire hotpot.

  “I’ve got a dozen others to give you,” Enid told her. “Shepherd’s pie, toad-in-the-hole, and oxtail soup are a few of our lady’s favorites, but Miss Millicent would rather have rack of lamb and beef Wellington. When the young lady goes off on her next trip, we’ll have ourselves some plain English cooking again.” Enid rubbed seasonings into a hunk of meat.

  “Miss Millicent must love to travel.”

  Enid snorted. “She has her motives.” She shrugged and rolled the roast, rubbing more seasonings on the underside.

  Marta received a letter from Rosie.

  Elise is buried in our favorite meadow. Spring flowers are in bloom. I have not gone to church since Elise died, but I sit on our log and pray for her soul every day.

  Father John came up yesterday afternoon. He told me he would rather lie beneath a blanket of flowers with a view of Thunersee and the mountains than be under six feet of dirt in the confines of stone walls inside town. When I cried, he held me.

  He said the church must have rules, but God is Elise’s Maker and God is just and merciful. He said the Lord promised not to lose any of His children. His words helped me, Marta. I hope they will help you, too.

  Marta wished she could feel at peace, but she couldn’t shake the guilt. Had she gone home, Mama might still have died, but surely Elise would have lived. How dared she go on making plans for herself when it had been her dream that made her leave them behind—vulnerable, unloved, and unprotected? Though she despised her father, perhaps he was right after all. She did think of herself first; she did think she could do better than her brother. She was ambitious and unrepentantly disobedient. Perhaps he was also right in saying she deserved nothing more than to serve in someone else’s household. But before God, she swore it would never be his.

  When Melena went home to Greece, Marta found herself assigned to new responsibilities.

  Dear Rosie,

  I have become Lady Daisy’s companion. She is a most unusual lady. I have never known anyone to discuss so many interesting topics. She doesn’t treat her servants like slaves, but is genuinely interested in our lives. She had me sit with her in church last Sunday.

  Often, during their outings to Kew Gardens, Lady Stockhard talked about books. “Feel free to use my library, Marta. I can only read one at a time, and books shouldn’t gather dust. It’s lovely in spring, isn’t it? Of course, the gardens are always lovely, even in winter. The holly leaves look greener and the red berries redder against the snow. You must need to rest by now. Let’s sit awhile by the pond.”

  Waxy purple and yellow lilies rose on thick stems above the huge, green, plate-shaped leaves floating on the murky surface of the water. Mama would have loved Kew Gardens with all its varied beauty, birds flitting and fluttering from tree to tree, and rainbows in the misty spring rain.

  Marta pushed the wheelchair along the walk through a wooded glen. It reminded her of the lush green of Switzerland. Flowers popped bright faces up among the green grasses. Marta felt suddenly homesick for the Alpine meadows covered with spring blossoms. Grief welled up as she thought of Elise sleeping beneath a blanket of spring green and flowers and Rosie sitting on the fallen tree, praying for her soul. Wiping away tears, she pushed Lady Daisy along in the wheelchair.

  “Do you miss your mother?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” And Elise, though she never spoke of her.

  “I know what it is to mourn. I lost my husband to fever in India twenty years ago, and there isn’t a day that passes that I don’t miss him. Millicent was six when I brought her home. I wonder sometimes if she remembers her father or India with all its exotic scents and sounds.” She laughed sadly. “We rode together on an elephant more than once, and she loved to watch the local snake charmer.”

  “No one would ever forget such things, Lady Daisy.”

  “Not unless they wanted to forget.” Lady Stockhard smoothed the blanket covering her legs. “We grieve for those we’ve lost, but it’s the living that cause us the most pain. Poor Millicent. I don’t know what will become of her.”

  Marta didn’t know how to boost Lady Daisy’s spirits.

  “Don’t worry about Lady Daisy,” Enid told Marta that evening. “She gets like this sometimes after Miss Millicent leaves on holiday. She’ll be herself in a few days.”

  “Why doesn’t Lady Daisy travel with her daughter?”

  “She did for a while, but things never worked out when our lady was along. Miss Millicent prefers going alone. She sees the world differently than our lady. And who’s to say who’s right. The world is what it is.”

  None of the staff had any fondness for Miss Millicent, especially Welton, who stayed to the garden as much as possible whenever Lady Daisy’s daughter was home. The air grew colder in the house when Miss Millicent was present. When summoned, Marta went quickly to wherever Miss Millicent might be, curtsied, received her instructions, curtsied again, and departed to do what she had been told. Unlike Lady Stockhard, Miss Millicent never addressed a servant by name, asked how she felt, or discussed anything.

  After six months in Lady Stockhard’s employ, Marta had learned enough English to follow whatever instructions might be given.

  She disliked Miss Millicent almost as much as she liked Lady Daisy. The young woman treated her mother with contempt. “One might think you prefer the company of servants to that of peers, Mother.”

  “I like everyone.”

  “Everyone is not worthy. Did you have to talk to the gardener in the front yard?”

  “His name is Welton, Millicent, and he’s part of the family.”

  “It’s about time tea arrived!” she complained. “The point is, everyone in the neighborhood saw you. What will people think?”

  “That I’m talking to my gardener.”

  “You’re impossible.” Miss Millicent treated her mother like a recalcitrant child. Leaning forward, she looked at the tiered dishes and groaned. “Egg and watercress sandwiches again, Mother. Cook knows I prefer spicy chicken and currant brioches. And it would be nice to have chocolate éclairs more often than once a month.”

  Marta positioned the trolley and set the silver tea service on the table, closer to Lady Stockhard than her daughter, turning the handle so her lady could easily grasp it. She felt Miss Millicent’s cold glare. When Marta put the tiered dishes within easy reach as well, Lady Daisy smiled at her. “Thank you, Marta.”

  “The girl doesn’t know how to set a table.” Miss Millicent rose enough to reach across and grasp the teapot. Pouring herself a cup of tea
, she returned the pot to where Marta had placed it. Then she proceeded to fill her plate with sandwich wedges, sponge drops with jam, and cream-filled strawberry meringues. “No one needs to talk to a gardener for longer than a few minutes, Mother, and you were outside for the better part of an hour. Do you have any idea what people will say about that?” She sat and put an entire sponge drop into her mouth. Her cheeks bulged as she chewed.

  Lady Stockhard poured her own tea. “People always talk, Millicent.” She added a bit of milk and two scoops of sugar. “If they have nothing to talk about, they’ll invent something.”

  “They won’t have to invent a thing. It doesn’t even occur to you how I feel, does it? How can I show my face outside the front door when my mother is the scandal of the neighborhood?”

  Fuming, Marta returned to the kitchen. “Miss Millicent wants spicy chicken sandwiches tomorrow.”

  “If I make spicy chicken, she’ll want something else. There’s no pleasing her.”

  “I’m surprised Miss Millicent receives so many invitations.”

  “She can be quite charming when she has reason to be. And I understand she can be quite pleasing to young men.” Enid shrugged. “I’ll be needing more carrots and another onion. Why don’t you go on out to the garden? You look like you could use a breath of fresh air. But don’t be long. Her Highness will be wanting the tea things removed from the parlor. She’s invited guests for dinner.”

  Miss Millicent stayed home for two months, then left again.

  “She must love to travel.”

  Enid gave a snort. “She’s gone hunting. And I don’t mean foxes.”

  “What, then?”

  “Miss Millicent is off on another one of her husband-hunting expeditions. It’s Brighton this time because she heard a friend has a brother who’s eligible. She’ll be home in a few weeks, disappointed. She’ll be moody and disagreeable, and she’ll stuff herself with scones and marmalade, cakes and spicy chicken sandwiches. Then, she’ll start writing letters again, and she’ll keep writing until someone invites her to come for a visit on the Continent or in Stratford-upon-Avon or in Cornwall. She meets people everywhere she goes, and she keeps their names and addresses.”