Robert glanced at me from the corner of his eye as I turned my head to face Mrs Ealing, my hands trembling behind my back. Her lips were drawn into a thin line and her arms were folded over a chest. She had regarded me with a small tilt of her head and a raised eyebrow, her tightly pulled back hair making her look even more terrifying. As she glared at me, I noted the glint in her eye. The same glint I used to receive from the foreman when he intended to punish me for no reason other than he felt like it. Behind my back, my hands shook more violently.

"I was returning to the kitchen, Ma'am. I have finished the chores Miss Jenkins set me and I was going to ask what she wanted me to do next," I said. I fought with every word to keep my voice steady.

"Hm, a likely story," Mrs Ealing muttered.

"It's true. She was just finishing in Zachariah's room when I met her. I thought I would walk down the stairs with her seeing as I need a book from the library," Robert added.

"I didn't ask you, Robert. Go and fetch your book and be on your way. I'd like to have a word with Rosie on my own."

I swallowed the bile that had risen in my throat and glanced at Robert. He lightly placed his hand on the small of my back before he started walking towards his mother, turning to walk into the library. He glanced back and gave me a small, reassuring smile as he disappeared from view and left me alone with Mrs Ealing and nothing but the eerie sound of the clock ticking away. The wheeze in my chest seemed louder than it had before and my breathing sounded harsher and more aggressive, almost as though I still had influenza.

Behind my back, my hands continued to shake, and I could almost feel it riding up my body until it felt as though I was shaking all over. I took a large gaping breath as Mrs Ealing took several steps down the hallway. She paused only briefly to close the door to the library before taking several more steps until she was standing right in front of me. The methodical ticking of the clock echoed inside my head as I fought to keep my breathing steady. I could feel Mrs Ealing's breath as she looked at me, removing her hands from across her chest and dropping them to her side. She leaned forward slightly until she was only a small distance away from my face.

"If I see you loitering instead of working again, you will be receiving your second infraction. You are here to work, not to fraternise with my children and certainly not to stand around doing nothing. Do you understand me?" Mrs Ealing said through gritted teeth.

"Yes, Mrs Ealing," I muttered, my voice barely audible.

"Pardon?"

"Yes, Mrs Ealing," I repeated, my voice louder than before.

"Good. Get out of my sight."

Mrs Ealing leaned back slightly and waved her hand towards the darkened hallway that led to the kitchens. I turned away from her and placed my hands in front of me so she wouldn't see them shake. I didn't want her to see how nervous she had made me. One of the rules we had back at the factory was to never show the foreman when we were afraid of him. We had trained ourselves to become emotionless when facing him, to keep a straight face and our hands steady as he screamed and beat us. I knew it was a method I would have to adopt with Mrs Ealing if it meant I could deal with her determination to get rid of me.

I kept my eyes focused on the stairwell as I crossed the short distance and started down the stairs towards the kitchen, though I could still feel Mrs Ealing's eyes on my back as I went. Disappearing down the stairs, I pressed my back against the cold stone wall and listened as Mrs Ealing's footsteps echoed away from the hallway and back towards the drawing-room. My hands still shook as I knotted them together in front of me, battling against my lungs to steady my breathing and try to calm myself down a little. I didn't know what had started to happen to me whenever I came face-to-face with Mrs Ealing. The foreman had never put me on edge as much as she did.

After a few seconds, the shaking in my hands slowed to nothing more than a light tremor and my breathing had slowed to a somewhat decent rate. There was nothing I could do about the tremor in my hands, but the breathing could easily be explained by the influenza, so I returned to the kitchen. I intended not to tell Miss Jenkins what had happened and certainly not inform her of the threat Mrs Ealing had made. I felt bad enough for having missed three days of work to influenza, I certainly wasn't going to add to the grief I had caused. Miss Jenkins had already warned me about how much time I spent around Robert.

Pushing myself off the wall, I walked the last few steps and spilt out into the small hallway, heading to the ray of sunlight that spilt out of the kitchen. Miss Jenkins pottered about the kitchen completing her usual chores for the morning whilst Esther was nowhere to be seen. I hadn't seen her since that morning, but I knew she was busy with work. Miss Jenkins wanted to keep me away from Mrs Ealing, though that seemed like an impossible task. I shuffled into the room and Miss Jenkins placed a small plate of sandwiches onto the table, pushing it towards me. I took a seat and grabbed one, tearing into the bread as she spoke.

"I've been wracking my brains to come up with some other tasks that don't involve dusting and won't have Doctor Ealing on my back. So, I have come up with an alternative. I've been meaning to teach you how to bake for a while, but things keep getting in the way. Esther has kindly agreed to take control of the chores upstairs and you will be helping me make an apple pie to serve this evening. How does that sound?"

"Apple pie was on Isabel's list," I mumbled, swallowing a mouthful of bread and ham.

"I know, Esther had a look at the list whilst you were asleep. Are you up for learning to bake?"

"Definitely."

"Good. Finish that and then wash the plate and your hands and we'll get started."

Miss Jenkins smiled at me as I shovelled the second half of the sandwich into my mouth and crossed to the sink to wash both my hands and the plate. Since writing the list with Matilda, I had only managed to complete one item with everything else having been forgotten. I liked the idea of being able to cross something else of the list and hopefully begin to work my way through it as time went on. Although I may not have liked the idea of Esther snooping through my dress to read the list, I was glad the suggestion had been made.

Despite the excitement, I felt about finally learning how to bake for myself, I couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty. Mother had always said she would teach me to bake when I got older, but she never had the chance, now I had the chance to learn and she wasn't there to teach me. I knew Miss Jenkins wasn't trying to replace my mother, she couldn't have known about the promise and yet the guilt was still there. The guilt sat at the forefront of my mind as Miss Jenkins retreated to the pantry and returned with her arms full of flour, butter and apples. She dumped them onto the table and pulled out the cooking instruments from the cupboard whilst I stood with my back against the sink.

As the afternoon wore on, Miss Jenkins showed me the correct way to make pastry – "you must remember to handle it lightly," she had said – as well as the right type of apples to use. A lot appeared to go into making something as simple as apple pie and I wasn't entirely sure if I enjoyed making it as much as I knew I would enjoy eating it if I had been given the chance. Still, as Miss Jenkins placed it in the oven and started the cleanup mission, I pulled the list from my dress pocket and flattened it against the table.

My eyes raked over the last as I smooth out the fold lines and grabbed the pencil Miss Jenkins used to write the shopping lists. I drew a little checkmark next to the first statement on the list – talking to my brothers – and ran the pencil down to the apple pie statement and put another checkmark against the paper. Two statements down, plenty more to go and yet none of them were as easy to complete as the first two. The idea of being invited to a party as a guest seemed about as far-fetched as Mrs Ealing giving me a hug. There were some things on that list that were going to be remarkably difficult to complete, but I was determined to complete them.

"Right, that will be done just in time to serve tonight. I have to finish supper so go and make yourself useful and lay the table upstairs," Miss Jenkins said as she placed a pan on the top of the stove.

"Yes, Miss Jenkins," I replied. I folded the list back up and stuffed it into my pocket, pushing the pencil across the table as I stood up.

"You did well today. We'll make a baker of you yet!"

"We'll see.

I smiled towards Miss Jenkins and retreated back into the darkened hallway. Making my way up the stairs, the list rustled in my pocket, alongside the envelope that I had yet to open. Whoever had written that note and whatever it may have contained would have to remain a mystery. Proving myself to Mrs Ealing was more important to me than whatever may have been written in that letter. When my position became certain when the threat of dismissal no longer loomed over my head, I intended to read the letter and discover its sender, but until then it would stay in my pocket. I just had to remember to take it out when my dress was washed.

The sun had started to set as I stepped out into the hallway and walked the short distance to the dining room. A pale pink light filled the room as I watched the clouds cross the sky through the large window that looked out onto the gravel path that led away from the house. As the sun slipped behind the rows of trees and lit the sky on fire, I grabbed the placemats from the cupboard at the far end of the room and started to lay the table for the family supper.

Laying the table took a certain attention to detail that I had managed to develop over the years at the factory. After spending years picking up even the smallest pieces of fluff, I had the ability to notice when the smallest of things happened to be out of place. If one of the knives or forks had been put in the wrong place, even by the smallest amount, I would spot it. Miss Ealing had decided that my talents were better suited to laying the table than serving at it, especially when I almost dropped a bowl of custard onto Roberts lap. She had said my talents lay elsewhere. In short, keeping out of everyone's way.

Most of my chores kept me out of the way of members of the household. From doing the laundry to cleaning the bedrooms and hallways when most of the family were away from the house. The only person who seemed to actively try and find me was Robert. He always seemed to appear whenever I was working, accompanied with a grin he would come up with some rather dumb excuses and then refuse to leave. Miss Jenkins had warned me to not become distracted by him, but it was next to impossible when he seemed to be wherever I was, even if I tried to avoid him.

"Are you almost done in here?" Esther asked, poking her head around the door.

"Almost," I replied.

"How was your first day back at work?"

"I almost got bowled over by Charlotte and I have eaten something other than porridge, so it's been pretty good."

"I'm glad." She paused and took several steps into the room, closing the door softly behind her. "I heard Mrs Ealing reprimanding Robert earlier on, did something happen?"

"We happened to be in the same place at the same time. Again. Mrs Ealing took it the wrong way and seemed to think that we were fraternising or something."

"I know that that isn't the case and that a lot of the time it is purely coincidental, but even I find it odd how often you and Robert just happen to be together. Haven't you noticed that he always seems to track down what you are doing and when? Even when you're working in the garden."

"What are you getting at?" I furrowed my eyebrows at her.

"I'm not getting at anything, I'm just making a point. When I arrived here, there was a maid called Harriet. Whenever she would go to do the grocery shopping or to church, she would always be met by a man called Jeremy. A few months after I arrived, they were engaged. Jeremy would always figure out where she was and try to spend as much time with her as possible."

"I don't understand."

"He liked her, Rosie. She was his sweetheart."

I blinked at Esther, my mind attempting to unravel what she had said and just what it might have meant. Over the past six months, I hadn't thought much of it. The idea of Robert following me around for any other reason than to be annoying just seemed ludicrous. In truth, I thought the idea of him liking me to be a preposterous one. We were friends, that was all we were and all we would ever be. Even if it were the case, his mother wouldn't have allowed it and I didn't see him leaving his family and his inheritance for a simple serving girl with a damaged arm and a tendency to get into trouble. Robert didn't like me, not that way. I wouldn't believe it.

Still, as I moved a napkin to its correct pace, trying to ignore Esther's watchful gaze, something at the back of my head told me she may have been right. I had never been someone who fully understood how love worked, nor did I expect to and yet I remember watching Matthew when I was younger. Before Father had taken me to the factory, Matthew had a sweetheart of his own and he would always want to be near her. I just thought it was strange and somewhat odd that he appeared to be obsessed with her and yet she never appeared to mind all that much.

Maybe Esther was right.

"Can we talk about something else? I don't really want to be reminded of the threat Mrs Ealing gave me."

"Alright. How did your first baking session go?"

"It was fine, though I don't think I'll ever have Miss Jenkins skill."

"None of us will, though I'm sure it's good."

"Not that we'll get to taste it."

"Don't be so sure. Come on, the table looks fine and I'm hungry. I want to eat before I come up to serve tonight."

Esther grabbed my arm as I moved one of the forks slightly to the left before allowing her to pull me from the room and back to the kitchen. The paper rustled in my pocket as she dragged me down the stairs and into the darkened kitchen. Miss Jenkins stood leaning over the table as she lit several candles and threw the match into the brazier to burn away. The only light in the room came from the candles on the table and the brazier that burned in the centre of the room, as it always did. I flexed my wrist out slightly from where Esther had grabbed it and took at a seat at the far end of the table. Esther took the seat beside me as Miss Jenkins passed both of us a bowl of stew and then sat down to eat her own.

When I had first been given a bowl of stew, it reminded me so much of the watered soup we ate at the factory that I almost didn't eat it. However, after settling on the fact that I was starving and needed to eat something, I ate some of it. It came as quite the shock to discover that it in no way resembled, or even tasted similar, to the soup I had been eating for seven years. It always had chunks of meat and vegetables and sometimes Miss Jenkins would serve it with rice, and we'd be allowed a hunk of bread alongside it. Stew had easily become one of my favourite foods, alongside meat pie and cherry tarts. I would eat a bucket of it given the opportunity.

"Are you eating that or inhaling it?" Miss Jenkins asked, tearing her bread apart.

"Possibly both," I said, laughing slightly.

"Well, whilst you were setting the table, I put all of the scraps from the pie together to make another, smaller apple pie for us. If you don't want to end up vomiting it back up, I'd slow down."

"I told you we'd get to taste your masterpiece," Esther added.

"But I didn't make this one."

"Shh, don't ruin this moment for me. I enjoy being right."

"You sound like Robert."

Esther winked at me and hid her smile in the stew as she dipped a piece of bread into the bowl. I shook my head and went back to eating, trying to push all thoughts of Robert and everything Esther had said before from my mind. Though as I attempted to eat through my stew slower than I had before, I couldn't help but wonder if she could have been right. I may not have wanted to accept the possibility and I certainly hoped that it wasn't, but the longer I thought about it, the more I thought it may have been true.

Still, I pushed the thought to the back of mind for the second time that evening and returned to the bowl in front of me. Using the left-over bread, I sopped up the rest of the stew and pushed the bowl away from me and waited for the little apple pie. My stomach groaned as Miss Jenkins cleared the bowls and cutlery and pulled the apple pie from the oven, placing it in front of us. She grabbed three fresh bowls and spoons as well as a large knife in which she sliced into the pie and dropped it onto the plates. The moment the plate and spoon were nudged towards me, I grabbed the spoon and dived into it, ignoring how hot it was.

"Not bad for your first attempt, I think I make it better though," Esther said, pulling a face at me.

"Are you challenging me?"

"I may well be." Esther grinned at me and lightly kicked me under the table.

"Enough, you two. You're as bad as the twins."

Miss Jenkins smiled at us despite the reprimand and the sound of flames flickering in the brazier filled the silence that settled between us. Despite the confrontation between myself and Mrs Ealing, I felt glad to be back at work and couldn't help but feel optimistic about what the future may hold. Things felt as though they might be looking up.

~~~

A/N - Chapter Twenty! Get ready for some drama guys, it's coming and I don't know if you are going to kill me for it or not... We shall see. 

Anyway, TFG is so close to 50K reads and I don't know what to do for it! Would you guys like a double update of TSG or something else? Please let me know!

What did you guys think of the chapter? Do you think Esther has clocked onto Robert and Rosie's possible feelings for each other? What about Mrs Ealing's threat?

Comment below! (Please comment, I miss your comments)

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to FateFury who binge read both TFG and TSG the other week and left a really nice comment on my message board! It meant a lot :)

First Published - October 8th, 2019