Abigail

---8---

I'd spent a lot of time down in the kitchens recently. It was mainly because I knew that a certain someone was far too proud to ever find himself down here, but the people down here were much more my type of people.

It had been a few days since the tree incident. I had managed to avoid Mr Ridley since then with ease, as far as everyone upstairs knew I was coming down with an illness and had decided to stay in my room.

I sat on one of the wooden benches in the middle of the cold room, there was a fire in the log burner to warm it but the high ceilings and large windows do little to keep the heat in. It was the evening and there were few people left, the ones still here both lived and worked here. Ruth was currently rushing around the kitchen looking for new tasks to do. A boy was also among the kitchen stragglers, he was no older than 15  and I'd learnt that he was an orphan, taken in by an older woman who worked here called Mary. Mary had taken the boy under her wing and raised him as her own.  He was called Robert and he was sat beside me ripping up bread and using it to soak up his soup, he swallowed it faster than he could taste it. 

He had gotten used to me spending a lot of time down here, on the first night he wouldn't eat in front of me. On the second he tried to eat as delicately as he could, it wasn't until he watched me stuff my face with a tart that the chef  had given me to try, that he realised that I wasn't particularly bothered by his eating habits.

In between   stuffing his face, Robert was telling me about how he loved to paint, his eyes lit up as he talked about it, but they faded when he told me that he rarely painted because he couldn't afford the materials. I decided there and then that I really didn't like the Victorian class system.

We were pulled out of our conversation by the sound of clanging metal bowls, Ruth had dropped them and was now on her knees trying to gather them all up again.

"Ruth why are you still cleaning? The working day is done."  His voice was cheerful and relaxed, a large grin etched across his features. She quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before carrying the bowls over to the cupboard, completely ignoring his question. 

"Does she always work harder than everyone else?" I whispered to Robert.

"Only recently." He answered with a mouth full of food. "She's been acting really strange." He continued, shrugging before stuffing more bread into his mouth. I watched her as she put the bowls away, she wasn't concentrating and she almost dropped the bowls again.

"Ruth do you want some-" 

He was interrupted when Ruth suddenly rushed to the sink, heaving and coughing as she threw up into the basin.

"soup." Robert finished his sentence, slowly lowering the bowl. A silence settled over the kitchen, the only sound was Ruth trying to catch her breath.

"Is everything okay?" She nodded quickly, wiping her mouth on her sleeve and quickly rushing out of the kitchen. I looked to Robert for clues about what had just happened, but he was already back to eating his soup. I sighed and walked out of the kitchen, trying to find where Ruth ran off to.

I heard a door slam down one of corridors and followed the noise, the hallways down here were much simpler, stone walls and floors with wooden doors. I listened as I walked, stopping when I heard a sobbing girl behind one of the doors. I knocked lightly but there was no response. I knocked again and waited a while, I lightly tapped my foot against the cold floor, tightening my shawl around myself.