The Heather and the Pine

August 7th, 185~

Life's routine has quickly taken a relaxed character, and although I am of course always busy in the kitchen, or helping Susannah, I do find that time passes different here. I can have everything prepared for Mrs H in good time to help Susannah and Madeleine with the housework. Even then, we find we certainly have an hour or two in the afternoons. It is not idleness, despite what the young master says (he is inclined to think servants are naturally idle, in particular those his own age). It is simply that there is nothing for us to do until they all return from their excursions.

Mrs H, usually a genial housekeeper (at least towards the rest of us below stairs) is quite bubbling over with happiness at the change of air and scenery. Unkind thought, but I am glad the senior kitchen maid's indisposition allows me to join the family on holiday. I am glad of the honour, only some two years in service.

Today, Mrs H, Susannah and I sat companionably on the scullery step. I forget where the family had gone, I think perhaps to some pretty stretch of the river for a picnic. We were chattering away like the bosomest of friends. Susannah was practising her needlework (she has dainty hands and is accomplished) and I had the book of poetry I'd taken from the circulating library. (My reading would now please our vicar's daughter. She was always a kind and patient teacher with me, and I mean to write to her with news of my progress in the world.) Mrs H had rolled up her skirts and was enjoying the sunshine on her legs, arms and face, and sometimes asking me to read her bits out of my book.

I was glad there was no awkwardness, for I am shy with Susannah after we shared a room for a few weeks. I fear she may have seen into that part of my heart that I keep deep hidden, that she understood my clumsy familiarity in those early days as an initiation into another sort of friendship. I think I alarmed her, for I blush now to think I made so bold without first getting to know her character. Susannah is naturally friendly and I mistook her openness for something it was not.

When new to this household, I was largely unaware of the more civilised world beyond my farm and village, having gained but the rudiments of service in my first position with our vicar; and perhaps I was fortunate to be put to share a room with an older, wiser kitchen maid called Alice, who made it her private duty to rid me of some of my innocence. (And I was all too happy to learn!) She and I struck up an easy friendship from the very start.

Alice taught me card games and swearwords (even if I choose not to use them), and shared the small bottles of home-made fruit brandy that she smuggled back after going to visit her family. She would advise me on how to succeed in service, on the workings of society and on how to profit most from one's position within it. I was also fond of Alice because, unlike the other maids, she never pressed me to say which of the footmen or delivery boys had taken my fancy. Like me, she seemed uninterested in such things, so with Alice I could gladly maintain my silence on matters of the heart and had not to feign interest in boys, unlike with the other girls.

The good, clear air here stirs over a wide and wild countryside, covered in an immense carpet of heather and thick forests of pine, and which has a raw beauty which can rob me of my breath if the light strikes it just at the right angle. There is a particular light up here, perhaps because we are so far North. I am glad the Major has an old Army companion who has cultivated this Highland estate, and is now eager to share its delights. I should never have dreamed of having a holiday, let alone one so far from home, but it seems to be all the fashion now.

I suppose we must thank the Queen and her Prince for their love affair with Scotland, and for starting this mania for the Highlands in the first instance – the location has much to recommend it!