From Cassell’s Household Guide, c. 1880s I stood on the doorstep of the big house, my heart thumping so hard it was fit to jump out of my chest, raised the knocker and brought it down with a clap that echoed around the empty courtyard. A couple of pigeons pecking at crumbs on the cobblestones fluttered up into the air; such a great noise in that quiet place startled me too, even though I had made it myself. For two pins I would have taken up my basket and run all the way home, but there could be no turning back now: the new year had begun and with it, a new life for me. I had arrived to start work as under housemaid at Swallowcliffe Hall - if only someone would let me in. I wished now that I had come by train and let the coachman pick me up from the station, as the housekeeper had suggested when I came for my interview a couple of weeks before. That had seemed a great deal of fuss at the time, however, so my mother and I had decided to beg a lift halfway on the dairy cart, and walk the rest.
