Life in Henry Hall

Prologue - The Beginning

The sunlight crept his shining rays over the brow of the hill, its light cascading down over the city. The city had been home for many years, well she liked to think of it as home, but in reality, she was no more a member of the community than the birds who flew away every winter, how she longed to be those birds. The suns rays began to shimmer into the dark room, a room she had inhabited for nearly 12 years.

She'd not had a great start in life, her mother had been a single mother, and she had been born out of wedlock. Her mother was Anna Peters, a young woman once, she'd been fair in her youth, and desired by many. Her mother had been 23 when she first encountered who would become her first husband, and after a short period courting she had married the man, a man named Daniel Mayweather, leaving the services of the family who had been her friends, well sort of, for many years. Aged 25 he had given birth to her first child, her boy, Fredric. Fredric had been just 2 when his father had died, an accident in the mines. She had got some insurance money, but alone and destitute she had fallen on hard times, and resorted to odd jobs to fund her child. She had met Peter Clarke aged 28, barely a year after her husbands death, and aged 29 she had given birth to her daughter, Clara, a bastard in everyone's eyes but her own, Clarke had fled not much long after.

Her mother had of course struggled through for a time, but she had had to turn to selling herself to feed her young children. It had always been assumed that was how she was conceived. A product of one mans passion and her mothers need to feed her children, and at 38 years old, her mother gave birth once more, another girl, a girl she called Ivy.

For Ivy as a young child, she had found life enthralling and full of adventure, and she had never once cared about the disapproving looks she got in the streets, the stares she got from other children as she and her siblings played. Her life had been perfectly imperfect.

Life had begun to tear itself at the seams when she was just 5 years old. Her brother had been given the opportunity to go abroad, make his fortune in America, and her mother had sent him off, wanting only what was best for her boy. 2 weeks later, her mother had fallen incurably sick, and within a week she was dead, cause of death ruled to be from a sexual disease she had picked up from one of her clients, which had obviously gone untreated. Her sister had done the best she could, trying as hard as she might to keep them together being aged only 14, did her best to keep them fed. 3 weeks before her 6th birthday, Clara collapsed, never to wake, being declared dead due to a contraction of cholera.

Ivy had been swept into a workhouse, out of sight out of mind she had begun to realise. Now she knew her time was beginning to end here, and she knew she had little time before she had to leave and begin to work for herself, she knew she had a job waiting for her when she was 18, which she was now, working in a stately home in the country, for a wealthy lord and his family as a ladies maid for his 2 daughters.

She had been packing her things for weeks, ready to be rid of the awful place in which she had lived for so long. The clanging of a pan awoke the other girls in the room, matron waking them with a start, Ivy on the other hand had been awake for hours.

They had all scrambled down for breakfast, and after a disgusting bowl of grey porridge they had gone off to work.

"Peters!" Matron yelled as Ivy slipped through the door.

"Yes Matron?" She asked.

"Mr Bredbury wishes to see you" She told her, a smirk on her face. Ivy felt the dread settling in her stomach. Bredbury had taken a strange interest her when she was just 13 years old, he'd used her in a way she knew he had to other girls, and she wasn't the only one he did it too. She also knew Matron knew what he was doing and she did nothing to stop it, instead believing that the girls in question deserved it. "Well hurry up girl, don't leave him waiting"

"Yes Matron" She said shakily, hurrying off towards the office she had visited so many times. Thye door was made of a dark wood, a heavy thing, concealing the monster that lurked behind it. Taking a deep breath she knocked lightly on the door, hoping desperately that he would be so deaf as to not hear her.

"Come in" Came the shout on the other side of the door. She shakily opened the door and stepped inside. "Ahh, Miss Peters"

"You wanted to see me sir" She said to him, not meeting his eyes, not wanting him to see into her, feeling vulnerable if he did.

"Yes, I understand it that you have a position in a household over in Cheshire?" He asked her.

"Yes sir, I am to be a ladies maid in Lord Henry's household, to his daughters." She replied, fiddling with her hands.

"And what makes you think you are qualified enough for that?" He asked, his eyes sneering at her accusingly.

"My mother was a ladies maid in her youth, and she taught me her craft, and I feel I'll do well there" She said, finding strength in her words. He looked surprised.

"Well, then you'll be delighted to know you can leave, today" He said, rather disappointed that he couldn't spoil this for her too.

"Thank you sir" She said, sighing.

"No parting gift Peters?" He asked as she turned to leave, his fat hand reaching out to touch hers, she snatched hers back rather quickly.

"I will be going now Bredbury, I am no longer under your control, good luck to you" She said, storming out and running back to her room, grabbing her bag and heading for the exit.

She had had her train tickets sent to her by Lord Henry, and they were open ended, she knew she could use them as soon as, and she did, hurrying for the train station, only stopping to send a telegram to the house to make them aware of her coming. Her life was beginning, by god was she glad of that.