The correspondence coursework was on top, but she hesitated as she reached for it. How many hours had she hunched over her desk after her work was done, writing in her exercise books? She’d hung everything on those classes, scraping and saving to pay for them. She’d turned down trips to the cinema on her day off and went without new shoes one year. She’d been so focused on her plan, so sure that this would finally free her from Highbury once and for all.
She put the course materials aside and grabbed the Tahitian beach. When she fed it into the stove, the paper caught and curled with green and blue flame. In seconds, the image burned away. She pursed her lips and let out a long breath. Then she reached for an image of Switzerland.
“Miss Adderton, what are you doing up so late?”
Stella whipped around at the sound of Mrs. Symonds’s voice, banging her knee into the stove’s open door as she did. She cried out, grasping at her right leg. A firm set of hands gripped her by the shoulder, and she found herself half hopping to a chair.
“Do you need a compress?” Mrs. Symonds asked.
She bent her knee a couple of times, testing it. “No,” she managed.
“I’m sorry I frightened you,” said Mrs. Symonds.
Stella looked up at the other woman from under her lashes. I’m sorry. It was so odd to hear those words from her employer.
“It’s nearly a quarter past one,” said Mrs. Symonds.
“I had some things I needed to take care of.”
She watched Mrs. Symonds’s gaze drift to the pile of papers on the worktop. “Are you burning these?”
“Yes,” she gritted out.
“Nice, San Sebastián, Cape Town, Bombay… Are these all places you dreamed of going?” Mrs. Symonds asked.
Shame suffused Stella’s body. “They were on the walls of my room. It was silly,” she said.
Mrs. Symonds sifted through the papers. “I’ve been to a few of these places—Paris, Rome—but you’re far more adventurous than I am. I didn’t know that you wanted to travel.”
Stella sat, lips firmly shut, watching her employer’s hand fall on the correspondence coursework.
“You’re taking shorthand dictation courses?” Mrs. Symonds asked.
“Another silly thing.” Another dashed plan.
“I didn’t realize that you wanted to do anything besides cook,” said Mrs. Symonds.
Stella’s heart twisted, and she nearly gasped.
“I hate cooking.” The words that had been building up in her for years flew from her lips.
Mrs. Symonds looked stunned. The lady carefully put down the exercise book. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Look what you’ve done now, Stella. “I’m sorry. I’m grateful for my job here.”
Mrs. Symonds pulled her quilted satin dressing gown closer and took the wooden chair across from Stella. Finally, she said, “There are things that I wished I could have done. Regrets that I have… May I ask what you would do with your life if you weren’t a cook?”
She knew that she shouldn’t answer honestly. But she was simply too tired to lie. “I was born in Highbury,” she said.
“Yes, I know. Murray said that your mother worked as a housemaid until her arthritis became too taxing,” said Mrs. Symonds.
“That’s right. Mum’s cooking lessons helped me catch Mrs. Kilfod’s eye when I was fourteen. She made me her helper and taught me what Mum couldn’t.”
“What did you want to do instead?” Mrs. Symonds asked.
“I wanted to leave,” she said in a burst. “Joan was the lucky one. Mum thought she was too bold to be in service, so she was sent to work at one of the department stores in Leamington Spa. She met Jerry when she was sixteen, and he married her three months later. When she moved to Bristol, I was so jealous I could hardly stand to look at her. I’ve spent my whole life two miles from the cottage I was born in. I wanted to go to London. To work and then maybe to do more. Would you want to spend all your days in the basement of a house that’s not yours, cooking for a family that’s not yours?”
Mrs. Symonds inclined her head. “So that’s what all of these correspondence classes are about.”
“Yes.”
“You thought to go to London and become a secretary, I take it?” Mrs. Symonds asked.
“Yes.”
“And one day you want to travel.”
Stella looked miserably at the pile of unburned papers on the table. “I thought if I worked hard enough, I might be able to save. It was a silly idea.”