After Life

Everything changed after that night, and in more ways than one. (Y/N) no longer ran from me when I went walking through the eastern fields- quite the opposite! Each time we chanced to meet, I got, at the least, a smile and a greeting, which I returned with great enthusiasm. How lovely she was when she wasn’t shrieking at me! Soon I found myself, once again, making extra trips to the area in the hope of seeing her more often.

After some weeks, it became not infrequent that we would sit in the grass, just a few paces apart, and have entire conversations! At first it was a bit overwhelming to be speaking with another person after so many years of solitude. But, in the course of time, I grew more comfortable around (Y/N), and she seemed to feel likewise. I had always enjoyed telling stories, making people laugh, and talking about myself in general, so I enjoyed talking to (Y/N) about anything and everything. Eventually it came to be that we would often converse into the wee hours of the morning.

She was quite interested in hearing about the life of an aristocrat. Though the parties and government functions I had attended had seemed to me, for the most part, dreadfully boring, (Y/N) was positively enraptured by my stories of them. I was intrigued to find that she was just as interested in learning about aristocratic culture and the inner workings of the House of Lords as she was in hearing about the fine clothes and other luxuries that came with a noble birth. I was even able to dissuade her of her false impressions regarding the circumstances of my death and reveal to her the truth of the matter! It was quite satisfying to find her ultimately quite sympathetic to my misfortune.

Just as we shared tales of our lives long past, so we talked about how we had spent our deaths. She was keen to hear about the changes I had been able to observe in the world of man. Unlike (Y/N), I’d been killed in a populated area that had maintained foot traffic through the years. My range was out in the open and had daily visitors to observe. She marveled at my descriptions of automobiles, electricity, and contemporary fashion. It was readily apparent that she doubted my veracity on occasion, but enjoyed listening nonetheless. I did not mind too greatly- it was a delight to have such a spellbound audience. Her scandalized look when I described the skimpiness of modern women’s clothing was precious! Indeed, doubtless I’d feel just as shocked (though in a pleasant way…) if I hadn’t been exposed to such radical changes happening gradually over time.

Another subject we talked on at great length was haunting. Since her death, (Y/N) had never had any people about her, so she had never had any cause to develop her otherworldly skills. After hearing me talk of how I bedeviled the tourists that came to the castle, she grew envious of my abilities. Thusly I began to tutor her and found her to be an apt pupil. Though she had been dead a fair stretch less than I, she still proved to have quite a bit of talent; I swelled with pride in her swift progress.

But though I enjoyed telling (Y/N) stories and teaching her tricks, I was captivated when she spoke on her own life and her afterlife. I hadn’t been a great listener in life, but I found myself interjecting less than I had back then. I suspect this could be attributed to finding (Y/N) more engaging than most anyone else I had ever talked to.

I’d never known much about the different duties of each type of servant in a household as large as I had maintained. Wanting to spend more of my time at leisure, I had delegated others to manage the domestics. Now I regretted having viewed such information as extraneous, for I presently needed to be taught by (Y/N) as though I were a child. Without such lessons, I’d not have understood the setting for the narrative of her life.

She taught me that the staff within a home was far more regimented than I had thought. Given that she had only ever worked for merchants, it made me wonder how much more complex my own home must have been! For example, scullery maids, such as (Y/N) had been, assisted kitchen maids, who in turn reported to the cook. Each of these menials was further graded within their rank.

As a scullery maid, (Y/N) had been the lowest ranking among the female servants. She corrected my erroneous assumption that a scullion and a scullery maid were the same thing- scullions were men and far less common in our day. Before she had gone to serve the Hemleys, (Y/N) had hoped, one day, to reach the rank of kitchen maid. That such had been her highest aspiration for her station in life was humbling.

She expounded further on the role of a scullery maid, and it turned out to be even more wretched than I had imagined. My primary impression was that her work never seemed to be done. For example, she hadn’t even been allowed to eat at the communal servant’s dining hall, despite having to lay the table there, clear it afterwards, and then clean the dishes. Instead, she had been required to eat in the kitchen itself, along with the most junior of the kitchen maids, so as to keep an eye on the food that was still cooking.

It had been her primary duty to keep the kitchen, pantries, scullery, and kitchen passages orderly and spotless: cleaning and scouring the floor, tables, stoves, sinks, pots, kitchen utensils, and dishes (though apparently not all the dishes- china, crystal, silver, and the like were off limits), as well as clearing away meat and vegetable garbage. She’d also assisted with the more odious aspects of food preparation: cleaning vegetables, plucking fowl, and scaling fish. In addition, she had also been tasked with providing hot water whenever it was needed for seemingly anything related to the kitchen or household. Moreover, she’d had to light the kitchen fires in the earliest hours of the morning, before the cook came, for early morning tea. Most foul of her duties had been the emptying and cleaning of her fellow female servants’ chamber pots. Occasionally, she’d also been required to fit in extra tasks- from pumping water to aiding with the laundry during busy times or when staff was low. Just hearing about it all was exhausting in and of itself!

The list of indignities seemingly went on and on. For example, never once had she had a bedroom to herself! She’d had to rise before dawn each day, every day. Rarely was it that she had been given time off, but generally only a half day, if anything at all, every few weeks. The only free time that she’d had during each day had been in the late evenings- after 9pm but before her required bedtime. Though she’d only rarely had any more than those few minutes a day to herself, it sounded as though all her ‘leisure time’ in the Hemley house had been taken up by Francis and his fleshly demands. Bastard.

Indeed, with a life so grim, I marveled that all scullery maids did not go mad. Perhaps that was why (Y/N) was so peculiar? Her stories were so horrid, in fact, that at first I thought she was exaggerating so as to garner my sympathy. But it soon became clear that she was speaking the truth; her accounts were far too complex and consistent to be fabricated. And, once I thought on it, I found that her assertions fit perfectly with the little I’d previously bothered to learn about the lives of servants.

Notes

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