Excerpt from "Tomorrow's Promises" by Anna Jacobs

November 1918 – March 1919

Those aides not on duty had just finished breakfast, which was rather late today because of the celebrations of the previous day. Ellen saw Lady Bingram standing in the doorway and nudged the woman next to her. As usual, everything stopped when her ladyship came in and stood waiting for their attention at the head of the table.

“My dears, now that the war is over, I’m afraid we shall have to start thinking about the future. It won’t happen overnight, because there is still the influenza epidemic and we can help there. But when we have no more purpose as a group, we shall have to disband. I’m mentioning it today because I want to give you as long as possible to think about what you’re going to do with your lives from now on. And if any of you needs help, come and see me. Even after you leave, well, you will always know how to contact me if I can do anything for you. Be sure I shan’t forget you . . . ever.”

There was utter silence, then one girl sniffed and pulled out a handkerchief.

“No tears!” her ladyship said sharply. “We shall hold our heads high until the end.”

She gave them a smile and walked briskly out.

Ellen was rostered to clear up and noticed that her companion in the kitchen was quieter than usual.

“I don’t want to go back home, do you?” Tessa said as they washed and wiped the dishes together. “There’s nothing for me there but a dull life looking after Father.”

Ellen looked at her in sympathy. They all knew what a bully Tessa’s father was, how angry he’d been when his daughter joined Lady Bingram’s Aides and left his care to an elderly cousin. “You don’t have to go back to living with him.”

“What else can I do? He’s nearly eighty now.” She sighed. “But you at least are free to find a more interesting job. Have you got any idea yet what you’re going to do?”

“I only wish I had. I don’t know what I want and that’s the truth.”

When they’d finished, Ellen hung the tea towel over the drying rack and went outside to clean the motorcycle and sidecar that she had used more than anyone else to deliver important documents and messages all over London. She loved driving round on it, would miss it dreadfully.

When she was fourteen she’d been glad to leave home and live in at the Hall, and she knew she could return to her old job there, because her mother had said so several times in her letters. “No, I’m not going back to being a housemaid!”