The Serving Girl // Book 2 in the Rosie Grey series

Chapter Eight

The sound of the bucket hitting the floor echoed off the walls and filled the hallway as it rolled along the ground and came to a stop against the walls. Water flowed down both sides of the hallway, spreading across the space and ebbing its way closer to the front door and towards the layer of carpet that covered the drawing-room floor. Silence fell along the hallway as the bucket lay still against the wall. There was no movement from upstairs, no creaking floorboards above or throughout the house.

It was as though the house was holding its breath, waiting for what was going to come next when someone found me standing the hallway with an overturned bucket and a waterfall edging its way throughout the house.

Waves of pain ran up and down my arm, nestling in my fingers over and over again as I stood staring at the mess I had created with nothing more than a bucket of water. If Mrs Ealing came down those stairs and saw me, the infraction system would be thrown out of the window and I would be out of that door without a second thought. If anyone found me, I was done for. Yet, I didn't do anything about the mess that filled the hallway. I just stood there, watching it all unfold without moving. Whatever happened was going to happen, whether I tried to fix it or not.

Footsteps travelled down the stairs as I waited for the inevitable. Oddly enough, I wasn't scared about a second infraction, I wasn't even scared of being thrown out of the house without a reference. I couldn't defend myself from it and I was ready to face whatever Mrs Ealing or anyone was going to throw at me. The footsteps moved down the stairs at a fast pace as I stood staring at the water, I didn't look up as the got closer and I certainly didn't look as they eventually fell silent, once again blanketing the area in silence.

"Rosie! What on earth happened?" Esther's voice broke through the silence as she continued down the few steps and nudged me on the back, snapping me out of my thoughts and back into the situation I found myself in.

"The, erm, b-bucket slipped," I stuttered. I wasn't going to tell her the truth, no matter how much it may have helped. It was bad enough that I had dropped a bucket of water all over the floor, the reason why would only make things worse.

"Right, we need to clean this up before Mrs Ealing sees it."

"Is that even possible? She seems to have eyes everywhere, I'm surprised she didn't hear the bucket when it hit the floor. Or me for that matter."

"Luckily for you, Samuel said there was a problem with one of the horses, so she's out at the stables for now. I'm not too sure about Master Robert and Miss Matilda, if I heard it I'm sure they did too." She paused. "Why did you shriek, anyway? I thought you had fallen over or something."

"I was just startled by the bucket falling, that's all."

"Alright. Wait here, I'll be back in a second.

Esther took her hand off my back and placed a stack of laundry onto one of the tables before disappearing down the stairs towards the kitchen. The house once again fell silent as I waited for her to return, my heart rate caught in my throat and my ribs feeling as though they were constricting my lungs so I couldn't breathe. I just stood there, waiting for Esther to return and not even minding if Mrs Ealing came down the stairs and saw me standing there. When Esther returned, she held two mops in each hand, forcing one into my own hand before she set about straightening up the mess I had caused.

I watched as she turned the bucket upright and went down to the far end of the hallway before wiping the mop across the ground to soak up as much water as possible before it was squeezed into the bucket. Sighing to myself, I ventured over to the other side of the hallway and started to swipe the mop along the floor to clean up the water that covered the floor. It looked as though it had rained inside.