Her Ladyship's Girl Read online

  The Edwardian days were long gone, so no servants stood outside to welcome Miranda and me, as Tom drove the car away with what looked like a couple of gamekeepers, to unload the trunks. The front door was open, as if they were expecting us and, when we got inside, Mr Biggs had already arrived, with Miss Mason and Jacob and Heather and Beatrice, and there were three other young female servants who weren’t from Chester Square. Mrs Hathaway didn’t seem to be there, but I could hear Mrs Jackson and the kitchen girls bustling about to the east of the main entrance hall.

  Miranda walked ahead of me and I followed her at a distance, just in case that was another piece of ossified etiquette that couldn’t be challenged by a woman – at least not yet. Her father and brother didn’t seem to be there either and I heard Mr Biggs remarking to her in a low voice –

  ‘They’re out riding.’

  The light was already going and it would soon be dinner time. So I imagined Mrs Jackson and her girls would be busy cooking downstairs – even though there was no ‘downstairs’ as such in Bolde Hall and the kitchen and scullery were on the ground floor. Jacob tapped me on the shoulder and beckoned me to follow him, which I did, leaving Miranda talking, with a serious expression on her face, to Mr Biggs. The rest of the servants were already dispersing to their various duties around the house.

  Jacob took me to a room on the first floor of the east wing. It was a big room, much bigger than my bedroom in Chester Square, with an enormous bed and baroque furniture that looked gaudy and extravagant to me, but I was sure even one piece would be worth more than I’d earn in a lifetime. Dressing tables and wardrobes and chests of drawers and upholstered chairs that sneered at me in their shameless grandiosity and dared me to sit on them. The ceiling was high and decorated with swirls and swishes and the windows were long and shuttered on the inside, with floor-length, burgundy velvet curtains. The floor was carpeted in thick burgundy Axminster, and paintings of hounds and horses hung on the flock-papered walls. The whole room had a heavy, oppressive feel to it and the only thing that lightened its mood was a child’s rocking-chair in one of the corners.

  My trunk had already been delivered and stood close to one of the wardrobes. Despite its overbearing aura, the room was chilly, as if it hadn’t been used for some time, and I could feel a breeze coming from somewhere. But there was a scuttle of coal and fire-making material by the grate and I soon had a lively blaze going. I was hungry from all the travelling and I’d had nothing to eat since the tea and crumpets that afternoon and it was now 8:00 p.m. I was sure Jacob would call me to come and eat with Miranda in the dining room any minute now – but he didn’t. So I unpacked and waited to see what would happen. I was going to go wandering and explore the house, but I’d probably have got lost and, anyway, Miranda might want me to help her dress for dinner.

  At 9:00 p.m., Heather came to my room with a tray of food and a pot of tea. I asked her if she’d seen Madam Bouchard, but she hadn’t. Mr Biggs told her to bring the food and that was all she knew. I asked if she’d been here to Bolde Hall before and she said once, last year. I tried to find out something more about the two Mr Brandons, but she said she didn’t know them at all and hardly ever saw them. Then she hurried away. That night, I slept fretfully and woke early next morning in the cold room with the fire gone out. I had no more fuel to re-light it and didn’t know where to go to get any. I washed in the handbasin, using a jug of cold water, both of which were on top of one of the baroque tables. Then I dressed in my warmest clothes and waited. At 8:00 a.m., Heather brought me a breakfast of bacon and black pudding and grilled oatcakes, with two slices of soda bread and a pot of tea. She deposited the tray on a table and collected the one from the night before and was gone before I could ask her any more questions.

  I’d hardly finished eating when Jacob knocked on the door.

  ‘Follow me, miss.’

  He took me along the cold corridors of Bolde Hall, through the main part of the house and into the west wing. Mrs Bouchard was in a bedroom that was even bigger and colder than mine, with the same ornate furniture crowding every corner. She had a shawl round her shoulders and was sitting up in bed eating a breakfast that looked similar to the one I just ate. Her eyes were puffy and she looked as if she’d been crying.

  ‘Anwyn.’

  ‘Miranda . . . are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Have you settled in?’

  Her voice was formal, matter-of-fact. It seemed to me she was making the point that, no matter how much we appeared to be friends in London, the fact of the matter was, she was the mistress and I was the maid. Now we were here in Warwickshire, in the bosom of her family, the correct protocol would have to be observed.

  ‘There’s a shoot today. You’ll have to find my outdoor togs and air them, I didn’t need them in London.’

  ‘Where shall I find them?’

  ‘How should I know? Ask Mason.’

  With that, she went back to eating her breakfast. I was dismissed and was about to leave the room.

  ‘Oh, Anwyn, could you light the fire? It’s freezing in here.’

  ‘Of course.’

  There was a scuttle of coal and some kindling by the fireplace and I lit her a nice fire. By then she’d finished her breakfast.

  ‘Help me into these, will you?’

  She pulled out a pair of brown corduroy Oxford bags and a buttoned-up blouse and an off-white Aran cardigan. She discarded the shawl and her underwear and washed quickly with a basin and jug as I did. There were no en-suite bathrooms in Bolde Hall. I helped her into the clothes and dabbed her puffy eyes and made her face up as best I could, under the circumstances.

  ‘Things will be different while we’re here, Anwyn. Not like London.’

  ‘I know. It’s fine.’

  Then I left her to find Miss Mason and the ‘outdoor togs’.

  I wandered round the west wing of the house for fifteen minutes without seeing anyone and I realised I was lost. Then I bumped into a young man of about twenty or twenty-one as he strode quickly round a corner. He was tall and athletic-looking, with handsome features and tanned skin. He looked a little like Miranda, except that his hair was blond and his eyes were a steely blue.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Anwyn Moyle, Sir.’

  ‘And what are you?’

  ‘Mrs Bouchard’s lady’s maid.’

  ‘Ah, Peacock’s girl.’

  He started to walk away.

  ‘Do you know where I can find Miss Mason?’

  He stopped in his tracks and turned round.

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘Know what, Sir?’

  ‘All the servants’ quarters are in the east wing. This side of the house is for family members and guests only.’

  ‘No, Sir, I didn’t know. Sorry.’

  He sighed. It was an exasperated sound, coming from someone who was easily irritated.

  ‘Get Biggs to give you the rundown.’

  He stalked away, with me following at a safe distance. He led me back to the main part of the house and from there I found my way to the east wing. Beatrice the parlourmaid was going about her duties and she directed me to Miss Mason’s room. I expected the head housekeeper to be her buttoned-up, stony self and I was surprised when she appeared almost affable, as if the country suited her more than the city, and she seemed to be in her element out here in the middle of gentryland.

  ‘Madam Bouchard’s shooting clothes are all stored in the master boudoir. Come with me and I’ll show you.’

  She took me back the way I came and up a flight of stairs and into a room where rows and rows of clothing were hung on wooden rails and covered with linen sheets.

  ‘You’ll have to familiarise yourself with what’s in here. But I’ll find the appropriate outfit for now.’

  While she was searching, she told me that both Mr Brandons liked to shoot pheasant and partridge reared on the estate by the gamekeepers and that’s what they’d be doing today. They also liked to shoot g
rouse, which flew faster than the other game birds and were more of a challenge, but they couldn’t be reared intensively and they had to travel up to the heather moorlands of Scotland for that sport. Today would be a beaten shoot and beaters from the village would walk through the woods and drive the game towards the line of standing guns in the butts. Pickers-up with dogs would make sure all the killed and wounded game was collected.

  ‘Ah, here we are.’

  She pulled out a set of tweeds – jacket, waistcoat and full-length skirt.

  ‘The boots will be in the boot room.’

  By the time I’d aired and pressed Miranda’s shooting outfit and went back and tidied her room, the guests for the shoot were arriving. There was about twenty of them altogether. Mostly men, but with about half-a-dozen women as well. They didn’t have any servants with them and it fell to myself and Miss Mason and the housemaids, Beatrice and Heather and the other three girls, whose names were Betty and Cynthia and Sheila, to sort out their clothes and light fires after they were installed in the guest rooms. They came in deco-print full skirts and pencil wriggle dresses and chiffon maxis and watered taffeta, and the rest of their clothes came in trunks that were carried from the cars and carriages. Cook and her girls were sending over a midmorning brunch from the kitchen – asparagus soufflé and cinnamon toast and colcannon cakes and German crêpes, along with several bowls of brandy punch, brought in by Mr Biggs and Jacob. Everybody assembled in the main dining hall to eat and drink and chat and laugh and catch up with all the gossip from the London season.

  Miranda mingled with the guests and I saw the tall blond man again, whom I assumed to be her brother. Miss Mason pointed out their father to me – he was also a tall man, in his mid-fifties. He had reddish-brown hair and sported a wide moustache. He was a commanding figure and the epicentre of the gathering. I waited with the rest of the servants, in case anyone required anything they didn’t already have. Miranda approached me.

  ‘I want you to organise the refreshments, Anwyn.’

  ‘In what way, Madam?’

  I started calling her Madam again after we arrived at Bolde Hall, as our relationship had clearly changed from what it was in London.

  ‘Cook has prepared hampers. Pick two of the housemaids to come with you.’

  I assumed she meant for me to attend the shoot and serve food and drink to the guests. I picked Heather and Sheila and told them to get their coats.

  The head gamekeeper arrived and told Mr Brandon that the beaters were in position. The hampers were loaded onto a horse-drawn shooting brake and the guests climbed aboard as well. They were driven off at a slow gait across the estate, with me and the two housemaids walking behind with the gun handlers. I had no boots and neither did the maids and soon our shoes were clogged heavy with mud. It was half a mile to the edge of the woodland and the butts, which were a line of sunken hides, some thirty yards apart and screened by rough stone walls. The guns took up their positions, each one partnered by a loader, while the women perched themselves on shooting sticks some distance away. A signal was sent to the beaters at the other side of the trees, and soon I could hear their calls and the barking of the dogs being carried on the early afternoon air.

  Today was a short, afternoon shoot, I was told – often they went on all day. But because of the earliness in the season – it went on from September to February – only about three hundred birds would be flushed, to preserve stocks, as there could be as many as a dozen shoots in the season. The beaters drove the birds to the flushing point where they flushed up about a dozen pheasants at a time. The drives were in fifties, which meant when fifty birds were flushed and shot, they’d take a break. Suddenly, the birds began to break cover, flying out of the woods in all directions. The air was full of the smell of cordite and the crack of shotguns and the sight of the birds falling from the skies in a flurry of feathers and the excited squawks of the women.

  ‘Oh, good shot!’

  Between the drives, myself and the maids served up pork and pigeon terrine, roast partridge drumsticks, sandwiches, currant and candied peel cake and plums soaked in whisky – all washed down with port and brandy and flasks of hot sweet tea.

  When it was all over and the three hundred unfortunate birds were killed and collected by the spaniels, the guests retired to the nearby hunting lodge, where Cook and the kitchen girls had prepared a supper of hot onion soup, lamb and apricot pie topped with colcannon and crème brûlée for pudding. The wine flowed easily and everyone was getting rather merry by now. I returned to the house with the guests, while the maids cleared away after the meal. I changed my shoes and helped Miranda to bathe in the family’s private bathroom and then dress in a black drop-waist evening gown with embroidered front. She asked me to go and see how the other ladies were faring and I helped Miss Mason to get them all ready for dinner. After that, I helped the housemaids to clean and tidy the rooms and to take the shooting clothes away for washing and the boots for cleaning and polishing. Dinner was served at 9:00 p.m. and I ate with Miss Mason and the late-arriving Mrs Hathaway in a small dining room in the east wing, while the Brandons and their guests dined in the main hall. Afterwards, I waited for Miranda and put her to bed in an inebriated state at 2:00 a.m. I gave her room a quick tidy and collapsed into my own bed at 2:30 a.m.

  The next day was Sunday and everybody was up and ready for the 11:00 a.m. church service in the village. They returned for lunch and, by then, their trunks had been packed and loaded into their cars and carriages and the guests all drove away in the mid-afternoon. That evening, Miranda had dinner with her father and brother and I ate again with Miss Mason and Mrs Hathaway, both of whom had come to accept me as a competent lady’s maid and weren’t as snotty and sarcastic to me as they had been in the beginning. They showed me where the ladies’ bathroom was in the east wing and I had my first hot bath in several days, lying back and luxuriating in the amniotic warmth of the water. When I dressed again, I went to find Miranda to see what she would be requiring of me for the rest of the evening. She wasn’t in her bedroom, so I went along to the main part of the house. As I approached the library, I heard shouting. Jacob was standing outside the door and then Mr Biggs emerged. I hid in the shadows and heard them as they went past me.

  ‘Best leave them to it.’

  ‘I’ll clear away in the dining hall.’

  When they disappeared from view, being anxious about Miranda, I tiptoed up to the library for a listen. She may have been an uncaring aristocrat, but I felt something for the woman – and her heavy heart. The door wasn’t quite closed and I could see inside – and I could hear Mr Brandon’s raised voice.

  ‘Everybody is having to compromise, Miranda. Things have changed since the war.’

  ‘Why does it have to be me, father? What about you and James?’

  ‘We’re tightening our belts . . . you saw the size of the shoot.’

  Miranda was sobbing – softly, almost inaudibly, like a young girl who’d lost her true love. I knew I shouldn’t be listening and, if I got caught, I’d probably be sacked. But I couldn’t just walk away and leave them to it, like Jacob and Biggs. James, the brother, spoke.

  ‘Come on, Miranda, be a sport.’

  ‘Why don’t you marry for money, James? Why does it have to be me?’

  ‘You know that’s impossible.’

  Mr Brandon senior spoke again. This time his voice was softer, more conciliatory.

  ‘At least agree to see him. He’ll be here for the foxhunting in November.’

  Miranda didn’t reply, but came rushing from the library, and I had to move quickly so she wouldn’t see me. A few minutes later, I went to her room.

  She was quiet when I entered and I just went about my duties cleaning and tidying without saying anything much. I could tell she was distressed but was trying hard to disguise it. But the effort was too much in the end and she broke down.

  ‘Oh, Anwyn . . .’

  ‘What’s wrong, Madam?’

  ‘You don�
��t need to call me Madam when we’re alone.’

  I went and sat beside her on the bed. She told me her father and brother wanted her to marry some rich earl because they were broke and needed his money to keep them afloat. Since the Great War, and especially with the depression in America, many of Britain’s aristocratic families were feeling the cold breath of bankruptcy on the backs of their noble necks. Those who didn’t want to sell their estates, like the Brandons, were finding it a struggle to keep up the old appearances. I was picking up bits and pieces of information from Miss Mason and Mrs Hathaway when I ate with them and, apparently, old man Brandon wasn’t a very shrewd businessman and he’d neglected the family’s fortunes while he’d been gallivanting round the world on his adventures. James Brandon was an even worse entrepreneur than his father and their finances needed a shot in the arm from an outside source. The Earl had money from family investments in India, through the East India Company, which had exported opium to China in the 1800s, resulting in the opium wars and the seizure of Hong Kong by the British. He’d long been an admirer of Miranda, but gave up on her when she married Emile Bouchard. Since she’d become a widow, his amour had been rekindled.

  The Earl promised to sort out the Brandons’ financial problems just as soon as Miranda hopped into his marital bed.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Is he ugly . . . old . . . smelly?’

  ‘None of those things. He’s quite charming, really.’

  If the Earl was really a Prince Charming with loads of money, then I couldn’t understand why Miranda didn’t want him.