Her Ladyship's Girl Read online

  The opening meet was held on Wednesday 4 November and over a hundred people gathered at Bolde Hall. I was surprised not to see Charlie Currant there, or her father. But I knew some people were against foxhunting and maybe the Currants were that way inclined. Or maybe Charlie had already gone back to college. Mr Brandon senior was Master of the Vale of Evesham hunt and James was the Huntsman and carried the horn. The men who had hunt buttons wore their pinks, with white breeches and black boots with tan tops. The ladies, including Miranda, wore navy with buff breeches and black dress boots with patent leather tops. The women who rode side-saddle had long coats and top hats and the others wore half coats and bowlers. The Master and Huntsman and Whippers-in all wore their ribbons down, while everyone else wore them up. Children under sixteen wore ratcatchers, which were tweed jackets and tan breeches with laced-up field boots. They all wore black stock ties and carried hunting whips with horn handles and long leather lashes. It was truly a sight to see for a young Welsh girl like me, and here was I now, a part of this dubious pageant and not on my hands and knees scrubbing some floor. What a totally disarming thing life was – it had that way of changing all the time.

  The Field was divided into two groups. The First Field took the more demanding route with jumps like wide ditches and high fences and stone walls, while the Hilltoppers took a longer route with gates and other types of access on the flat. Myself and some others who were inclined to go out were invited to follow in a four-wheeled dray drawn by two horses. Foot-followers from the village roamed the grounds and the atmosphere was one of excitement and celebration, with everyone saying good morning to everyone else. The local vicar blessed the hounds and the Field drank their stirrup cups, served by all the servants, including myself and Mrs Hathaway and Miss Mason. We served port to the men and sherry to the ladies and many of the gathering had their own hip-flasks of whisky and brandy and sloe-gin and other, more dubious concoctions too, I was sure.

  When all the pleasantries were over, the whole hunt moved off to the covert, where the Huntsman drew the hounds to find the line. The dogs were casting round and giving tongue for a few minutes and then they were off. The Huntsman followed first and then the Master and the Whippers-in, whose job was to keep the hounds from rioting, and the rest of the Field followed. We came after them in our dray, passing many of the foot-followers and listening to the distant calls of the Field as they shouted ‘tally ho’ and ‘hounds, please’ and ‘beware’ and ‘hold hard’. The Master guided the riders across countryside and farmland, making best use of tramlines and headlands, and jumping the obstacles. Sometimes we could see them and then they’d disappear, only to become visible again somewhere else, as the quarry led them a dance as it tried to find foils and check the hounds.

  I lost count of the hours in the strange excitement of it all, but eventually the fox went to ground and the terriers were sent in after it. Then some kennelmen dug down and killed the animal. We’d caught up by then and the fox’s blood was smeared on the faces and foreheads of the hunt’s two youngest initiates by the Huntsman. The brush and pads and mask were cut off for trophies and the carcass was then thrown to the hounds to be torn to pieces.

  On the way back, a young rider came alongside the dray. He was about eighteen and had dark hair and brown eyes. He was on a chestnut hunter that loomed huge beside me and he looked so regal and stately. He didn’t say anything at first, just smiled at me and the other ladies’ maids in the dray. It was as if he was sizing us all up, seeing who was the prettiest. The perkiest. The others were pretending they didn’t see him, but I smiled back.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘What’s yours?’

  He laughed. One of the other maids flashed a disapproving look at me.

  ‘Henry Rivers.’

  ‘I’m Anwyn Moyle.’

  ‘A very pretty name.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  ‘Henry . . . please.’

  The disapproving lady’s maid looked like she’d swallowed a wasp. But I didn’t care, she was no better than me now – none of them were. The days of them looking down their nose at scullery-maid Moyle were gone. Henry Rivers was still smiling at me.

  ‘I like your accent.’

  ‘It’s Welsh.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Will you be at the ball tonight, Anwyn?’

  ‘I’m sure I will.’

  With that he rode off and I watched as he galloped away. My heart was beating a bit faster than normal and I wondered why – maybe it was love at first sight? I’d heard about such things happening. Then I laughed to myself at such a stupid, girlish thought – I loved my family and I loved Lucy and I loved Miranda, in a way, but I certainly didn’t love Henry Rivers. I didn’t even know who he was. Yet I felt something, and it was like nothing I’d known before. The cranky lady’s maid looked at me.

  ‘You’ll be sorry.’

  ‘Will I?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  When we got back to Bolde Hall, I ran a bath for Miranda and helped her to change, then I took her hunting clothes away to be cleaned, and tidied up the bathroom and bedroom after her. As the other ladies had their own maids, I wasn’t required to assist them as I was after the pheasant shoot. By the time my work was done, it was getting on for seven o’clock and I went and had dinner with Mrs Hathaway and Miss Mason. They weren’t as cheerful or as chatty as they were before.

  ‘Well, Anwyn, did you enjoy your first hunt?’

  ‘It was an eye-opener, Mrs Hathaway.’

  ‘Rumour has it you were talking to a young man.’

  Gossip moves fast in this place, I thought to myself.

  ‘His name is Henry Rivers, Mrs Hathaway.’

  ‘Lord Henry Rivers, or he will be when he inherits the title.’

  Mrs Hathaway went on to tell me that Henry Rivers’ family line went all the way back to the tenth century, when they were known as de Revers. They were a blue-blooded family and there would certainly be no place in it for a girl like me. Mrs Hathaway and Miss Mason both warned me to steer clear of Henry Rivers, because aristocratic boys like him were known to take advantage of ‘common’ girls like me, leaving some of them with child, before going on to marry whatever woman their family would have had arranged for them. That’s what Mrs Hathaway and Miss Mason told me – but this was the twentieth century, not the nineteenth or the eighteenth, and my teenage heart was telling me something else.

  After dinner, I went back to Miranda and helped her get ready for the hunt ball. She wore a stunning black evening dress with frou-frou bodice and corsage, along with a pair of stiletto slippers that looked like they were made of glass. I put her hair up in a high style that exposed her elegant neck and she wore a discreet diamond tiara in it with a matching necklace and bracelet. She looked truly beautiful and I thought maybe she’d taken a fancy to the Earl after all. She told me to join the other ladies’ maids at the back of the ballroom in case she needed me for anything during the night. I then went to my own room and washed and dressed as prettily as I could and slapped on some extra make-up and went down to the great hall, from which the house took its name.

  I stood at the back and watched the dancing and partying. The Earl was paying a lot of attention to Miranda, but she didn’t seem to be reciprocating, much to the annoyance of her father. Her brother James seemed more interested in talking and drinking with the young hunt boys than dancing with any of the ladies. And I wondered if Miranda had some kind of agenda for tonight – maybe William Harding would arrive and carry her away from the Earl and she’d drop one of her glass slippers on the stone steps outside and the Earl would pick it up and shed a tear into it. And maybe I was reading too many books.

  Somebody touched my arm and I looked round to see Henry Rivers.

  ‘Would you care to dance?’

  ‘Oh no . . . I’m not allowed.’

  ‘I insist.’

  ‘No . . . it wouldn’t be right.’

  He leaned over and whispered
into my ear.

  ‘If you turn me down, I’m going to look a fool in front of all these people around us . . . even the servants. Would you want me to look a fool?’

  Of course I wouldn’t. So I let him lead me onto the dance-floor for a version of Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’ which the small chamber orchestra was playing. He was wearing an evening suit with a long tailcoat and a scarlet bow-tie and his dark hair had fallen over his brown eyes. He moved me delicately round the floor and I responded well to his touch. We danced slower and slower and moved closer and closer. I could smell his cologne, feel the pressure of his chest against my breasts. His lips touched the top of my head and my hand moved under the back of his jacket and onto his spine. I could feel the heat of him. Smell the scent of him. I knew something was stirring in him and I leaned in closer against his body. We weren’t dancing any more, we were being sexually delinquent.

  The music stopped and I opened my eyes.The other guests were no longer dancing; they were watching me and Henry Rivers as we moved slowly from one foot to the other in a sensual rhythm. Before he could disengage from me, a middle-aged woman wearing a black lace evening gown strode onto the dance floor and grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away to the safety of her party. I stood alone on the floor, with all eyes upon me. So I curtsied like I saw the debutantes doing, in the general direction of Henry’s abrupt departure and said, in a hoarse whisper –

  ‘Thank you.’

  The crowd stirred from their mesmerisation and the orchestra began to play Handel’s ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’. A hum of conversation resumed as Miranda Bouchard appeared miraculously by my side and escorted me to the back of the room where the other ladies’ maids stood sniggering.

  It was very late when the ball ended with the National Anthem and I accompanied a very inebriated Miranda to her bedroom. She fell on the bed and I undressed her where she lay and hung her clothes up and was about to leave the room.

  ‘Anwyn . . .’

  I turned to see that she’d managed to sit up in the bed.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Quite a stunt you pulled tonight.’

  ‘Stunt?’

  ‘With the Rivers boy.’

  I didn’t know what she meant. Was what I did in having one dance any worse than what she was doing with Mr Harding? I was convinced she was expecting him to turn up tonight and that’s why she’d made a special effort to look extra beautiful. But he didn’t, so she got drunk. I decided to ignore her remark and, anyway, she’d already lain back down in the bed.

  I tried to sleep but my head was full of Henry Rivers and then, at about 3:30 a.m., I heard a gentle knock on my door.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me . . . Henry.’

  I opened the door and let him in and he kissed me and held me in his arms for a long time. When our lips finally parted so we could breathe again, he spoke in a whisper.

  ‘I had to wait for everybody to fall asleep.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be here, Henry.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  He kissed me again and moved me backwards towards the bed. We pulled at each other’s clothes, even though I knew it was wrong and I might, like Mrs Hathaway and Miss Mason said, be left with a child. But I didn’t care. Right then, in that moment, there was no future, just a passionate and overpowering present.

  But Henry Rivers proved to be no Don Juan, no Romeo to my Juliet, no Lancelot and no Tristan and no Mr Darcy. He was a boy, even though he thought he was a man, and just as nervous as me. That nervousness, combined with the alcohol he’d imbibed to give him Dutch courage, foiled his futile attempts to send me into an ecstasy of erotic pleasure – and, after exhausting himself trying, he fell asleep. I was so tired I fell asleep too and didn’t hear Jacob’s tapping on my door in the morning. I was woken by the rough hands of Mrs Hathaway shaking me by the shoulders. Henry Rivers woke too and rushed red-faced from my room, almost knocking over the many servants who’d congregated in the corridor outside.

  ‘You’re in trouble, young lady!’

  I was allowed to dress, then frogmarched to the library where Mr Brandon senior was waiting, along with Miranda, who’d obviously managed to dress herself, or had been helped by one of the other ladies’maids or Miss Mason. Mrs Hathaway pushed me inside and closed the door.

  ‘Miss Moyle, I’m afraid your conduct has been . . .’

  Miranda put up her hand to silence him.

  ‘Father, please, let me deal with this.’

  He threw his arms into the air in an exasperated fashion, while she took me to one side.

  ‘I’m sorry, Anwyn.’

  ‘Nothing happened, Miranda.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You don’t understand . . .’

  And that’s all she said. It was clear that I’d challenged one of the ridiculous rules that couldn’t be challenged – by a woman. Mr Brandon asked if I wanted to go back to London or home to Wales. As there was nowhere for me to go to in London and Wales was closer and I hadn’t seen my family in nearly three years, I decided on Llangynwyd. He paid me my wages up to that day and a week in lieu of notice and Miranda said I could keep the clothes she’d given me. I packed a trunk and Tom the chauffeur drove me up to Birmingham railway station, where a ticket was waiting for me, paid for by Mr Brandon.

  The train journey to Maesteg was a sad and lonely one – down through Herefordshire and into Wales and across the Brecon Beacons. It took hours and hours and I had plenty of time to think. I was disappointed that Mrs Bouchard hadn’t stood up for me more, after I’d been loyal to her and kept her secret and stood by her when she wanted me to cover for her. But that was the way of life, you never knew who your friends were until you needed them. I’d learned another valuable lesson.

  I didn’t know how my family would take my coming home. I had plenty of money, because there was nowhere to spend my wages in Warwickshire and, even in London, I rarely got to go anywhere. So, all told, I had six pounds and fifteen shillings in my purse after buying myself a cup of tea and a sandwich while I was waiting for the train. That was a lot of money and I resolved to give most of it to my mother for my keep, until I could get myself another job.

  It was 4:30 p.m. when I arrived at Maesteg station. The November late afternoon was already dark and I had a big trunk to carry. I didn’t know how I was going to get it the two-and-a-half miles to Llangynwyd. My family didn’t have a phone and nobody knew I was coming and there were no taxis or anything like that – so I was stuck. There was only one thing for it, I asked a porter at the station if I could leave my trunk there overnight and come back for it in the morning. He asked what was in it and I told him nothing but ladies’ clothes.

  ‘No dead bodies?’

  He laughed and I gave him a sixpenny tip and he took the trunk away. I set out to walk to Llangynwyd. It was starting to rain, as it does in Wales in November, and I had no umbrella. By the time I reached the door of our house I was soaked through and my mother didn’t even recognise me.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s me, Mam . . . Winny.’

  She looked closer, then turned back into the house.

  ‘Father, look, it’s our Winny!’

  ‘Winny?’

  Mam hugged me when I finally got through the door and so did my sister Gwyneth, who was nearly fifteen now, and Bronwyn, who was over twelve. Walter was going on seventeen and had left school and was already working in one of the mines that were still operating, so he wasn’t home yet. My father stood me at arm’s length.

  ‘Let me look at you.’

  ‘I’m like a drowned rat.’

  ‘No you’re not. You’re a fine-looking lady now.’

  Then he kissed me on the forehead and Mam got a towel to dry my hair and the girls fussed about my fine clothes that were ruined by the rain.

  ‘Have you no suitca
se?’

  ‘I left it at the station.’

  ‘I’ll go get it.’

  ‘No, Dad, they’ll keep it till tomorrow.’

  That night, after Walter got home and had his tea, we gathered round the fire and I gave Mam five pounds of my money. She didn’t want to take it, but I made her. Then I told them all about London and Warwickshire, leaving out why I had to leave Hampstead and how I got fired from Bolde Hall.

  ‘And are you going back there, Winny?’

  ‘Not to Warwickshire. I may go back to London, when the new season starts.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘Maybe February or March.’

  They asked what I was going to do until then and I said I’d get a job here in Wales to tide me over. My father shook his head and my mother clucked her tongue and they both said there wasn’t much doing at the moment. But, I thought, with my experience, I was bound to find something. For now, I was glad to be home and they were glad to have me and I slept soundly in my little Welsh bed that night.

  After saying a thankful prayer.

  Dear Earth, dear Sun,

  By you I live.

  My loving thanks

  To you I give.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Next morning, I went with my sisters and a handcart and collected my trunk from Maesteg station. The girls were star-struck by all the fine clothes and shoes and stoles and camisoles that Miranda gave me when we were friends, and I shared with them whatever fitted or whatever could be altered to fit. As the days and weeks went by, I searched the surrounding area for a job – going as far as Bryn and Pontycymer and Aberkenfig and even Port Talbot and Bridgend, but I could find nothing but grimaces and shaking heads. In the meantime, King Edward VIII abdicated to be with Mrs Simpson on 10 December, but us poor people in Wales were too busy trying to survive without any work to be very much concerned. I supposed the Brandons and their social peers might be buzzing with the drama of it all, but not us here in the redundant hills.