The Housekeeper's Daughter

by Rose Meddon

  With the discussion between her mother and Mrs Russell showing no signs of drawing to a close, and growing weary of waiting, Kate flicked her eyes to the young man. Reasonably tall, slim, and clean-shaven, he looked friendly, his face calling to mind that lovely silent movie actor, Wallace Reid. Just the other day, she had seen a picture of him in an old copy of The Stage magazine that Mrs Latimer must have left behind. Mmm, on second thoughts, the harder she looked at him, the more the resemblance seemed only of the passing variety. Standing with his boater clasped to his chest and with the linen of his jacket and trousers showing signs of having been travelled in, this young man looked more earnest scholar than movie actor. Handsome enough, though, in an indoorsy sort of a way.

  Her interest in the Russells wearing thin, she turned her gaze idly back to the daughter, horrified to find that she, herself, was now under scrutiny. Cursing silently, she directed her eyes to the floor; getting caught in the act of staring didn’t usually end well.

  ‘You. Yes, you – girl on the end. What’s your name?’

  What fearful bad luck; she hadn’t even opened her mouth yet but already she was in trouble. ‘Kate Bratton, ma’am,’ she answered. Beside her, she could hear her sister softly tutting her disapproval. Prig.

  With the young woman coming towards her, Kate felt obliged to look up.

  ‘Turn about.’ Drawing a breath and holding it in her chest, Kate obeyed. If only she hadn’t chosen that moment to look at her. If only she hadn’t been caught! ‘Turn back.’ Her heart sinking, Kate did as she was told. Then, lest she inadvertently meet the young woman’s eyes for a second time, she brought her gaze to rest upon her inquisitor’s lips: a perfect, blood-red, Cupid’s bow. With looks like those, she could sit for a cover of The Lady magazine. ‘Did you style your own hair this morning?’

  Well honestly, who else did she think would have done it?

  ‘Yes, miss. I mean, ma’am.’

  ‘Very neat.’

  ‘Thank you, miss. Ma’am.’

  ‘Let me see your hands.’ Again, Kate obeyed, staring down as her fingertips, wavering under the scrutiny. ‘Clean nails.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘You shall be my lady’s maid.’

  Her reaction one she couldn’t possibly voice, Kate pressed her lips firmly shut. Here was a fix in the making and no mistake.

  ‘Naomi, dear,’ the voice of Mrs Russell echoed around the hall. ‘I thought we agreed that, just this once, you would manage without help.’ Goodness, was she to be spared by the girl’s own mother? ‘As I said to you before we left Clarence Square, this holiday isn’t to be a formal affair – quite the opposite.’

  Holding her breath, Kate flicked her eyes back to the daughter, now turned towards her mother.

  ‘Dear Mamma, and as I said to you, informal or not, I have no wish to try and do without a maid.’

  Discreetly, Kate continued to look between the two women. In different ways, they both appeared equally resolved. The daughter’s light smile was clearly meant to detract from steely determination, the mother’s, from mild irritation. Of the two, she thought it likely the mother would win out. She certainly hoped so. She knew a girl who’d gone to train as a lady’s maid. Big mistake, she’d said: flouncing women demanding the impossible, all hours of the day and night. Never a moment to herself, she’d said. Got herself married good and quick after that, she had.

  ‘Darling, do be reasonable.’

  ‘Mamma, I am. Surely you wish me to look presentable, especially since we’re to entertain the Colbornes. From the moment you received their acceptance of your invitation to join us down here, you’ve spoken of little else.’

  In the momentary hush that descended upon the hallway, Mrs Russell’s sigh appeared to resonate with defeat. Although, to Kate’s relief, she didn’t appear to have entirely given up.

  ‘You forget, my dear, we haven’t consulted Mrs Bratton. Perhaps the girl can’t be spared. The house isn’t fully-staffed, you know. Sidney took great pains to point out to me that apart from Mrs Bratton to keep house, there’s just a cook, a couple of kitchen staff and a handful of day girls who come in as general maids.’

  Inwardly, Kate began to relax. The woman was right. With staffing as it was, there was no chance Ma could spare her for such frivolous duties – not for one moment.

  Unfortunately, Naomi Russell didn’t seem about to admit defeat. ‘Nonsense. No one will notice her gone. I shall only need her two or three times a day.’

  Two or three times a day? Where did this woman think she was – that new Crown Hotel along the coast, where ladies travelling without their own maid could engage one by the week? Please, Ma, please say you can’t spare me!

  ‘Regretfully, Mrs Russell, I hadn’t been made aware that the young lady would be requiring a maid…’ At Mabel Bratton’s remark, Kate exhaled heavily. Close shave! ‘But, if it be the young lady’s wish…’ What? No! ‘Then I’m sure we can all jiggle about – start earlier in the morning and work later into the evening to accommodate.’

  Aghast, Kate opened her mouth to protest. Just as quickly, she closed it. What was the point? Object all she liked, it would get her nowhere. She was the last person whose opinion would be taken into account.

  Naomi Russell, on the other hand, was already embracing her victory. Whirling back to face her, the swathes of her cape rushing to catch up with the movement of her body, she clasped her hands together. ‘Excellent. You see, Mamma, it is no trouble at all. Come along then, Bratton. Or do I call you Kate?’

  Weighed down by dismay, Kate couldn’t get her mouth to work. Was she really to become a lady’s maid – just like that?

  ‘She’ll answer perfectly fine to Kate, Miss Russell,’ Mabel Bratton answered on her behalf. ‘Be good and clear with your instructions and I’m sure you’ll have no cause for complaint.’

  ‘Good and clear it is then, Mrs Bratton. Very well then, Kate. Shall we go and inspect where I’m to be installed? See where you will be putting my things?’

  Reading the look of warning upon her mother’s face, Kate withheld a sigh of defeat. I’m going to pay for this later, was the thought going through her mind. I just know I am. Nevertheless, she nodded politely. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Do call me Miss Naomi. Ma’am makes me sound like the Queen.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Naomi.’

  Even Mrs Russell was unable to change her daughter’s mind. ‘Naomi, dear, are you certain? This… girl… has neither the training nor the experience for such a position. She doesn’t even look to be particularly—’

  ‘Perfectly certain. Come along, Kate. Show me where I’ve been put. Then, while you keep a look out for the porter arriving with my trunks, I shall rest a while. Up here, are we?’

  Unable to see any way out of her plight, Kate nodded. ‘Yes, miss.’ And then, following in the wake of shushing silk, she trailed up the staircase.

  ‘I’ve been in this outfit all day and simply can’t wait to change into something less suffocating. Our compartment on the train was stifling – utterly airless. I searched my travelling bag twice, but could I find my fan? I could not. Why Papa couldn’t have arranged for us to be motored down, I don’t know. On the other hand, those last few miles along that lane, well, what a bone-jarring experience that was! I couldn’t have borne that sort of discomfort all the way down here. Tell me, Kate, why is it that all of the roads outside of London are little more than farm tracks?’

  Farm tracks? Perhaps because that was what they were. ‘I don’t know, miss.’

  Trailing across the half-landing and on up the staircase, Kate finally took the opportunity to release her sigh of dismay. Did this woman never stop talking? Did she not need to draw breath? It was a good thing they weren’t in the dining room: a voice like hers might shatter the Edinburgh crystal.

  ‘I couldn’t have felt more bilious had I been back on the Mauretania when we were stuck in that dreadful storm off Southampton. Please tell me that everything worth doing aro
und here doesn’t require being jolted all the way back up that lane!’

  Slowly, Kate shook her head; Naomi Russell didn’t have to be jolted anywhere if she didn’t want to be. ‘I’m a-feared that most of it does, ma’am.’

  ‘Then I for one shall be staying put. Along here, are we?’

  ‘Yes, miss, the ladies’ rooms are on this landing.’

  ‘Very well. Lead the way.’

  When Kate passed ahead of Naomi Russell along the corridor, it was as much as she could do not to weep for her misfortune. Already she felt doomed; the job of lady’s maid almost certain to end badly for her. In fact, at that precise moment, even the endless drudgery and mind-numbing dullness of keeping house as Mrs Luke Channer held more appeal. And that was saying something.

  * * *

  ‘It’s such a shame that Papa is detained in London.’

  It was the following morning and, for Kate, her first experience of Naomi Russell’s daily routine. Although all the young woman had done so far was take her breakfast, she could see already that she was going to need the patience of a saint to keep her tongue in check. For a start, there was her manner of speaking. It sounded forced and unnatural. Papa. Was that a word for a grown woman? Why couldn’t she call him Father or even just Pa, like everyone else? Not that when it came to fathers, she was an expert, her own having not even made it to her first birthday.

  Catching sight of Naomi Russell staring back at her from the mirror, Kate frowned; if she was ever to avoid trouble, she had better start paying more attention. Take now, for instance: by allowing her thoughts to wander, she’d lost all track of what this woman had been rambling on about. Her father, was it? Oh, yes, that was right: she’d been rueing his absence. Clearly, then, agreement was called for. ‘I daresay, miss.’

  ‘Still, I’m sure he’ll get down here just as soon as he can. In the meantime, Mamma has some friends coming to stay. Some of them are quite lively, so it shouldn’t be long before there’s some jollity.’

  Jollity. In the servants’ parlour, jollity was a word that brought about the raising of eyebrows, it usually referring to a state of affairs requiring more than the regular amount of clearing up afterwards. Even so, Kate knew it was her job to smile and appear pleased by the prospect. ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Now, since I am without engagements, indeed, since I am, as Mamma pointed out, on holiday – although Biarritz, this clearly isn’t – I have decided to dispense with a morning outfit. And, since the day seems to feel as though it may become rather warm, I have decided I shall wear my lavender lawn. Yes, I know it’s an afternoon gown but I’m in the wilds of Devonshire. And you heard Mamma – on this holiday, formality is not the order of the day. So, since my straw hat will suffice, there’s no need for you to fuss with my hair. Just brush it through for me, and then pin it into a chignon about here.’ Raising her hand, Naomi Russell patted just beneath her crown.

  Kate stared at the indicated spot on Miss Russell’s head. How quickly was she to be found wanting? Not that it was her fault; it hadn’t been her idea that she become a lady’s maid. She hadn’t proposed herself for the task; she had been singled out for it.

  Perhaps it was time for honesty, though. ‘I’m not sure, miss—’

  Naomi Russell’s reflection blinked back at her.

  ‘You don’t know how to do a chignon? Goodness me. They really are the thing now. No one wants a Pompadour any more – so passé. Look, fetch me that McCalls and I’ll show you.’

  Kate turned about. On the side table lay a magazine. Handing it to Miss Naomi, she waited for her to flick through the pages. Golly, her feet ached – but a glance to the clock on the mantel told her that it was barely even a half after nine. If she’d thought yesterday evening was hard work – unpacking two trunks while Miss Russell stood over her, issuing instructions – she hadn’t accounted for the extent of her morning routine. And, supposedly, this was pared down from the way she started her day when at home in London. Or in town, as she insisted upon calling it.

  ‘Look, like this. Do you see?’

  Snapping her attention back, Kate stared down at the line-drawn illustration.

  ‘Oh. Yes, I see, miss. You want me to do it in a knot.’

  ‘If you wish to call it that, then yes, a knot. I suppose, this far from London, you have different words for all manner of things. Anyway, can you do that? Or something approaching it?’

  Carefully, Kate drew her hands behind her back and crossed her fingers. ‘Yes, Miss Naomi. I can do that for you.’

  ‘Good. And then I shall need you to change the band on my straw hat. There’s a lilac one that tones with the trim on my dress. It will be with my gloves and so on.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  The exasperating thing, Kate thought as she drew the brush through Naomi’s tresses, was that the woman had the most beautiful hair, as dark as ebony and as glossy as the topping on the Sachertorte Mrs Latimer always asked Edie to make for her.

  Setting down the brush, Kate gathered Naomi’s hair just above the nape of her neck and set about twisting it into a rope. Then, with a quick glance to the illustration – thankfully, just visible over Naomi’s shoulder – she coiled it around and started to pin it in place.

  Pushing in the last hairpin, she stood back: surprisingly good, even if she did judge as one who shouldn’t. Perhaps one more pin, though, just to make certain.

  ‘Done?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Mirror?’ Reaching to the dressing table, Kate lifted the hand mirror from the tray and held it at an angle behind Naomi Russell’s head. ‘Not bad.’

  ‘Thank you, miss.’ She would ignore the surprise in the woman’s tone. Not bad was far better than the no, no, no, not like that she had been expecting to hear.

  ‘Right. Fetch my dress.’

  Going to stand in front of the wardrobe, Kate ran her eyes along the row of frocks she had hung there yesterday. There: that one looked to be the colour of lavender. Carefully, she unhooked the hanger from the rail and then gave it a shake.

  ‘Is this the one, miss?’

  ‘Yes. Help me into it and then bring my shoes – the beige pair with the double straps.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’ Pushing the tiny fabric-covered buttons through each of the corresponding loops, Kate worked her way down the back of Naomi Russell’s dress. This then, she concluded, noticing how the material had next to no weight between her fingers, was lawn. In the palest of lavender colours, it was printed with tiny sprigs of flowers in rose-pink and cream. Oh, to own something so feminine. Oh, to have occasion to wear it! Sadly, she was unlikely to ever have either.

  Lowering herself back down onto the dressing-table stool, Naomi Russell extended a stockinged foot, while, forcing herself not to shake her head in disbelief, Kate knelt in front of her and slipped on the appropriate shoe. Then she buttoned the straps. Good grief. This was worse than anything asked of her as a housemaid – not as back-breaking, maybe, but twice as ridiculous. Could the woman not fasten her own shoes? Some of the duties expected of her as a housemaid felt as though they had been invented solely to waste good time – like blacking a grate that was only ever going to be used for a sooty fire – but this lady’s maid’s business, this took the biscuit.

  ‘Jolly good. Now, I’ll just put some colour on my lips and then I’ll leave you to it. I don’t suppose you know whether Mamma is about yet?’

  Kate got to her feet. ‘No, miss, I’m a-feared I don’t.’

  ‘Never mind. I doubt she is. I rarely see her before eleven. Although of course, down here, she might rise a little later. We are on holiday, after all.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’ Holiday, Kate thought, lifting Miss Naomi’s robe and night-gown from the chair. What, exactly, was one of those? With the way things were turning out, she’d be lucky to get a full night’s sleep, let alone a holiday. And for that, she had her mother to blame – for not standing up to the spoiled Miss Naomi Russell in the first place!

  * * *

/>   ‘But Edie, I’m telling you, a more dafter way of carryin’ on you simply couldn’t dream up!’

  ‘And I don’t doubt it.’

  That her sister was unmoved, only made Kate even more exasperated. ‘And such a waste of my time.’

  It was mid-morning the following day and, seated at their mother’s desk, Edith Bratton didn’t even look up from her writing. ‘Don’t come looking to me for sympathy, Kate. I’m fresh out of it. I spent I-don’t-know-how-long yesterday writing out a list of pastries, cakes, and desserts, only to have Mrs Russell cross-through half of it. “No almonds, no marzipan, no walnuts”, says she. “How about lots of little meringues and choux pastry, instead? Oh, and raspberries, lots of raspberries. Everyone loves raspberries, don’t they?” But do you hear me complaining? No. What gentry wants, gentry gets. And, same as me, you’ve been in service long enough to know that.’

  Leaning in the doorway between the pantry and her mother’s office, Kate folded her arms. ‘They ain’t gentry. I can tell. Got a nose for that sort of thing.’

  ‘Makes no odds. They’re guests of the Latimers and, as such, entitled to be or to have anything they want.’

  Dismayed at her sister’s response, Kate shook her head. Edith would walk a mile out of her way to avoid a confrontation. Or to avoid having to express sympathy. Just get on and do it, that was her view. Well, clearing up after people was one thing. As Ma always said, it wasn’t that much different to keeping your own home, except that you were doing it for someone else and getting your board and lodgings in return. This lady’s maid business, though, well this was turning out to be a different kettle of fish altogether. Apart from being a waste of perfectly good time, it was demeaning.

  ‘But honestly, Edie,’ she began, her eyes following the nib of her sister’s pen as it scratched its way across the page, ‘if she was a four-year-old, you’d tell her not to be such a baby and to brush her own hair and button her own clothes. She don’t even fasten her own shoes, let alone find and trim her own hat.’ Scratch, scratch, scratch. ‘And I have to dart about, seeing to all of that before I can even make a start doing her room.’ Scratch. ‘And then, once luncheon’s over and done with, the whole rigmarole starts all over again. More clothes, more shoes. More tidying up. And don’t get me started on changing for dinner.’