Friday's Girl

by Charlotte Bingham

  Sheridan rolled his eyes at Celandine. ‘So who is going to volunteer to buy the picnic lunches on the station?’

  Celandine stared back at him. ‘Who is going to – buy – luncheon?’ she asked.

  Sheridan peered into the basket. ‘Yes, luncheon, because there certainly is not enough here to keep us going, is there, Alfred? Robert? Tom?’

  If Celandine had imagined that Sheridan and his friends were teasing her, she was mistaken, for when the train finally steamed into a station around the time of déjeuner all three young men jumped off the train, disappearing for a full ten minutes, and only climbing back on board as the train doors were starting to be slammed.

  ‘Gracious, I thought you might have run off—’

  Sheridan, his arms full of small boxes, said, ‘Quick, take one before I drop them all. There’s one for each of us.’

  This time the individual picnic boxes were filled with food which could be eaten from the dishes: hot pastas with meat fillings, salad on the side, and small bottles of wine, followed by fresh peaches and small sweet biscuits.

  ‘This is the life, eh?’ Sheridan smiled across at Celandine.

  She nodded. It certainly seemed to be.

  It was evening when they finally arrived at their destination: an old inn in the middle of a village near Cancale.

  ‘Everyone stays at Chez Cécile. Principally because she loves parties and doesn’t care what time of the day or night we come in or out, or whom we bring back. She is not only a great lady, she is a great tradition, aren’t you, Madame Cécile?’ he added as a large lady dressed entirely in black, with only a spotless white lace-trimmed apron to relieve it, sailed into view.

  Sheridan gaily kissed the plump, beringed hand held out to him, as Celandine submitted to being given a piercing look from two small, dark brown eyes.

  ‘Ah, very pretty, Monsieur Sheree, very pretty indeed. You ’ave your old room, and you too, Tom, and you, Robert, and Alfred. All of you, upstairs and wash, please! Dinner is at eight o’clock and I do not want to have to tell you to change. Please. Clean shirts, clean hands, for you are not our only guests this evening! I will send Raoul with the rest of your suitcases.’

  Madame Cécile winked at Celandine as she turned away. It was an all-embracing wink that said that since they were the only women present they would have to stand shoulder to shoulder, ranged up against the men-boys.

  Celandine, quite tired but still very happy, followed Sheridan up the stairs to the landing.

  ‘Ah, here we are.’ He opened a door to a prettily decorated small sitting room, off which was a bedroom, and, turning, smiled at Celandine. ‘Now, which bed do you want, my dear?’

  Chapter Four

  Edith stared across the room. If she had imagined that her new married life would be full of delightful intimacies, fresh discoveries and raptures of a kind of which she had never even dared to dream; that her honeymoon would be spent in loving her new husband, getting to know him in every way, then she was already sadly mistaken. Her arrival at Helmscote, at a flower-filled house with the fires lit and every possible comfort on hand, might have seemed dreamlike, but what followed over the next few days had been more and more bewildering.

  Each morning Napier would rise early and disappear back to his dressing room where, as Mrs George had first indicated to Edith, he would take a freezing-cold bath in a tub set out on the balcony outside the French windows, after which he would walk briskly around the extensive grounds on his own. His strict instructions to Edith in the first days and weeks of her marriage were always to stay in bed until her personal maid, Betty, came to bath and dress her.

  It rapidly became a strict routine. Napier would arrive back promptly at nine o’clock from his walk and appear, unsmiling, at their bedroom door ready to escort Edith down to breakfast in the back dining hall. Edith did not have to be told that she must always be ready and waiting on the stroke of the stable clock; she knew from the brooding expression in Napier’s eyes that this was expected of her. She also knew that she must look like the wife of a well-to-do personage, but that her morning dress must not be too elaborate, her hair must be simply arranged, and she must have some sewing ready in the morning room, before whose fire she should be prepared to sit and stitch.

  But first she had to face communal breakfast in the dining room, where everyone who worked on the estate sat down together. At the start of the meal Napier said grace and the workers sat shoulder to shoulder in silence, waited on by the household staff, who eventually joined them at the long tables.

  Breakfast at Helmscote was therefore a strange ceremony, most particularly for a young bride, and one which Edith had already started to dread. The meal, while quite obviously an attempt at democracy, turned out to be, in essence, formal to a degree. Following Napier’s begging the Lord, on everyone’s behalf, to accept their gratitude for what was before them, the meal began, but because they were eating in front of the master of the house no one actually cared to open his mouth except to put food in it. It was as if the coming together with their master and mistress made all the workers on the estate fall into self-consciousness; indeed, it seemed to Edith that they were always looking round at each other, noting each other’s table manners, perhaps afraid that they might get bad marks if they were to fall below some imaginary, self-imposed standard.

  From her very first morning Edith had not been able to resist making the comparison with the jolly, hail-fellow-well-met carefree breakfasts of the servants at the Stag and Crown, where it was not unusual for the younger ones to play practical jokes on their elders – changing the sugar for salt, or leaving out the tea from the pot, and other harmless japes. Once grace was out of the way, everyone at the Stag and Crown had swapped stories and told jokes, gossiped and made plans. In contrast to the estate workers at Helmscote they were all able to relax, even though the time they had off to eat was all too short, and they all detested Edith’s stepmother. Never mind that the work was hard: when they breakfasted the servants of every age at the old inn made sure to enjoy themselves.

  Edith’s eyes now travelled round the bedroom. Soon she knew she would hear Betty’s discreet knock on the outer door, and then see the black outline of her uniform as she lit the bedroom fire prior to bringing in the copper bath. It was strange to be helped to do something you had always been in the habit of doing for yourself. To have someone hand you each of your silk stockings, to have her brush and arrange your hair for you, do up your clothes, and finally pull your dress into place, twitching and adjusting it before standing back and giving you an approving look. It was as if you were a doll, not a young woman.

  This morning it seemed was to be no different. The handing over of the soap and the sponge, the wrapping of the carefully warmed bath towel around Edith’s long-limbed body, prior to her stepping carefully out on to the thick, warmed bath mat. It was all so ritualistic, and yet in its way mesmerising. Edith found her mind went into a passive mode, as if she had been drugged in some way, and by allowing the maid to wait on her she had somehow, she did not quite understand how, herself become subservient.

  This morning, having allowed herself to be dried, and handed a set of new underwear, Edith waited for Betty to bring her the corset, the horsehair-based bustle, and all the other accoutrements that were necessary to the building of the fashionable dresses that she now wore with such enjoyment. No such items were offered her. Instead, Betty carefully undid some closely wrapped clothing which she had taken from the large, beautifully inlaid wardrobes in the adjoining dressing room.

  ‘What are these?’ Edith stared down at the long, diaphanous garment made of green silk, with floating panels, like nothing she had ever seen before.

  ‘These are for Madam. This morning we are to go to the studio.’

  Edith turned and stared at the maid. ‘We? You are not coming, are you, Betty? You mean I am going, don’t you?’

  ‘No, I mean we, madam – I take you to the master’s studio, and I arrange you,’ Be
tty said with such sudden firm authority that Edith realised at once that the maid had been through this ritual before, perhaps with other girls.

  She stared down at the long gown with its panels and scarves. She had no idea why it filled her with panic, but the fact was that it did: the kind of suffocating panic with which her maid’s uniform, when she first wore it as little more than a child, had filled her. She adored the clothes chosen with such care by Miss Bagshaw. She loved hearing the gentle swish-swish of the short trains that fell from her bustle as she crossed rooms or went down corridors in the evenings. The truth was that the wearing of her new, fashionable clothes was one of the real joys that her marriage of a few days had so far brought her.

  ‘Where are you going, Mrs Todd?’

  Edith was pulling her dressing wrap round her in a swirl of panic. ‘I am going to find Mr Todd, Betty.’

  ‘Mr Todd is not in the house today, madam.’

  Edith turned slowly, and she knew immediately from the look in her eyes that the maid would think it more than passing strange if the new Mrs Todd was to demand of her, Betty, where her husband might be. After all, Edith was meant to be not just his wife, but the mistress of the house.

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, of course. He told me last night. I quite forgot. It had escaped my mind.’

  ‘The master will be waiting for you in the studio this morning. Waiting to give you breakfast. You are breakfasting together in the studio this morning, remember?’

  Edith stared at Betty and then dropped her eyes. She had no idea where Napier’s studio might be. She had been so panicked by his attitude to their marriage – the passion in his eyes leading to nothing at all at night, or at any other time; so much did it not correspond to anything she had tried to imagine that marriage might bring – that she had never once thought to ask to see his studio.

  ‘If you stand still I will arrange the gown the way Mr Todd has told me it should be arranged.’

  Why had Napier not asked her himself?

  The question went round and round in Edith’s head as her eyes travelled to the gown, which she already knew she was going to detest. It had little or no shape, except for the wretched panels and the voluminous sleeves – at least she thought they must be sleeves, since they both ended in a gold and green brocade trimming.

  Betty was now moving towards the dress with all the determination with which Edith’s stepmother had moved towards her maid’s uniform six years before.

  ‘If you stand over there, by the window, madam, it would be easier for me to arrange you according to the master’s wishes.’

  Edith moved towards the window as directed, and after a few seconds the maid followed her with two dressing sticks holding the gown, which she gently lowered over Edith’s head.

  She had no idea why, but as the silk slid past her face it seemed to Edith that it smelt of carbolic soap, of dust and grime and mud, reminding her with a sudden, convulsing violence of her mother’s death, and the ensuing days and weeks which had ended with her being ordered to work in the inn. She felt a suffocating tightening of her throat as a lump came into it and tears threatened, tears that she determinedly fought, only for them to threaten once more. She hated to be made to wear something!

  ‘If Madam would hold out her feet, one by one? I have some beautiful slippers that the master wants you to wear with your gown.’

  Edith could hardly see her feet for the emotions that were swamping her slender body, but when she was able, with one great shuddering sigh, to defeat the shaming tears and send them on their way, she could see at once that Betty was right, the gold embroidered slippers were beautiful. Yet Edith knew, even as she stared down at the delicately embroidered Oriental slippers, that she hated them. She hated them as much as she hated the gown, as much as she hated Betty’s dressing her in something Miss Bagshaw had not helped her choose.

  ‘Now if Madam would sit down, I will dress her hair as the master wishes it to be dressed.’

  Hairbrushes of the softest bristle at the ready, Betty approached her mistress.

  ‘Mr Todd wants your hair to be arranged as loosely as possible.’

  The brushes moved through Edith’s long, auburn hair with a steady sweeping motion.

  ‘A hundred strokes to make it shine,’ Betty murmured appreciatively as she continued the rhythmic brushing.

  In her new role as Mrs Napier Todd, and to go with her new clothes, Edith had taken to wearing her crowning glory swept back into a magnificent chignon held in place with two tortoiseshell combs presented to her on her wedding day by Cook and the other servants. It was a style that she hoped suited her delicate features, seeming somehow to enhance her clear green eyes, straight nose and full lips, the almost alarming red of the hair setting off her pale, pale skin.

  Now Betty parted the waist-length hair with a comb, and brushed one side to the back and the other to the front, twisting the latter slightly to allow it to fall down over the loose cut of the already detested gown.

  ‘If Madam would now stand up?’

  Betty lifted the back of the gown as Edith stood up and carefully removed the dressing stool upon which Edith had been seated. Then she stood back to admire her handiwork, walking round her model and finally sighing with some satisfaction. It was a sigh that gave Edith the feeling, once again, that Betty had carried out her husband’s orders before.

  ‘I think the master will be pleased with this,’ the maid murmured. ‘The gown is something he had made some time ago. It was a silk he had seen in France, a beautiful colour that had caught his eye, in Paris, I think. But he never did find a use for it.’ She walked round Edith, who stood stock-still, her heart beating a great deal faster than was natural. ‘I do think that the master will be pleased, that he will realise that the use he has found for the gown is perfect. Come to the dressing mirror, madam. I think you will agree that it looks perfect.’

  Edith walked towards the cheval mirror that Betty now placed in the middle of the room, and saw a new person walking towards her. She was statuesque, a model of beautiful arrangement, not a modern young woman, not a young wife, but someone unearthly.

  Edith stared at the saint-like figure in the mirror. Was this how Napier wanted her? Unbound, uncorseted, the outline of her body showing through the silk? Was this how he desired her? She stared at herself as hope rose within her. If he wanted her like this, well then, so be it, she would dress like this for him. If he wished her to look like some sort of medieval angel, or a saint depicted in some ancient mural on a chapel wall, if that would make him desire her as a wife, then she would try with all her heart to like the silk gown, the gold slippers, and the tumbling hair.

  She turned towards Betty, and away from the mirror.

  ‘I just need a harp,’ she said, trying to smile.

  It turned out that Napier’s studio was one of a pair of old stone barns across the courtyard from the house. It was a dark morning with rain pouring, so Betty took up a large black umbrella and held it over her mistress as they made their way quickly towards the refurbished building with its tall, Gothic windows and large porch light swinging and glowing despite the weather.

  To walk into the studio was to walk into another world. For a second Edith stared around her, wondering at the smell of oil paints and spirits, at the stacked canvases, their faces, like naughty children, turned to the walls. So this was where Napier worked? This huge wooden-floored room with its tall windows, carefully placed – she would subsequently discover – to bring him the best of the northern light. There were a number of large mahogany easels set about the room, all holding paintings, some finished and some unfinished, only one large one quite blank.

  ‘Give me your cloak, please.’

  Napier, dressed for painting in a high-necked shirt with a silk cravat at his neck, already had the look of an artist at work. Edith saw at once that she should be prepared for him to appear distracted, but it seemed that he was far from being so. He walked towards her, his face cold and detached.

&
nbsp; Edith stared at him in some trepidation, unsure as to whether he would like how she looked, since she certainly did not. She clasped the top of her cloak, unwilling to let it go, while Betty deserted her to walk quietly away towards a service area at the back of the studio.

  ‘I am not sure—’

  But Edith did not have time to register any personal doubts about the green silk gown, because Napier’s hands closed over her own, gently forcing her to release the tight hold that she had on the top of her cloak.

  He took the cloak from her, using an expert sweeping hand to gather its long folds, and marched it, as if it were a person, towards a bench upon which he flung it. Then, taking her hand, he walked her into the middle of the huge room and circled round her, saying nothing.

  Edith would never forget how she felt during those minutes. She had no idea whether what her husband was seeing pleased him or not, but she had every idea of how she felt.

  As Napier walked round her, Edith, always generous to a fault in everything, struggled in vain not to feel humiliated. It was somehow odious to be left standing in the middle of a room, her hair falling down her shoulders in what she knew her stepmother would call an ‘unkempt manner’, a shapeless gown clothing her, a silly silk scarf draped round her neck – for no particular reason that she could see – with her husband walking wordlessly round her, staring at her with cold detachment as if she was an object in a shop window.

  To make matters worse there was Betty of all people, a far from disinterested witness to all that was happening. Since she herself had been in service Edith was well aware that while Betty might pretend she was only interested in laying a breakfast table for them, putting out white linen napkins and glittering silver knives and forks which somehow contrasted rather oddly with the beautifully fashioned, obviously handmade pottery and hand-beaten pewter plate, in reality she would be spying on the scene taking place in the studio.

  Edith’s heart sank, for she was not so stupid that she did not realise that Betty would not be able to wait to get back to the servants’ hall and tell them all about Mrs Todd’s having to stand as still as a statue while Mr Todd paced round her wordlessly, assessing the spectacle of his wife dressed in a Biblical gown, trying to sum up whether or not she was going to prove to be an inspiration. Servants always love to gossip. Edith knew, if only because she had been one.