by Rhys Bowen
Dear Georgiana,
Binky has just informed me that he has to pop up to town on Monday on a matter of urgent and unforeseen business. With the world in its current sorry state and everybody being asked to economize, I thought it seemed silly and wasteful to go to the expense of sending staff in an advance party to open up the house when you are already there. Since you are living “grace and favor” as it were, I hope it won’t be too much to ask to have Binky’s bedroom and study aired out for him, and maybe just the little morning room for him to read the newspapers. (You have ordered the Times, I hope.)
I’m sure he’ll be dining at his club so you don’t have to worry too much about the food side of things. I expect the house will be quite chilly. Maybe you could have a fire going in Binky’s bedroom on the day he arrives. Oh, and a hot water bottle in his bed too.
Your loving sister-in-law, Hilda
She always was known for her stuffy formality. Nobody ever called her by her real name. And I could see why. A more ridiculous name for a duchess I have never heard. If I had been called Hilda, I would have drowned myself in the nursery bathtub rather than grow up saddled with such a burden.
I stared at the letter for a moment. “What cheek,” I said out loud and it was echoed back from the high ceiling of the hallway. Not only are they no longer supporting me, but now they’re treating me like a servant. Perhaps she forgets that I’m here all alone, without a maid, even. Does she want me to dust and make beds and light fires myself? Then I realized that it probably had never occurred to Hilda that I was living here without servants. She obviously expected that I had hired a maid by now.
After I had calmed down, I supposed it wasn’t such an unreasonable request. I was able-bodied enough to take off a few dust sheets and even run a carpet sweeper over a floor or two, wasn’t I? I had grown up never having to make my own bed, never having got myself a glass of water until I went to school, but I was capable of doing both. I was making splendid progress really. I hadn’t actually attempted to light a fire yet, of course, even though Granddad had given me the most basic instruction the previous day. It was the thought of that coal’ole, as he called it—the dreaded coal cellar replete with spiders—that put me off. But it would have to be tackled sometime. With all those ancestors who fought at Bannock Burn and Waterloo and every battle in between, I should have inherited enough spunk to face a coal cellar. Tomorrow was Sunday, when I was expected for lunch with my grandfather. I’d have him take me through the complete fire-lighting experience. Never let it be said that a Rannoch was defeated by anything!
On Sunday morning I was up, bright and early, ready to tackle my task. I put on an apron I found hanging in a cupboard below stairs and I tied a scarf around my hair. It was actually quite fun to whip off dust sheets and shake them out of the window. I was dancing around with the feather duster when there was a knock at the front door. I didn’t stop to think about the way I was dressed as I opened it and found Belinda on the doorstep.
“Is her ladyship at home to callers?” she asked, then she started as she recognized me. “Georgie! What on earth? Are you auditioning for the role of Cinderella?”
“What? Oh, this.” I glanced down at the feather duster. “On the orders of my dear sister-in-law. She wants me to get the house ready for the arrival of my dear brother, the duke, tomorrow. Come on in.” I led her down the hallway and up the stairs to the morning room. The windows were open and a fresh breeze stirred the lace curtains.
“Do sit down,” I said. “The seat has been newly dusted.”
She looked at me as if I had turned into a new and dangerous creature. “Surely she didn’t mean that you were to take it upon yourself personally to clean the house?”
“I’m afraid that’s exactly what she did mean. Do take a seat.”
“What was she thinking?” Belinda sat.
“I think the word for my sister-in-law is frugal, at best. She didn’t want to pay for the extra train tickets to send down the servants ahead of Binky. She reminded me of my grace and favor status, thereby suggesting that I owed Her Grace a favor.”
“What nerve,” Belinda exclaimed.
“My own sentiments exactly, but she obviously assumes I’ve hired a maid by now. She gave me a long lecture on the untrustworthiness of Londoners and how I should check all references.”
“Why didn’t you bring a maid with you?”
“Fig wouldn’t release one of ours and frankly I couldn’t afford to pay her anyway. But, you know, it’s not too bad. In fact it’s been quite fun. I’m getting rather good at it. It must be that humble ancestry on my mother’s side coming out but one gets quite a satisfaction from polishing things.”
Then suddenly it was as if I was hit with a flash of divine inspiration. “Wait,” I said. “I’ve just had a marvelous idea—I wanted a paying job, didn’t I? I could do this for other people and be paid for it.”
“Georgie! I’m all for standing on your own feet, but there are limits. A member of the house of Windsor acting as a char lady? My dear, think of the stink there would be when it was found out.”
“They don’t need to know it’s actually me, do they?” I gave a couple of whisks with the feather duster as I warmed up to the idea. “I can call myself Coronet Domestics and nobody need ever know that I, and I alone, am Coronet Domestics. It’s better than starving, anyway.”
“What about the lady-in-waiting thing? How does one turn down the request of a queen?”
“Very cautiously,” I said. “But luckily nothing in the palace happens overnight. By the time HM has it arranged,
I shall tell her that I am fully occupied and financially stable.”
“Well, good luck then, I suppose,” Belinda said. “You wouldn’t find me cleaning lavatories.”
“Oh, dear,” I said, coming down to earth with a bump. “I hadn’t counted on lavatories. I was thinking more a quick whisk with my handy duster. That much I can handle.”
She laughed. “I fear you may have a rude awakening. Some people are absolute pigs, you know.” She leaned back against the velvet upholstery and crossed her legs in a move that must have been practiced and designed to drive young men wild. It had no such effect on me except to elicit a wave of envy over her silk stockings.
“So how did you enjoy your outing with the attractive Mr. O’Mara?” she asked.
“He is quite dashing, isn’t he?”
“What a pity he’s penniless. Not exactly the escort you need at this stage of your life.”
“Maybe we go together well,” I said.
“You’ve tried, have you?” Belinda asked.
“Tried what?”
“Going together.”
“We’ve only just met, Belinda. Although he did kiss my hand on the doorstep and suggest that I invite him inside.”
“Did he? How terribly un-British.”
“I have to confess I did enjoy the hand-kissing part and I almost relented and let him into the house.”
She nodded. “He’s Irish, of course. They are a wild race, but more fun, one has to admit, than the English. Heaven knows Englishmen have no idea at all about the gentle art of seduction. The best most of them can manage is to slap you on the behind and ask if you fancy a spot of the old rumpy-pumpy.”
I nodded. “That does sum up my experience so far.”
“There you are then. So he may well be the one.”
“To settle down with? We’d starve.”
“Not to settle down with.” She shook her head at my stupidity. “To rid you of the burden around your neck. Your virginity, I mean.”
“Belinda! Really!”
She laughed at my red face. “Someone has to before you turn into a sour old maid. My father always says that once women turn twenty-four, they are beyond redemption, so you’ve only got a year or so.” She looked at me, expecting an answer, but I was still lost for words. Discussing my virginity did not come easily to me. “You are seeing him again?” she asked.
“He’s
taking me to a party at the Café de Paris next week.”
“Oh, my dear. Very swank.”
“Gate-crashing again, I’m afraid. He says it’s given by Americans and they’ll fall over backward to have a member of the royal family present, even if it’s a minor one.”
“He’s absolutely right. When is it?” She produced a small diary from her bag.
“Belinda, you’re as bad as he is.”
“Maybe we’re kindred spirits. You should keep us apart. I think I might rather fancy him myself, although I’d never step on the toes of an old school chum. And being penniless does limit the desirability. I do have horribly expensive tastes.” She jumped up and grabbed the feather duster from me. “I almost forgot what I came for. I bumped into another old school chum at the wedding yesterday. Sophia, that round little Hungarian countess. Didn’t you see her?”
“No, I didn’t. There were so many people and I was attempting to lie low.”
“Well, anyway, she invited me to a little party on a houseboat in Chelsea this afternoon and I asked if I could bring you. I tried to find you, but you’d vanished.”
“Darcy and I melted away before the party dispersed.”
“So will you come to the party on the houseboat?”
“It does sound rather fun. Oh, wait a minute. No, I’m afraid I can’t come after all. I’ve just remembered that I promised to have Sunday lunch with my grandfather. In fact”—I glanced at my watch—“I have to run and get changed instantly.”
“Your nonroyal grandfather, I take it?”
“The other one is long dead, so that would have to be a séance and no lunch.”
“And your living one? Don’t I remember that your family discouraged any communication with him? Why was that?”
“He’s a Cockney, Belinda, but he’s an old dear, quite the nicest person I know. I just wish I could do more for him. He’s not exactly in funds at the moment and he needs a good holiday by the sea.” I brightened up again. “So maybe my housecleaning experiment will be so successful that I can send him on his holiday and all will be well.”
Belinda eyed me suspiciously. “I am not normally one to look on the dark side of things, but I think you are courting disaster, my sweet. If news of your new career choice ever made it back to the palace, I fear you’d be married off to the frightful Siegfried and locked away in a castle in Romania before you could say Ivor Novello.”
“This is a free country, Belinda. I am twenty-one years old and nobody’s ward and I’m not next in line to the throne and frankly I don’t give a hoot what they think!”
“Well said, old thing.” She applauded. “Come on then, let me help you compose your advertisement before you depart.”
“All right.” I went over to the writing desk and took out pen and paper. “Do you think the Times is preferable to the Tattler in attracting the right clientele?”
“Do both. Some women never read a newspaper but always look at the Tattler to see if they are in it.”
“I’ll bite the bullet and pay for both then. I hope a commission comes along quickly or I’ll be standing in a bread line myself in a week or so.”
“It’s a pity you can’t come to the party with me this afternoon. Sophia is a robust girl in that typically middle-European way, so I’m sure food will feature prominently. And she mixes with all kinds of delightful bohemians—writers and painters, that kind of thing.”
“I wish I could, but I’m sure food will figure prominently at my grandfather’s too. He’s promised me a roast and two veg. So what shall we say in this advertisement?”
“You have to make it quite clear that you are not interested in scrubbing their loos, just light dusting and opening their houses up for them. How about: ‘Coming to London but want to leave your staff at the country seat?’”
I scribbled away. “Oh, that’s good. Then we could say Coronet Domestics Agency will air out your house and make it ready for your arrival.”
“And you have to give an endorsement from someone of status.”
“How can I do that? I can hardly ask Fig to recommend me and she’s the only one for whom I’ve ever cleaned a house so far.”
“You endorse yourself, you chump. As used by Lady Victoria Georgiana, sister of the Duke of Glen Garry and Rannoch.”
I started laughing. “Belinda, you are positively brilliant.”
“I know,” she said modestly.
Lunch was a huge success—lovely leg of lamb, crispy roast potatoes and cabbage from Granddad’s back garden, followed by baked apple and custard. I felt the occasional pang of guilt as I wondered whether he could really afford to eat in this way, but he was taking such obvious pleasure from watching me eat, that I let myself enjoy every bite.
“After lunch,” I said, “you really must teach me how to light a fire. I’m not joking. My brother will be arriving tomorrow and I’ve been instructed to have a fire lit in his bedroom.”
“Well, blow me down. Of all the cheek,” he said. “What do they think you are—a skivvy? I’m going to give that brother of yours a piece of my mind.”
“Oh, it’s not Binky,” I said. “He’s actually quite a dear. Very vague, of course, never notices anything. And not very bright. But essentially a kind person. And it is my fault partly, I suppose. My sister-in-law took it for granted that I’d be hiring staff as soon as I got to London. I should have made it quite clear that I couldn’t afford to do so. Stupid pride.”
My grandfather shook his head. “I told you, my love. If you want to light a fire, you’ll have to go down the coal cellar.”
“If I must, I must,” I said. “I’m sure plenty of servants have been down into the coal cellar and survived. What then?”
He talked me through it, from the newspaper to the right way to lay the sticks and then the coal on top, and all about opening dampers. It sounded daunting.
“I wish I could come up and do it for you,” he said. “But I don’t think your brother would take kindly to my being in the house.”
“I wish you could come up and live with me for a while,” I said. “Not to look after me, but to keep me company.”
He looked at me with wise dark eyes. “Ah, but that would never work, would it? We live in different worlds, ducks. You’d want me to sleep above stairs in your house and I wouldn’t feel right doing that, but then I wouldn’t feel right sleeping below stairs, like a servant either. No, it’s better this way. I welcome your visits, but then you go back to your world and I stay in mine.”
I looked back longingly as I walked up Glanville Drive past the gnomes.
Chapter 9
Rannoch House
Sunday, April 24, 1932
When I arrived back at Rannoch House I changed into my servant garb, tied up my hair, and ventured downstairs until I located the dreaded coal hole. As Granddad had predicted, it was awful—a dark opening in the outside well, only a couple of feet high. I couldn’t find a shovel and I wasn’t going to reach my arm into that dark unknown. Who knows what was lurking in there? I went back into the kitchen and discovered a large ladle and a towel hanging on a rack. Then I used the ladle to scrape out bits of coal, one at a time, then picked them up with the towel to put into the coal scuttle. By this method it took a good half hour to fill the scuttle but at least I didn’t touch any spiders and my hands remained clean. Finally I staggered upstairs with it, with new admiration and respect for my maid, Maggie, who obviously had to do this chore every single morning.
I experimented with lighting a fire in my own room and by the end of the evening I had a very smoky room, but a crackling blaze going. I was quite proud of myself. Binky’s bedroom was ready for him, with clean sheets and windows opened. I laid a fire in his grate and went to bed satisfied.
On Monday morning I went into the Times office and placed an advertisement for the front page. I provided a post office box to reply to, as I didn’t think Binky would take kindly to requests for a char lady coming to Rannoch House. Then I went to the Tattler
and repeated the process.
I had just returned home when there was a knock at the front door. I went to answer it and found a strange man on the doorstep. He was a sinister-looking figure, dressed from head to toe in black—long black overcoat and broad-brimmed black hat tilted forward so that it was hard to see his eyes. What I could see of his face I didn’t like. He might have been good-looking once, but he had one of those faces that has started to sag. And it had the pasty pallor of one who is not often in the fresh air. Nobody at Castle Rannoch ever had such a complexion. At least the biting wind produced the rosiest of cheeks.
