Miss Lily’s Lovely Ladies

by Jackie French

  ‘Shall I put it on the table, miss?’

  ‘Thank you. Would you mind bringing another cup?’

  The maid stared. ‘Another cup, miss?’

  ‘For Doris. I’m sure you’d like some while you unpack?’

  ‘We have our tea in the kitchen, miss.’ Doris looked slightly shocked.

  Had she said the wrong thing? Annie sat gossiping with Sophie for hours when Miss Thwaites was busy elsewhere.

  Sophie put up her chin. There was no backing down. ‘Would you like a cup now?’

  Doris’s mouth hung open for two seconds. ‘Yes, miss. Thank you, miss.’

  Sophie nodded dismissal to the other maid and footman.

  The door remained open. Jones appeared.

  ‘Miss Lily’s compliments, miss.’ Did she just imagine the hint of another smile? ‘Dinner will be at eight pm. Miss Lily keeps early hours in the country.’

  ‘Early?’ Sophie stared.

  ‘She asked me to tell you that you will hear the dressing gong at half past six and then the dinner gong at ten minutes to eight, but wait five minutes before you go down. Doris will help you dress.’

  An hour and a half to dress! ‘Thank you, Jones.’

  He walked out, looking down as though pretending nothing in the room existed. The manners of a perfect servant, thought Sophie. She wondered where he had learned to walk like that.

  At least Doris would know what one wore to dinner with the cousin of an earl.

  And no more food till eight o’clock. She grinned at her maid. ‘You’re welcome to the tea, but you’re going to have to fight me for those cheese sandwiches …’

  Chapter 13

  Food is usually prepared by women, and served to men. The more important meals are served by men, to men, and prepared by men as well. War, politics, men’s clubs — wherever big decisions are made, the food will be under a man’s control.

  Miss Lily, 1913

  A silver salver of fruit sat on the sideboard under the noses of the earl’s ancestors and presumably Miss Lily’s too. The dining room gleamed — not with the sunlight of Thuringa but with the glow of silver.

  The furniture seemed to have absorbed centuries of firelight and candlelight and was reflecting it steadily, rather than with a single night’s bright flash. Mahogany chairs with cushioned seats of green and gold, matching the brocade of Jones’s waistcoat; a table that mirrored the candles in the three candelabra, except where the surface reflected flowers in tall silver bowls. Even the noses in the portraits gleamed.

  Miss Lily sat at the head of the table, the candelabra behind her, so once more her face was in shadow, despite the brightness of the room; her elbows were neat against her body, her dress gold velvet, her evening scarf of gold and silver chiffon. She nodded as Sophie entered. ‘I hope your room is comfortable. Please do sit down.’

  Sophie sat. Only one other place was laid, to Miss Lily’s left, so she lowered herself onto the chair, trying to keep her knees together and her back straight, two inches from the back of the chair.

  Miss Lily took note of the knees. She smiled at Jones. Mrs Overhill and even Miss Thwaites had smiles for servants that never reached their eyes. Miss Lily’s smile was warmly genuine. ‘You may serve now, Jones.’

  ‘Very good, Miss Lily.’

  ‘Is anyone else …?’ Sophie said this really just for something to break the silence, complete now apart from the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece above the unlit fire.

  She stopped as Miss Lily gazed at her. ‘Once seated at the table, you speak only after your hostess, or the most senior lady present, has spoken to you.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Lily.’

  ‘Now you may speak.’

  All at once the mass of candlelight, diamond-bright and glinting from the table, the scent of daphne from the centrepiece and of furniture polish, the antique carpets on the polished floor flooded her brain. She could think of nothing to say. So she asked instead, ‘What should we talk about?’

  ‘Ah, an excellent question. Before you go down to dinner, find out what your dining partners are interested in.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Never use one word, my dear. It makes you sound like a parrot or a fishwife yelling prices.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Lily. How do I find out what will interest my partners? Or who they’ll be?’

  ‘You listen, you take notes; every hostess and every guest of distinction always has her “little book”. You ask your maid, who will have heard the gossip downstairs — far more than we get upstairs. If necessary, you ask her to find out what you need to know. Your maid is a woman’s most valuable tool, so it is worthwhile to be friends with her.’ She smiled — again warmly. ‘I hear you have already made a good beginning there.’

  Jones, thought Sophie. ‘Thank you, Miss Lily.’

  ‘Good. “I hear you are a magnificent batsman, Mr Smith?” “I hear you love hunting, Mrs Green? How fascinating.” After that you will find that conversation takes care of itself. Keep your gaze steady, look thrilled at every detail, and make noises of awe and wonder.’

  ‘What if it’s boring?’

  ‘It probably will be. But someone who looks interested, who listens, will fascinate other people. Your face and your expression will attract those who cannot hear what is being said. Boredom is boring.

  ‘You speak only to the person on your right or left. You change sides at each course. Never talk across the table.’

  ‘What if there are only two of us?’

  ‘Then you sit like this, side by side. The man, of course, at the head, and you at his right.’ Her smile grew deeper. ‘If your companion is an elderly woman, try, “You must have seen many changes, Lady Brown.” No doubt she will have and will tell you of them. If in doubt, comment about the weather …’

  ‘Even if my companion is a man?’

  ‘Oh, most especially … But deepen your smile. “Tomorrow may be warm” can carry infinite suggestions. Cricket is useful too. I have found,’ said Miss Lily, ‘that the way to truly captivate many men is a light conversation about their bat and balls.’

  Sophie blinked. Miss Lily couldn’t mean …

  Jones entered again, followed by a maid in black, carrying a tray. The maid held the tray while Jones removed a bowl, white with a narrow rim of gold, and set it before Miss Lily. The maid stepped three paces, then Jones picked up the other bowl and placed it before Sophie.

  Sophie looked at it. Soup. She was used to soup with lamb shanks and barley, or made from an old rooster if you were sick, brown soups or dull yellow.

  This soup was green.

  ‘Watercress,’ said Miss Lily. ‘But we won’t speak of that. You do not speak of food, religion or politics, unless your partner is political or a bishop or a vegetarian or food reformist or anarchist, and then only if they bring up the subject. Few bishops want to discuss the Nestorian heresy over dinner, but a politician may want to speak of his own speeches; he may also seek approval of his policies. He may even, if you suggest it tactfully, consider moderating those policies. But that is best done in private. Most men can be influenced by a woman; few men wish to be seen being so.’

  Sophie stared down at her bowl. She had never eaten watercress. Wasn’t it a weed? She watched as Miss Lily picked up a rounded spoon, then scooped away from her towards the far rim of her bowl. Her spoon held perhaps a sip of soup. She tipped it towards her mouth, her lips opening so little that not even her teeth were visible.

  The soup vanished.

  Sophie copied her. The green liquid wrapped itself about her tongue. The taste spread, bitter at first then smooth and almost sweet. It was a world away from lamb shank broth, or the consommé royale on the ship. It tingled every sense, even her toes.

  She blinked and smiled, then glanced at Miss Lily, afraid her reaction had been too blatant. But the soup had … everything. Richness, smell and taste and colour, bubbling English streams and too lush grass.

  ‘The smile can stay,’ said Miss Lily gentl
y.

  Sophie ate.

  The next course was fish, a strange flat creature, covered with a dribble of green sauce — a different green from the watercress. Then roasted quail, tiny creatures that needed short, sharp surgery with the pointed knives, not the big blunt knife for spreading butter. (‘Tear your bread, don’t cut it,’ said Miss Lily. ‘A tiny piece each time. Place some butter on your plate before you spread it on the bread.’ Miss Thwaites had already taught her that, but Sophie didn’t mention it to Miss Lily.) Jones served potatoes with two spoons in his smooth white hand, then spinach, thick with cream, and then the next course, tiny brown strips on toast.

  ‘Anchovies,’ said Miss Lily, and smiled again. ‘This is education now, my dear, not dinner conversation.’

  ‘What’s an anchovy?’

  ‘A small salty fish. Or part of a fish. You know, I have never really considered the anchovy. But it is salty, and so makes an appropriate savoury after the meat.’

  Savouries had never featured at home. A gust of longing swept through Sophie for paddocks and blue sky.

  ‘I ate a fly once. Half a fly, anyhow. I thought it was a raisin in the pudding.’

  The eyebrow lifted. Not appropriate conversation, thought Sophie. Are flies indelicate? Probably. Yes, she thought, Miss Lily is undoubtedly right. There is nothing attractive about flies.

  Her back touched the chair. She straightened, checked. Yes, knees still together.

  Another tray, its silver catching the candlelight. Glass bowls with a thin etching of gold, filled with a quivering white cream, a bit like jelly, but softer, sweeter, with a flavour that wriggled down to your toes. Vanilla, she thought, but a world away from the vanilla in Thuringa custards. Miss Lily left a third of hers uneaten, but it was impossible for Sophie to stop. She scraped around the glass with her spoon until the eyebrow lifted so far she thought it would vanish into Miss Lily’s hair, coiled tonight about her head.

  ‘I’m sorry. It was just too good not to eat it all.’

  Suddenly a grin appeared across the table, a grin of so much charm and joy Sophie felt the hairs rise on her arms.

  ‘You’ll do,’ said Miss Lily. ‘Oh, yes, you’ll do very well. Manners and … technique … can be taught. But sheer enjoyment of life … no, my dear, that cannot be faked.’ She lifted her napkin and laid it on the table. Crumpled, thought Sophie, taking note, neither folded nor scrunched tight.

  Miss Lily stood. ‘We will take coffee in the library. And I think your manners are sufficiently acceptable for you to dine with others. Just move slowly, slowly. Watch and learn. You are intelligent. Intelligent enough to know what you don’t know and to be quiet and observant until you understand. No, don’t push your chair back. You are not a furniture removalist. Stand and step sideways.’

  ‘Is this right?’

  ‘Perhaps you mean “correct”. There is right, and there is left, correct and incorrect.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Lily.’ The evening suddenly felt endless. She wanted to sleep, to digest — not just the food, but everything that had happened. She needed to write to Miss Thwaites.

  But she still had to learn how to drink coffee, not tea. She had never drunk coffee before, though it had been served aboard the ship. She had never known anyone who drank it. It seemed a small thing to learn, but she was already realising how large small things could be.

  Dawn was a slim grey sliver of light between the curtains when Sophie woke. She blinked, working out where she was. There had been too many different beds lately.

  The scent of pot pourri, the remnants of last night’s fire — apple wood, Doris had said, a bit puzzled at her question. ‘Apple wood to perfume the room, though we use coal down in the kitchen, Miss Higgs. Doesn’t give a scent like this, but it’s easier.’

  A soft gong rang through the house. She counted the beats. Five am. The staff would be getting up, but it wasn’t fair to Doris to ring for breakfast or even a cup of tea for at least two hours yet, much less hot water to wash in. She’d have other duties downstairs.

  Sophie wriggled her toes onto the carpet by her bed — Miss Thwaites would have tossed it out years ago, it was so faded, but within these striped silk walls it looked beautiful — found a dress that didn’t need fastening at the back, then pulled out the drawer for fresh underwear.

  No doubt Doris would be even more alarmed by a guest who knew where to find her own underwear, who could even — at a pinch, after the weeks without a maid of her own at sea — lace her own stays, just tightly enough to be presentable, even if not to the accepted eighteen-inch standard.

  The staircase was quiet, the wide hall too, though she could hear voices back towards the kitchens. She hoped — no, she believed — this was a house that allowed the staff a cup of tea and hunks of toast and marmalade before the dusting of grates, the setting of fires, the hall-scrubbing and stair-sweeping — all the jobs done before the household appeared. (Disaster if any gentleman were to realise that stairs didn’t automatically clean themselves.)

  Jones, or a footman, must have already unlocked the front door. Or perhaps it was never locked, as they were so far out into the country. They never had the door locked at Thuringa, though of course the front door of the Sydney house was always bolted at night and locked during the day. An intelligent burglar, though, would know to come around the back, where the kitchen door was open till ‘locking up’ at ten pm.

  The air smelled of apple trees again — the fruit this time, not just the wood. A mist hung across the old stone walls, the first light sparking diamonds in the grass. Sophie cast a longing look towards the stables, but you couldn’t just ride your hostess’s horses without asking, at five in the morning.

  Instead she headed through the gardens, or the scythed grass anyway, around one wing of the house — Miss Lily’s wing, where visitors weren’t supposed to wander. Its drapes were closed, the early sunlight turning them to sightless eyes.

  At the far end of the house was a wall and a stone archway. Through that was an orchard, the source of the apple scent — she could even hear the bees in the fallen fruit — then a kitchen garden full of cabbages and Brussels sprouts and a manured ferny plot that might be asparagus, then she was into the trees. Light dappled as she walked among them, a thousand shades of gold and green. Suddenly she realised she could grow to love this country, that old stones and young grass might wriggle their way into your heart.

  The grass was longer here, holding the dew, wetting the hem of her skirt, the trees arching above her. The path led to a mown area, the scythe marks gently curving, and ended at another small lake. Short grass to picnic on, she thought. Had children ever sailed their toy boats on this lake?

  Miss Thwaites had shown her the earl in Debrett’s lists of ancestors and titles. He was forty-six, and had inherited the title from his much older brother more than twenty years before. No wife, no children. A major, retired from the army at twenty-one. A major at twenty-one! They had looked up the earl’s cousins too, but hadn’t found any, which had worried Miss Thwaites a little. Was Miss Lily perhaps separated from her husband, and had kept his surname but gone back to ‘Miss’?

  The sun glinted through the trees now, the great golden beast of Thuringa looking curiously tamed here in England. Time for breakfast. She turned back. Smoke puffed from all of the house’s six chimneys.

  The curtains had been drawn back in one of the rooms in Miss Lily’s ‘unknown wing’ — Miss Lily’s room? She wondered if anyone was watching, and suppressed an urge to wave.

  Definitely time for breakfast.

  Jones looked startled when he found her in the hallway, damp skirt brushing at her shoe tops. She handed him a bunch of small pinky-purple flowers. ‘Would you mind giving these to Cook? To thank her for the cherry cake. Tell her it was the best I’ve ever eaten.’

  ‘Certainly, Miss Higgs.’

  Did she see a twitch of his lips? No, good butlers never showed emotion. Or was that something she had to unlearn too?

  �
��The breakfast room is through there, miss. Unless you wish to change first? I will send Doris to you …’

  ‘No, I’m starving. Thank you, Jones.’

  ‘Thank you, miss.’

  She frowned as he opened the breakfast-room door for her. There had definitely been a twitch of the lips that time.

  It was a long room, smaller than any she had seen in this house so far, though still enormous. She supposed that in a climate like this, large rooms were the best way of discreetly saying, ‘Look at how rich we are — we can afford to heat all this.’ Unlike the other rooms, this had painted walls, a pale yellow. There was a fireplace on one side, the fire blazing, dark wood sideboards bearing covered silver plates, and a long table, set again for two.

  Miss Lily sat reading a letter and nibbling toast, once again with her back to the fire so it formed a glow about her hair and tinged her skin with gold, while her face was shadowed from its drying heat. She glanced up.

  ‘Good morning.’ Her eyes flickered at the damp skirt, the pullover that — bother — had a thread pulled by a twig and a few burrs at one elbow, the shoes that had left a splodge of what Sophie hoped was only leaf mould on yet another faded carpet. ‘I hope you slept well.’

  ‘Good morning, Miss Lily. Yes, wonderfully, thank you.’

  A ham with a clean pink gash across its top lay on a silver salver, next to what looked like cold pheasant, already carved. Sophie picked up a plate then lifted the covers. Steam rose from the hot water chambers. Porridge in a silver porringer. Lamb chops, with halved tomatoes nestling in their curves. A ghost of homesickness kissed her and passed on.

  She picked up more lids. Scrambled eggs, poached eggs on rounds of toast, wrinkled oval kidneys in dark brown gravy, smelling like the bull pens at the Agricultural Show, bacon laid out neatly, a dish of yellow rice with hunks of what looked like orange fish decorated with slices of hard-boiled eggs. She sniffed. Curry. ‘Is this kedgeree?’