by Rhys Bowen
“The agency charges two guineas,” I said.
“Two guineas?” She sounded shocked.
“It is a specialized service, madam, and we have to make sure our staff is the finest.”
“Of course you do.”
“And it’s probably cheaper than bringing your staff up from Hampshire.”
“Of course it is. Very well, I’ll leave the money in an envelope you’ll find when you come to strip the bed in the morning.”
I hung up the phone with a big smile of satisfaction on my face.
Now there was just the question of what I was going to wear. I went below stairs and rummaged in the servants’ cupboard until I found a suitable black housemaid’s dress and white apron. I even added a jaunty little white cap for style. I couldn’t be seen leaving Belgrave Square wearing it, of course.
I was creeping downstairs in my maid’s uniform, trying not to wake Binky, when suddenly he called to me from the library.
“Georgie, old thing, would you come in here? I thought I’d do a little research into the history of Castle Rannoch,” he said. “I thought that maybe there might be something in our family history or documents granting us peerage that states that the Glenrannoch property can never be bequeathed away from the family.”
“Good idea,” I said, standing in shadow on the stairs so that Binky wouldn’t notice what I was wearing.
“And it’s frightfully chilly in here, so I wondered, since you’re a wizard at lighting fires, whether you’d get me a small blaze going in here.”
“Sorry, old thing, but I have an appointment,” I said. “I’m just dashing out the door. You’ll have to find a scarf and gloves, I’m afraid, until I get back.”
“Confound it, Georgie, how can I be expected to turn pages with gloves on? Can’t you be a teeny bit late?” He poked his head around the door, sounding petulant. “Aren’t women supposed to be late for everything? I know Fig always is. Spends hours doing things to her eyebrows, I believe, but you always look—” He broke off when he saw me. “Why are you wearing that extraordinary garb? It looks like something the servants would wear.”
“It’s for a silly hen party, Binky,” I said breathlessly. “We’re all to come dressed as maids. One of these prewedding things, you know.”
“Oh, right. Oh, yes, I see.” He nodded. “Oh, all right then. Off you go. Have a good time and all that.”
I grabbed my overcoat to cover the maid’s uniform and fled. Outside the house I heaved a sigh of relief. That was a close one. I hadn’t thought of the problems that could be caused by having to avoid people I knew.
I did say a silent prayer, as I approached the house on Regent’s Park Crescent where I was to pick up the key, that nobody would recognize me. Luckily Regent’s Park is not quite as top drawer as Belgravia or Mayfair. Not likely to be frequented by my family and acquaintances. However, I did look around as I went up the steps and knocked on the adjoining front door. The maid looked me up and down with a look of utter disapproval, and didn’t invite me in while she summoned the housekeeper. The housekeeper opened her mouth in horror when she saw me standing there.
“What on earth were you doing, ringing the front doorbell as if you were company?” she demanded. “In this household servants use the tradesmen’s entrance.”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I didn’t see where it was.”
“Down the steps at the side, same as every house,” she said, still looking at me with disdain. “No good comes of getting ideas above your station, my girl, even if you do work for one of those fancy domestic agencies.”
She regarded me in the most patronizing manner.
“I hope you’ll do a good job for Mrs. Bantry,” she said. She spoke in that quaite, quaite exaggeratedly posh accent so often affected by the lower classes when they want to sound educated. “She has a lot of lovely things in that house. Quaite the world traveler, she and her husband, the colonel. You are from a locally hired firm, I believe.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“I hope she’s had your references checked.”
“We come highly recommended by the Lady Georgiana, sister of the Duke of Glen Garry and Rannoch,” I said, humbly surveying the milk bottles on the step.
“Oh, well, in that case . . .” She let the rest of the sentence dangle in midair. “That’s almost as good as royalty, isn’t it? I saw her once at a party, you know. A lovely young thing. Quite as pretty as her mother, who was a former actress, you know.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, deciding on the spot that her eyesight was probably defective.
“It’s my belief that the Prince of Wales should look no further,” she said, confidentially now. “It’s about time he took a bride, and a good English one is what we’d all like. Not one of these foreigners, especially not a German.”
Since my ancestry was a quarter Scottish and had a good admixture of German, I stayed silent.
“Thank you for the key,” I said. “I’ll return it tomorrow after I’ve straightened up the place.”
“Good girl.” She smiled at me in almost a kindly fashion now. “I like it when girls are well spoken. It’s all very well to make an effort to better yourself. Just don’t get those ideas above your station.”
“No, madam,” I said, and beat a hasty retreat.
I climbed the steps to the Bantry-Bynge house triumphant, with the key in my hand. First test accomplished. I turned the key and the door swung open. Second test, ditto. I stepped inside and savored the quiet of a sleeping house. A quick tour revealed that this job would be a piece of cake. The reception rooms lay swathed in dust sheets. I went up the stairs and located Mrs. B-B’s bedroom easily enough. It was all pink and white and frothy with garlands of roses on the wallpaper. Expensive perfume lingered. Very much a lady’s room. I wondered how often the colonel was invited in. I set to work, opening the windows and letting in the good, fresh air, whisking off dust sheets and shaking them out of the window. There were lots of little ornaments and crystal jars around so I was extra careful with my dusting, knowing my tendency to clumsiness. Then I found that they had a vacuum cleaner. I had never used one before but it looked like fun—and a lot less work than pushing a carpet sweeper up and down. I turned it on. It promptly raced across the carpet with me holding on for dear life and started sucking up the lace curtains. Finally I managed to turn it off before the whole curtain rod came down. Fortunately I also managed to rescue the curtain, which survived with only a slight chewing in one corner. After that I decided that the carpet sweeper might just be safer.
Then I found the linen closet and made up the bed. The sheets were trimmed with lace and smelled of roses. Finally I went down to the coal cellar, which was properly equipped with tongs and shovel this time, and laid the bedroom fire. A few weeks ago this would have been a task beyond my wildest imagination.
I was just putting the finishing touches to the room when the front doorbell rang. I had intended to be out and gone before Mrs. B-B herself showed up, but then she wouldn’t be ringing her own doorbell, would she?
I went down and opened it. A rather dashing man stood there, his hair parted in the middle and slicked down, a neat line of mustache on his upper lip. He was wearing a blue blazer and flannels, carrying a bouquet of freesia, and had a silver-tipped cane tucked under one arm.
“Hello,” he said, giving me a smile that showed too many white and even teeth. “Are you a new maid? I didn’t think she usually brought servants with her.”
“No, sir. I’m employed by a domestic service. Mrs. Bantry-Bynge hired me to open up the house and get a bedroom ready for her.”
“Did she, by jove. Excellent idea.” He attempted to come inside.
“I’m sorry, sir, but she hasn’t arrived yet,” I said, blocking his path.
“That’s all right. I expect I’ll find something to amuse myself,” he said. This time he pushed past me and took off his gloves in the hallway. “I’m Boy, by the way, and you are . . . ?”
/> “Maggie, sir,” I said, my own maid’s name being the first thing that came into my head.
“Maggie, eh?” He came rather too close to me and put a finger under my chin. “Lively little Maggie, eh? Good show. So you’ve been getting a bedroom ready, have you?”
“Yes, sir.” I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. Leering would be closer, actually.
“Why don’t you show me what a good job you’ve been doing? I hope you have done a good job, because if not, I may just have to give you a good spanking.”
His finger that had been under my chin was now tracing its way down my throat. For a second I was too shocked to react but before it reached anything crucial I leaped away. It took all my self-control not to behave as I would normally and tell him what I thought of him. In my head I was screaming that maids do not stamp on toes, kick in shins, or employ any other known method of self-defense without being dismissed on the spot. “I’ll just put these flowers in water for you, sir,” I said. “They look as if they are about to wilt.”
Then I fled in the direction of the kitchen. I had heard whispered stories about men having their way with servants, but it had never crossed my mind that this might be a hazard of my new profession. I was still in the kitchen when I heard voices and came back to find a woman in the front hall. She was on the chubby side with peroxide blond hair set in neat little waves, a lot of face makeup, and an expensive-looking fur draped around her neck. She was also surrounded by an aura of perfume. Mrs. Bantry-Bynge had arrived. Saved by the bell, I thought.
Mrs. Bantry-Bynge looked decidedly flustered. “Oh, you’re still here. I hadn’t realized. I thought—you see, I came up by an earlier train,” she gushed. “And I see my—cousin—has arrived to drive me around in his motor. Isn’t that nice? How kind of you, Boy.”
I gave what I hoped would pass as a suitable bobbed curtsy. “I’m all finished, madam,” I muttered. “Just about to go.”
“Splendid. That’s wonderful. I do hope Boy has not been—getting in your way.” The look she gave implied that he had got in the way of a great many females.
“Oh, no, madam,” I said. “I have just been putting these flowers he brought you in water.”
She took the vase from me and buried her face in them. “Freesias. How divine. You know I adore freesias. You are so sweet to me.”
She peeped at him seductively over the top of the flowers. Then she remembered I was still there.
“Thank you. You may go now. I’ve told your employer that the money will be on the bedside table when you return to strip the bed and tidy up the room tomorrow.”
“Yes, madam. I’ll just get my coat and I’ll be off then.”
I was rather worried that she might notice the coat was cashmere, but then perhaps she’d think it was a hand-me-down from a very kind former employer. As it was, she and Boy only had eyes for each other as I tiptoed past them. When I returned in the morning, the rumpled state of the bed gave me to think that a visit to the dressmaker had not featured in the trip to London at all.
Chapter 11
Rannoch House
Thursday, April 28, 1932
My next assignment, which came in the afternoon post that day, was not going to be as simple as Mrs. Bantry-Bynge’s. It was from none other than Lady Featherstonehaugh (pronounced “Fanshaw,” to the uninitiated), the parent of one Roderick Featherstonehaugh, usually known as Whiffy, with whom I had danced at debutante balls and who had been best man at last week’s wedding. They were coming up to town for a few days, arriving on Sunday, bringing staff with them, but would like the place aired out and dusted first, fires laid ready to be lit and hot water bottles placed in Sir William and Lady Featherstonehaugh’s bedrooms. Their son, Roderick, might be joining them if he could get time off from his regiment, but this was unlikely. I was remarkably glad that it was unlikely. I had no wish to bump into Whiffy when I was in full cleaning mode. Bumping into Binky had been bad enough, but he was easy to fool. I couldn’t think how I’d explain myself away to someone stiff and correct like Whiffy Featherstonehaugh. Regent’s Park was one thing. I could pass there without being recognized, but I knew practically everyone who lived in Eaton Place.
Binky moped around the house, sunk in gloom, and I couldn’t think of anything to cheer him up. Because, frankly, the news was not reassuring. The document was deemed to be genuine and Binky started questioning whether it would be too-too awful to claim that Father had been off his rocker for years. “He did always have that rubber duck in his bathtub, didn’t he?” he demanded. “That’s not normal, is it? And remember when he took up Eastern meditation and stood on his head?”
“Lots of people stand on their heads,” I said. “And it is well known that all aristocrats are eccentric.”
“I’m not eccentric,” Binky said hotly.
“Binky, you go around the estate talking to the trees. I’ve heard you.”
“Well, that’s just common sense. Things grow better when you talk to them.”
“I rest my case,” I said. “And you’d have to prove that Father was practically foaming at the mouth before the court would say he was too incompetent to sign that document.”
“He did foam at the mouth once,” Binky said hopefully.
“When he swallowed that piece of soap on a bet.”
Binky sighed.
He was normally such a cheery soul and I hated to see him like this, but I couldn’t think of anything I could do. It even crossed my mind that I might borrow a vampish dress from Belinda and try to seduce de Mauxville, thus obtaining the document from him in the heat of passion. But frankly I didn’t think I’d be very good at it.
Friday morning I set out for Eaton Place, my black servant’s uniform disguised under my cashmere coat, my cap tucked into my pocket to be put on at the last minute. I scurried down into the tradesmen’s entrance and put on my cap before I turned the key I had been given and let myself in.
I stood in a cavernous entry hall, decorated with the heads of hunted African beasts and the odd ceremonial spear. Once inside, my enthusiasm waned. The house was even bigger than our London place and it was full of objects brought back from generations of army postings around the world. I’m sure some of them were valuable and even attractive in their own way, but they were on every surface—curved daggers, ebony masks, statues, jade elephants, carved ivory goddesses—all highly breakable, by the look of them. There were walls full of paintings, mostly of great battles. There were regimental flags, glass-topped tables full of medals, and swords of all kinds of shapes hanging everywhere. The Featherstonehaughs had clearly been a military family of distinction for generations—which explained why Whiffy was in the Guards. There was enough to keep me dusting all day. I went from room to room, wondering if they needed all the large formal rooms on the ground floor opened up, or whether the pretty little drawing room on the first floor would do just as well for a short visit.
There was a vast fireplace at the far end of a ballroom-sized main reception room and I said a silent prayer of thanks that they hadn’t wanted that one laid. On every wall there were crossed swords, shields, even suits of armor. It seemed that the Featherstonehaughs had been killing people successfully for quite a few generations.
I went upstairs and was relieved to find the bedrooms were not equally full of artifacts, in fact were rather austere. I was about to start on the bedrooms when I heard a tap dripping in a bathroom. I looked inside and was not thrilled with what I saw. The bathtub had a disgusting black line around it. There were several towels dropped in a heap on the floor and the loo was also not the cleanest. That dripping tap in the basin had left a trail of lime. If this is how they leave their house, I thought, then they don’t deserve a good cleaning. Then it occurred to me that someone might actually have been living in the house, and that someone might be Whiffy. I crept from room to room until I was satisfied I was in the house alone.
Then my pride and conscience got the better of me. I didn’t want them to th
ink I did shoddy work. I set to attacking that disgusting bathroom. I picked up the towels and disposed of them into a laundry hamper. I scrubbed at the basin; I even got down on my knees and attacked the ring around the bathtub. But as for sticking my hand down someone else’s lavatory . . . there were limits, after all. In the end I found a brush hanging up behind a door. I tied a cloth around this and, standing suitably far away and averting my eyes, I gave the toilet bowl a quick going-over. Afterward I hurriedly dropped the offending cloth into the nearest rubbish bin and hung up the bath brush as if nothing had happened. It was only as I replaced it on its hook that it occurred to me that it was probably hung there to scrub the hard-to-reach parts of someone’s back. Oh, dear. They need never know what it had been used for, I decided.
