by Anna Jacobs
Left alone with Mabel, Annie let out her breath in a long whoosh. “Oh, Mabel, I’ll never do it!”
“You’d better! She won’t keep you on at all if you don’t. She can be a right bitch. Doctor said I was to rest, but she says there isn’t time.”
Annie was shocked by this disrespect towards the mistress. Then she noticed that Mabel was swaying on her feet and looking as white as chalk. “Look, you sit down an’ tell me what to do. You look awful!”
“I feel awful,” Mabel admitted. “The doctor said I should stay in bed for a day or two, but she said the least I could do was to train you as a replacement, and I could rest once she’d gone. You’d think I done it on purpose! You’ll have to watch your step with her, I can tell you. She likes everything just so, does the mistress. I’m used to her nasty little ways, but you’re going to have trouble if you don’t keep on your toes.”
As Annie cleared up and prepared Mrs Lewis’s room and clothes under Mabel’s direction, they discussed her duties. There were so many things to learn that Annie’s head was soon spinning and she quickly became convinced that she would never remember half her instructions.
In the afternoon the sewing-woman came and Annie had to try on the dresses whilst Mrs Lewis and the woman discussed what alterations would be necessary. Annie was greatly embarrassed at having to undress in front of her mistress and a stranger, and blushed furiously. She kept her eyes on the floor and let the discussion about how the ornamentation on the dresses should be reduced in keeping with her station flow over her head.
“You’re the lucky one!” Mabel said enviously when it was all over and the woman had taken the dresses away.
“What do you mean?”
“Gettin’ all them dresses. She must want to make a good impression on that friend of hers. A real old skinflint, she is! Not that it’s costin’ her much to give you the things. She’s got cupboards full of old stuff like that. Never parts with anything till it falls to pieces, she don’t!”
“I can’t believe that they’ll be mine,” Annie confessed, still in a state of shock.
“You’ll earn ’em,” said Mabel cynically. “She’ll make sure of that.”
“If she’s so bad, why do you stay with her?”
Mabel shrugged. “I dunno. I’ve learned a lot from her. Maybe one day I’ll be able to get a job as a lady’s maid. You’ve got to give the devil his due – her due, I should say – she teaches you to do things proper an’ she’s got style.”
They both fell silent as footsteps were heard on the stairs. Mrs Lewis swept back in. “Shoes,” she announced. “And gloves.” She allowed her calm façade to crack and her impatience to show as both maids looked at her in puzzlement.
“Oh, don’t stand there like a pair of idiots! There’s so much to do! Show me your shoes, Annie!”
Annie lifted her skirts and looked down at her feet, encased in the soft felt-soled slippers all the servants wore about the house.
“Not those! Are you quite stupid? Get out your outdoor shoes! And be quick about it!”
Resentfully Annie obeyed and stood there fuming while Annabelle scornfully examined her footwear, all of which had been repaired many times.
“Terrible! You can’t possibly be seen in those things! They’re more suitable for a farm labourer. Fetch a pair of my old shoes, Mabel. The child’s feet don’t look too big, unlike yours.”
Annie was presented with a pair of Mrs Lewis’s old shoes and two pairs of real leather indoor slippers. She hadn’t realised how alike she and her mistress were in size. It made her hold her head higher and helped her to put up with the acid remarks aimed at her later by Mabel, when even Mrs Lewis’s old gloves fitted her perfectly.
“I hope you realise what a lucky girl you are,” Annabelle told Annie. “And don’t let these new things go to your head! You’re only getting them because I can’t be seen with a maid dressed like a skivvy!”
The worst thing about becoming Mrs Lewis’s maid was giving her a bath. Annie didn’t believe it at first when Mabel told her she would have to wash the mistress’s back and hold her towel and help her to dry herself.
“It’s not decent!” she gasped. “I can’t do it! I’ll die of embarrassment!”
“Get on with you,” said Mabel. “She’s only a woman, same as you an’ me. But take care you don’t stare at her. An’ be sure the towel is properly warmed.”
The ordeal took place at five o’clock in the afternoon, with Mrs Lewis sitting in a hip-bath in front of the bedroom fire. A red-faced Annie tried to remember all Mabel’s instructions and, apart from dropping the soap, she didn’t do too badly. It seemed wrong, somehow, seeing the mistress mother naked, but, as Mabel had said, she was only a woman, wasn’t she? It was the first time Annie had really realised that employers were not a different species.
Annie’s fingers were trembling when first she started to do Mrs Lewis’s hair, but that too went off better than she’d expected. Really, if you forgot it was the mistress, it wasn’t much different from doing Ellie’s hair. Her fingers gradually grew steadier and she managed to achieve the desired effect. She even had time to wish Matt could see her now. He’d be that proud of how she was coping!
At last the interminable day was over and Annie was free to collapse into bed next to Ellie and discuss her news.
“Aren’t you scared?” Ellie asked. “I would be. She fair terrifies me!”
“She does me, too,” admitted Annie, “but it’s a big chance, isn’t it? We’ll be travelling most of the way by mail-coach. We get off to stop the night in Leicester, because she says it isn’t ladylike to travel by night in the company of strange gentlemen.”
“What she means is that she wants a proper night’s sleep,” said Ellie cynically, and they both giggled.
“Just think of it, though! I’ve never even been to Manchester and now I’ll be seeing both London and Brighton.”
“They say you go faster than the wind on that mail-coach,” said Ellie. “Up to sixteen miles an hour. It doesn’t sound safe to me.”
“Oh, it must be, because she would never risk it if it wasn’t.” They both giggled again. “Dr Lewis said I’d be seeing the sea, too,” Annie went on. “Just fancy!” Years later she was to marvel at her own seventeen-year-old ignorance; now it was all new and exciting, though frightening too.
“Oooh, you are lucky!” Ellie sighed. “I’d give anything to see the sea.”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I come back.”
“I’ll miss you!”
“I’ll miss you, too, Ellie.”
They squeezed each other’s hands across the bed. Living and working together had only strengthened the bond between them.
“Will you – will you tell Matt for me an’ give him a letter?” whispered Annie. “I shan’t be able to see him before I go. I daren’t ask her for time off. She’d throw a fit.”
“Of course I’ll tell him.”
“Thanks. I knew you would.” Annie yawned hugely. “I’ll have to get to sleep now. I’m that tired and there are so many things to do tomorrow.”
She fell asleep and dreamed of the adventure to come, of travelling on a mail-coach, going to London, then far away from Bilsden to the seaside. Would the sea look like the pictures the doctor had shown her in one of his books? Would she really be able to touch it?
9
August to September 1837
The journey south, though it was exciting, was also exhausting. Annie travelled inside the coach, because Mrs Lewis said she’d be no use to anyone if she caught her death of cold riding outside. When Annie saw how high up the roof of the coach was, and how precariously the passengers were perched there, she was grateful for this concern. Even with the night spent in Leicester, she found the journey very wearing. White-faced, her head aching and her stomach churning from the jolting, she struggled to do all that her mistress demanded when they stopped and when they arrived in London. She was determined to give satisfaction.
; Annabelle, shrewdly watching her new maid and seeing more than Annie realised, decided that the girl would just possibly do. She had a long way to go, of course, and a lot to learn, but she was quick and deft, far better than Mabel had been at first. And she looked so much better now she was properly dressed, quite respectable, in fact. What a difference clothes made! It might even be worth training her to be solely a lady’s maid, for Annabelle had decided that she needed a servant of her very own, whatever it cost. Mabel was very willing, of course, but she was slow, painfully slow, and she looked so common, with that big red face of hers and that awful frizzy hair.
To Annie, London was like another world. She got lost in the nether regions of the hotel and she was outraged by the familiarities attempted by the young male servants she encountered, though not too outraged to slap the face of one fellow, who dared to lay his hands on her.
“ ’Ere, what did you do that for?” he demanded, in genuine surprise, nursing a stinging cheek.
“What did I do that for? What do you think? To teach you to keep your hands to yourself, that’s what!”
“Only ’avin’ a bit of fun,” he grumbled.
“Well, you’d better save your fun next time for someone who appreciates it, hadn’t you?” she told him, nose in the air.
“Bleedin’ right, I will! I wouldn’t be seen dead with a red- ’eaded scrag like you!”
Best of all were the London shops. Annie was expected to accompany her mistress everywhere to carry the parcels. They did a lot of walking, but they sometimes took one of the new hansom cabs. Annie wondered if they were safe the first time she saw one, with only two wheels and the driver perched up high behind the passengers, and she felt embarrassed to be sitting so close to Mrs Lewis, but she soon got used to everything.
The fashionable hours for shopping, Mrs Lewis informed her, were from two to four in the afternoon, and, of course, Mrs Lewis made a point of spending those hours in fashionable places, such as Regent Street. She might have no acquaintances among the ton, she said to Annie, but one could learn a great deal about how things were done by simply looking and listening. However, Mrs Lewis’s real shopping was done at other times of the day, when the fashionable people were not present, and she knew a surprising number of unfashionable shops where you could get things at more reasonable prices.
After their outings, Mrs Lewis came home and made sketches of gowns or mantles or bonnet trimmings which had appealed to her particularly. No detail was too small for her serious attention. Annie, whom she kept with her at all times for company, watched wistfully and admired the drawings with such whole-hearted enthusiasm that her mistress’s amazing good-humour continued. Mrs Lewis shopping in London, Annie found, was a very different person from Mrs Lewis fretting in Bilsden.
The first modiste’s they visited astonished Annie so much that Annabelle had to hiss at her to stop gaping and to mind where she was going.
“Sorry, ma’am!” Annie tried to make herself as unobtrusive as possible behind a large potted fern on a stand while she watched her mistress being attended to. It was hard to believe you were in a shop at all, for no goods were on display. Soft carpets and a few pieces of elegant furniture made it look more like a lady’s drawing-room.
And the person attending to Mrs Lewis’s needs seemed more like a lady than a shopkeeper or seamstress. After a few moments of discreet conversation, the modiste rang a little silver bell and a young woman glided into the room. A whispered command and she glided out again, to return a few minutes later, accompanied by another young woman, both of them reverently carrying several partly-completed gowns. These were spread out for Annabelle’s inspection. Two she rejected instantly and they were whisked away. The others she examined more closely. Eventually she chose two and was led into a small dressing-room to try them on.
Annie was summoned to help her out of her clothes and stood in a corner ready to help while Mrs Lewis twisted and turned before a large gilt-framed mirror, before eventually deciding to purchase one of the gowns. Then she had to have it fitted properly, for some of the seams were only tacked together. Annie watched everything open-mouthed. The assistants drifted in and out, bringing more gowns, bolts of material and selections of braid and trimmings. It was nearly an hour before Annabelle emerged again, followed obsequiously by the owner.
“I’ll have the blue gown sent round to your hotel by tomorrow afternoon, madam. And the other will be ready for fitting the day after.”
“See that you keep to that!” said Annabelle sharply. “I’ll want the gown finished and sent down to Brighton by the end of the week.”
“Oh, certainly, madam.”
Annie hadn’t realised that they were to spend so long in London, but Annabelle was in her element and making the most of every hour. The next two days were a blur of visits to shops and warehouses. Little was purchased in the elegant, expensive shops, but much was inspected. In the process both Annabelle and her maid were brought completely up to date on all the latest fashions and Annabelle succumbed to a delightful new parasol, which was jointed to fold up small when not required, and to a babet cap whose frills framed her face most becomingly, did Annie not think? Again, Annie’s enthusiasm was in no way feigned and Annabelle purred beneath the admiration of her maid. After visiting the more expensive shops, they would visit the bargain bazaars and purchase cheaper imitations of high fashion.
At one such bazaar, Annie plucked up the courage to ask if she might please buy a length of ribbon to trim up her own best dress and Annabelle, sated with her orgy of purchasing, unbent enough to offer advice and explain why a certain shade would be preferable to bring out the best in Annie’s dress and hair.
“I remember the dress you mean,” she said graciously. “An excellent choice for someone with your colouring. In fact, for a servant, your taste is remarkable, unlike your friend Ellie, who seems to have a lamentable penchant for trimming her garments with red, regardless of their basic colour.”
Annie couldn’t help smiling. “Ellie does like to brighten things up, ma’am.”
“So I have noticed. Who makes your best clothes, Annie?”
“I do, ma’am. My mother taught me to sew. I like sewing.”
“You do a good job.” Another point in Annie’s favour. A maid who was good with her needle could save her mistress a lot of money.
Four days later they left London. The journey to Brighton was shorter and much less tiring than the journey from the north, for the coach was well-sprung and the roads well-maintained. Annie couldn’t believe the amount of traffic they met on the way, private carriages, sporting vehicles driven by dashing young men, farm carts, drays and men on horseback. The journey only took just over five hours, with a short cab ride at the end of it.
When they saw the sea, Annie gasped aloud at its vastness. “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am! Only I didn’t know it would be so big!”
Annabelle laughed indulgently, relaxed and happy to be back in her beloved Brighton. She’d stood the journey and the gruelling days of shopping much better than Annie had, amazingly well, Annie thought, for a woman who made such a great play of her delicate health. “That’s all right. It is the first time you’ve seen it, after all. And dear Brighton cannot fail to please!”
Mrs Dwight’s house was a bit of a disappointment to Annie after the London hotel. She’d been expecting something far grander and certainly not a house in a terrace. To her, rich people always lived in separate houses; terraces and rows were for poorer people, those who had to work for a living. Mind, this wasn’t like the terraces she knew. It was a great sweeping curve of houses, built of stone and three full storeys high, with half basements below that and attic bedrooms crammed above under the roofs.
Perhaps things were done differently in the south, she thought. They certainly looked different. Everything was so clean! Even the air you breathed tasted fresher. And it was nice not to have tall mill chimneys wherever you looked, pouring out their black smoke. Maybe when she and Matt were wed, they
could live a bit out of the town. Anywhere but Salem Street and the Rows!
“Come along, girl! What’s the matter with you? This is no time to daydream!”
Annie followed her mistress into the house, clutching the travelling bag which contained necessities for the journey. Mrs Lewis, after embracing her dear Barbara, was swept away into the sitting-room. She tossed back a casual command to Annie to see that the luggage was taken upstairs and to start the unpacking.
Annie eyed the elegant parlourmaid they’d left her with and waited for her to speak.
“I’ll send the boy to help the cab driver with the luggage.” She looked down her nose at Annie and moved towards a flight of steps.
Annoyed by her tone, Annie put her chin up. “Are there signposts, or do I have to guess which is Mrs Lewis’s room?”
“I’ll send the chambermaid up to show you the way.”
“Thank you so much!”
The chambermaid came panting up the kitchen stairs almost immediately, followed by a boy, who stared at Annie, pulled a face at her and then vanished out of the front door.
“I’m Patsy,” said the girl, smiling in a friendly way, “though she always calls me Patricia. Come on, I’ll show you where to go. What’s your name?”
“Annie. Annie Gibson.”
“Here, give me one of those bags. You look tired.”
“I am,” Annie admitted. “Those coaches make your head ache after a bit. And Mrs Lewis never stopped shopping in London. My feet are still aching from it.”
“They’re all as bad. I went up to London with her once. I hated it! And dirty! I never saw anywhere as dirty. Glad to come back to Brighton, I was, I can tell you!”
They went up the stairs to the first floor. “She’s put your Mrs Lewis in the spare front bedroom. See, this door here.”
