Justine Elyot

by Secretsand Lords

  He shook his head vigorously.

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  Giles held up his hand, excusing himself mutely before running off in the opposite direction.

  Edie squared herself, ready for any line of questioning that might be fired at her on her return. As it happened, she needn’t have bothered.

  The moment she set foot in the building, cook cried, ‘Thank God you’re here, Mrs Munn needs a word.’

  She hurried to the office, grateful for the absence of Ted, and was told that a staffing crisis had arisen due to two more maids falling foul of the contagion that had laid Carrie low. It was her evening off, Mrs Munn understood that well, but would she consider rendering assistance?

  ‘It’s all hands on deck, I’m afraid,’ said Mrs Munn with a sigh.

  ‘Oh, of course. I don’t have any other plans. I’ll go and get into my uniform, shall I?’

  ‘Thank you. I’m very much obliged, Edie.’

  ***

  The shoot dinner was large and involved a great deal of lifting and fetching and carrying and pouring. Jenny and the others seemed to have suspended hostilities, all of them sympathetic to her having to work on her evening off.

  ‘Rotten luck,’ whispered Jenny. ‘Where did you go? We saw Ted come back.’

  ‘Just walked into town and went to the film by myself,’ lied Edie, uncomfortable at the necessary deception.

  Jenny seemed to accept this, which suggested that Ted had not mentioned being sent ignominiously back to the house by Charles. She wondered if he had returned only to be told that Charles was lying about him being needed. That would land her in hot water, she thought. Ted was no fool.

  It was a challenge to work in the same room as Charles, but she avoided his eye and kept to the far end of the table, serving jolly and rather drink-reddened old gentlemen their beef Wellington and their port. If he looked at her, she tried not to notice.

  ‘Where did you go, Charles?’ she heard Lady Deverell’s ringing tones enquire. She felt herself weaken all over immediately, her heart fluttering at the potential danger. ‘You were very much missed.’

  ‘I told you, I wasn’t sure I was up to it,’ he said. ‘You know how I am around gunshots these days. I’m sorry to bring it up, but it was you who raised the subject.’

  There was a general murmur, sympathetic in tone, and somebody changed the conversation to talk of a forthcoming hunt ball.

  It was a relief to Edie when she was allowed to leave the room and return to the kitchen. Being so close to Charles was a special kind of torture and she was headachey with the tension of it as she sat down at the long trestle and helped herself from trays full of leftovers.

  She had barely bitten into a smoked salmon pinwheel when Ted sat down beside her, making her stuff the food into her mouth more quickly than she had intended.

  ‘Nice afternoon?’ he asked, a little sourly.

  ‘Nicer if you’d been there,’ she said, after swallowing the food rather uncomfortably.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I wish you hadn’t had to come back.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You didn’t? You didn’t come back?’

  ‘No. I didn’t have to come back. His Lordship didn’t need me.’

  Edie looked at him with what she hoped mimicked incomprehension.

  ‘So why were you sent back?’

  ‘I thought you might know the answer to that.’

  She shook her head.

  He popped a miniature choux bun in his mouth. It seemed to lift his mood.

  ‘Ah, well, all’s not lost,’ he said. ‘It’s a nice evening, after all that rain. Come out for a walk with me in the gardens.’

  ‘Are we … is it permitted?’

  She thought of the footman, who had chased the cat through the rhododendrons. Presumably it was not forbidden then. All the same, she very much wanted to avoid being alone with Ted in a situation that might be observable from the main house. If she broke Charles Deverell’s conditions, what then?

  ‘Of course, you noodle,’ he said cheerfully. ‘If we stick to the parts nearest the kitchen. Come on, eat up.’

  ‘I’m ravenous,’ she said.

  ‘What did you do for lunch?’

  ‘Had to buy myself a pork pie. Ate it next to the river.’

  Half-true.

  ‘The river, eh?’

  ‘Yes. It’s lovely there, isn’t it?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  They both ate, stolidly and silently, for a few more minutes before Edie felt her appetite was sated.

  On the way out to the garden door, Edie told Mrs Fingall that she was sorry to hear about the lost steak.

  Fingall looked utterly confounded.

  ‘D’you what, dear? Lost steak?’

  ‘Yes – the cat, you know.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know about any steak, but you’ve lost me.’

  ‘Oh. No matter.’

  Outside on the gravel that paved the herb garden, Ted was curious.

  ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘I saw Giles earlier, coming out of a shrubbery, looking quite dishevelled. He told me he’d been chasing a cat that stole a steak. I suppose perhaps he didn’t tell Mrs Fingall, though surely she’d have missed it?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ted. ‘Giles.’ The way he said it, as if a long-held suspicion had been wearyingly confirmed, made Edie glance at him with kindled interest.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘It ain’t for me to say. And I don’t want to go upsetting you with rumours.’

  ‘What rumours?’

  ‘Like I said, none of my business.’

  Edie stopped and bent to take in a blissful lungful of basil.

  ‘This is a house of rumours,’ she said. ‘I’ve hardly been here five minutes and already I know of several.’

  ‘There’s rumours about you,’ said Ted. He put a hand on her elbow. She couldn’t move.

  ‘What nonsense,’ she said, straightening up, spine stiff. ‘Rumours are what people discuss when there’s nothing to talk about. Idleness and boredom, that’s all.’

  ‘Not much scope to be idle and bored in the servants’ hall, Edie.’

  ‘No, but when one’s whole life revolves around bowing and scraping to a handful of people, those people have to carry the weight of all the wild imaginations of the servant girls combined.’

  ‘How you do talk. You want to write a book, you do.’

  ‘Perhaps I shall.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know what they are? The rumours, I mean.’

  ‘I’m not remotely interested.’

  Edie tossed her head and began to walk swiftly up the path, towards the vegetable beds.

  Ted dogged her footsteps.

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ he said. ‘Don’t go all high and mighty on me.’

  She turned, trying to hold herself at indignant full height.

  ‘Then don’t bother me with vile gossip,’ she said. ‘I won’t hear it. I daresay it’s all come from Jenny and I know what she says, and she’s quite, quite mistaken.’

  ‘All right, all right. I’m sorry. Come and sit in the summerhouse. It’ll calm you down.’

  The summerhouse was pleasant, a little damp-smelling after the recent wet weather, but surrounded by velvety roses, foxgloves and sweet williams, all the more lush and brilliant from the rain.

  ‘You’ve gone absolutely bright red,’ said Ted softly with a rueful little smile. ‘You didn’t need to get in such a passion, you know. I’m your friend – I don’t deserve to be shouted at.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to shout. I just hate all this silly tittle-tattle. All I want is to work hard and fit in, and nobody will let me.’

  ‘They’re jealous of you.’

  ‘I can’t think why.’

  ‘Because just look at you! You’re a stunner, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be …’

  ‘And – don’t take this the wrong way – but everyone says as how Si
r Charles can’t take his eyes off you.’

  Edie buried her face in her hands.

  ‘Stop it,’ she begged. ‘I don’t want to think of it.’

  ‘Hey.’ Ted curled his fingers around hers and prised them away from her skin. ‘Look. What did he do to you?’

  ‘Don’t …’

  ‘Today. He came after you, I know that. It was nothing to do with me being wanted at the house. So …’

  ‘He didn’t do anything. He drove off and I didn’t see him again.’

  ‘He didn’t try it on? Oh, pull the other one, Edie, it’s got bells on.’

  ‘If you’re determined to call me a liar …’

  Edie stood, brushing off her skirts, her hands shaking with anger and anxiety.

  ‘No, for God’s sake, Edie, I don’t mean to –’

  But it was a golden opportunity to stalk away and out of this uncomfortable conversation, and she knew she had to seize it. However much she wanted to stay and talk to Ted. However much she wanted to blurt the whole ridiculous situation out to somebody.

  But there was not a soul she could tell, apart from the God she only half-believed in. She settled for that, recounting the events in her head as she lay looking up at the sloping ceiling in the dormitory.

  But then she had to break off as she remembered the touch of Charles’s lips, the feel of his hands at her breast. God would not want to know about that, surely.

  When would it be? When would she go to him and give herself? How would it be, to be naked in front of him? What would he say? What would he do?

  She tormented and tantalised herself with these thoughts until they unwound into sleep, where they re-emerged in dreams, shockingly erotic or terrifying.

  * * *

  Three days passed, the house full of visitors staying over from the shooting party. There was no opportunity for furtive meetings or even a swift whispered exchange. Charles drove the guests all over the county, or played tennis or croquet with them, or took them fishing on the lake.

  Edie waxed floors and polished mantels and watched through the windows.

  Ted apologised for his remarks and they reached a cautious rapprochement, though she did her utmost to avoid being alone with him. He was busy, for the most part, ferrying house guests about, and they met only at the supper and breakfast tables.

  Edie drudged and slept and dreamed and kept herself as invisible as she could but on the third day she had to serve at a grand banquet with dancing and watch Charles Deverell squiring a beautiful young woman in jet beads around the floor. He was a good dancer but a better flirt. The woman, whoever she was, was clearly very taken with him.

  But when the dance ended, he uttered some words of excuse or apology and left her looking after him as he walked out.

  Where was he going? She couldn’t, of course, follow him – she was circulating amongst the guests with a silver tray of champagne cocktails – but to her dismay she noticed Lady Deverell leave in the same direction minutes later.

  Her stomach leaden, she tried to accept that Charles was going to break his word and everything was over. At least she would keep her virginity. But that did not seem much of a consolation at all – more like a disappointment.

  There were the beginnings of tears in her eyes and thoughts of catching the morning train to London on her mind when a voice in her ear behind her said, ‘Is one of those for me?’

  Charles.

  She jerked forward so suddenly that the glasses fell from the tray, crashing in crystalline splintery puddles on to the floor. A fuss of tutting and exclamation erupted from the nearest guests.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, all my fault,’ said Charles to all and sundry. ‘I crept up behind her. It was silly of me.’

  ‘I’ll fetch a dustpan and brush,’ said Edie, all but running from the scene, away down to the kitchen.

  Mrs Munn was not best pleased.

  ‘Careless,’ she clucked, as Edie, on her hands and knees, swept the fragments up. ‘And clumsy. The best Waterford crystal. It’ll all have to be replaced.’

  ‘I’ll take care of it,’ said Charles, who lounged nearby looking devilish and mouth-watering in his white tie and tails. ‘Don’t worry. It was my fault.’

  Mrs Munn did not seem remotely mollified by this; if anything, it made her even crosser.

  ‘You can get back to the kitchen, young woman,’ she said to Edie. ‘You’ve done quite enough damage for one evening.’

  ‘Oh, let her stay,’ remonstrated Charles, and Edie felt a prickle of discomfort. He shouldn’t be drawing attention like this. Lady Deverell cut through the brilliantly sequinned crowd and stood beside Charles.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Just a minor breakage,’ said Charles. ‘I’m to blame, but this poor girl seems to be catching it.’

  ‘You’re to blame?’

  ‘I crept up behind her, jogged her elbow. It was an accident.’

  ‘You’re such a beast,’ said Lady Deverell, and there was real venom in her words.

  ‘I’ve never pretended otherwise.’

  ‘Come on, Edie, downstairs, now.’

  Mrs Munn shepherded her away. She was not ungrateful to be away from such intense scrutiny but all the same she couldn’t help wondering what Charles had been about to say when he made his startling appearance. Was tonight going to be the night?

  Not any more.

  * * *

  At breakfast the next morning, Mrs Munn had a face to sour the milk.

  The atmosphere at the table was subdued, with much yawning after the previous late night. The last guests had not retired until three, and somebody had had to clear up after them.

  ‘Everyone’s leaving after breakfast,’ said Jenny, stirring her porridge with a listless hand. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘No more big events for a few weeks,’ said the butler briskly. ‘Well done, everyone. You did Deverell Hall proud.’

  A few eyes turned, swiftly and surreptitiously, to Edie, as if to say What about her? But nobody said anything.

  After breakfast, Mrs Munn rose and said, ‘Edie, I’d like to see you in my office, please.’

  Panic twisted inside her, shortening her breath.

  She followed Mrs Munn out of the kitchen, hearing susurrations at her back. Rumours, gossip. Was she going to be sacked?

  She sat opposite, waiting for the death knell to sound.

  ‘I don’t know how to put this,’ opened Mrs Munn.

  Yes, definitely the sack, then, though she couldn’t imagine Mrs Munn finding the words that hard to speak.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry about the crystal,’ she blurted in mitigation.

  ‘Never mind the crystal, that’s not what I want to talk to you about.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘No. I’ve had a rather unusual request, from Lady Deverell.’

  Edie bristled, feeling goose pimples rise on her skin.

  ‘Lady Deverell?’ she whispered.

  ‘She seems to have taken a fancy to you. She wants you to be her lady’s maid.’

  ‘She …?’

  ‘Yes, it’s highly irregular. I’ve explained that you have no experience in that role and can barely manage parlourmaid duties but …’

  She made a strange whistling sound, which was presumably meant to indicate the mysterious whims of the grand and great.

  ‘Does she not already have a maid?’

  ‘Indeed she does! And a very good one. Poor Sylvie, what is she to do?’

  Edie was lost for words. She felt she ought to turn the job down but, for one thing, she was not sure she could if Lady Deverell wanted her and, for another, it was a marvellous and unexpected gift, a huge step towards achieving what she had come here for.

  Unlucky Sylvie, yes – but if she knew the real state of things, perhaps she might be able to look upon her demotion with a little less rancour.

  ‘What should I do, Mrs Munn?’

  ‘Do? What a question. You have no choice in the matter. If Lady Deverell wants
you, then she must have you. Go and remove your belongings from the dormitory. You will have a room of your own, upstairs from Her Ladyship’s.’

  ‘A room of my own?’

  ‘Yes, and of course you have seen that Sylvie’s uniform is of better quality material that what you are wearing now. It need not be so hard-wearing. You will take your meals in here with me and you will not mix with the other servants except on special occasions.’

  ‘Did Lady Deverell … say anything? I mean, did she say why?’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea. Now do go and pack your things. I suppose I have an advertisement to draft.’

  ***

  Edie took each step on the long climb to the servants’ quarters slowly, to counteract the mad gallop of her mind.

  Why on earth had Lady Deverell asked for her? Did she know something? What could she know?

  Exhilaration was tempered by fear. She had no idea how to be a lady’s maid. She would have to do her hair – how could she possibly manage? She would fail and then she would be thrown out. But before that happened, perhaps she and Lady Deverell would forge a friendship, a relationship. How wonderful that would be.

  She packed her few possessions back into the bag she had brought, then carried it down to Mrs Munn’s office.

  ‘Order of the boot?’ asked Giles, with polite sympathy, as she passed him on the stairs.

  ‘No, quite the opposite – promotion,’ she told him.

  ‘Promotion? Really? You’ve only been here five minutes.’

  ‘I don’t understand myself, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Who’re you taking over from?’

  ‘Sylvie.’

  He whistled and then stood with his mouth open for so long that Edie felt the need to escape.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ she said, hurrying down again. ‘Ask Her Ladyship.’

  ***

  Mrs Munn, her face grimly set, led her to Lady Deverell’s rooms in the East Wing, then up a level to the floor overhead, where the rooms were smaller and mostly unoccupied.

  ‘This is your room,’ she said, opening the door.

  Inside, Sylvie sat on the bed, sobbing loudly. An open valise half-filled with belongings thrown higgledy-piggledy lay on the floor.

  ‘Oh.’ Edie turned to Mrs Munn in distress. ‘Surely there must be some time for Sylvie to …’