Euphemia and the Unexpected Enchantment: The Fentons Book 3

by Alicia Cameron

  But why? Maximum impact - that was Mr Curlew’s style. The trouble was that she had given herself away. Before him her demeanour had always been utterly detached. He had delighted in showing off his little cruelties to his wife and Francine had done no more than look bored. Any comforting or conversation between lady and maid had occurred when her husband was out of the house, and his man and spy, Stepping, was far away. But one evening when her ladyship had come home from a ball wearing his bruises on her arms she had passionately cast her arms around her maid and Francine held her, stroking her hair. But the master had followed and burst in, and Francine saw her downfall in his eyes. There must be no place of refuge for his silly little wife. He would plot the most painful time for her sacking.

  In this moment, Francine must take care of herself. She hailed taxi, and Gilbert the footman, who had run from the back of the house, now opened the door for her.

  ‘Sorry Frankie.’

  ‘Chin up, Gilbert.’

  He pressed something into her hand, ‘From her ladyship!’

  She grasped his hand a little, ‘Look after her, but don’t do anything imprudent. Tell her I will be fine.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll write you a recommendation. Not to worry. I’ll get it to you, if you let me know where you’ll be.’

  ‘Don’t let her do that. He is waiting and watching for her to slip up.’

  ‘Then what will you do? Cast off without a character …’

  ‘Get back in before they notice, Gilbert.’ He handed her the little hatbox that was all she had had time to pack.

  ‘I’ll pack your box and send it on to you. Best send your direction care of the Dutton’s man. He’ll pass it to me.’

  ‘Gilbert – I do believe there is more of the spy in you than I thought. Go or he’ll have you, too,’ Francine laughed.

  She gave the cabbie the direction of a respectable hotel at the edge of the West End, and she saw his surprise. He’d grasped that she’d been turned off and no doubt wondered why she would spend her limited resources on an overpriced hotel, fit for quality.

  Francine opened her palm. There was a hastily written note - I’m so sorry, what will I do without you? - wrapped around a very generous three guineas. This would take care of two weeks in the hotel at least and by then she would have marshalled her forces.

  Francine was aware that she, like her sad lady, was supposed to feel prostrate at this time. But she had never seen the world as others did. To be laid off without a character was the worst fate to befall a maid, it could begin an ever decreasing spiral into destitution, and death. But Francine would never be destitute. She had some powder in her little reticule, in a twist of dark blue paper that ensured that. Life could bring surprises, and in the gambles to come she may lose, but there was always the possibility of oblivion before destitution.

  Some saw this as sin, punishable by Hell. But Francine knew that Hell was on this earth, not another.

  In her dark past, she had known the destitution of her mother and had no intention of repeating it.

  There had lived in the squalid rooming house that was her childhood home, a law writer, a man of education who had slid down in the world, now making a few meagre shillings from copying briefs for a solicitor. Mr Paignton taught her to read and write, telling her that she might thus improve her situation to that of lady’s maid. He talked funny and Francine (or Netta as she was then) was a natural mimic. She clowned about, but he was serious about correcting her, and she knew why now. Her mother beat her for wasting her time, but her mother beat her in any case, so little Netta did not desist. He taught her to be neater in her habits and to resist the blandishments of men, who would seek to use her as they had used her mother. This last had struck her. To be her ranting, raving, filthy and stupid mother (taken in by the lies of obvious villains) was something Netta wished to avoid at all costs.

  Her friend died of a consumptive disorder. Netta found him and took the three shillings and sevenpence that he had hidden in the clock, his watch and chain which was, thankfully, out of pawn at that time and she left. She walked to Grosvenor Square and watched the servants more nearly than the great ladies. What did they wear on their afternoons off? At the first pawnshop she saw, she bought herself an outfit such as they wore, padding her front a little, since she was still but a tall child.

  Her conversations with Mr Paignton had made her understand that she could not easily gain entry to the large houses without starting as a lowly kitchen maid and gaining herself a character. But Netta had been gripped with her mentor’s stories of his European travels and she wished to jump some steps and thought herself equal to the task.

  In her plain garb and her worn but venerable lace up boots (which she had exchanged for the watch - but not the chain) Netta used two of her shillings to get to Dover on the stage coach. She haunted the two inns for her prey. Honeymooners or worse. Young ladies persuaded to elope with their young men. Or mistresses accompanying gentlemen. It was a plan made with her mentor when he had come to understand her resourcefulness.

  She found a promising pair of dissolute souls and offered her services for room and board and her passage to France. A servant would add to their consequence – she did not need to say so. Under their tutelage ‘Francine’ was born. Her new mentors had taught her well. They were a pair of adventurers who preyed on young rich gentlemen who travelled the continent with too much money and insufficient occupation. Francine felt little pity for most, but had occasionally spoken a word of warning to the most innocent, or the kindest.

  Francine watched and learned. Living high to catch a fish on a hook she understood, but why, when ‘in the money’, the couple had been unable to make dispositions for their future she did not understand. Francine was a survivor. Stupidity was intolerable to her, though risk she absolutely embraced.

  After some weeks her master had opened her bodice and had begun to interfere with her, she had struggled but he did not stop until he found the padding there.

  ‘What age are you?’

  ‘Ten,’ she said. And he pulled back in a hurry.

  ‘You little adventuress!’ he barked, laughing. ‘Do yourself up and don’t be alone with a man again, be it master or servant. Do you understand me?’

  Francine did. After two years jobbing about with those two, she had become fluent in the French tongue, gained a knowledge of high fashion, a way with ladies’ hair and a manner more superior than her master and mistress. She was eventually poached by an Italian Contessa whose scandalous liaisons were the talk of European society. She gained a great many half-guineas and guineas for messages passed, and a plethora of gifts from her generous Contessa. When the lady met her match and determined to return to the Italian Castello of her birth, Francine decided to accept the offer of a Mr Curlew to look after his new little wife, Lady Elizabeth, since their maid had been struck down on their honeymoon.

  Mr Curlew was not to Francine’s taste, but he was rich, his wife was young and charming and they were due to return to England in the near future. Francine, now posing as a French maid, was anxious to see London once more. She was just seventeen years old, but as experienced (in many ways) as many a seventy year old.

  She kept up the French maid act for a while. But by degrees she had come to know the servants at Curlew’s house and some of them knew that she was a Londoner.

  Curlew had inherited wealth from his father’s mines, but was not a man of family. He had more or less bought his social position by marrying a wife from an impoverished aristocratic family. So much, so usual. But Curlew had the entitlement of inherited wealth without any character. His servants were not family retainers, and over time they had all come to the side of his lovely wife, who knew from long training and her own sweet nature how to treat the staff. But everyone in that house was powerless to help the poor lady, who was subject to visits from her husband pursuing his rights with no care to gentility. He dressed her as befitted his opulence, he required her attendance at social events,
where he paraded her like a prize mare. She feared producing an heir because she could not bear the thought of a baby subject to the cruelty she had shackled herself to till death, she confided to Francine. By employing a few of the Contessa’s tricks, the maid helped her mistress to avoid this for the moment. These measures could not be relied upon to last, Francine knew.

  Now at the hotel, Francine told the clerk that she was sent ahead to prepare a room for her lady, a Mrs Houston-Fraley, who would arrive in two days. There should be a truckle bed for herself in the room as her mistress was of a nervous disposition. She paid in advance for three days. It was as well, she had no desire to be challenged in her right to stay there by the impeccable judge of social stature that is the English hotelier. She was a superior lady’s maid. She had aped better in her day, but it would be simpler like this. But she would not inhabit the truckle bed.

  She did as she always did, planned.

  In a pocket sewn in under her skirt there were some folded bills and some gold sovereigns, a great deal more than a young person such as she should possess. She was now twenty-two years of age, and she ought to be terrified, but was, instead excited. Her box, when it arrived, would contain another two travelling dresses, a simple lawn cotton morning dress that her lady gave her for days off, and in addition to the brown button boots that she wore at the moment, another two pair, in grey and black handmade by her lady’s boot maker, bought by her lady who took a little delight in giving the bills to her husband who never checked but would not have approved. This and some satin slippers that she had re-dyed were what she possessed. In London at least.

  Francine took off the straw hat trimmed with a thick band of bronze silk, its back brim turned up to accommodate a host of bronze silk roses, which perched on her high coiffure. She had been obliged to simplify this hat and the fabulously cut silk dress, so as to retain the sharp look of a well-sought after maid, but to keep cognisance of her place – not a lady. It was a delicate line. The ladies’ maids of Grosvenor Square dressed in their employers’ discards, often better than many country ladies, but must not rival their mistresses. Francine was tired of the line.

  She was at last in bed wearing a frothy concoction of lace and muslin which had been damaged on her ladyship’s honeymoon nightmare. It had been repaired and retained by her maid and now, with her hair around her shoulders and her pretty neck exposed, she looked like a young bride. But Francine was never to be a bride, she knew that. She had a mission.

  The next day before breakfast she had written two missives which she would leave at the desk to be delivered very early that morning. One let the neighbouring butler have her direction and the other was to a certain Captain Carstairs. It was brief.

  Her Ladyship’s position is everything you fear and more. You need have no compunction in rescuing her. If there is no heir in the next year, and perhaps even if there is, she will probably meet with a fatal accident.

  In America less questions are asked and a young couple like yourselves may make a life. For starting capital, look beneath the coping stone on the left-hand side of your doorway. The emeralds are true. The ones in the necklace she wears are paste. As a soldier, I expect you to think of her and not of your honour. She has earned the life these stones may give her.

  Her ladyship may worry about the promises she made before God. Convince her that the life you will live henceforth will be one of service.

  Mr Curlew has breakfast at his club this morning – take your chance.

  Gilbert the footman may be trusted with any message you wish to convey to her.

  A Well-wisher.

  She went down to breakfast in a little anteroom kept for upper servants. Francine was not alone in her reserve. Some of the valets and maids were chatty, but some held themselves apart as did Francine. She had adopted her accent again, French enough to set her aside from the chattier maids – foreigners were strange; everybody knew that.

  After this meal, she retrieved her bonnet and jacket and marched into town. She came, at last, to a street with iron railings which prevented travellers from falling down the stairs that led to basements. A number of these had been converted to shops, many frequented by the fashionable ladies of the surrounding streets. She stopped at one, her entrance heralded by a tinkling bell. It was quite a small shop, with seats and looking glasses enough for four women at once with surplus seating for companions. Empty at the moment, for the lace peignoirs would not yet have been cast off nor the morning chocolate consumed in the fashionable houses. A woman in a dark bombazine dress with enormous leg of mutton sleeves in the French fashion came bustling from the back shop.

  ‘Francine, my dear!’

  ‘Violette!’ they held hands and she was led behind the mochette curtain to take tea. When they were comfortably seated at last, Francine said placidly, ‘I have been cast off without a character.’

  Violette took this with remarkable aplomb. ‘Oh dear.’ She sipped some chocolate.

  ‘Indeed.’ Francine sipped likewise.

  ‘Poor Lady Elizabeth…that man is a brute.’

  ‘I have taken care of that – if I do not mistake my man.’

  ‘Have you set someone to murder him?’ Violette’s vowels nearly slipped into plain Violet the chambermaid’s.

  ‘No, merely to take her away.’

  Francine’s companion barked a laugh. ‘Leaving Curlew with a cuckold’s reputation? Let’s see him buy his way out of that.’

  ‘How is his son?’

  ‘My son. Never his. He enjoys the country. My mother writes me every week.’

  ‘Will the loss of Lady Elizabeth’s patronage harm your custom?’

  ‘I do not think so. Seeing my confections on Lady Elizabeth has already worked its charm. Lady Murray has intimated that she may bring the Countess di Flavio on a visit.’

  Violette showed Francine the accounts for the month. Francine raised her brows. ‘Your artistry knows no bounds …’

  ‘Ten percent, though it should be more …’ she handed Francine an envelope.

  Violette could never forget what her friend had done for her. She had been mere Violet Pratt, a chambermaid in Grosvenor Square, most sorely used by Curlew. Cast off when the pregnancy became apparent.

  Violet had re-trimmed hats for her mistress with incredible finesse and Francine had seen in this a way to help her. First she had arranged for her care at an institution of nuns, and her child had been sent to her mother. The nuns had seen to it that Violet remembered her shame each day of her confinement, but Francine had given her hope: somehow she procured Violet the lease of a tiny shop, the purchase of milliner’s tools, her first girl to help her. Secretly the newly born ‘Violette’ sketched and sketched and the construction of hats began before she had even left the tender care of the Sisters.

  ‘God does not blame the victim for the actions of the thief, yet the Sister’s seek to blame you for what was taken from you.’

  Violette had cried at the giving up of her child to her mother, but glad that Francine gave her the means to provide for him. Francine had shown her, moreover, that it was not simply hard work that was rewarded with success, but a knowledge of the ways of the world. That a lady’s maid should possess the means to set up a business had shown Violette how much the younger woman could teach her. And she was an eager student of Francine. Her vowels aped the upper class (a little clumsily, it must be said), her dress was transformed by an outrageous French touch and she was instructed by Francine to skip the deferential and move towards a stylistic certainty of speech. ‘No madame - certainly not. I will not allow you to purchase this - to set off your beauty I have a hat that few ladies could wear …’

  To Violette’s surprise, the establishment had become the fashion within a month. Lady Elizabeth came, of course, at Francine’s suggestion, and was provided with the fiction that her erstwhile chambermaid had inherited a little money which she invested in the shop. She was delighted to recommend her, since she really was a talented designer.
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br />   ‘I passed him in the street last Tuesday.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mr Curlew.’

  Francine was still. Curlew still possessed the power to destroy Violette’s life, should he choose. And being Curlew, he would choose.

  ‘I was so afraid - but then I did what you would have done. I crossed his path.’

  Francine nodded. Better to know than to live in fear of anything.

  ‘He looked at me direct and still did not know me.’

  Francine took in the boned and bustled dress, the high coiffure which would have been covered by one of her sharply styled bonnets and was not surprised. Violet had been a snivelling chambermaid with whom he’d taken his violent pleasure. Violette, this stately woman of business, bore no resemblance.

  ‘I foresaw Mr Curlew’s revenge and have begun a new enterprise,’ Francine sipped at her tea. ‘Sometimes I may apply to you for aid, for which I will, of course reimburse you.’

  Violette put down her cup, looking offended. ‘Anything I can do for you,’ she said, ‘I will do for no reward. You are the authoress of my independence.’

  It was obvious to Francine that this last expression was rehearsed. Violette made a great study of gentility in order to front her business with style. ‘Do you wish to take meat from your child’s mouth?’ Francine said severely. ‘What have I always said to you?’

  ‘Plan for the future. Beware of men. My fashionable state might change with the whim of one bored lady. I must have a secondary plan.’

  ‘And have you?’

  ‘My mother has taken a house by the sea. I shall be able to buy the lease very soon. We had a talk and she insisted in posing as my child’s dear nurse, not Grandmother so that I may appear later as a respectable widow. I need a few more years to collect the capital to buy a small annuity for our support.’

  ‘And if some lady should cause you to lose business meantime?’