The Maid of Fairbourne Hall(12)

After a few moments, Joan sighed. “Nothing. Nothing suitable.” She lifted the skirt of her blue dress and stepped gracefully over the rope and into the cordoned square. Looking back over her shoulder, she said, “Well? Are you coming or not?”

Margaret hesitated. “I don’t think any employer would allow you to bring me along.”

“Of course not. You shall have to find your own place.”

It felt like a slap. “But . . . I am only suited to be a governess or perhaps a companion. What are the chances of someone coming here to fill such a post?”

“Very slim indeed.”

Margaret knew this. These positions—the only acceptable ones for gently bred females, were most often acquired through acquaintances or poor relations, and occasionally through agencies or advertisements.

“What else am I fit for?”

Joan rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t know.” Then she added begrudgingly, “But you are clever, I grant you, and could learn most anything you put your mind to.”

Joan opened her valise and from within withdrew a large utility brush of some sort. Margaret glanced from it to the spoon and brooms held by the other hopeful hirelings. What had she to announce her abilities, whatever they were? Margaret was fairly well educated, but beyond her father’s New Testament had no book to announce that fact in hopes of catching the eye of some parent in need of a governess. What would a lady’s companion carry? In her current state of dress, she doubted she would convince anyone she was a gentlewoman fit to educate their children or accompany their elderly relation.

“What about a lady’s maid?” she asked Joan.

Joan slanted her a sidelong glace. “Know anything about arranging hair?”

“I have dressed my sister’s many times. And I sew and am well read. And I am familiar with the latest fashions.”

Joan slowly shook her head. “You have as much chance of finding work here as a lady’s maid as a governess or companion. Especially looking as you do now.”

But Margaret hesitated to shed her disguise. Beyond being too close to London for comfort, and in a well-traveled county town in the bargain, how exposed she would feel standing there as herself. Margaret Macy at a hiring fair, looking for work? Inconceivable.

She opened her reticule and once again counted the few coins within. Her heart sank. She had no money to spend the night in a hotel. No money to travel farther, nor even to travel back to London in defeat. She set her carpetbag on a nearby bench and opened it, reviewing its meager contents once more. She picked up the only item one might deem a symbol of what she was good for: a hairbrush.

She shut the bag and stepped over the rope.



The two ginger-haired maids were hired first. They had been engaged by men who seemed more interested in their fawning manners and the jiggling flesh displayed in low necklines than their qualifications. The old cook stood there still, grimly staring straight ahead. Margaret began to feel sorry for her.

An innkeeper hired the scrawny lad to haul and carry. The boy’s resigned nod at the slave-like terms chafed Margaret’s heart. Perhaps she only imagined the quiver of his lip amid his raised-chin bravado. She could not help but imagine her brother, Gilbert, having to go out to work at such a tender age. The thought pricked her, and she found herself whispering a prayer for the unknown boy.

Around them the noise of the market—the hawkers, the bargaining, the cluck-chuck of hens and squeals of pigs—diminished as the sun began its descent.

Margaret glanced at Joan. “How long does the market last?”

“Not much longer now, I shouldn’t think.”

The old man said, “Usually breaks up just after four. Looks like we shall have to try again next week.”

Next week?

A matronly looking woman in a severe black dress, high white-lace collar, and an old-fashioned bonnet came striding purposely across the High Street in their direction, keys dangling at her waist. From the corner of her eye, Margaret noticed both the old cook and Joan straighten their shoulders. Margaret followed suit.

The matron stopped before the rope, her gaze skimming past the cook’s spoon and landing on Joan’s cleaning brush. She introduced herself as the housekeeper at Hayfield and began drilling Joan with one terse question after another—how long she had been in service, where she had last been employed and in what capacity, why she had left, was she a good Church of England member, was she in good health . . .

Joan answered each question calmly, faltered slightly over why she had left her last place, and offered a letter of character by way of explanation—the reference Margaret had written for her before they left Peg’s.

“I prefer to write for my own references.” The woman eyed the folded letter with suspicion. “I warn you that I can spy a forged character a mile off. Are you certain you wish to put that letter into my hands?” One steel-grey brow rose. “I cannot promise to return it to you.”

Joan’s hand trembled slightly, but her expression remained placid. “This letter was written by my own mistress, mum. I trust you will find everything in order.”

The housekeeper held Joan’s gaze before snatching the letter from her. Margaret had never written a character before. Their housekeeper, or maybe her mother, must have taken care of such things. Perhaps there were certain requirements or customary phrases of which she knew nothing. Would the woman denounce Joan as a fraud and have her hauled in for questioning? What more trouble would Margaret bring down on Joan’s head?

The woman unfolded the letter, took in the quality of paper, and began to read. She frowned once or twice as she did so, and Joan sent Margaret a beseeching look.

Finally, the woman looked up. “It is written in a fine hand and by an educated person to be sure. I may yet write to this lady to verify the reference, you understand, but this will suit for now.”

Joan nodded.

“Well—” the woman consulted the letter briefly once more—“Joan Hurdle. The pay is eight pounds per annum and you’ll be expected to attend church once a month in a rotation with the other servants.”

She waited for Joan’s response, but Joan did not immediately accept. She glanced quickly at Margaret and then away. “I am very grateful for the offer, mum. And I wonder . . . might you need a lady’s maid or companion? I worked with this young woman in a former post, and she is in need of a place as well.”

The woman’s sharp eyes shot to Margaret, took in the hairbrush, the spectacles, and the ill-fitting dress with apparent disapprobation. “I think not.”

Margaret managed a tremulous smile. “A second housemaid, then,” she suggested hopefully. Joan was on the verge of leaving her, alone, in a strange town with only a few farthings to rub together.

“I don’t need anybody else,” the woman insisted. “Nor are you allowed to have any followers, Hurdle—male or female. Now, will you take the post or not?”

Joan pressed her lips together, shooting an apologetic look in Margaret’s direction. She opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated, shoulders wilting. “Perhaps you would take her in my stead, mum? She has a fine reading voice and could read to you of an evening when her other work is done.”

It was on the tip of Margaret’s tongue to toss in a desperate “I can even arrange hair. And I’m very good with a needle.” But she refrained.

The woman narrowed her eyes at Joan. “Don’t you want to work at Hayfield? What have you heard?” She jerked her head toward Margaret. “Or is there something wrong with her beyond her weak eyes and you’re trying to foist her off on me? Is she your sister or something?”

“No, we’re not sisters. And it’s not that I don’t wish to work for you. I just thought . . .”

“No, Joan, you take it.” The words were out of Margaret’s mouth before she could think them through or change her mind. The frightened, selfish child within her wanted to grasp Joan’s hand and beg her not to leave her alone, or to beg the matronly housekeeper to take them both, to confess the whole sordid situation and beseech her to help them. But she knew the woman would not care, and would likely not hire either of them if she knew why they were there. Margaret had already gotten Joan dismissed and had forced her to leave her sister’s before she’d found another place. She could not, as much as she was tempted to, take this position from her now.

Joan looked at her, eyes searching. She whispered, “Are you sure, miss?”

Margaret’s knees were turning liquid beneath her baggy frock. Doubts and anxiety were rising by the minute, but she nodded and pulled back her lips in a semblance of a smile.

“Come along, Hurdle,” the woman said. “I have to stop at the chandler’s before we drive home. You may carry the sack of rice we need.”

Joan followed dutifully behind the woman, valise swinging against her leg. She looked back only once, her lips forming a silent I’m sorry.

Margaret’s heart twisted in self-pity followed by a pinch of guilt. She had never apologized to Joan for getting her into this situation in the first place and now she was apologizing to her? If she ever saw Joan again, she decided, she would make things right.





Young persons, on their first entering into service, should