Finally they reached the attic. “The servants’ rooms along this corridor are occupied or used for storage. But there is one small chamber you might use beyond the old schoolroom.” She turned the corner and added with pride, “Each of the female servants here at Fairbourne Hall has her own bedchamber. That is something you won’t find everywhere.”
Had Joan shared a room, perhaps even a bed, with one of the other maids in the Berkeley Square attic? Margaret had no idea.
Mrs. Budgeon opened the last door, and the musty chalk smell of disuse met Margaret’s nose. The chamber was small, narrow, and paneled in white. A cloudy window offered the faint glow of evening sunlight. A cast-iron bed with a bare mattress stood against one wall, a dressing chest and wooden slat chair against the other. Shifting the linens to one arm, Mrs. Budgeon laid the hand towel on the dressing chest, frowning at the empty basin where a pitcher should have been. “I shall send someone up with water.”
Margaret’s stomach grumbled a noisy complaint, and she felt her cheeks heat.
Mrs. Budgeon glanced at her. “When did you last eat?”
Margaret set down the candle and her carpetbag. “This morning.”
“You’ve missed dinner, and supper isn’t until nine.” She sighed. “I shall have something sent up to you. But don’t get used to being waited upon.”
Too late, Margaret thought.
The woman handed Margaret the armload of bed linens. “You are capable of making your own bed, I trust?”
“Of course,” Margaret murmured. But the truth was, she had never made a bed in her life.
“In the morning, Betty will show you what is expected here at Fairbourne Hall. I’ll hear no excuses of ‘but in my last situation things were done differently.’ Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Margaret said. No fear of that from me.
When the housekeeper left, Margaret hung her bonnet on the peg behind the door, and set about trying to make the bed. The sheets and pillowcase were of coarse cotton—nothing as fine as she was used to but clean and sweet smelling. She spread the sheets and tucked them under the tick, too tired to care about the wrinkles. Then she covered it with a blanket of summer-weight wool and a spread of white tufted cotton.
A single rap sounded, and her door was butted open before Margaret could reply. A thin dark-haired woman in cap and apron pushed her way inside, pitcher in one hand, plate in the other.
“Oh.” Margaret surveyed the tiny room, and directed the maid toward the dressing chest.
The woman’s mouth tightened. “Yes, m’lady,” she murmured acidly. She dropped the plate onto the chest with a clunk, then shoved the pitcher into Margaret’s arms, some of the water sloshing onto Margaret’s bodice. Cold water.
“I’m not yar servant, am I?” she said, her voice lilting Irish. “I’ve already carried that up three flights of stairs; don’t be commandin’ me to do more.”
“I wasn’t.” Margaret bit her lip and set the heavy pitcher into the basin herself. She glanced back to find the maid smirking at the bed.
“I hope ya make beds better than that . . . or ya won’t last here a week.”
Margaret turned to regard the creased bedclothes.
“Well, don’t stay up too late. Five thirty comes early.” The maid turned on her heel and swept from the room as regally as any highborn miss giving the cut direct.
Margaret sat on the hard chair and ate the bread, cheese, and sliced pickles the maid had brought up. She looked once more at the wrinkled bed and thought it appeared inviting indeed. She was heavy with weariness. Emotionally drained. It was probably only six or seven in the evening, but the escape of sleep beckoned her with its intoxicating pull. Setting down the plate, she rose and stepped toward the bed, and then stiffened.
How would she undress on her own? She ought to have thought of that before the sharp-nosed, sharp-tongued maid left, though she would have been reluctant to ask the cheeky woman for any favor.
Well, she would make do. How hard could it be? Margaret stripped off her apron and hung it on the peg. She pulled the cap and wig from her head and set them beside the bed, near at hand. The gown, loose and wide necked, posed little problem. Margaret peeled it off one shoulder, then the other, then twisted the gown so that the few ribbon ties at the back were easily undone, then she slid the gown over her hips and stepped out. Nothing to it, she thought. And Joan had hinted that Margaret was helpless. Ha!
She stood there in her stays and shift. Trying the same method, she tugged at the shoulder straps of the linen stays. The very snug straps. She succeeding in wiggling one strap partway down, but the other would not give, taut as it was from being pulled in the opposite direction. She tried to reach around herself to grasp the laces up her back, but the stays limited her movement, and even if they had not, she was not contortionist enough to manage the feat. She reached around with her comb, hoping to snag the lacing, but her shoulder ached from being bent so unnaturally.
Giving up, she sat on the bed to remove her stockings. It was difficult to bend at the waist with the stays in place, the rigid ivory busk running from between her breasts to her lower belly. She managed to untie the ribbons that held the stockings above her knees, then had to lift her leg to roll the stockings from her feet. She sat back, oddly winded from the constriction of bending over in her stays.
She cleaned her teeth perfunctorily with the supplies she’d brought. Then she rinsed her hands and face in the cold water and dried off with the towel the housekeeper had provided. Transferring the candle to the small bedside table, Margaret pulled back the bedclothes and climbed in, still wearing her stays and a fine cotton shift beneath. She glanced down at the wig in a curly heap on the floor. What if someone came in? There was no lock on the door. She hated the thought of sleeping with the warm, itchy wig. Instead, she pulled on the cap alone and tucked all of her blond hair into it. That should do. She blew out the candle.
Though mentally fatigued, Margaret tossed and turned, worried about her future, wondering how her mother was reacting, and what was happening in Berkeley Square . . . until finally, finally, sweet sleep lured her away.
The first thing a Housekeeper should teach a new servant
is to carry her candle upright. The next thing is those general
directions that belong to “her” place, such as not setting the
brooms and brushes where they will make a mark.
—The Housekeeping Book of Susanna Whatman, Maidstone, 1776
Chapter 7
The pounding. Who in the world would be pounding at this hour? London was such a noisy place. Margaret felt she would never get used to living in such a sprawling, bustling city. She had not slept well since coming to live in Sterling Benton’s house. She had barely fallen asleep and already the rapping had awoken her. She rolled over, and began drifting off once more. The pounding resumed, louder. She pulled the limp pillow from under her cheek and covered her head with it. Need sleep . . .
“You need to get up, lazy lay-a-bed.”
Why was Joan pestering her? It could not be morning yet, and Margaret often slept in until quite late, especially when she had been out the night before.
The door creaked open.
“Leave me be,” she murmured.
The bedclothes were yanked from her body, the cool morning air prickling her skin. She rolled over to face her tormentor, ready to give Joan a tongue-lashing. “What do you think you are doing?”
She froze. Candlelight illuminated not Joan’s face, but that of a stranger. The bed, the room, were not her own. Her mind whirled. What? Where . . . ?
A woman stared at her, stunned no doubt at the haughty reception. With a wave of dread, Margaret remembered. She was in London no longer.
Suddenly London seemed the far friendlier fate.
“I . . . I was dreamin’,” Margaret mumbled, trying to find the accent of her dear old housekeeper. “I thought you were my . . . someone else.”
“I am the upper housemaid here at Fairbourne Hall,” the woman said, lifting her offended nose high. “And I am not accustomed to being addressed so rudely.”
“I . . .” Margaret could eke out no apology. She sat up on the edge of the bed, carefully nudging the wig under the bed with her toes. “How shall I address you, then?”
The upper housemaid was a short, stocky middle-aged woman. In the flickering light her coloring was uncertain, but the whites of her eyes lingered on Margaret’s stays and shift. Likely too fine for a housemaid. But apparently the woman had not noticed the wig. Nor, hopefully, any stray blond hairs.
“My name is Betty Tidy, but you may use my Christian name.”
“Betty Tidy?”
“Is there something you find amusing about that, Nora?”
That’s right, she thought, I’m Nora. “Only the name Tidy. For a housemaid.”
Betty frowned. “There are many Tidys in these parts. It’s a perfectly respectable family name.”
“I meant no disrespect, Betty.” Margaret bit back a smirk. “In fact I think it the perfect name. The name every housemaid should have.”
Betty sniffed and stepped to the door. “I shall give you five minutes to dress.”
Five minutes? Perhaps, then, it was fortunate Margaret had not managed to remove her stays, for she would certainly not have gotten them on by herself given five hours, let alone five minutes. She quickly washed her face, then wiped the damp cloth beneath each capped sleeve to remove the previous day’s perspiration. She stepped into her dress, tied the ribbons, and wiggled it back to front and up over her shoulders. Then she tied on the apron, pinned her hair, and put on her father’s spectacles. Finally, she settled the wig snugly against her head, checking in the small mirror over the dressing chest to be sure all the blond hairs were covered before donning her cap once more. She was glad the generous cap disguised the lump beneath the wig caused by her twist of hair.