making the beds in the best bedrooms and
keeping an eye on the lower housemaids. The latter
would lay and light the fires, clean the living rooms,
polish the brass, carry upstairs the water
for washing, and empty the chamber pots.
—Margaret Willes, Household Management
Chapter 10
It isn’t fair, Betty, and you know it,” Fiona complained as the three of them gathered their boxes from the housemaids’ closet the next morning.
“I know, Fiona. But—”
“But what? In every other situation I’ve had, the lowest-ranking maid has had to deal with the slops. It’s what’s done. Isn’t right I’ve had to haul water and empty slops for all the family, especially now that Mr. Lewis has come. And Connor, for all his handsome ways, hasn’t offered to take it over.”
“Now, Fiona. I won’t hear a word against Connor. Sends all his wages home to provide for his brothers and sister. Such a high position at so young an age. It’s no wonder he leaves the like to us.”
“Leaves it to me, you mean. And I’ve had enough. At least we might share the duty.”
Betty sighed. “Very well.” She turned wide, expectant eyes on Margaret. “Nora, Fiona makes a good point. She’s been carrying up the water cans and emptying the chamber pots every morning while I was training you. But you’ve got the way of things now. Give or take. It’s only right you should take your turn with that duty.”
Margaret found herself nodding but inwardly cringed. It had been one thing to go into the gentlemen’s bedchambers when they were up, properly dressed, and well out of the rooms. But to go in first thing, while the men were still in their beds? Wearing—or not—who knew what? She shuddered at the thought and prayed no one ever learned she had done so.
A few minutes later, after Fiona and Betty had gone downstairs to clean the public rooms, Margaret stood before Lewis Upchurch’s bedchamber door, water cans in hand, heart banging against her ribs. Should she wake him? Use this opportunity to reveal herself and enlist his help? Her stomach clenched at the thought. No, she could not reveal herself as Margaret Macy while Lewis Upchurch lay in his bed. She would have to wait for a better time.
She reminded herself that her goal was to slip in with the water and slip out with the slops without waking the sleeping men. Very soon the weather would turn and she would somehow have to lay and light a fire in each room as well, in perfect quiet. She thought back to her time in Berkeley Square and even before that to her childhood in Lime Tree Lodge. Joan had been excellent, she realized now. For Margaret had awakened to a warm fire in autumn and winter with little thought to how it got there. Among a succession of housemaids at Lime Tree Lodge, there had been one maid—she did not recall her name—who clanged the irons and muttered over the tinder, waking the whole house whilst lighting the morning fires. She had not lasted long.
Taking a steadying breath, Margaret eased open the door, its whining creak sending a snake of dread down her spine. Stepping inside, she surveyed the dim room by meager predawn light. The bed curtains had not been drawn closed. She looked beyond them with an anticipatory wince, but the bed was empty. In fact it was still neatly made. Margaret felt her brow furrow. Lewis remained in residence, she was sure. She would have heard if he and the charming Connor had left Fairbourne Hall already. How strange. Had he stayed the night with some friend? Or fallen asleep downstairs? On one hand she was relieved not to find him there, to not be alone with him in his bedchamber. On the other hand, she was foolishly disappointed. She quickly went about her tasks, leaving the water and checking the chamber pot. Empty. He’d been out all night.
Mulling this over, she left Lewis’s room and stepped down the corridor to Helen’s. As she was about to lift the latch, footsteps sounded on the stairs. Startled, she looked over her shoulder. A shadowy figure crept up the stairs and around the newel-post. In the light from the candle left burning at the landing, Margaret saw Lewis Upchurch, fully dressed and still wearing an outdoor coat. Was this her chance? Even if he had no interest in marrying her, might he not at least help her arrange a more suitable hiding place?
She stood, quavering, hand on Helen’s door latch, as Lewis walked toward her down the corridor. This is it, she told herself. Open your mouth. Say something.
No sound came.
As Lewis passed behind her, he patted her bottom. Margaret’s face flushed hot. She craned to look over her other shoulder. Lewis sauntered on. At his door, he turned, winked at her, and then let himself into his room without a flicker of embarrassment.
What insolence! She reminded herself that he didn’t know who she was. But was patting a maid’s bottom any better?
Still shaking, Margaret slipped into Helen’s room and took a moment to catch her breath. The bed curtains were drawn, but a soft snore told Margaret its occupant slept on undisturbed by her presence. She completed her tasks without incident.
In Nathaniel’s room, she was not as fortunate. The bed curtains had been left tied back—leaving a full view of Nathaniel Upchurch lying on his stomach, arms wrapped around his pillow, cheek pressed into its downy depths. A sheet was pulled up to his waist; a nightshirt covered his upper body and arms.
She tiptoed closer, knowing she should avert her eyes and complete her tasks as quickly as possible. Instead she paused several feet away. How peaceful he looked. How much younger with neither stiff cravat, spectacles, nor somber scowl. His fair cheeks were peppered with black stubble. Did he shave himself, she wondered. Or did Mr. Arnold do so for him?
As she regarded him, a thought came, unbidden. He might have been my husband. I might now be sharing his bed. She swallowed, her neck heating at the intimate thought pondered in that private place.
Instead I’m emptying his chamber pot.
With that, she pushed futile thoughts away and returned to her work.
Margaret stood at the railing as Betty demonstrated how to dust the family’s collection of vases, displayed on shelves built into a recess at the top of the main staircase. From below came the sound of the front door opening and Mr. Arnold greeting some male guest.
Lewis Upchurch’s gregarious voice echoed from the hall below. “Don’t bother, Arnold. I’ll show him up myself.”
Betty shot her a sharp-eyed look, but footsteps were already trotting up the stairs. There was no time to slip down the corridor and into one of the vacant rooms. Betty stepped away from the railing and as far into the corner as she could, presenting her back to the two men mounting the stairs. Feeling foolish and self-conscious, Margaret followed suit.
The men passed without pause or a word, as if finding two grown women standing with their noses to the wall was an everyday occurrence. Margaret realized for the first time that it probably was. Thinking back, she recalled the Berkeley Square housemaids doing something similar when they accidentally crossed paths with Sterling or her mother. She had given it little thought before, but now decided that when she had a house of her own, she would make certain the staff knew such a practice was not necessary.
The men entered the family sitting room, one of them giving the door a shove behind him, but it did not fully close. From inside, voices rose in amiable greeting. Margaret idly wondered who the visitor was.
Keeping a wary eye on the partially opened door, Betty quietly continued her demonstration. “Now, take your dustcloth—no, that’s your glass cloth. Right—that one. We have to be prodigious careful, for these pretty things are worth a pretty penny, Mrs. Budgeon says.”
They were lovely vases. Margaret could not imagine that the Upchurch men appreciated them. No doubt some female ancestor had collected them and chosen to display them so prominently at the top of the stairs.
Betty gingerly picked up the first vase, holding it as gently as a baby bird. “Now take the thing careful-like in one hand while you run the cloth inside its innards.”
From inside the room, a man’s voice shouted, “Margaret Macy?”
Margaret started violently and let out a shriek. Had Sterling Benton come for her already? Frightened, Betty jerked back, sending the vase crashing to the floor, shattering it to pieces.
Betty cried out, her hand belatedly covering her mouth.
Margaret stood there, uncertain. Should she flee, which would draw attention to herself, or hope her disguise sufficient?
She risked a glance over her shoulder, and quailed as Nathaniel Upchurch strode out of the sitting room, his expression turbulent.
“What is all this?” he asked.
Betty ducked her head, “Sorry, sir. Beggin’ your pardon, sir.”
Footsteps tattooed up the stairs. Mrs. Budgeon appeared, her mouth a grim line.
Margaret wanted to say, knew she should say, “It was my fault.” Had Mrs. Budgeon been there alone, she would have done so. But with Mr. Upchurch standing there as witness? The words would not come.
Mrs. Budgeon shot Betty a frosty glare, then turned primly to Mr. Upchurch. “I am sorry, sir. Betty has never broken anything before. The cost will be taken from her wages, of course.”
Nathaniel exhaled a dry puff of air. “Should we withhold her wages a dozen years, she should never be able to pay for that relic.”
Beside her, Betty blanched.
Mrs. Budgeon clasped her hands together. “Again I am sorry, sir. Would you have her dismissed?”