I won’t be a cook; I hate cooking. I won’t be a nursery
maid, nor a lady’s maid, far less a lady’s companion. . . .
I won’t be anything but a housemaid.
—Charlotte Brontë, in a letter to her sister Emily
Chapter 3
Ten minutes later, Margaret turned from her dressing table mirror to face Joan.
“Well?”
She wore an old grey frock Joan had unearthed from the attic, the apron she had worn as a milkmaid, and the dark wig pinned securely over her hair.
Seated on the bed, the maid studied her. “It changes you a great deal, miss. But I still think you need a cap.”
The only cap Joan had found had yellowed beyond wearing. Margaret lifted the small lace cap she had worn to the masquerade.
Joan shook her head. “Too fine.” She pulled something from her own valise. “You may borrow my spare. But if you keep it, it’ll cost you one of those shillings.”
“Very well.” Margaret pulled the floppy mobcap over her wig and looked at Joan for her reaction. “Now will anyone recognize me?”
Joan tilted her head to one side. “If they look close they will.”
Margaret looked back into the mirror. She lifted a stubby kohl pencil and darkened her eyebrows, as she had meant to do for the masquerade before abandoning plans to wear the wig. She then pulled open the mahogany writing box and from it extracted her father’s small round spectacles. She placed them on her nose and hooked the arms over her ears. Again she faced Joan.
“What about now?”
“Much better, miss. As long as you don’t talk, I think your brother could pass you in the street and not know you.”
Margaret thought of the accents she had heard daily as a girl, spending hours with first her nurse and then the housekeeper while her mother was busy with this society event or that charity. Nanny Booker was from the north somewhere and Mrs. Haines from Bristol, she believed. Margaret had made a game of mimicking their accents, though now she wondered how charming they had really thought it. “An’ wha’ if I changed m’voice? Would ya know me then?”
Joan’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t talk like that.”
Margaret quickly reverted to her normal way of speaking. “I know. And I am not trying to ridicule anyone. Only to disguise myself in every possible manner.”
Joan lifted her chin in understanding, then dubiously eyed the narrow carpetbag. “Is that all you’re taking?”
“Well, I cannot take a trunk, can I? Nor do I wish to arouse suspicion when we leave by the servants’ entrance.” Margaret riffled through the crammed bag. “I have an extra shift and the milkmaid frock as a spare—it doesn’t weigh a thing. A nightdress and wrapper, slippers, comb, tooth powder, and the kohl.” She did not mention her father’s New Testament, nor the cameo he had given her, wrapped in a handkerchief. She slipped a shawl over her shoulders and looped bonnet ribbons over her wrist. “What else do I need?”
“Don’t forget some of that nice paper for my character,” Joan said.
When Margaret had slid a piece into her bag, Joan blew out a deep breath. “Well, it’s time.” She slapped her legs and stood.
Telling Margaret to wait in the room, Joan picked up her valise and crept down the corridor to listen at the top of the stairs. She waved Margaret forward. Margaret slipped from the room, quietly closing the door behind her. She followed Joan down the stairs on tiptoe, barely allowing herself to breathe. They descended one pair of stairs and then another without encountering anyone coming up. At the top of the basement steps, Joan motioned her to wait while she checked the passage below.
The maid’s head soon popped back into view and again she waved Margaret down. Together they hurried along the narrow basement passageway, past the kitchen, to the service door at its far end. Joan opened it for her.
Margaret had just stepped through when a voice called from the kitchen behind them.
“Joan? Who’s that with you?”
Margaret hesitated, unsure if she should run or turn around. Joan’s firm hand on her arm kept her from doing either.
“’Tis only my sister, come to collect me,” Joan said. “You heard I got the push?”
“Oh, Joan. I did,” the female voice commiserated. “And sorry I was to hear it.”
“I didn’t steal anything, for the record.”
“Of course you didn’t. I’d wager he mislaid the money or spent it hisself. Or that nephew of his pinched it. Not fair is it?”
“No, Mary, it’s not fair.”
“Going to your sister’s, then, are you?”
“Until I find another place.” Joan gave Margaret a little shove, and she lurched forward, tripping on the bottom step before starting up the outside stairs.
“Good-bye, Joan, and Godspeed.”
Margaret reached street level as Joan trotted up the stairs behind her.
“Let’s go,” the maid whispered, without a backward glance.
Margaret, however, looked over her shoulder several times as they crossed the square, fearing any moment the hovering footman or Sterling himself would appear behind them. But all was quiet save for the clicking of their bootheels and the distant clip-clop-clatter of horse hooves on cobblestones.
They had made it.
What now? She’d known only that she had to get out of Benton’s house that very night. In her panicked hurry she had not even left her mother a note. Even if she had, she knew very well Sterling would have read it. And lost no time in following any unintentional clues it held to find Margaret and drag her back. What would she have written at any rate? She didn’t know where she was going beyond Billingsgate. And Joan had made it clear this would only be a brief stay until she found other employment. Margaret hoped it would buy her enough time to figure out her next step. She would write to her mother then.
Ahead of her, Joan strode briskly on, and Margaret strained and panted to keep up. On the next street, a man leaning in a shadowed doorway leered at them. Two militiamen whistled as they passed. Margaret decided she did not like walking London streets at night. “Joan? Joan, wait!” Her voice shook. “How far did you say it was?”
Joan glanced over her shoulder. “Three or four miles, I’d reckon.”
Margaret swallowed. Perhaps she ought to risk going to Emily Lathrop’s house instead. It could be no more than a mile or two away.
She recalled the last time she had gone to the Lathrops’ in Red Lion Square. She had been vexed with Marcus and Sterling both, and hoped to beg an invitation to stay with Emily for a time. But she had not been in the Lathrops’ drawing room an hour when she heard Sterling Benton’s name announced and had to sit there while he lamented that her mother had taken ill and needed her at home.
It had all been a ruse. Her mother was in perfect health, although she had been “sick with worry,” and quite put out with Margaret for leaving the house alone—though she had never minded when Margaret spent time with friends before.
At the end of the block, Joan waited for a post chaise to pass, allowing Margaret to catch up with her. “Do you know where Red Lion Square is?”
Joan looked wary. “Yes. My cousin has a post near there. Why?”
“Could you please walk there with me? My friend Emily lives there, and perhaps she might help me.”
Joan shrugged an apathetic reply. “I suppose. ’Tisn’t far out of my way.”
Margaret was surprised she agreed so readily. Joan was apparently eager to be rid of her.
As she trudged behind Joan along busy Oxford Street, Margaret rehearsed how to explain her predicament to Emily, mortifying though it was. Emily would be happy to have her, once she quit laughing over her costume. But could she talk her parents into allowing her to stay? They were unlikely to believe her word over Sterling Benton’s. Sterling could be so convincing, so persuasive. He would have them believing his nephew the soul of propriety and her a deluded ninny with an overinflated view of her “irresistible” charms. Mr. Lathrop would gently admonish her to be sensible and send her home with Sterling without a second thought.
She shuddered. Perhaps instead of asking to stay, she would ask Emily to loan her enough money to see her out of town and somewhere safe. Margaret would pay her back with interest as soon as she received her inheritance. She loathed the thought of borrowing money from friends. But she would have to set aside her pride. Pulling the mobcap down more snugly over her black wig and spectacles, she realized she already had.
They walked north and then turned into quiet and pretty Red Lion Square. There, Margaret led the way across the square’s central garden. She paused behind one of the trees to survey the Lathrop town house across the street. Joan stood behind her. All was still, save for the flicking tail of a horse harnessed to a carriage waiting several houses away.
Margaret was about to cross the cobbles when she realized with a start that she recognized the landau with its brass candle lamps, as well as the coachman at the reins. Margaret retreated behind the tree once more. As she peered around it, the Lathrops’ front door opened and Sterling Benton appeared, framed by lamplight at its threshold, speaking in earnest confidence with Emily’s father. Sterling shook his head somberly, appearing the perfect image of concerned stepfather. Mr. Lathrop nodded and the two men shook hands.