I always take care. I take the greatest care to present my mistress to the world outside for what she is, the most beautiful woman in all of Society. I do my level best each and every day, pulling on her fine clothes with care and making sure as there is no creasing nor bunching anywhere, and that her dresses hang just right. I take a great pride in doing it right, but most times I might as well not bother.
She was very pleased being put in chenille today. As I dressed her head to toe as I always do she expressed herself well pleased with the look and the feel of the fine material. She was pleased because the colour chosen suited her own colouring so well. I had picked the palest of olives. She also liked the hat I chose, and the angle I put it on her head. What she actually said was ‘You are to be congratulated. I think the Prince of Wales will be happy enough with his luncheon companion, do you not?’ I was most pleased, particularly so because my mistress looked so fine.
While she lunched with his Royal Highness I as always was despatched to my usual place in the basement. This is something I never like doing, yet she always insists upon it, just as she implies it is perfectly proper for a lady to lunch all alone with a gentleman, even if he does happen to be the Prince of Wales, our future King of England and Emperor of India. For we both know of course that it is not proper at all and it is not done. I have always found it highly embarrassing, particularly when they were on more intimate terms, for waiting down below stairs among all the servants of the house I was forced to sit and listen to all the remarks and comments of the household servants who always had plenty to say. I still found it mortifying today, even though my mistress and his Royal Highness did only actually take lunch together because as everyone knows and everyone below stairs has always been so eager to tell me, his Royal Highness has long since moved to fresh fields and pastures new. Even so I still consider it improper.
I try to sit apart with my sewing but still whenever some menial passes it is always with a knowing smile or a silly little laugh which invariably has me in discomfort. Often I try to use these moments for sleep since generally I get so little rest, what with having to stay up until my lady returns home at night and then to be up in the morning at six o’clock (at the latest) to prepare for the next day, getting my lady’s toilet ready and seeing to the three, four sometimes five costumes she will need for her appointments. But I have never been blessed with the ability to sleep like a cat as so many women are in my profession, and if and when I do drop off I am only awoken by more ribald comments and laughter from the resident staff. Sometimes they call my lady the most shocking of names, things I could never bring myself to repeat, not even on paper, and I argue with them and tell them to mend their manners. But they just laugh back and say that what is so is so, and that every servant in every house in Society knows exactly the sort of woman my lady is.
When I do come to think about it, sometimes at night just before sleep comes, I conclude that it is because they are jealous of my lady because she is still the most beautiful of them all and because she was his Royal Highness’s favourite. I am in the best position to judge her too, because I must surely know her better than anyone. I have known her since she was a child and I have dressed her and attended her since she was a young woman, so I have been privy to her most secret thoughts and feelings for a long time now. In return she must think something of me for she has insisted that I go with her wherever she goes, first when she left home to marry Sir George and then after Sir George’s demise when she married Lord Evesham. I sometimes wonder what she would do without me, so well do I know her ways, but then only death would part me from her for I would never wish to serve another, however harshly and dismissively she sometimes treats me.
Often of course she threatens me with dismissal, and though it frightens me at first I try not to show it because I know it is only one of her spiteful teases. Like she said she would employ Freda Dillington, Lady Medlar’s maid. I don’t know what it was I had particularly done to upset my lady, but then when she has that sort of mood on her the merest trifle can set her off. So I said nothing, even though I was sorely tempted to tell on Freda and what an untrustworthy sort she is with an addiction to both drink and Lady Medlar’s laudanum (when she can get hold of it). Lady Medlar cannot dismiss her because of what Freda knows, but Freda would walk out of her position that I know for a fact if a better one was offered her, and it must be said there is more fun and excitement to be had working for my lady than anyone else in Society, that is for sure. As sure as eggs is eggs. So for once I was more than a little shaken by the threat because of knowing how much Freda envies me my post. Luckily because I chose right for my lady’s day dress and for her hat, and because I dressed her so particularly well today, my lady left for her first appointment in the best of spirits.
Even so I was left wondering quite what would happen to me if she did choose to be rid of me. If she had a mood on her and gave me no references I would not find it easy to gain a similar position. I am sure I would find it difficult to gain another position at all, because I am not so young as I once was. My mother died in the poorhouse, which is not what I want for myself. So I must hold my tongue, keep my eyes open and my wits about me. For I do not want to end my days either behind the bar in some dreadful tap room, or half starved to death in the poorhouse.
It is now past midnight and tomorrow I rise early because we are to Berkshire to take my lady’s prottigy as she is known to Lord Evesham’s lodge.
THE SEASON
COURTESIES
Lady Devenish sighed deeply and waved an imaginary fan in front of her face before sitting down once more in despair.
Up until the last few weeks her life at her cousin’s large, luxurious house built to overlook the racecourse at Ascot had been a model of simplicity. Since Lord Evesham only ever used it to entertain during the Royal meeting in June, he had given her the run of the place since Christmas, allowing her a small but highly efficient staff who served her excellent meals exactly on time and kept the parts of the house Lady Devenish required for her own private use in immaculate order, the rest of the rooms being left under wraps until the Season was properly under way when they would have to be prepared for the all-important race week. In the meantime the house was quiet and so was Lady Devenish’s life, that is until the arrival of the tall red-haired Lady Emily Persse sent to her quite unexpectedly from London by her cousin’s new wife.
Being an impoverished widow, Elizabeth Devenish had no say whatsoever in the matter, although the last thing she had ever expected was to be called upon to prepare some gauche young Anglo-Irish woman to be presented at court. Privately she had considered that upon taking up residence at Sunning Lodge and in the absence of her cousin she would have no role other than the supervision of the staff, which would hardly prove the most taxing of roles since that small army of people were already supremely well organized by the resident butler and housekeeper. This indeed was precisely the way it had worked out for the first few weeks, Lady Devenish being required to do little else than eat, sleep, sew, play the piano and read. Although her husband had now been dead for over two years, she felt she had still not recovered from her loss, and so was more than content to lead an almost monastic existence, although if the truth were to be told such a life suited her well because in fact Elizabeth Devenish was not in mourning at all but simply bone idle.
The arrival of Lady Emily Persse put an entirely different complexion on matters. At first Lady Devenish thought she might escape with at the most two hours a day instructing her new pupil on the ways of the social world, but not knowing the character of her protégée she could make no allowance for the fact that when Emily Persse was out of sight she was not out of mind. It was as if the whole house became infected by her, and quickly too. From what had been a quiet place where the servants all went about their business silently and seriously Sunning Lodge now became a hive of great activity. Lady Devenish could not understand the change which came over the place in such a short spell of time.
It was as if there were twenty Emily Persses come to stay, not one, and the effect on Lady Devenish’s previous scrupulously observed routine was catastrophic, not to mention the influence her pupil had on the staff.
From all around the house Lady Devenish could hear the sound of barely contained laughter and chatter, the noise of someone (although it sounded like an army of someones) running up and down stairs, banging doors, calling for assistance, singing, even – which Lady Devenish found almost impossible to believe – the sound of someone (or an army of someones) whistling. Gone too was the precise routine. Meals were now taken either early or late, the latter being the most usual case since Emily Persse seemed to have no idea whatsoever of punctuality, particularly when she had been out riding one of Lord Evesham’s fine horses in Windsor Great Park, a hobby Emily pursued practically every moment she was not being instructed in the social graces by her appointed tutor.
‘I have to say once again, Lady Emily, you are not in Ireland now,’ Lady Devenish found herself constantly correcting her pupil. ‘I do not know what you have been allowed to get up to at Glendarven nor why, and nor do I care, because my task is to get you into shape for the coming Season. But I will remind you once again that here in England young ladies are meant to behave like young ladies and not hooligans.’
‘Riding is hardly the pursuit of hooligans now, Lady Devenish,’ Emily would answer with only the hint of a grin.
‘I am not referring to your equestrianism, Lady Emily. I refer to your general standard of conduct. Running around the house and most particularly up and down the stairs, sometimes two at a time, is not considered fitting for a lady of style. Nor is tardiness. Nor is raising of the voice, and above all else nor is whistling. Whistling is deeply common. Whistling is for errand boys. Whistling is for steam engines. But it is not for young ladies of style. Where in heaven’s name, young lady, did you ever learn to whistle?’
‘Old Mikey taught me when I was a nipper,’ Emily replied. ‘He taught my mother too. Mamma can whistle the whole of “Lagan Love” through her fingers. With vibrato. Using her left hand like a fan. Like this – look.’
Emily stuck the little and the index finger of her right hand in her mouth with the middle two crooked and was just about to demonstrate when Lady Devenish stopped her.
‘I do not wish to hear, Lady Emily. It is not seemly behaviour.’
‘But my mother does it at parties, Lady Devenish. People come from miles around to hear her.’
‘That would not be the case in polite English Society I assure you. Now if you want to make music, then we shall go and practise your laugh to the piano. As I have taught you, a pretty and tuneful laugh is a great attraction in a young woman, and something you really must needs practise. At present your laugh belongs more to the stable than the drawing room.’
Lady Devenish flung open the door of the morning room where there was an upright piano and with a small sigh Emily went inside as instructed. For the next half an hour she practised laughing mirthlessly but tunefully to the notes played for her by her tutor.
‘This is even worse than yesterday,’ Lady Devenish said, stopping playing. ‘I really believe you are not trying quite deliberately.’
‘Oh come on, Lady Devenish,’ Emily began.
‘And pray do not tell me to come on, as if I was a dog, or a pack horse. It is most unmannerly.’
‘Sorry,’ said Emily.
‘I beg your pardon,’ corrected Lady Devenish.
‘What for?’ asked Emily.
‘I was correcting you, Lady Emily.’
‘You don’t need to apologize for that, Lady Devenish.’
‘I was correcting you—’ Lady Devenish had to stop and draw breath to prevent herself from losing her temper. ‘I was not apologizing. I was merely correcting your solecism. You do not say sorry when in the wrong. That is idiomatic. You say I beg your pardon.’
‘Sorry,’ Emily said, opening her green eyes ridiculously wide. ‘I mean – I beg your pardon.’ This she said in an exaggerated English accent hoping to bring a smile to her tutor’s grim face, but Lady Devenish was rarely amused, and never by Emily.
‘Good,’ she said, taking Emily’s exaggeration at face value. ‘That is the accent towards which you must work. We cannot have any hint of the bog left by the time you come to leave this house.’
Emily’s trouble was that the more serious Lady Devenish became, which was something she did daily, the more the devil got into Emily. Consequently she found there was nothing she enjoyed doing more than baiting her teacher, and far from improving her enunciation she pretended to find the task harder and harder the more Lady Devenish pressed her to eliminate all sounds of the bog, regressing instead to the type of accent she had never in her life possessed.
‘Ah sure now, Lady Devenish, aren’t yous makin’ it all but impossible for me de way you’re goin’ about tings?’ she would sigh, sinking into a chair with her feet wide apart and her arms flopping at her side which she knew infuriated her teacher. ‘Dear Lord above us in his heaven, de more you push me de more impossible I’m findin’ it to do what you axe.’
In turn Lady Devenish, having corrected her pupil’s appalling posture, would herself collapse on a sofa or into a chair, putting the back of one hand to her apparently fevered brow, and maintain that her task was becoming more impossible by the hour.
‘Bedad and I wish yous wouldn’t do dat now, Lady Devenish,’ Emily would remark with a perfectly straight face. ‘You’d worry de livin’ daylights out of a soul wit’ yer sighing and swooning and moanin’. Sure I’m doin’ me very best not to make a complete eejit of meself, but I do not seem to be succeeding, do I? For every times I practise me laugh to the pianer you blocks yer pooor auld ears, and every times I try and curtsey I falls to de floor and you swoons back in your chair. Perhaps we’d better not bother any more and I’ll pack me bags and go back to the bog.’
This particular afternoon Emily looked across to where her teacher sat in her chair speechless and with her head in her hands, all but conceding defeat. They had just been endeavouring yet again to perfect what Lady Devenish called the formal court courtesy, as opposed to the standard introductory courtesy, and as usual Emily had deliberately crossed her legs all wrong and fallen time and time again either forwards into her teacher’s arms or backwards onto her derrière with a great hoot of unladylike laughter.
‘Get away!’ she cried the last time she fell to the floor. ‘Can you imagine what’d happen if I go doin’ that in front of the auld queen?’
‘No, no, no,’ Lady Devenish said very slowly. ‘You do not refer to her Imperial Majesty as the auld queen, nor do you raise your voice, nor do you laugh, as I understand the simile goes, like a drain.’
‘Ah but you’d have to laugh, wouldn’t yer?’ Emily enquired as she picked herself up. ‘I mean if I was to go fallin’ over like that in front of her Imperial Majesty you would have to laugh, because for sure enough everyone else in de room would be laughin’.’
There followed a long silence, a time which Lady Devenish spent with her face hidden behind both her slender lily-white hands. ‘One has tried,’ she murmured finally, still with her face in her hands. ‘One has tried to teach you to speak properly, how to make a court courtesy, how to laugh melodiously, how to enter a room, how to leave a room, how to take tea, how to sip and not gulp wine. How to look amused when bored to death and how to stifle a yawn. How to take your leave of company, how to refuse a proposal of marriage and how to accept one. How to sit, how to stand, and how to get in and out of a carriage. How properly to peel an artichoke and even how to eat an ortolan without making a single sound. Heaven knows how one has tried. But.’ And here she finally removed her hands from in front of her face to stare at Emily with the saddest pair of eyes Emily had seen in an age. ‘But one has failed. And there it is. One has simply failed and failed lamentably, alas. So. What shall become of us both? You will be the laughing stock of the coming Season and for my part in failing to tr
ain you so too shall I. And when our joint failure becomes apparent then what, Lady Emily? I shall tell you. Then my cousin, who is an ill-tempered fellow at the best of times and an utter pill at both the best and the worst of times, when he learns how abysmally I have failed to carry out what he and his new wife consider to be the most perfectly straightforward of tasks, will ask me to leave here and live elsewhere. That is not a prospect that appeals to me, Lady Emily, and shall I tell you why? For while you, even though you may be laughed at and quietly derided and very possibly left without a proposal to which you can give any serious consideration, while you may return to your beloved Ireland, to your horses, to your old groom and to the bosom of your family, there to marry someone more lowly perhaps than you had hoped, but marry none the less, I have no such choice. I am a widow, Lady Emily, and not a very prepossessing one. I have plain looks and no money. I have the most miserable of houses in a singularly unappealing part of the Surrey countryside where all one can see are pine trees and gorse bushes and few friends of my own. But that is whither I must return as soon as my failure becomes known. That is the future to which you condemn me because you cannot learn even the most simple of social graces.’
‘I didn’t know you were taking it that seriously, Lady Devenish,’ Emily replied after a moment, once she could look her teacher in the eyes again. ‘Forgive me, please, for I was only teasing.’
‘Teasing?’
‘I can’t help it. I get the very devil inside me sometimes and I always have. I really didn’t mean to upset you. I was just having a bit of a lark.’
‘You mean you are not the clumsy addlepate you have been making out that you were?’
‘I might be that very thing, Lady Devenish. But I can do a whole lot better than I have been doing for you, so please forgive me. I really didn’t mean to make trouble for you.’
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