Apparently satisfied, the maid rose and pulled a gold braided cord that hung from the wall near the dressing table. The door opened a minute later, breezing cooler air into the room along with a woman wearing the same black gown with white apron. Under her lace cap, carrot red hair was pulled back into a chignon, from which several corkscrew curls had sprung loose. She flashed Sarah a smile that displayed more gums than little pearl teeth, but she was still very pretty.
“Why, hello there . . . I’m Hester.”
Her breathy voice was pitched so high that Sarah would have thought a five-year-old had entered the room had she not looked.
“Her name is Miss Matthews,” the lady’s maid replied curtly, motioning toward the gray heap of clothing. “These are to be burned. And those downstairs as well.”
Sarah’s heart ached all the more. “I’ve no lice,” she said in a small voice. “May I keep my clothes?”
“I am sorry,” Marie replied, though her expression did not soften. “You will have other things to wear. Much finer things.”
“But what’s she going to wear now?” the younger maid asked, her brow knitting under the canopy of corkscrew curls. “You ain’t going to keep her in that tub all day, are you?”
“Mrs. Bacon will send someone to SWAN AND EDGAR’S when Stanley returns. There is not much to her, so we will have to wrap her with a towel until they send some clothing.”
With the discarded clothes in her arms, Hester paused at the door. Marie had spoken to her just as harshly as she did Sarah, but clearly she was not intimidated. “Avis’s the thinnest of us,” she said in the high-pitched voice. “I’ll see if she’s willin’ to lend her a wrapper. Better than a towel.”
The gesture of kindness gave Sarah the courage to ask, “Please, Miss . . .”
“Yes?”
“I’ve some things wrapped in my bundle downstairs.” She smiled. “I’ll see about them, Miss Matthews.”
The door closed behind her, shutting off the inflow of cooler air and goodwill, and Sarah was left alone with Marie again. “Wet your hair,” the woman said.
“Yes, Ma—” Sarah began automatically, then cringed at her scowl. “I’m trying hard to remember.”
The woman did not reply but sloshed her hands in the water before taking the soap from her. Sarah leaned back on her elbows until her face was an island in the water. When she raised herself again, she stared ahead and allowed her hair to be lathered. Fingers dug roughly into her scalp, but it was not an unpleasant feeling. After a couple of minutes Sarah’s short hair was a bonnet of lather. The maid was pulling a chain attached to a stopper. Water lowered with gulping sounds as if the pipes underneath were thirsty. But my hair . . . Sarah protested silently.
Marie turned on the cold-water tap again and said as if by way of grudging apology, “It would take too long to heat more water.”
“I’m used to rinsing with bath water,” Sarah offered while about half still remained in the tub.
“Bath water? You might as well not bother to wash. Come now, move back a bit.”
The water scooped in palmfuls over her hair was chill enough to set her teeth rattling. “Cold, yes?” the maid asked after turning off the tap, when Sarah shivered at the water trickling down her bare back.
Sarah forgot again. “Yes, Madam.”
But the maid simply took towels from the cupboard and wrapped one around her hair like a sultan’s turban. She motioned for her to stand and wound another towel around Sarah’s torso, tucking in the last corner under her arm. With her assistance Sarah stepped out of the tub and onto the carpet. Marie dried her face, arms, and legs with still another towel. Three! Sarah thought. At the home, it was more likely that three girls would share one threadbare towel, and it was almost sodden when it was the unfortunate last girl’s turn.
When the maid was finished, having even dried between Sarah’s toes as she held on to the side of the tub for balance, she dropped the towel on the carpet. Her frown deepened. “You are even thinner wet. Your arms are like chicken bones.”
“I’m sorry.” Sarah moved her left hand behind her so that it wouldn’t be a target for criticism as well.
“Well, Naomi will fatten you up. Her cooking is typical bland English fare, but as you have never tasted French food, you will be able to stomach it.”
“Yes, M—” Giving a sigh, Sarah said in an apologetic tone, “Why mustn’t I address you as ‘Madam’ . . . if you please?”
“Because I am a servant,” the woman replied.
“But so am I.”
“No. You are Mrs. Blake’s ward. You must learn to address people correctly, or you will be thought of as an ignorant little girl with no refinement. Mrs. Blake is the only person you address as Madam, unless one of her prattling friends comes to call.”
Sarah nodded and said with even more meekness, “Thank you. I shall try to remember that. But how am I to address you . . . if you please?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “You address me as ‘Marie,’ for that is my name. The others are to be addressed by their given names as well, except, of course, for Mrs. Blake and Mrs. Bacon and Mr. Duffy.”
Mrs. Bacon was the housekeeper, Sarah remembered. So it stood to reason that Mr. Duffy was the butler. But when she asked Marie, the woman made a snort of disapproval. “I would not work here if there were one. English butlers are pompous popinjays. Mr. Duffy is addressed as ‘Mister’ simply because he has been employed by Mrs. Blake for so long. He is the gardener, but presently he is on his way to fetch Naomi, Madame’s cook, from the station, which means meals will once again be merely tolerable instead of barely palatable.”
Chapter Nine
“You’ll be careful with that trunk, now,” Naomi cautioned as Mr. Duffy pocketed the harmonica he had played all the way from King’s Cross Station, and William unfastened the straps to the hackney’s boot. They were in the mews, the road running behind the gardens of Berkeley Street where the stables belonging to Mrs. Blake and the other residents of the square were situated. When the trunk lay on the ground, Mr. Duffy dropped some coins into the cabby’s outstretched hand.
“Thank you, guv’nor,” the man said with a tug on the bill of his cap. He sat up straight in his box again and reined the horse around in a crunch of gravel. “And that was mighty fine music!”
“Thank you, good sir!” After saluting the departing cabby, Mr. Duffy glanced at the stable, where William and Stanley, the groomsmen, lived upstairs. “Would you want to be getting your things out now, William?”
“Almost everything in it needs to go out with the wash,” Naomi answered for him. “So we might as well bring it to the cellar now.”
“We, she says,” Mr. Duffy quipped with a grunt as he and William hefted the trunk to their shoulders.
They started down the garden path with Mr. Duffy leading. Naomi, well to the side to allow them room, looked ahead and spotted parlormaid Claire Duffy advancing gracefully upon them. She was a Rubenesque woman of thirty-five who moved with the grace of a ballerina even upon the path stones. Her eyes were a warm hazel, her cheeks apple rosy, and her acorn-colored hair dipped into a handsome widow’s peak.
“Yoo-hoo!” Claire called, waving.
Naomi smiled and returned the wave. Mr. Duffy said, “There’s my fair wife. Close your eyes, boy, I expect she’ll be wantin’ to kiss me.”
But it was Naomi whom Claire kissed and then turned to plant one upon William’s startled face. “So good to have you back!” she declared, a smile dimpling her plump cheeks.
“It’s good to be back,” Naomi assured her with a wink at Mr. Duffy. “But we’ve been away only four days.”
“Claire wants everyone to stay put,” her husband said. “Come, boy. Now that you’ve finished tryin’ to steal my wife, lets move along before my shoulder gives.”
The four started for the house again, Naomi and Claire lagging behind. “She’s here,” Claire said in a low voice.
“Mr. Duffy said she might be.” Slowing h
er steps just to be sure her words didn’t reach her nephew’s ears, Naomi asked, “What’s she like?”
“Only Mrs. Bacon, Hester, and Marie have seen her so far,” Claire replied with equally lagging steps. “Mrs. Bacon says Sarah Matthews is her name.”
“Matthews?”
“Yes. After the orphanage.”
“I see.” Naomi smiled. “I’ve yet to meet a ‘Sarah’ who wasn’t a jewel.”
Claire’s voice lowered another notch. “Mrs. Bacon sent word around that we’re not to look taken aback when we see her hand. It’s crippled.”
“Oh dear. Can it be mended, do you think?”
“Not by any doctor this side of heaven. It’s a birth deformity.”
Naomi had given much thought to the girl’s plight over the past months, so she felt as aggrieved as if she had found out the news about a dear friend. She would have to warn William as soon as they were alone. Not that he would act anything less than gentlemanly, but surprise sometimes caused one to say the wrong thing. “The poor mite. Bad enough being in an orphanage all those years.”
“And then to have the Missus send her up to a bath first thing.” The parlormaid grimaced. “Marie’s giving it to her now.”
“Marie?”
“Hester said she didn’t look too keen to be about it.”
“What a welcome!” Naomi shook her head. “Let’s hope she’s not frightening the poor child to death.”
* * *
“But I have one with my things,” Sarah said, pride forbidding her to add that at least a third of the bristles were broken. Still, Marie pressed the toothbrush into her hand. It looked new, with soft even bristles and a rose carved into the wooden handle.
“You will use that one,” the lady’s maid said, reaching again into the narrow cupboard by the sink to bring out a squat white jar. When it was handed to her, Sarah had to shift the toothbrush between two fingers to hold it. Dr. Ebermann’s Tooth-wash was arched on the lid beneath a picture of Napoleon, who stood with one foot on a rock under the caption, “The Best Dentifrice in the World.”
Sarah shifted her feet uncomfortably. At Saint Matthew’s plain water was used. Did one smear the tooth-wash across one’s teeth or dip one’s toothbrush into the jar when it was possibly used by others? She gave Marie a helpless look. The maid, apparently assuming her discomfort came from not being able to manage this task one-handed, took the jar, twisted open the top, and held it out. The white paste inside did not appear to have been disturbed.
“Well?”
“I’m not quite sure what to do,” Sarah confessed.
Marie gave a long-suffering sigh. “You must dip the toothbrush into the paste.”
“Thank you.”
“And do not swallow it.”
The taste was mildly unpleasant, but Sarah grew used to it the longer she brushed. She rinsed using the glass Marie withdrew from the cupboard and, under the maid’s prompting, spat into the basin under running tap water. Marie took the brush from her and rinsed it, propped it in the glass, and returned it to the cupboard.
“I have loosened the lid on the paste so it will be easier to open from now on,” she said gruffly.
“Thank you.”
The maid shrugged before turning to start across the room. Sarah could do nothing but follow. But at the door Marie turned and frowned toward the table with all the bottles. Sarah hurried over to push the stool back underneath. She almost bumped into Marie when she turned. The maid reached past to pick up an octagonal-shaped purple bottle with Rummel’s Double Distilled Lavender Water on the label beneath a spray of lavender. She took out the stopper and a sweet mild aroma filled the room.
“A young lady should smell nice, yes?” Marie’s face was still set into hard lines, but there was no anger in her tone.
“Yes,” Sarah agreed. She was still so intimidated by her that she would have agreed to the opposite just as quickly.
Marie turned the bottle against her finger and then dabbed behind Sarah’s ears. “It is not half so fine as anything from Paris, but you are too young for perfume, anyway, so it will do.”
“Thank you.” The wetness behind Sarah’s ears caused her a little shiver. Once the stopper was replaced, the scent didn’t seem as strong. And when they were out in the corridor, she could detect only a lingering trace of it on herself. But it was proof that Marie perhaps did not despise her after all, and some of her fear ebbed.
They stopped at the first door on the left, white and paneled, with a crystal knob. “This is where you will stay. It is the guest chamber.”
She did not open the door, however, but nodded toward the one directly across the corridor. “I am the only servant to sleep on this floor,” she said proudly. “That is so I can be near Madame if she needs me.” She looked toward three more doors ahead, one on the right and two on the left.
“Madame’s chamber,” she said with a motion to the right, and to the left, “The far one was Monsieur Blake’s. Next to his was their son’s.”
Sarah had so longed to leave this house that it had not even occurred to her to wonder where she would sleep the night. As she was ushered through the doorway, she halfway expected to see rows of narrow beds. Instead, one bed sat against the opposite wall, with thick wooden posts and curtains of royal blue brocade hanging from a tester. The mattress was as high as her chest and wide enough to sleep a half-dozen girls from Saint Matthew’s. That thought was enough to make Sarah’s eyes sting, so she pushed it aside and listened to Marie say that the wardrobe dominating the wall to her right was for hanging her clothes—when she had some.
On the right side of the fireplace, against the left wall, was a long window draped with laces and the same rich cloth as the bed-curtains. “You can see the garden and mews,” Marie said. There was also a dressing table and bench, a bedside lamp table, and a chair and ottoman upholstered with a satiny blue-and-gold striped fabric. The room seemed more worthy of Queen Victoria than an orphan from Drury Lane. Could she ever grow accustomed to being in a place with furnishings so rich that she feared her very touch would mar their beauty?
Her eyes met a welcome sight. Her belongings, like old friends, were arranged neatly atop a chest of drawers. She had a grateful thought toward Hester, who at that minute breezed through the open doorway, one arm draped with a cloth of sea green satin with tiny pink flower buds.
“Avis says she may borrow this,” she said, holding the garment up by its shoulders. “I had to beg it out of her—it was a Christmas present from her mother, and she wants to keep it nice.”
“Then I shouldn’t wish to wear it, please,” Sarah said in her smallest voice, though it was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. What if she ripped or soiled it?
“Nonsense,” Marie snorted. “It is only a dressing gown.” To Hester she said, “But it is still too ample.”
“But we can roll the sleeves and tuck the waist up into the sash so’s she don’t trip herself.” The maid dipped into an apron pocket. “Oh, and I’ve a measuring ribbon.”
“Good. We will do that first.”
Sarah found herself between the two women. One held a ribbon with numbers on it around her towel-swathed waist, from the top of her shoulder to her ankle, and then the length of her arm. Marie went over to the desk and lifted a latch to raise the top. She brought out a pencil and sheet of paper and scribbled while Hester helped Sarah into the wrapper. Soon the lady’s maid joined them again, rolling the sleeves and pulling the cloth up through the sash at her waist so that it billowed out like a pillow.
The two maids stepped back appraisingly. Hester covered a smile with her hand, and Marie frowned and said, “She looks like a harlequin. And we have spent enough time on this foolishness. I will bring the measurements to Mrs. Bacon, and you have work to do.”
What about me? Sarah thought, fearful of being shut up alone in the cavernous room. She met Hester’s eyes in a pleading look. The younger maid nodded and asked, “But what will we do with Miss Matthews?”
Halfway through the doorway, Marie waved a hand without looking back. “I do not know. Show her around if you must. Just keep her out of everyone’s way.”
Again Sarah felt the sting of tears. She was to live in this magnificent house, but it was no more a home to her than was Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
“Don’t worry about her,” Hester said with a pat on her back. “Let’s comb your hair before it dries, shall we?”
“Yes, Madam,” Sarah said before remembering that she wasn’t to say that. But the red-haired maid simply laughed and pulled out the bench to a dressing table that resembled the one in the bathroom, only there were no bottles on its surface.
It was the first Sarah had seen of herself since her bath, and she did look comical with her turban, sagging shoulders, and billowing waist. Not enough to make her laugh, for her heart was still so heavy, but she wondered if she might remember this day years from now and do so. She hoped so.
“Why doesn’t she live in France?” Sarah asked, seated on the bench. Damp curls were beginning to free themselves as the comb was pulled through them.
“She won’t talk about it to us common folk, but Avis overheard her tellin’ Mrs. Bacon about a beau who were killed in a duel.”
Sarah found herself both horrified and fascinated. “He was killed?”
“That’s what Avis says.” The maid pulled the comb through again, releasing more curls.
In the mirror Sarah could see her freckled nose wrinkle.
“Stanley—he brought you over in the coach—said if they was dueling, they was fighting over who had to take her, but I scolded him rightly for that. It ain’t proper to make sport of the dead. But Stanley didn’t mean nothing by it. He just likes to have a good time.”
With no idea how to respond to this, Sarah simply nodded as the maid set the comb on the table.
“There you are, Miss Matthews—not much to that little task. Are you ready for a look about the place?”
The Maiden of Mayfair Page 9