The only people she had to be wary of were her 'betters, mistresses and masters' as Mrs Bell referred to the Earl, his family, and their friends who visited the house on a fairly regular basis. Some of these visitors did irritate her, though no one had said anything yet which had caused her to bridle. She had to be careful however, for she was well aware that, for some of these fine people, no 'mere servant' could be fawning and obsequious enough for their liking; and she well knew that what her father had always called 'the streak of Highland iron' which ran through their family was, more often than not, apparent in her manner.
A sharp glint of it had already appeared in an encounter with Lady Clara the day before.
Constance had been sorting through the jumble of clothes left on the floor of Lady Clara's room as Clara sat combing out her long dark blonde hair before the dressing-table mirror, while Lady Harriet lounged on the bed which Constance had just finished making. As Constance picked up and shook out a soiled nightdress, one of Clara's many pearl necklaces flew out, collided with the bed-post and skittered across the highly polished floor-boards.
“You clumsy thing! They're my favourite pearls!”
Lady Clara paused in mid-brush and, flushed with contempt, glared at Constance.
“If they were my favourite pearls, I'd take rather more care of them, personally speaking.”
“How dare you speak to me like that!”
Lady Clara's pale-skin was suffused with blood. Constance walked over and picked up the pearls.
“They don't seem too bruised, if they need treatment, I'll gladly pay for it, as I suppose it was my fault.”
“'You'll pay' will you... you... have you any idea what that pearl necklace cost?”
“No, have you?”
Both of the young ladies stared at her in astonishment. Then Harriet giggled, shook her shoulders, and snuggled back down against the pillows, secretly pleased at her eldest, soon to be 'out in society', sister's discomfiture.
“She's right Clara. You have no idea, and you really should be more careful with your jewellery.”
Constance handed the pearls to Lady Clara who took them and ostentatiously laid them in one of her over-stuffed jewellery boxes.
“As you're new here, I shall overlook it on this occasion, but be careful with my things.”
Lady Harriet giggled again at the bow of the head Constance gave, which Lady Clara, turning to re-examine her complexion in the mirror, missed.
Constance went on with her day, well pleased with the way that the altercation had played out.
~~~~~
In the kitchen, Mrs Bell and the kitchen maids were, as often of late, discussing Mrs Leslie. Had Mrs Bell seen the incident of the pearls, it would've instantly proved the main tenet of her deeply considered theory as to Mrs Leslie – a theory on which she was holding forth, at that very moment.
“That Scot's baggage is too smart for her own good. Mark me she'll come to grief, and quick.”
“Yes, she's a neat-tongued creature I must say.” Sarah lifted a willow-pattern dish from the hot water and examined it in the sunlight. “But everyone says she's the hardest worker wot we ever had here at Blackwood Chase. 'She's a whole regiment of housemaids in one' Mr Collins said, 'parently. You can't deny that Mrs Bell. You've seen her with the laundry.”
Mrs Bell paused with knife raised, a knife red with the blood of the freshly caught pheasant she was preparing for the pot, and pointed it at Sarah.
“Did you hear me say she wasn't a hard worker girl? Did you, eh?”
“No Missus. Sorry.”
“All I said was she's far too smart for a servant. It's against the laws of God and Man for a chit of a housemaid to have a clever tongue in her head. She'll come to grief, mark me.”
Sarah and Mary didn't, but the pheasant's neck certainly did.
As the days passed, Constance earned the respect of most of the generally ungrudging domestic inmates of Blackwood Chase. Not only for doing her own daunting quota of work uncomplainingly, but for often, unbidden, helping them with theirs. The only hindrance to her being completely accepted was her 'foreignness’. Someone from outside the county was stranger enough, but someone from the wilds of the north of the British Isles may as well have hailed from another planet. Constance acknowledged to herself that she would probably never be fully accepted by her colleagues, but she didn't mind. She was there to earn money, to look after her mother-in-law, old Mrs Leslie, a lady she loved; not just for her sweet nature, but for the fact that she was the last link with her dead soldier husband. The old woman provided a kind of continuity in what had thus far proved to be a very sketchy and disconnected life.
At the moment, nothing mattered but the joy of putting food on the table and new clothes on the back of Mrs Leslie, senior. Nothing else counted with her. Certainly not the good opinion of the Earl of Blackwood, that most handsome, most amiable, most intelligent, most intriguing of men.
Chapter Four
The arrival of the warm spring weather, with its portent of the greater warmth of summer, always caused a stir of excited anticipation at Blackwood Chase. It meant delightful tea parties and larger assemblies of the local gentry on the great sweeps of lawn around the house and down by the river, which wound its semi-natural course through the Earl's estate. Spring and summer even provided some diversion and relief for the domestics incarcerated in the great house, as these outdoor events required diligent service by a whole troop of maids and table servants, and, though the work was hard, to be out in the open air was a joy for those usually cooped up within the maze-like confines of the great house.
The tea-party arranged by Lady Clara and Lady Harriet, originally planned as nothing grander than a tête-à-tête with their great friends Lady Arabella Simpson and Lady Phoebe Thompson, somehow swelled into a garden assembly for the sons and daughters of most of the big houses in the vicinity. Mr Collins had to plan for the event with military precision, while Mrs Templeton organized the domestic troops and Mrs Bell press-ganged extra help from the village and further afield for the baking, cooking, and dishwashing.
The day of the event was one of those beautiful clear, still spring days which seemed to stand as proof that the nature of things was inherently good, and which made it very difficult to imagine that anything at all unpleasant could occur. Constance was assigned to wait on one group of tables under the awnings which had been tied between the great oaks that spread their fresh greenery along the banks of the river. Her crisp new white and pale blue uniform was as fresh as the blossoms colouring the trees and bushes of the park, her hair, or what was visible of its wealth beneath her white cap, shone like bronze in the early afternoon sun, and her whole complexion, enlivened by the physical activity of serving, was as beguilingly perfect as anything visible among the young ladies who sat at the scattered tables, whispering and giggling in the throes of gossip.
Many of the young men, in between being gallant to the young ladies, managed to steal an admiring look at the flame-haired servant, as did some of her male colleagues, and if she hadn't been beneath the notice of these gathered feminine flowers of the aristocracy, she might have excited some serious envy. As she darted amongst the tables, dispensing cake, and pouring tea and lemonade, the only young lady monitoring her movements was Lady Amelia.
Lady Amelia heartily despised Constance, for 'profiting by Lizzie's death', as if she'd been somehow responsible for Lizzie's unfortunate sickness and demise. She hated everything about the new servant, particularly what she dubbed 'her sickening alacrity’, though it was the lack of this that she continually complained of in all of the other servants. But the new servant seemed less than quick on her feet when it came to refilling Lady Amelia’s own teacup today and she was growing increasingly irate.
Finally, Constance came to the table, her red lips in a dazzling smile, her green eyes flashing, bearing her teapot as if – Lady Amelia thought - it held the nectar of the gods and could only be poured out to the truly deserving.
“Constance! If you please!”
Constance, noting Lady Amelia's sharply raised chin and grim expression amidst the mass of smiling aristocratic youth, reined in her smile and approached the table where her young mistress sat, with Lady Phoebe Thompson close on her right.
“Would you be kind enough to pour some tea for us here Constance, we're quite parched.”
“Certainly, my Lady.”
“I don't know how service is in the wild lands north of Hadrian's Wall but down here, in England, where you now find yourself, we expect servants to be attentive to our needs, and to come quickly when we require them.”
“I'm fully aware of that, your Ladyship, and I do apologise but there are a lot of very thirsty young people here and, perhaps because of the breeze, I didn't quite hear you call.”
“How dare you talk back to me that way! You, mutton-headed fool! You Scots slattern! You'll speak when you're spoken to and not before!”
Constance, straightening herself, and regarding Lady Amelia's flushed face, with its burning dark hazel eyes freezing the chatter of the group around her, coolly returned her look.
“If that's to be the case, then I'm forbidden from asking you if there is now enough tea in your cup.”
Constance's look and cool tone cut right through the shallow layers of Lady Amelia's bristling ego like a scalpel; the girl leapt to her feet, her face as red as a turkey’s crest.
“Why you filthy skivvy, you, you dolled-up Gin Lane tart! One more word from you and I'll fling this tea in your block-headed freckled Highland face!”
“Amelia dear, please sit down, she's just a servant.”
This hissed injunction from Lady Phoebe, usually such an unquestioning ally of Lady Amelia's, enraged the girl even more.
“I will NOT TOLERATE being spoken to in this manner by a poxy serving-girl! Get back to the house at once! I shall speak to my father about you and he'll have you shipped back to your highland sheepfold quicker than a snap of the fingers!”
Constance stood, ramrod-backed in the hush that had fallen on the whole party, then turned and walked away, pausing only to leave her teapot at the serving table. She walked straight across the lawns, around the back of the house, and straight to Mrs Templeton's office. Mrs Templeton, beaming pleasantly, beckoned her in and told her to sit down.
“I am very sorry to have to cause you and the household any inconvenience, Mrs Templeton, but a new circumstance forces me to tender my immediate resignation.”
Mrs Templeton could not have been more surprised if Constance had slapped her in the face.
“But Constance... what?... this is... quite astonishing! You were so eager to work here, as eager as I was to employ you on behalf of his Lordship. What on earth has happened to make you change your mind?”
“I don't wish to talk of it, Mrs Templeton, and, again, I really am profoundly sorry, but I'm forced... it's a matter of honour to me that I tender my resignation. I'll be leaving early in the morning - I'll go and pack immediately.”
Constance stood up, held out her hand and, when Mrs Templeton offered hers, she squeezed it warmly, turned and left. The still astonished Head Housekeeper simply stood there, murmuring the phrase 'a matter of honour' with a wrinkled brow.
~~~~~
Through the tiny window of her room, tucked up in the attics of Blackwood Chase, Constance could see that it was still the most beautiful day outside, the birds' song drifting up from the venerable old trees in their fresh green spring growth, a puff of pure white cloud drifting past her window, high and happily alone.
'I wish I were that cloud, happy to drift, needing nothing and no one' she thought, going on with arranging her few threadbare things in her cheap canvas valise. 'I'm alone, and off, drifting again. But I have no choice. I will not, cannot tolerate being spoken to by that chit of a girl as if I were less than a dog. Impossible!'
Impossible, and yet how she'd miss the great house, even after such a brief time within it. Mrs Templeton, Mr Collins, Anne, Rosemary, Bob, and the other servants, or some of them at least - they were essentially good solid people. Among these regretted figures, the one which loomed largest remained unnamed in her thoughts, although his image came insistently to the forefront of her mind.
He was tall, dark-browed, manly, handsome, and, somehow, possessing a warmth, a certain... aura... which other men signally lacked. His Lordship, the Earl.
Chapter Five
That evening, as Constance lay, half-dressed, trying fitfully to sleep on the bed of her tiny attic room, the Earl trotted into the stable-yard on his horse. He was feeling unusually cheerful after a very pleasant afternoon visiting Lord Melgrove to discuss the latest agricultural innovations, and he was also still basking in the glow of having that nagging servant problem solved by the hiring of Mrs Leslie – it had been over a week now, and things had been quiet on that front since the day she had started.
All that was needed now to complete a most satisfactory day was a glass of brandy, or perhaps port, by the study fireside while Mr Collins informed him of any important titbits of news related to the business of the house.
“What! Edward! You're not serious! Can this be so?”
The Earl's warm glow of satisfaction had suffered a drastic drop in temperature at the news which his Head Butler had delivered to him, in his usual dry, measured tones. If Napoleon himself had somehow escaped, once again, from his island captivity and was storming London, Collins would still relate the news in those same unaffected tones.
“Mrs Leslie? The new upstairs maid, the new maid my three doggedly insistent daughters bewailed the lack of for so long? The one we held out such hopes for, due to her previous experience as a governess? Leaving? After... how many days?”
“Ten my Lord.”
“And why, what reason does she give?”
“She hasn't quite specified the details to Mrs Templeton, or to me, but it is, apparently, a most serious 'matter of honour’.”
“Good God man. 'A matter of honour?' What? Is she fighting a duel with another housemaid? What in blazes is the matter with her? Couldn't you press her on this 'matter of honour’?”
“The combined verbal dexterity – if I may put it so immodestly – of myself and Mrs Templeton, could not budge the lady your Lordship. For a... housemaid, she's quite formidable. But they breed them so in Scotland I believe.”
Perry drained the glass he'd been anticipating with such pleasure on his ride home, got up and, sighing, trying to imitate the unflappable composure of his Head Butler, walked slowly to the window, and peered out at the still, mid-May evening.
“Well Edward, I flatter myself that I also possess a modicum of 'verbal dexterity’. Bring the lady down to me and I shall see if it can elicit some reason for this sudden flight from a post she was, by all accounts, so keen to get.”
“Your Lordship... cross-examine a housemaid?”
“I won’t overdo things Edward, but I'll be damned if I won't find out why on God's earth the girl has taken it into her head to so abruptly quit my employ. I mean – she may not be the last! She may be the herald of a mass exodus of servants from Blackwood Chase.”
Mr Collins smiled, pleased to see the Earl's irritated bafflement cooling into irony.
“This exodus must be nipped in the bud this evening. That is: I must know her reason so it can be dealt with immediately. I really can't have servants streaming away through my doors and windows. Can I? Apart from which, I have absolutely no intention of submitting myself to the combined nagging of my wonderfully spoiled daughters to find a replacement.”
“Most assuredly not, your Lordship.”
“Good, we are, once again, in agreement, send her to me... in twenty minutes.”
~~~~~
It was almost a full hour before Mrs Templeton had persuaded Constance to go to the library and 'merely talk' to his Lordship. Constance only agreed after something that the housekeeper said had pricked her conscience sufficiently. Yes, Mrs Templeton was right
- she did owe her employer at least some kind of explanation, however vaguely worded.
As Constance followed Mrs Templeton down the stairs to the library, her heart beating unaccountably fast, she assured herself that she would simply repeat, more or less, what she had told the housekeeper and Mr Collins. It was a private matter, exacerbated by her concerns for her mother-in-law etc. etc. And then, she would curtsey to his Lordship, leave, and never see him or Blackwood Chase again.
But when she was shown into the library, she was hard pressed to hold onto her presence of mind.
It was the first time that she had seen him at such close quarters. If he’d looked impressive at a distance, passing her, going about his business in the house, his physical presence was almost completely overpowering now, so close, as Mrs Templeton brought her before him, his tall dark figure leaning back against the front edge of his desk. When he looked at her, his eyes seemed to sink deep into her flesh, his voice itself, its manly timbre, seemed to play all over her skin, as if seeking entry.
'Stop it Constance! Pull yourself together! What are you, a quivering field mouse!' She returned his look as bravely as she could, and was still being brave when Mrs Templeton, unnoticed by either of them, left the room.
“Please Mrs Leslie, sit down.” He drew one of the chairs away from the fire for her – a far too sumptuous object for a servant, she thought – and himself returned to his leaning position against the desk. Despite his apparent composure, her senses detected a certain... agitation... But how so? He, an Earl, an adviser to the King and Prince Regent, and she... an unemployed housemaid? What could he conceivably have to be agitated about? “Mrs Leslie, I am sorry to have you brought down here so late, and without warning, but I am very, very, concerned about your departure. I... we... pride ourselves here on maintaining a household on rational principles, which are fair to all. We expect a lot from the people who work here, but we also give much in return. Respect, security, good wages, as much personal leisure as such a large household permits. I'm always curious to know why someone, someone as hard-working and so highly recommended as yourself, suddenly chooses to leave... Not just curious, but, under present circumstances, anxious, to know what you find so irksome, so wrong with all of us here.”
The Scottish Governess: Regency Romance Page 4