‘I wouldn’t have one for a king’s ransom,’ Lollie agreed.
‘Did he have an ayah?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps he got a complex from tight swaddling?’ Lollie laughed.
‘No, an ordinary nanny,’ she said, ‘but she told terrifying tales of monsters and burglars, while my nurse stuck to lullabies, so perhaps there’s something in it.’ With that, we returned to her room to choose a dress and some jewels and I noticed that her hair, without any rose-water or fussing, had lain down upon her head again. I left it well alone.
I had just fastened her shoes and was still kneeling on the floor, admiring her, dressed and decorated although with rather more rouge on than usual she told me, when there was a light tap on the door.
‘Pip,’ she mouthed to me, then she turned her head and raised her chin as the door opened.
I sat back on my heels, feeling my mouth suddenly dry and my palms damp. Here was the moment I had been dreading! Thankfully, I told myself, he would not take any notice of me and I should be spared having to converse with him. The bedroom door opened, scraping a little over the luxurious carpet, and Pip Balfour entered the room.
4
There was my villain. He looked even younger than his wife, with a long, lozenge-shaped face and three black dashes – two eyebrows and a moustache – very stark against his skin, which was smooth and pale down to his cheeks and then rather blue, needing its evening shave. His black hair was extremely smooth too and his eyes as he came closer I saw to be brown, like a spaniel’s. It suddenly seemed very unlikely that a devil could have such brown spaniel eyes.
‘Well,’ he said to Lollie, ‘don’t you look lovely!’ Lollie said nothing. As he had approached, her defiance had retreated until her chin was tucked down and she was looking up at him from under her lashes, breathing quickly. He gave a quick frown – of puzzlement or irritation, it was impossible to say – but then with visible effort managed another smile and even rubbed his hands together as he continued. ‘Yes, lovely,’ he said. ‘Thank you for putting on such a good show for me. It’s bound to be dull.’ Then he turned towards me, still at Lollie’s feet, and put his hand out, bowing slightly.
‘Miss Rossiter,’ he said. ‘Welcome.’ I shook his hand before I could help myself and he turned the handshake into a gallant gesture of helping me up. He had remarkably rough hands for a gentleman and his shirtsleeves – he was coatless for some reason – were rolled up just a little too far, well beyond the elbow, which is a very endearing trait in a grown man. ‘You must excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’ve been sanding my model sailing ship. Lollie always tells me I look like a docker, don’t you, darling?’
Lollie gave him an uncertain smile and spoke up at last.
‘Harry will straighten you out in no time.’
Pip laughed.
‘Gosh, yes indeed,’ he said. ‘Harry will certainly put me to rights. Wash and brush up and the rudiments of the Labour movement.’ My smile, which I could not help, appeared to please him enormously and he beamed back at me. ‘But peculiar valets notwithstanding, Rossiter, I hope you’ll be very happy with us. And take good care of my beloved girl for me.’ Then he glanced at his watch, blew a kiss towards his wife and withdrew.
That, I thought to myself, was more conversation than Hugh had had with Grant in the last twenty years. I looked wonderingly at Lollie and she caught the look and threw it back to me.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘He’s very convincing. Now do you see why I could never get anyone to believe me?’
I descended the stairs slowly and spent a good ten minutes staring out at my cherry tree before I wrote another word in my notebook. When Phyllis knocked on my door to tell me it was supper-time I was still puzzling.
‘Mistress looked lovely,’ she said to me as we climbed the stairs. ‘I saw her come down. The last one – Miss Abbott – didnae hold with rouge and lipstick and mistress never could put her foot down, but she looked a picture tonight.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll show you sometime if you like.’ I had correctly interpreted Phyllis’s wistful tone.
‘Oh, Miss Rossiter, would you really? Would you do me for my day out? Not to go and see my ma and fa because my fa would kill us both but every other week I go to the dancing with my pal and she aye tells me I look like a milkmaid.’
I scrutinised her face as we passed under a lamp in the kitchen passageway, and wished I had made Grant instruct me in the mysteries of the kohl pencil and lash black, but I had hardly foreseen the respectable Mrs Balfour needing such attentions. Could I remember it from the times Grant had insisted on painting it onto me? (For the disposition of power between ‘mistress’ and Miss Abbott had its reflection in my bedroom at home.)
That first evening in the servants’ hall was a perfect admixture of comfort, tiredness and boredom, and if one can get these three ingredients in proper proportion nothing is nicer; to be too tired to mind that one is bored and too comfortable to mind that one is tired makes for an evening of guilty pleasure that comes my way rather seldom. Mrs Hepburn and I occupied the armchairs once more, with Mr Faulds joining us between bursts of duty in the dining room; Mattie, Harry and John played gin rummy; Clara was nowhere to be seen – busy upstairs with the dinner guests, I supposed, as was Stanley – but the other girls sat sewing and chatting until the dirty plates began to come down again, then Millie and Eldry returned to the scullery with groans and yawns and Mrs Hepburn sauntered after them to supervise and plan for the following day.
Phyllis immediately took up Mrs Hepburn’s place in the armchair; I was fast beginning to see that these soft chairs were the prize of the servants’ hall and that no amount of time was too short to make it worth claiming one whenever all of one’s seniors had left the room.
‘So have you met master then?’ she said softly to me. The lads at their card-game were not listening. I nodded, trying not to perk up too visibly. ‘And what did you think of him?’ I took a while before I answered.
‘He seemed very nice,’ I said. ‘Very friendly. But I did wonder . . .’
‘Oh, he’s friendly all right,’ said Phyllis. ‘Just make sure you lock your door tonight, that’s all.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘One of those, is he?’ I felt a thrill of sophistication as I said this and Phyllis nodded, her eyelids half-closed and her tongue exploring her cheek in a triumphal show of ennui.
‘And who goes in to light his fire of a morning?’ I said. ‘Not you, dear, is it? I hope not.’
‘He’s never bothered me – thank goodness,’ Phyllis said. ‘Not in that way.’
‘But Miss Abbott?’ I said. She nodded.
‘And Mr Faulds can say what he likes about that baronet in North Berwick being a step up,’ she said, ‘but we all know why Maggie didn’t work her notice.’
‘Forgive me prying, dear,’ I wriggled forward in my chair and spoke even more softly to her, ‘but when you said he didn’t bother you in that way, what did you . . .’
‘I’m on notice,’ said Phyllis, ‘for giving him cheek. I’m on my last warning and if I don’t behave I’ll be out on my ear with no character.’
‘Well, I like that!’ I said. ‘For sticking up for your chums? For telling him to leave the others alone?’
‘No . . .’ said Phyllis, slowly. ‘It’s a funny thing, Miss Rossiter, but I can’t even remember what it was that riled him up so, what it was I’m supposed to have said or done.’ She shook her head. ‘He must have made me so angry I had some kind of a brainstorm. Well, it would be like him.’
‘Right then,’ said Mr Faulds’s voice, making us both jump. He was standing in the doorway, cradling a Schweppes bottle in his arms like a sleeping baby. ‘This is nearly empty,’ he said. ‘We’ll finish it off down here to let me send it back for filling. But not tonight.’ He flicked the central light off from the switch plate by the door, setting off a chorus of tutting and injured sighs.
‘You might have let us finish the hand, Mr Faulds,’ said John.
‘You can get up early and finish it in the morning if you’ve a mind,’ replied the butler.
‘Oh, Mr Faulds,’ said Phyllis, ‘what about our sing-song?’ She nodded towards the far end of the room where, in the corner by the window, there was a small and rather battered piano.
‘That’s right,’ said Mattie, jumping up and trotting towards it. ‘You promised, Mr Faulds. And it’s my turn to play. I’ve been practising two hours a day, every day.’
‘Mattie MacGibney!’ said Phyllis, staring at him with her eyes crossed in a comical way. ‘When do you ever get two spare hours a day to practise without bothering anyone? Don’t tell such fibs.’ Mattie blushed and mumbled an apology. ‘We usually have songs at the piano on a Sunday, Miss Rossiter,’ said Phyllis, turning to me, ‘but we were all upside down yesterday with Maggie and everything and we missed it. We go to pieces when it’s Mr Faulds’s Sunday off sometimes.’
The butler gave her a fond smile but said nothing. Mattie was on the piano stool now, twirling himself around on his tiptoes to get the thing to the correct height for his slight frame. Mr Faulds stood with his hand still up at the switch, half frowning and half smiling at Phyllis.
‘Not tonight, Phyllis,’ he said, jerking his thumb upwards. ‘Master’s sitting on in the dining room with the port and you know how the sound carries.’
‘Any road,’ I said, ‘who wants hymns of a Monday night, really?’
‘Oh, it’s not hymns,’ said Phyllis.
‘Anything but!’ John put in.
‘Now, now,’ said Mr Faulds, ‘you’ll be giving Miss Rossiter the wrong idea of us all.’
‘Mr Faulds was on the music halls,’ said Mattie. He had stopped twirling round and was hanging on to the edges of the stool waiting for his head to stop spinning.
‘For a while, Fanny,’ said the butler, ‘in my distant youth, and I know a good lot of songs, but I’m careful what ones I pass on to the youngsters. “Boiled Beef and Carrots” kind of thing. And “All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor”. None of the ripe stuff.’ He winked at me and I tried a wordly smirk back at him even though I had never been in a music hall to hear any of the other songs that he might be suppressing.
‘Aye, there’s an iron fist of censorship, right enough,’ said Harry, to a chorus of groans and a raspberry from John. ‘Mattie and me know a wheen of good songs too.’ He lay back in his chair and broke out in a confident baritone, sending the words straight up in the air towards the ceiling and the dining room above. ‘The people’s flag is deepest red, it shrouded oft our martyred—’
‘Quiet!’ As lusty as Harry’s voice was, Mr Faulds drowned him out, all that projecting from his diaphragm to the back row of the upper circle, I supposed. ‘Now, come on, lads, and don’t keep me waiting, Stanley’s off down the garden already.’
Harry stood up grinning and he and the other two filed out, looking sleepy enough to convince one that they welcomed bedtime really. Mr Faulds gathered up the pack of cards once they had gone, shuffled them efficiently and slapped them down onto the chimneypiece with a wink for Phyllis and me, then he followed the lads out of the room.
‘They sleep upstairs in the carriage house,’ Phyllis told me. ‘So Mr Faulds has to lock the back door behind them at night. He’s always chivvying them away to their beds so he can get to his. Mind you, he’s not usually as sharp as all this – it’s not ten yet.’ She shrugged. ‘But if he’s at them he’ll come back and start on at me, so I’d better shift myself.’ She yawned extravagantly and stretched her arms above her head. ‘You can suit yourself,’ she said, ‘but Mr Faulds puts the lamps off when he turns in, so . . .’
I was well used to creeping around with a candle but my night’s work was far from over and I could not afford to linger. I shared a few words with Mrs Hepburn who was standing in the doorway of the larder just outside her kitchen, marking off orders for the morning on a slate, and popped my head into the scullery to say goodnight to Eldry and Millie, who had got as far as scrubbing out the sinks with sand and sluicing the floor and who looked pleased to be paid the attention. I called up a soft greeting to Clara who was coming down from the dining room at last, white in face and slow of step with tiredness, then I retired. As I stood splashing my face in my little washroom – with a candle, in fact, since it turned out that the electricity which surged so luxuriously around the rest of the house had not yet reached that corner – I could see Mattie’s pale hair gleaming in the moonlight as the three boys made their way down the garden and could hear Mr Faulds locking up the back kitchen door above my head and trying the handles. A few minutes later, as I sidled out into the passageway with my nightdress over my shoulder, he was coming along the corridor towards the sub-basement door.
‘Goodnight then, Miss Rossiter,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ve had a pleasant first day.’
‘Indeed I have, Mr Faulds,’ I said. ‘It seems a very happy household. I’m glad to have joined it.’ He locked the door, making an echoing clunk all around us, then removed the key, hung it on a hook and shot the bolts, top and bottom, with the kind of resounding clang one can feel in one’s teeth.
‘Your windows closed, Miss Rossiter?’ he said. I nodded. ‘Lovely job. I’ll bid you goodnight, then. And I hope you sleep soundly. Oh but, Miss Rossiter?’ I waited. ‘It’s not my place but we’ve no housekeeper to say it so I hope you’ll forgive me.’ He gestured towards my nightdress. ‘You should really have mistress’s things folded and in a muslin bag for carrying through the house. That there doesn’t look good, if you ask me.’
The stairs from the kitchen floor emerged opposite the dining-room doorway, as one would expect, and coming up them I saw that the door was open. I lowered my eyes in proper maidly fashion and prepared to scuttle past, but was arrested by Pip Balfour calling my name. He had evidently been lying in wait for me; had, in fact, drawn his chair far back from the table to be sure of spotting me.
‘A moment, Rossiter,’ he said, rising and beckoning me into the room. With my nightie behind my back, I stepped forward and bobbed a faint curtsey. ‘I just wanted to say,’ he continued, ‘that is, I mean, to say again, how very welcome you are. My wife . . .’ He paused and fiddled with the stem of his brandy glass. ‘. . . my wife is in great need of you.’
‘I’m sure,’ I said, giving Miss Rossiter’s vowels my all, for here was a test of them. ‘Most discommoding to have been left without her maid, sir.’
‘It’s not that, Miss Rossiter,’ he said. ‘It’s more than that. She hasn’t been herself lately. Not at all.’
‘I wouldn’t know, sir,’ I said, and from the way he let his breath go in a short sigh I saw that this conventional answer had disappointed him, which was, of course, a triumph to me.
‘Well, anyway,’ he said. ‘I’m very glad you’re here. She needs companionship, you know. It’s not good for her to be so much on her own.’ He was a master of his art, if art it were, because even knowing what I knew I could not fault the words, the voice, the look, the slight suggestion of fidgeting (far short of any histrionic hand-wringing but a nod in its direction). Thankfully, I knew exactly what to say; one never forgets the sting of being snubbed by a servant with whom one has been too chummy. I even rather relished the chance to give it a go.
‘Very good, sir,’ I said, eyes flat, voice wooden. Flushing a little, he dismissed me.
Lollie was already undressed when I let myself into her room, and was sitting on her bed in a pair of yellow flannel pyjamas, hugging her knees to her chin. The blinds were down – the lavender and white chintz was clearly just for show – and they shifted a little as the breeze blew through the open window.
‘Is there anything for me to do?’ I said. ‘Hanging things up or brushing or anything?’ Lollie shook her head.
‘I told you I hadn’t always had a maid,’ she said. ‘I’ve shaken out my evening clothes and put them away and I’ve washed some small things and hung them up in the bathroom but you might take them downstairs in the morning and let them f
inish off drying there in case anyone should wonder.’
‘I’ll just change then,’ I said, heading for the bathroom.
‘And I’ll make up your bed,’ said Lollie. ‘I’ve pilfered some pillows and blankets. Will you be all right on the chaise or would you rather have this? I don’t mind which for me.’ I hesitated. The chaise was wide and long and I was used to a little constriction anyway – Bunty takes up a great deal of room when she is deeply asleep – and besides, was it actually a politeness to offer one’s bed to a guest who knew that there might be a visitor in the night bent upon strangling its occupant?
‘I’ll be fine on the chaise,’ I assured her. ‘And perhaps we could draw the screen across in front of it. If anything should happen – if your husband should visit you – I’d like to be hidden from view.’
When I returned in my nightgown, wishing for flannel pyjamas of my own since the open windows let all of the night’s chill into the room and the screen shut me off from the fire as well as from the door, Lollie was under the bedclothes with a glass in her hand and had set another on the table by my little bed.
‘Brandy,’ she said. ‘Just a little one to help us sleep, but I couldn’t find the soda so it’s neat, I’m afraid.’ I tried to look grateful, but the thick, dark sherry at six o’clock and the beer with the sausage pie had been followed by the burgundy which Mr Faulds thought really should be drunk up that evening after all so that a long glass of water and an aspirin would have been my first choice for a nightcap.
‘How did you meet, you and Pip?’ I asked, when I was tucked up, feeling very comfortable against my heap of pillows and under my heap of blankets, feeling – actually – very similar to how one used to feel wrapped in furs on a deckchair during those long Atlantic crossings, especially with the stiff breeze and the feeling slightly queasy.
‘At a tennis party,’ said Lollie. ‘We were partnered by the girl whose party it was, because we were both so terrible no one else wanted to play with us. We got put out very quickly, of course, and spent the rest of the afternoon together. The very next day Pip came to speak to my father.’
Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains Page 6