by Guy Adams
‘Patience?’
The woman looked up to see her employer in the doorway. Elizabeth still looked dishevelled: her hair, normally worn up, had been allowed to hang down, unbrushed, over half of her face. She looks like a demon, Patience thought, in uncharacteristically dramatic terms.
‘Yes, ma’am?’
‘How is the girl?’ Elizabeth entered and, on seeing the maid sitting in one of her dining chairs, her face lit up with what Patience would have called concern had she seen the expression on the face of any person other than her mistress. ‘There you are!’
The maid shrank back, unable to stop herself cowering slightly.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Elizabeth continued, ‘I have been beside myself with worry. To think how close I came to … It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘No, ma’am,’ the maid said, glad they had at least one thing they could agree on.
‘You must think terribly of me,’ Elizabeth continued. Patience tensed at that, knowing full well that if there was one sure-fire way to ignite the anger of her employer it would be agreement.
‘Of course not, ma’am,’ the maid replied. ‘You were just angry. I know that. You didn’t mean to hurt me.’
‘Indeed not – in fact, we must make sure we take good care of you.’ Elizabeth bent down and stroked the girl’s face, running the pad of her thumb just below the cut on her cheek. The girl winced slightly but it wasn’t enough to take her mind off the promise of what her employer had said.
‘I’m sure you will,’ she said. Patience was dismayed at the bare greed she saw on the girl’s face. She wasn’t even bothering to hide it. ‘I know you and the master are fine Christian folk.’
Elizabeth laughed at that – how could she not? ‘I don’t know about that,’ she said, ‘but we will certainly make sure you don’t feel badly treated. Have you plans for the evening?’
This question wrong-footed the girl, so unexpected was it. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘In fact, I was just saying to Miss Patience that I never really do much outside work.’
‘Well, tonight you shall,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You will be my guest here and we will see if we can’t give you a night to remember.’
The maid was actually concerned by the idea of that. ‘Oh, I couldn’t impose!’
‘Nonsense! And it’s no imposition. You will stay the night with us and we will see what we can do to entertain you. Besides, we need to talk about what manner of compensation we need to give you.’
And again, greed obscured any more rational thought. ‘I don’t know what to say …’
If I were you, Patience suddenly thought, I would say no.
But the maid was not her. ‘I can’t believe it!’ Embarrassment got in the way again. ‘But I haven’t got anything to wear … Oh Lord … it wouldn’t be right. I’m only staff … I shouldn’t be …’
Elizabeth took both the girl’s hands. ‘Nonsense. What’s the difference, really? Why, only a few years ago I was no more important than you.’
Patience had her job cut out not to let her expression respond to that somewhat backhanded compliment. Graciousness had never come easily to the mistress, nor humility. Patience was quite sure that Elizabeth Sasdy had never considered herself unimportant.
‘Why don’t you come with me and we’ll see what we can find for you?’
Elizabeth lifted the maid to her feet and, starry-eyed, the girl looked back at Patience as if she was seeking permission. What right had she to offer an opinion either way? Patience had no doubt that nothing good could come from the mistress’s mood but she could hardly say so.
She just nodded and watched the girl being led away.
*
‘We could go out,’ Elizabeth was saying, though Georgina, the maid, barely heard her. She simply couldn’t believe what was happening to her and everything had taken on the distant, dislocated feeling of a dream.
‘Have drinks somewhere, then back here for dinner, something special … something fabulous!’
‘There’s really no need,’ Georgina insisted, utterly overwhelmed.
‘Oh, bless you.’ Elizabeth pulled her close and kissed her on her unwounded cheek. ‘There’s every need. I’ve treated you terribly and I simply couldn’t live with myself unless I made it up to you.’
She led the girl into her dressing room, a place bigger even than her bedroom, a mirror-lined chamber of concealed wardrobes. The outfits contained therein formed a museum of her public appearances: gowns and frocks, skirts and blouses, many of them worn only once and then filed away as a memento.
‘You’re a little more petite than me,’ Elizabeth noted, ‘but I’m sure we can find something that will work.’
Georgina could barely hold still in the room, shifting awkwardly from one foot to another as she turned around and around, being chased by her ever-present reflection. She was an animal utterly removed from her environment and with no idea how to adapt. ‘I’m sure nothing here would be right. I wouldn’t know how to wear it.’
‘Oh darling, any woman can wear anything. Now, get rid of that uniform and let’s see what we can find.’
‘Get rid …?’
‘Don’t be shy – you can hardly wear a frock over the top of it, can you? We’re all girls together.’
‘I suppose so.’ Reluctantly, Georgina reached behind her and began to untie her pinny.
‘Besides,’ continued Elizabeth, ‘today that is no longer who you are: no more service, no more uniform, just the beauty beneath it.’
‘Beauty?’ Georgina looked at her reflection and scowled at what she saw. ‘I’m no beauty.’
Elizabeth had to agree as the girl unzipped her black dress to expose a pale, thin body underneath. Just look at this creature, she thought, with her hairy arms and legs, her jutting knees and flat chest, her mismatched underwear and her skin like curdled milk. What loss was such a thing? What a small price to pay in a world where beauty was everything.
Out loud Elizabeth was the consummate actress: ‘Nonsense! The waif look is the next thing. I’m so jealous! Look at my pudgy body compared to yours, so lean and toned.’
‘Toned?’
‘Fit, supple.’
‘Oh, that’ll be the sweeping, I suppose. It really takes it out of you, especially on the hot days.’
‘I just bet it does.’
Elizabeth pulled out a red satin dress. She had worn it for the premiere of Starlings, a Southern Gothic where she had played an abandoned orphan looking after younger children in the cruel home where they had been abandoned. She had lost weight for the role: the director had been determined to capture the look of a young woman who had survived off little but oats and raw potatoes for most of her life. She had hated the movie but the critics hadn’t and that had been the important thing. What she saw as unnecessary torture had been lauded as ‘dazzling commitment to the role’. Fabio had been quick to release to the papers how she had been eager to experience the discomfort of the many real-life unfortunates who grew up in a state of abuse and fear, and hinted that a portion of her fee was going to a local orphanage. It hadn’t, naturally – Elizabeth would never have stood for such waste. But the press had done her no end of favours, even when she had been photographed gorging herself at the premiere party, finally able to stuff herself with platters of cold meats and creamed potatoes.
‘Try this,’ she suggested, holding the frock out to Georgina.
‘Oh that’s just …’ The words wouldn’t come easily to the girl. ‘I mean … it’s wonderful.’
‘I think you’ll look fabulous in it,’ Elizabeth assured her. ‘If only your boyfriend could see you in it, eh?’
‘I haven’t got a boyfriend,’ Georgina admitted. She looked uncomfortable at the admission though not so much that she wasn’t willing to go further. ‘There was one boy, I thought he loved me … he wanted … well, you know what boys always want. But then I never saw him for dust.’
‘Oh, men are such pigs,’ said Elizabeth, ‘though there’s n
othing wrong with a bit of pleasure from time to time! God wouldn’t have given us our bodies unless he wanted us to use them, now would he?’
‘I suppose not. I never really thought about it like that.’ The girl looked at Elizabeth, clearly weighing up whether to say any more. ‘I gave him what he wanted,’ she eventually confessed, ‘and it was nice, I suppose, though he obviously didn’t think so as he never hung around for more.’
Interesting, thought Elizabeth. Not a virgin, then. Thank God for that. I mean, where the hell do you get virgins in this town?
Georgina struggled into the dress with Elizabeth’s help, lost in the soft fabric and the awkwardly placed buttons.
‘I never …’ The girl looked at herself in the mirror and actually started to cry. ‘I’ve never worn such a thing, never looked so …’
She looks like a child playing at dress-up, thought Elizabeth, utterly at odds with the clothes, like a head being cut from one photo and stuck on another.
‘Now we need to do your hair and make-up,’ she told the girl, ‘to make you perfect.’
‘Perfect,’ Georgina repeated. ‘I never thought I could be perfect.’
Neither did I, Elizabeth agreed. Not again … but with your help …
Nayland spent a little while in the screening room, calming himself down with some Mack Sennett shorts. If he could have stayed down there for ever he would certainly have done so. Let them all go about their stupid games without him. Here he had the best of them all, the perfect versions, the ones who would never let you down as long as the film still rolled and the light still burned.
But rise up he must, and if he did so then let him absorb as much good humour from the foolish antics of Billy Bevan, Ben Turpin and the lovely Alice Day as he could.
The house was quiet when he ascended into the entrance hall, with nothing but a slightly perturbed look on Patience’s face to alert him that all might not be well.
‘Something wrong?’ he asked.
‘Nothing, I’m sure, sir,’ she replied. ‘There was a slight accident with one of the maids. The mistress was –’ Nayland saw her struggle for the least emotive words she could find, ‘– agitated, and she threw some glassware.’
‘Indeed she did, at me.’
‘It hit a maid and I’m afraid she was hurt.’
‘Badly?’
‘The doctor says not.’ There was a discernible and weighted pause. ‘Though the mistress seems determined to make it up to the girl. I believe she said something about taking her out dancing.’
And now Nayland could see why Patience was concerned. Elizabeth was not a gracious woman.
‘Dancing?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then everything sounds fine, doesn’t it?’ He made it clear that there was only one correct answer.
‘Absolutely, sir. I shall go about my duties.’
‘Indeed.’
Nayland went upstairs, dreading what he might find.
‘Let’s make ourselves beautiful!’ said Elizabeth.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Georgina, as if the concept was still beyond her grasp.
‘I mean we need to bathe, do our hair and makeup and douse ourselves in scent that the men will find irresistible!’
‘Oh.’ Georgina looked down at her dress. ‘So I have to take this off again?’
‘Only for now, darling, only for now.’
Elizabeth’s main bathroom lay directly off the dressing room. If there was one thing she didn’t believe in it was skimping on the space available for pampering. She slid back a large mirrored panel to reveal a spacious tub and shower.
‘My word!’ said Georgina. ‘It’s lovely, and so big.’
‘Indeed it is,’ Elizabeth agreed. She had tested its capacity with visiting guests on many occasions – in fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she had bathed in it alone. Nor would she tonight.
‘Never cut back on the important things in life,’ she said with a smile, heading over to the tub and putting the plug in place. Her hand automatically reached for the tap but she stopped herself. She didn’t want to run the water, not yet.
Georgina was clearly feeling uncomfortable, standing in the bathroom in nothing but her cheap underwear. ‘I think I’d lose myself in it,’ she said.
Maybe you will, Elizabeth thought.
For a moment she thought about what she was planning. Was she really intending to go through with this? Her concerns were not about morality, a diluted concept after years of living her lifestyle. It was a word to be found in dictionaries, something that existed elsewhere, like the poverty and hunger that she had risen above.
The only question in her mind was: Can I get away with this? Can I get what I want and then walk away scot-free? It said more about her arrogance than her planning skills that she decided the answer was yes. She could do what she wanted: she was Elizabeth Sasdy, Queen of Hollywood.
She stepped behind Georgina so that she was between the girl and the door. ‘No need to be shy,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you to it once I’ve shown you where everything is.’
Pleased to see that this made the girl relax a little, Elizabeth moved over to the bathroom cabinets. She opened the heavy pearlescent doors to reveal stacks of white towels. Then the next cabinet was opened to show an array of soaps, powders and shampoos. Elizabeth reached in and pulled out a selection of bottles, throwing them one at a time to Georgina.
‘This is wonderful – California citrus, smells like you’re bathing in a lemon tree. This one is supposed to be good for your skin. This is for your hair. This is a scented conditioner.’
Georgina, struggling to hold all the bottles, terrified of dropping one, looked at the object that Elizabeth still had in her hand. ‘And what’s that for?’
‘This, dear?’ asked Elizabeth, opening the cutthroat razor. ‘This is for making me look young again.’
She moved behind the girl, slapping a hand firmly across her mouth to stop the inevitable scream.
Georgina kept hold of the bottles even as she realised what was about to happen, her instinct not to damage things that weren’t hers bred into her so deeply that it helped cost her her life. Not that she would have had time to do much, anyway – Elizabeth was quick, drawing the blade across her throat as her father had done with the pigs back in Hungary: one sure cut. Then she pushed the girl forward so that she fell into the bath, the bottles clattering around her feet.
Georgina hit the enamelled surface with a dull thud, her hands slapping at the bath as she tried to push herself up. Her palms splayed in the blood that was gushing from her. However hard she fought for a breath so that she could scream, the wound in her throat wouldn’t let her.
Elizabeth closed and locked the bathroom door only moments before Nayland appeared on its other side.
‘Elizabeth?’ he shouted. ‘Are you all right? It sounded like something fell over.’
Georgina was still now, the only sound that of the pumping spray of blood against the inside of the bath. A repetitive soft slap against the enamel.
‘I’m fine,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Like you care.’
She undid her dressing gown, not wanting to get blood on it, then stepped forward, straddling Georgina so she could lift her up and squeeze more blood from the gash in her throat.
‘About earlier,’ said Nayland, ‘what I said … I’m sorry, I just get …’
‘I know what you get,’ she replied. Christ, did he have to try and have a heart-to-heart now? This was hardly a convenient time. ‘Look.’ She set Georgina back down as the flow of blood slowed to a trickle. ‘We’ll talk later, all right?’
A pause. ‘OK.’ A longer pause. ‘Is the maid with you?’
Patience had been talking, Elizabeth realised. ‘Of course she isn’t – I’m taking a bath. I gave her fifty dollars and told her to take the night off.’
‘Patience seemed to think you were going to take her out … dancing.’
Elizabeth laughed. ‘Does that sound like me?
’
‘No,’ Nayland had to admit. ‘I was surprised.’
‘I told you, I gave her some money and packed her off. Now go away – we’ll talk later.’
‘Fine.’ There was a shuffling on the other side of the door while Nayland decided if there was anything else he could say. He realised there wasn’t and she listened to him walk away slowly, closing the dressing-room door behind him. Finally, peace.
She went back to Georgina and lifted her up by the ankles. Elizabeth was a strong woman and certainly not averse to flexing her muscles. Still, she was glad the girl had been so slight. She squeezed the maid’s body, trying to work as much of the blood as possible out of it. There was always going to be wastage, she decided, maybe a couple of pints retained by the body despite her best efforts. Looking down into the bath she decided there was more than enough. If one small splash had had such a pronounced effect how could all this not revitalise her completely?
But what if its potency faded after death?
Elizabeth grabbed a large sponge, climbed into the tub, squatted down and got to work.
The blood was cooling quickly. She dragged the loaded sponge up her legs, the skin glowing with warmth to begin with before quickly chilling off. Then she rubbed it across her shoulders and chest, letting the liquid run down. She dropped back so that she was sitting in the thick puddle, working fast to paint every inch of herself, forcing the sponge into every hated fold and crease. The blood thickened on her as it began to clot and dry, her limbs sticking to her torso as she tried to shift in the bath and become more comfortable.
She soaked up more on the sponge and squeezed it out over her head, massaging it into her hair and scalp and finally her face. She closed her eyes as lightly as she could and doused herself, letting the fluid run from her forehead in a dripping curtain. She used her fingers to rub the blood in, massaging her cheeks, pushing her fingers along the side of her nose, working the skin hard. She nearly choked as she accidentally snorted in a little, feeling it run down the back of her throat like salty syrup.
Her neck, too: no more sagging jowls or puckered throat. She rubbed and rubbed, dipping her hands into the blood beneath her and smearing herself all over, obsessively returning to every part of her that she had grown to hate, pinching and twisting the skin, letting her nails scrape at it, punishing it for being so weak, so pathetic and old.