by T E Kinsey
One of Sir Clive’s particular friends was a colleague of his from the Foreign Office by the name of Sir Roderick Hardcastle. He and his wife Emily visited often and whenever I was around, Lady Hardcastle made a point of talking to me, asking me interesting questions about what I was reading, what I thought about the events of the day and, for the first time in my life, treating me as though I were an intelligent adult.
One summer’s afternoon, I was folding napkins in the laundry room when John, one of the footmen, came to find me to tell me that I was to go to Lady Tetherington’s study at once. He and I had never got along and there was an evil smirk on his pointy face as he implied as heavily as he could that I was in trouble.
I straightened my pinafore and pushed past him, making my way calmly upstairs to the Mistress’s study. I knew I wasn’t in trouble, despite Evil John’s leering insinuations, but I was very curious as to why I might have been summoned in the middle of the day.
I knocked on the door and entered to find Lady Tetherington and Lady Hardcastle seated on the armchairs beside the oak desk. They were drinking tea and chatting, but they stopped as I came in.
‘Ah, Florence,’ said Lady Tetherington. ‘Thank you for coming up. I hope we’re not interrupting your work.’
‘No, my lady,’ I said. ‘Just some linen folding. I can catch up any time.’
‘Splendid,’ she said. ‘You know Lady Hardcastle, I think.’
‘Yes, my lady. Good afternoon, my lady.’ It was going to get confusing with all these ladies about.
I could see that Lady Hardcastle was amused, too. ‘Good afternoon, dear,’ she said with a smile. ‘Your mistress and I have been having a little chat, and she’s given her consent for me to make you an offer.’
‘My reluctant consent,’ said Lady Tetherington.
‘Her reluctant consent,’ agreed Lady Hardcastle. ‘You see, I am in somewhat urgent need of a new lady’s maid. My own – a lovely girl – has fallen in love with a soldier and will be moving to… oh, I can’t remember where. Wiltshire somewhere. But anyway, once she’s gone, I’ll be entirely without help. And we can’t have that, can we?’
‘No, my lady, I don’t suppose we can,’ I said.
She laughed. ‘Quite. Now we’ve met a few times and we seem to get along, and I’d really rather like to offer you the job.’
I was somewhat taken aback. I had imagined that all this was to be an elaborate way of saying that she was reorganizing her staff and would I be prepared to fill a parlour maid vacancy in her household, but here she was offering me the position of lady’s maid. It was unheard of. To my eternal embarrassment, I just stood there with my mouth open.
Lady Hardcastle looked disappointed. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, dear. I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘No, my lady,’ I eventually managed to stammer. ‘I should be honoured. I just…’
‘Well that’s a relief,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d horrified you.’
‘No, my lady. You surprised me, to be sure, but I’m thrilled.’ I looked towards Lady Tetherington. ‘Are you certain that this is all right, my lady? I don’t want to let anyone down.’
It was Lady Tetherington’s turn to smile. ‘I shan’t pretend that it will be easy to lose one of the best parlour maids I’ve ever had. One of the best I’ve ever heard of, in fact. I seriously thought of telling Emily to shove off if I’m honest. I mean. The blessed cheek of the woman. But it’s a remarkable opportunity for a girl of your age, dear, and I honestly couldn’t live with myself if I thought I had stood in your way.’
I paused for just a moment to make it at least appear that I was giving it serious, mature thought, but I couldn’t keep up the pretence for long and abruptly I blurted, ‘Yes, please, my lady. Please can I?’
They both laughed.
‘I think that’s settled, then,’ said Lady Tetherington. ‘I shall leave you two to work out the details. But don’t let her bilk you, dear. Lady Hardcastle is a notorious cheapskate and I have it on the best authority that she underpays her servants and makes them work under the most appallingly harsh conditions.’ She winked.
‘Out, Jane, before I take my hunting whip to you, you impudent knave!’ said Lady Hardcastle, pointing imperiously to dismiss Lady Tetherington from her own study. ‘Actually, dear I can’t mean knave, can I. What’s a female knave? But out! Out, I say, you foul slanderess!’
I knew we were going to get along famously.
We talked for quite a while about what she would expect of me and, to my surprise, what I should expect of her. I’d never known such a thing. My two employers to date had been perfectly wonderful, but I’d never been told I should expect them to be polite and considerate, or that I should speak up at once if I thought I was being treated unreasonably. This was going to be a new life indeed.
We agreed that I should start work in the Hardcastle household in a fortnight’s time and she said that she would make all the necessary arrangements with Lady Tetherington. Once she had gone, I wasted no time in rubbing John’s stupid beaky nose in it, but with the others I was more circumspect, playing down the promotion and trying not to appear too full of myself.
Having just watched two years fly past almost unnoticed, I was dismayed by how slowly the next two weeks crawled by. My few possessions were packed on the first night and I found myself willing the hours to pass. On my final day, the staff gave me a most splendid farewell lunch and each of them wished me well. The family, too, gave me a warm send-off and Sir Clive presented me with a journal and a beautiful pen.
‘I know you like to read, my dear,’ he said. ‘I wonder if you might find the time to write, as well.’ I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there with my little bag in my hand and burst into tears. Parlour maids came and went and we weren’t treated like this. I had no idea how to react.
Eventually I managed to mumble my thanks and went out through the front door – the front door! – and got into the waiting Hansom that the Hardcastles had sent to collect me.
The Hardcastles were younger than the Tetheringtons, though no less wealthy, but they lived a much simpler life. The house itself was run by just a cook and a housemaid, while Sir Roderick was tended to by his valet, Jabez Otterthwaite, and I, obviously, looked after Lady Hardcastle. I was more than a little out of my depth at first and more than once I thought I’d made a terrible, arrogant mistake in accepting the job. But I had been carefully watching the senior maids ever since I entered service and had persuaded one of them to teach me some dressmaking skills, and the rest of my duties I picked up slowly as I went along. Eventually I began to feel as though I was living up to the confidence Lady Hardcastle had shown in me and after a few months began to properly enjoy myself.
If I thought that the last four years had been pleasant enough, the next twelve months in the Hardcastle household were positively idyllic. As lady’s maid I was expected to attend my mistress almost wherever she went and I found myself traveling all over the country and even, once, to Paris. It was the most fun I had ever had.
There were times when I was left behind. She disappeared for days at a time and on her return, refused to speak about what she had been up to. I’m embarrassed to say now that it never occurred to me to be nosy enough to find out what she’d been doing, nor clever enough to work it out for myself. But in my defence, I was only seventeen and I’d led a somewhat cloistered life in servants’ quarters where the sort of things that I subsequently discovered about her were never dreamed of, much less spoken of.
She was the best possible company and although there was never any doubt that we were employer and servant, she treated me with the utmost respect and always talked to me as though my opinion mattered.
Sir Roderick was something of a rising star in the Foreign Office and one day in 1895 he came home with the news that he was to be posted to Shanghai. Better yet, Lady Hardcastle was to go with him and I would be accompanying her. Everyone else was being left behind, but I was going to China. China!
I felt yet another kick on the sole of my boot.
‘Florence!’ said a voice sharply.
I struggled awake.
‘Sorry, my lady. I was just resting my eyes,’ I croaked.
‘And your mouth, pet; you’re drooling,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
I wriggled upright in the chair and tried to come to.
‘Come along, up you get. Harry wants us to meet someone.’
I pushed myself out of the surprisingly comfortable chair and straightened myself out. Harry was already wearing his hat and was putting on his gloves. I tried to see if he were armed but there were no obvious signs.
‘Looking for this?’ he said, drawing a tiny pistol from his waistcoat pocket. ‘Latest thing from America, an update of a Belgian weapon. We’re trying them out.’
‘Very impressive,’ I said. ‘Though I confess I’m more impressed that you noticed me looking.’
‘A gentleman always notices when a woman is looking at him, Miss Armstrong,’ he said with a wink. I blushed.
‘When you’ve finished admiring my brother’s weapon, Flo, perhaps we might go?’
I hurriedly put on my own hat and gloves and followed them out.
We quickly found a motor taxi and Harry instructed the driver to take us to Whitehall. I was almost surprised by the comfortable feeling I had in the familiarity of the London streets. We had lived there for five years before moving to Gloucestershire, of course, but I’d spent much more of my life living elsewhere so it shouldn’t have felt so much like being home. Nevertheless, that was how it felt.
The journey was a short one and when we arrived at the anonymous Regency building, the uniformed man just inside the door acknowledged Harry with a nod and allowed us in without further ceremony. Harry led us briskly to an office on the first floor and knocked on the door.
‘Enter!’ said a muffled voice from inside.
Harry opened the door and ushered us in. A silver-haired man in an impeccably-cut suit was sitting behind a large oak desk, and he stood as Lady Hardcastle entered.
‘Emily,’ said Harry once we were all inside. ‘Allow me to introduce Sir David Alderman. Sir David, this is my sister, Lady Hardcastle.’
‘How do you do,’ said Sir David.
‘How do you do,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘And this is my maid, Florence Armstrong.’
‘Ah, yes. I’d heard that you and she were a team,’ said Sir David. ‘Welcome, Miss Armstrong.’ He gestured to two chairs in front of his desk. ‘I’m embarrassed to say that I have only two chairs. I’m not used to entertaining crowds.’
‘Please don’t worry, Sir David,’ I said. ‘I’m more than happy to stand.’
‘Very well. Thank you,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind the peremptory summons, as it were, but I felt I needed to introduce myself and reassure you that we’re doing everything we can to track down this man, whoever he might turn out to be, and to keep you safe.’
‘Thank you, Sir David,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Although I must say, I’ve been wanting to meet you for some time.’ He tapped a buff folder on his desk. ‘Your file makes most impressive reading.’
She inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement.
‘But as I’m sure you’ll understand, events over the past couple of months have turned that idle curiosity into something more urgent.’ He flipped open the folder and riffled through the pages. ‘I have copies here of the statements you gave to the Governor-General’s office in Calcutta in 1901, and the one you gave to this office on your return to England in 1903. They’re entirely consistent with each other and you are adamant that when you left Shanghai in 1898, Günther Ehrlichmann was dead.’
‘As a dodo, Sir David. I saw him with my own eyes.’
‘Quite. But now I also have reports from some Special Branch officers in the field,’ he said, looking at another sheet in the file, ‘which are equally certain that Ehrlichmann is in England and is looking for you.’
‘Is there no chance that they might be mistaken?’ she asked.
‘There’s always that chance, Lady Hardcastle, as I’m sure you’re aware. But the officer in question, one Hugh Waring, was in China in the ’90s and knew Ehrlichmann well.’
‘Ah, yes,’ she said. ‘I remember Waring. Able young chap. I’m glad he’s doing well.’
‘Quite. And Waring maintains that the man he saw most assuredly is Ehrlichmann. He might have aged ten years, he says, but he would… let me see… “stake my pension on this being the self-same Günther Ehrlichmann as I knew in Shanghai in the ’90s.”’
‘Well that’s one mystery,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘The other is why he should be after me.’
‘Really?’ said Sir David. ‘I should have thought that was obvious. You’re a loose end. The Imperial German government doesn’t like loose ends. They had hoped to remove you and Sir Roderick from the field of play in ’98 and thought they had. But you pop up like a bad penny in Calcutta and then come home to make a royal nuisance of yourself to them and their plans in London. If I were them, I’d have wanted you bumped off long since. Damn glad you’re on our side, to be honest.’
‘I could understand it if they had tried to kill me as soon as I cropped up in England again,’ she said. ‘But why now? And why Ehrlichmann? And why isn’t the blighter still dead?’
‘I can’t answer any of those questions for certain, but we do know that German militarization continues apace and their new fleet is close to becoming a nuisance. My presumption is that they imagine you know something they don’t want us to know, something which might disrupt their current plans.’
‘Or perhaps,’ I said, ‘it’s just personal. Perhaps Ehrlichmann has been imprisoned or in hospital all this time and is only now free to pursue us.’
Sir David appeared irked by this impudent interruption from a servant. ‘Quite,’ he said, looking quickly away from me and back to Lady Hardcastle. ‘Can you think of anything you discovered in Shanghai that you might have previously neglected to mention? Anything at all?’
‘No, Sir David, everything I discovered during my time in Shanghai and Tsingtao is in the reports.’
‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Very well. Still, at least we have you here in London now where we can keep you safe. Where will you be staying?’
‘With me, sir,’ said Harry.
‘Splendid,’ said Sir David, making a note on a large notepad. ‘I’ll have a man from the Yard pass by once in a while to make sure everything is tickety-boo, but you just leave everything to us and we’ll have this cleared up in no time.’
I decided that on the whole I’d rather be disliked for asking impertinent questions than simply for the outrageous crime of being a servant in a public place. ‘Is there a reason,’ I said, ‘why you don’t just pick him up and ask him?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ he said, clearly trying to restrain himself.
‘Well,’ I continued, ‘here’s this chap that you believe, however improbable it may be, to be a long-dead German agent. You don’t really know who he is nor what he’s up to, but you strongly suspect that whatever it is, it isn’t for the good of King and country. So why don’t you just lift him and find out? At the very least you could warn him off.’
He smiled an insincere smile. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose we could, but I prefer to let the game play out. If he really is Ehrlichmann, he’d not give anything up without us applying… pressure. And that would invoke the wrath of the Germans. And in the end we’d still be as ignorant as ever but we’d also need to be on the lookout for retaliation. And having tipped our hand, we might hamper our broader efforts to keep an eye on what the blighters are up to.’
‘We might stop the blighters from blowing holes in our heads, though,’ I said.
He looked briefly as though he might do the job for them, but he recovered quickly. ‘I can assure you, Miss Armstrong, that your mistress is in no danger now that she’s under our protection.’
I’d made
my point so I decided to let it lie.
‘Thank you, Sir David,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I’m sure that now we’re with Harry, we can deal with any eventuality. I appreciate your concern.’
‘You’re quite welcome, Lady Hardcastle,’ he said. ‘Unless there’s anything else you wish to ask me, I’ve covered everything I needed to.’
‘No, I feel suitable reassured. It was good of you to take the time to talk to us.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ he said. ‘Featherstonhaugh, can I leave you to show Lady Hardcastle out?’
‘Yes, sir, of course.’
We rose to leave. Harry ushered us back out into the corridor and I cast one last look over my shoulder as I left. Sir David’s answering smile was slightly more disconcerting than the glare I was expecting.
Out on the street, Harry was beside himself with glee.
‘What’s amusing you, brother dear?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.
‘It’s little Flo here telling the old man off like that. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wanted to ask him exactly the same question. Why the blazes doesn’t he just pinch the chap and put his heels in the fire?’
‘And why haven’t you asked him?’
‘Politics, mainly, sis. And craven careerism. No point in upsetting the apple cart. But he’s a good egg, Sir David, and if he thinks this is the right course, I trust him. But I’ve been itching to get him to spell it out. Good on you, tiny lady.’
‘It was nothing, sir,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I made him very happy, though.’
‘Oh, he’ll get over it. Just not used to being challenged by the lower orders, that’s all.’
‘Lower orders, is it? I’ll be sure to remember my place the next time you’re being roughed up by Hungarian toughs in an alley in the East End. Wouldn’t want to involve myself improperly in the affairs of the toffs.’
Harry laughed. ‘Don’t you dare,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sure I owe you my life for that one. Now, what say we adjourn to the Ritz for a slap-up tea. My treat.’