Gilding the Lady

by Nicole Byrd

  Her hand visibly shaking, the poor housemaid put down the teapot and hurried out of the room.

  “Oh, no, do not scold her, it was all my fault!” Clarissa exclaimed. “I am the one who has been unforgivably clumsy.”

  “I do have a modicum of manners,” the woman retorted. “I should never criticize my own guest.”

  “No, just your own servant,” Clarissa flashed back. “Who is in a much more vulnerable position. But it was not her fault, I tell you. Madam.” She turned to the woman sitting next to her, who dabbed at her skirt with a tiny handkerchief. “I am so sorry.”

  The other guest sniffed. “Perhaps that school of yours should have focused more on manners and grace and less on books and ciphers, Miss Fallon.”

  “Accidents happen, Mrs. Abbot,” Gemma put in, her voice cool. “We should be happy to replace your gown.”

  “I can afford to pay my dressmaker, Lady Gemma,” the other woman replied. “The point is that a lady should not jump about like that—”

  While the two women exchanged polite barbs, Mrs. Prescott rose and went out, her expression still annoyed.

  Distressed at what she had done, Clarissa jumped to her feet and followed. A footman met her at the door and offered her a pristine linen towel for her dress, but she waved him aside. Although she could not make out the lowered tones, she saw her hostess exchanging words with the butler, who turned away.

  Mrs. Prescott swung back toward the drawing room, then paused when she saw Clarissa. “May I help you, Miss Fallon?”

  “I, um, just wished to withdraw for a moment, if you please.”

  “Of course.” The matron motioned to a footman. “Show Miss Fallon to my private salon. And bring her more towels.”

  Did the woman think she was going to drip tea on the carpet? Her dress was not soaked, and the spots would come out if the muslin were soaked in cold water right away. Clarissa had learned a few useful things while in service.

  She waited until Mrs. Prescott had disappeared into the drawing room, then ignored the footman’s attempts to show her up the stairs.

  “Where is the servants’ stairs?” she asked him. “Did that housemaid go up to her room or down to the servants’ hall?”

  He gaped at her, and she had to repeat the question.

  “Uh, down, miss, but you can’t—”

  Ignoring the protest she knew he would make, Clarissa hurried down the main staircase, and, on the ground floor, located the narrow door that she knew typically led to the kitchen and servants’ hall belowground. Despite all decorum, she pushed it open and dashed down the narrow stairwell.

  It led into a passage that was less ornamented and hardly as grand as the rooms above, but where Clarissa felt much more at home. She heard the murmur of voices and followed the sounds into a kitchen. She found the maid from the drawing room, her cap askew on her brown hair and tea stains still evident on her apron, crouched on a bench by a plain oak table, holding her flushed face in her hands.

  “Oh, please, do not cry,” Clarissa burst out. “It was my fault, I would not blame you. I tried to tell your mistress so.”

  The servant raised her damp cheeks; her dark eyes were flooded with tears. “I didn’t mean it, miss. I’m that sorry.”

  “I know, indeed, I have told Mrs. Prescott,” Clarissa assured her again.

  “Did no good,” an older, angular woman with a North Country accent put in. She had been patting the girl on the back. Now this woman looked at Clarissa with obvious resentment. “Matty’s been dismissed, a ’cause of that tea spill. Out on the street with ’ou a reference, and ’ow will she find another post?”

  “I can do something about that, at least,” Clarissa answered, suddenly inspired. “I am in need of a lady’s maid, and I require no references. Would you like the position, Matty?”

  The servant stared at her, as if not sure if she was being mocked. “But why would you want such a clumsy girl?” she asked, her voice timid.

  “Believe me, we shall suit amazingly,” Clarissa assured her. She told the girl the address of the Fallon house. “Can you find the street?”

  “Oh, yes, miss,” the girl said, blinking hard.

  “Then collect your personal things and come as soon as you are ready,” Clarissa told her. Her own guilt lightened along with the servant’s expression.

  Knowing that someone upstairs would soon come looking for her if she lingered, and not wishing to cause the servants any more trouble, Clarissa bade them good day. Leaving the staff staring after her, she hurried back up the stairs.

  At least some good could come from being a lady. She felt like singing. For once, to wield the power herself—to do some good. No wonder Gemma went back to the foundling home, Clarissa thought, with a sudden burst of understanding. Someday, she would find the courage to do the same, truly, she would.

  When she reached the drawing room, she slipped back inside and took her seat. Gemma glanced at her. “I believe we must make our farewells,” she told their hostess. “Thank you for the tea.”

  Clarissa made a polite good-bye, as well, wishing she could rail at the woman once more for her heartless treatment of her servants, but she knew it would do no good. After they made their way out and were handed into the Fallon carriage, Gemma turned to her.

  “Are you all right, Clarissa?”

  “Oh, yes,” Clarissa said, her tone blithe. “I have hired a lady’s maid.”

  “What?” Gemma stared at her.

  Clarissa explained about Mrs. Prescott firing the serving girl. “It was so unfair! And Matthew did say I could have a lady’s maid.”

  “Well, yes,” Gemma agreed. “But is she qualified? She must know how to fix your hair and do up your clothes and—”

  “If not, she can learn,” Clarissa argued stubbornly.

  Gemma smiled. “I suppose so. We shall certainly give her a fair trial. Still, please don’t hire any more servants without checking with me first.”

  “Of course,” Clarissa agreed, happy that her impulsive decision would not be countermanded. “You are the best of sisters!”

  “And you have a kind heart, my dear.” Gemma patted her hand.

  Clarissa smiled in pleasure, and then fell silent, thinking of what she must teach her new protégée.

  The new lady’s maid, Matty, turned up at the Fallon house before dinner that same day. Either Mrs. Prescott had been impatient to get rid of the girl, or perhaps Matty herself was eager to leave her former employer, a notion Clarissa could certainly believe. The butler came in to inform his mistress. Gemma, who had been sitting in the drawing room with Clarissa, sent for the girl at once.

  When Matty appeared, dressed in a drab dark gown, she looked a little pale. “Ma’am, I mean, my lady,” she said, dropping a curtsey to Gemma and to Clarissa. “And miss.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Gemma said, her tone gracious, while Clarissa smiled encouragement. “I understand Miss Fallon has offered you a position as her lady’s maid. Have you previously performed any duties in this area?”

  “I ’elped out a few times when Mrs. Prescott’s cousin visited her, ma’am—milady. And I will do my very best, I swear. I don’t usually break things, ’onest!”

  “We will engage you for a fortnight, and if all goes well, then consider making the position permanent. And you will be given a fair chance, I assure you.”

  “Thank ’ee, milady.” The girl bobbed another nervous curtsy.

  Clarissa stood. “Come upstairs, and I will show you where my room is, Matty. Then the housekeeper can assign you to a room in the servants’ quarters.”

  Once they were out in the hall, she added, “Don’t worry, Matty. No one is going to throw you out at your first mistake.”

  “Oh, I will try so hard, miss, I will,” the girl said, her tone fervent. “I do so thank ’ee for the chance.”

  “I’m sure you will learn all that you need to know, and we will get on very well,” Clarissa told her. She showed the girl her own bedchamber, the
clothespress that held her gowns, and explained the household routine. “I can tell you a good deal about caring for the gowns, and so on. But as for the hair—”

  Clarissa considered, then, with Matty still in tow, went in search of Miss Clemens, the older lady who served as Gemma’s personal dresser. Clemens, a birdlike little woman with a habitually stern expression, agreed to give Matty lessons in arranging hair.

  Matty expressed such fervent thanks that the other servant looked gratified, and Clarissa could hope that this would work. Then she took Matty to see the housekeeper and left her in that woman’s capable hands.

  When Matty returned in time to help Clarissa change for dinner, the girl was outfitted in what was almost a proper uniform, even if the apron was a bit too large for her and turned out to be one of Ruby’s spares, and her borrowed cap kept slipping down over her eyes.

  But she was cheerful, even if still a bit nervous, and listened carefully to all of Clarissa’s instructions as she helped Clarissa into a dinner dress. And that night, when she assisted Clarissa in disrobing and brushed out her hair, the maidservant handled Clarissa’s fair tresses as if they were attached to a Dresden shepherdess and might break if Matty pulled too hard.

  “I’m not made of china,” Clarissa pointed out, smiling. “You’re doing first-rate.”

  Over the next few days, Clarissa quite enjoyed seeing that Matty learned the household routine. She instructed her in how to care for her new mistress’s clothes, and Matty, under Miss Clemen’s supervision, made strides in dressing Clarissa’s long fair hair.

  As the days passed, Clarissa found that Matty was devoted to her, still grateful for the post and the rescue from her last employer, and the girl’s unconditional loyalty somehow gave Clarissa herself more confidence. She did not feel as awkward with Matty as she sometimes did with the other servants.

  Lord Gabriel Sinclair rode up to the small cottage and looked over the grounds with a thoughtful eye. He owned an estate of his own, which included a number of tenant farms, and he had learned a great deal about agricultural methods since he had given up his wandering and reshaped his life as a responsible landlord and master.

  This small plot of land did not seem prosperous. The garden behind the house was green, but its rows of plants were not as tall as they should have been at this time of year. The goat tethered to a line and nibbling on a clump of weeds revealed the outline of ribs beneath its coarse hide, and the cottage itself was in need of repairs. The thatched roof wanted mending, and the doorstep could use a good sweeping.

  A squarely built man of medium height, dressed in rough country clothes, paused as Gabriel rode up. A hoe over his shoulder, he stared at the newcomer with surprise.

  “I’m looking for Mistress Molly Goodman? Is this her cottage?”

  His thin lips turned downward, the farmer hurumped and made a motion toward the house, then turned and walked on toward the field. Gabriel decided to take the inarticulate response as an invitation.

  He dismounted with a fluid, easy grace and tied his horse to the post by the doorway, rubbing its dark nose for a moment, then he rapped with his knuckles on the door frame. The door stood slightly ajar. The day was warm, and the countryside flooded with dappled sunlight as small clouds flitted across the blue sky.

  “Nellie, see to the door,” a feminine voice called. “If it’s a good-for-nothing peddler, tell him we got no blunt to spare.”

  The door opened wider, and a small girl peered out, then stared with wide eyes at Gabriel’s well-cut riding coat and breeches. “Mum? T’ain’t no peddler, but a gen’lman.”

  “What are you on about? Why would a gen’lman—Oh, I beg your pardon, sir.” The woman who had followed the child to the door sank into an awkward curtsy. She had a smaller child tucked under one arm and a wooden spoon in her other hand. “Did you mistake the road, mayhap? The turn to the big house is up the lane a good ’alf mile.”

  “No, I am not seeking the local squire,” Gabriel told her, keeping his tone gentle. The woman looked almost as alarmed as the child had done to see such a strange sight appear on their doorstep. “I have come in search of a Mistress Mollie Goodman. She was once, many years ago, lady’s maid to my mother, Lady Gillingham. I have traced her through several addresses, and I’m hoping you can tell me more.”

  A pause, and the woman’s mouth pursed. Gabriel waited patiently.

  “I—Why you be seeking her, sir? She done no wrong, surely?”

  “Of course not. In fact, I wish to offer my thanks for all the years she offered loyal service; my mother was very attached to her. And I have reason to believe that Mistress Goodman was dismissed abruptly and, likely, unfairly from her post.”

  The woman blinked, a flicker of new emotion crossing her face. “I think you have the right of that, sir, or should I say me lord?”

  “Lord Gabriel Sinclair,” he told her, trying to suppress the surge of hope that rose inside him—he had been disappointed too many times already. “Do you know where I might find her, then?”

  “Reckon so,” she said, with a countrywoman’s terseness. She stepped away from the door and nodded to him. “Please come in, sir—me lord—if you would. She don’t walk so well anymore, or I would have her come out to you.”

  His heart leaping—would his long search at last bear fruit?—Gabriel stepped eagerly into the cottage. He saw one big room, neatly made beds tucked into the corners under the eaves, a rough-hewn table holding bowls and other crockery, a small fire on the hearth with a pot bubbling over it, and—again, his pulse jumped—in a chair drawn up to the side of the fireplace, an elderly woman in a neat patched gown, with her graying hair plaited and coiled into a tight bun.

  He came closer and gave her as smooth a bow as he would have done to a royal lady. “Mistress Goodman?”

  Looking bewildered, she blinked at him, and his hope flickered. Was she senile, her memories and her wit stolen by the passing of time? Was he too late, again?

  But the woman who had greeted him came up beside him, explaining, “She ain’t been Goodman for a long time, me lord. She’s been Mollie Cutter these many years. After she came away, she married, you see, having a small pittance that her mistress had given her. When me father died, I was the only surviving child. Now me husband runs the farm. It’s all ours, what there is of it, though it’s a small place to feed so many.”

  Gabriel saw several other small children peering at him with shy gazes, but he turned back to the older woman. “Mistress Cutter, did you once serve my mother, Lady Gillingham? Do you remember that time in your life?”

  “Of course, I do, me lord,” the woman said.

  Her thin voice revealed her age, but now he could see that her eyes were sharp and aware as she stared up at him. He drew a deep breath of relief.

  “You have to be the second boy, Lord Gabriel. Always was a beautiful child, if I say so, who shouldn’t. Your mother called you Gabe, and she thought you was an angel, me lord, you gave her that much happiness.”

  Emotion flooded him, and he pushed it back. Not now, he could not be weak now. He must remain intent on his goal.

  “But why you be seeking me, me lord?” she went on.

  “I came to thank you for all you did for my mother,” he said simply.

  The woman smiled. “Does her ladyship still remember me, then?”

  Gabriel pressed his lips together, then said carefully, “I’m afraid my mother passed away some years ago.”

  The flash of pleasure faded, and the old woman’s eyes glinted with tears. “Ah, poor lady. Mayhap she is happier in Heaven. She had a hard time of it, you know.”

  “I do know,” Gabriel agreed, pushing back a mosaic of memories, both good—his mother holding him, smoothing his hair and smiling down at him, singing lullabies to him in his bed—and bad, his father shouting and brandishing the whip whose bite the young Gabriel had felt upon his shoulders too often. . . . “So your support must have meant even more to her, and I am forever grateful to you for that.
But I have another reason for seeking you out.”

  He hesitated, and she watched him, wary for the first time. “Did the marquess send you, me lord?”

  “The marquess you knew is dead. My brother holds the title now, and he is much more fair-minded, I promise you.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, me lord, though I know I shouldn’t speak about me betters. . . .” She hesitated.

  “I need to know, I have reason to believe—” He tried to find the right words. He’d had months to think about this, but it was difficult to ask. “If there was ever a time when my mother withdrew from Society . . .”

  “Precious little society she ever enjoyed, if you’ll pardon me,” Mollie Cutter said, her tone tart. “They called upon the local gentry, in the beginning, went to London once or twice—how me lady enjoyed those excursions!—but then the marquess, the late marquess, grew so jealous, like a dog with a bone he was, if you’ll pardon me for saying it. After a few years of marriage, me lady was much a prisoner in her own house, especially after you was born. . . .”

  Afraid to stop the flow of words, Gabriel nodded.

  “Years later, when you and your brother had been sent away to school, the marquess took himself off to Dover on business. Gone a week or more he was. After he came back, one of the footman—a rat-faced little weasel hoping for a coin or two—told him me lady had gone away for a few days herself.” Mollie rubbed her arms as if remembering the blows that had followed this disclosure, and her expression darkened. “It weren’t natural, me lord, shutting up the poor woman like that.” Her tone was defensive.

  “Of course it was not,” he said quickly.

  But her spate of words seemed to have stopped. She stared into the fire, and her gaze was far away.

  “I don’t blame my mother or you. I’m glad you were there to support her,” he told her again. “Why did my father send you away? I’m sure it was against my mother’s wishes.”

  She hesitated, pushing her thin lips together, and glanced back up at him.

  “I wonder,” Gabriel prompted, “if there might have been a time when my mother might have been confined . . . by some illness, perhaps, or have gone away to some watering place for her health?”