Anne Perry - Silence in Hanover Close

“I see.” The chill eyes regarded her unemotionally. It was odd to be looked at as if one were a property to be purchased or passed by, without regard to manners or feelings. It was not peculiar to Loretta York; anyone else would have been similar. And yet she would be employed to care for her on the most intimate terms, brush her hair, launder, iron and mend her clothes, even her underwear, wake her in the morning, dress her for dinners and balls, wait on her if she were ill. No one else knew a woman as intimately as her maid. Her husband certainly did not.

“Well Amelia, I presume you can sew and iron and care for a wardrobe properly, or Lady Ashworth would not recommend you. She has a reputation for being in the height of fashion, without vulgarity, although I cannot recall meeting her myself.”

Emily felt a rush of blood into her face, then an immediate chill as fear washed through her. The chance of recognition had brushed close sooner than she had anticipated. The peril had come and gone in one awful moment, and when it had passed she opened her mouth to thank Loretta for the compliment, realizing with a start that a reply would have betrayed her into the very pitfall she had just avoided. In her new station no comment was expected of her.

“You may begin immediately,” Loretta continued, “and if you prove satisfactory after a month, we shall make you permanent. You will attend my daughter-in-law. You will be paid eighteen pounds a year, and have one afternoon off every second week, if it is convenient, but you will be home again before nine. We have no girls out late. You may have a day off to go home and see your family every three months.”

Emily stared at her. “Thank you, ma’am,” she said in a rush. She had been given the position. It was decided. She felt at once frightened and victorious.

“Thank you, Amelia, that will be all. You may go.” Loretta’s voice brought her back to reality.

“Thank you, ma’am,” she said again, letting the relief show in her face. After all, she really did want the place! She bobbed very briefly and turned to leave, feeling an overwhelming sense of freedom just at being out of the room and past the first obstacle.

“Well?” The cook looked up from the apple pie she was finishing off with carefully cut pastry leaves.

Emily smiled at her more broadly than she should have. “I got it!”

“Then be about your unpacking,” the cook said pleasantly. “Don’t stand around ’ere, girl. You’re no use to me! ’Ousekeeper’s sitting room is second on the left. Mrs. Crawford should be in there this time o’ day. Go and see ’er and she’ll tell you where you’ll sleep-Dulcie’s room, I daresay-and she’ll have Joan, the laundry maid, show you where your iron is, and the like. I daresay someone’ll find Edith for you-that’s Mrs. Piers York’s maid. You’ll be for Miss Veronica.”

“Yes, Mrs. Melrose.” Emily went to the corner to pick up her box.

“Don’t you bother wi’ that! Albert’ll take it up. Liftin’ and carryin’s not your job, ’less you’re asked. On wi’ you!”

“Yes, Mrs. Melrose.”

She went to the housekeeper’s sitting room and knocked on the door. She was told sharply to come in.

It was small, crowded with dark furniture, the smell of polish mixing with the thick, greenhouse odor of a potted lily on a jardiniere in one corner. There were embroidered antimacassars on the backs of the chairs and along the sideboard, which was littered with photographs. Two hand-stitched samplers framed in wood hung on the walls. Emily felt overpowered even before she stepped inside.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Crawford, was short and thin, with the face of an irritable sparrow. Gray hair escaped a screwed-back hairstyle that was considerably out of date and crowned with white lace like froth.

“Yes?” she said sharply. “Who are you?”

Emily stood up straight. “The new lady’s maid, Mrs. Crawford. Mrs. Melrose said as you would tell me where I should sleep.”

“Sleep! At four o’clock in the afternoon, girl? I’ll tell you where you can put your box! And I’ll show you to the laundry and Joan can give you your iron and table. I daresay Edith is sitting down; she’s not so well these days. You’ll have met Nora, the parlormaid, and there’s Libby the upstairs maid and Bertha the downstairs maid, and Fanny the tweeny, but a useless little article she is! And of course Mr. Redditch, the butler, but you’ll not have much to do with him, nor John the footman, who valets for Mr. York, and Albert the bootboy.”

“Yes, Mrs. Crawford.”

“And you’ll have met Mary the kitchen maid and Prim the scullery maid. Well, that’s all. Outside staff, grooms and the like, don’t need to concern you. And you’ll not have anything to do with anyone outside the house unless Mrs. York sends you on an errand. You’ll have Sunday mornings off to go to church. You’ll eat in the servants hall with the rest of us. I expect that dress’ll do you.” She looked at it without favor. “You’ve got caps and aprons, of course? I should think so. If Miss Veronica wants them changed she’ll tell you. I hope I don’t need to remind you, you’ll have no followers, no gentlemen callers of any sort, unless you’ve a father or brother, in which case if you ask permission, I daresay they’ll be allowed to see you, at convenient times.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Emily could feel the walls tightening round her as if she were a prisoner. No callers, no admirers, one half day off a fortnight! How was she going to keep in touch with Charlotte, and Jack?

“Well, don’t stand there, girl!” Mrs. Crawford rose and smoothed her apron briskly, her keys jangling at her waist. She led the way out, moving like a little rodent, with busy, jerky steps. In the laundry she patted and touched things, showing Emily coppers for boiling linen, bins of soap, starch, ironing tables, flatirons, and airing rails, all the time clicking her tongue over the absence of Joan.

Upstairs Emily was shown Veronica York’s bedroom. It was cool green and white with touches of yellow, like a spring field, and her dressing room had cupboards full of clothes, all fashionable and of high quality-but nothing in pink, let alone cerise.

Upstairs on the servants’ floor, she was led to a small room about one fifth the size of her own at home, bare but for an iron bedstead with a ticking-covered mattress, gray blankets, and a pillow; one small cupboard; and a table with a basin on it, no pitcher. Under the bed was a plain white china chamber pot. The ceiling sloped so that in only half of the room could she stand upright, and the dormered window had thin, unlined brown curtains. The linoleum on the floor was like ice to the touch; there was one small rag mat by the bedside. Her heart sank. It was clean and cold and infinitely grim compared with home. How many girls had stood in doorways like this with tears welling up inside them, knowing there was no possible escape, and this was the best they could hope for, not the worst?

“Thank you, Mrs. Crawford,” she said huskily.

“Albert’s put your box there; you unpack it, and when Miss Veronica rings”-she pointed to the bell Emily had not noticed before-“you’ll go down and attend to her dressing for dinner. She’s out now, or I’d have taken you to her.”

“Yes, Mrs. Crawford.”

And the next minute she was alone. It was ghastly. All she had was a box of clothes, a narrow bed as hard as a bench, three blankets to keep warm, no fire, no water except what she fetched for herself to put in that basin, and no light but for one candle in a chipped enamel holder; and she was at the beck and call of a woman she had never met. Jack was right: she must have lost her wits! If only he had forbidden her, if only Aunt Vespasia had begged her not to do it!