Даниэла Стил - Royal

She checked in to a small hotel in the ravaged East End. The streets were still littered with rubble and debris, and everything was dusty as she walked around holding Annie. She went back to see the building where she had lived with her parents, and there was no sign that anything had ever been there. It was a sad, empty feeling, as though further proof that they were gone. The apartment building had vanished the night it had been bombed and the explosion had killed her parents. She clung to Annie for comfort as she walked around the neighborhood for a while, and then went back to her hotel. The memories were too powerful and the sense of loss in their wake. It made her even more grateful that she had Annie now. None of the neighbors had survived the bombing and her father’s shop was gone.

The next day she went to the agency she’d read about in The Lady, to look for a job. She explained that she would have to take her daughter with her. Before the war, no one would have hired her with a child, now there were many girls like her who had no other choice, and employers would have to make allowances for it. The widows with children had no one to leave them with, and had to bring them along. Employers desperate for help in their city and country homes had to find a way to accommodate them, and many were willing to be creative and give it a try. The woman who ran the agency suggested three jobs to her. One employer wasn’t willing to hire anyone with a child, the other two expected her to find someone to care for her baby by day, but were willing to let the child sleep at their home at night. One was in the city, in Kensington, and the other was at a country estate in Kent, which sounded more similar to the life she had led at Ainsleigh Hall, on a grander scale, and seemed more interesting to her.

The woman at the agency called the potential employer, and arranged for an interview for Lucy the next day. The position was as a housemaid, at what the agency claimed was a magnificent estate. Ainsleigh had been more of a manor house, and nothing had been formal there with so little help during the war. The estate in Kent was much more elaborate, with a separate house for the servants, and cottages for the married ones, if both spouses worked for them. The woman at the agency said that they’d been hiring people in droves for the past month, to re-staff their home after the war. They wanted footmen, both a senior and under butler, a fleet of maids. They had excellent stables with experienced grooms and a stable master, and had just hired three chauffeurs and a chef.

Lucy was excited when she took the train to Kent from Victoria Station for the interview the next day. She had paid a maid at her hotel to babysit for Annie, but had made it clear to the agency and employer that she had a little girl. She had mentioned that her husband had been killed at the Battle of Anzio, and she had lost her own family in the London bombings as well. The war had taken a heavy toll on many young women like her, and her story was entirely believable, although much of it wasn’t accurate. She hadn’t been married, she wasn’t a widow, and Annie wasn’t her child. She almost believed her own story now, and it had the ring of truth.

One of the chauffeurs picked her up at the train station in a Bentley, and they drove through the imposing gates of the estate twenty minutes later.

The interview was conducted by the head housekeeper, a daunting looking woman with a thin, sharp face, wearing a severe black dress, with a heavy ring of keys on her belt. The head housemaid appeared at the end of the interview to walk Lucy through the house, which was as elegant and grand as the agency had said. The owner of the estate was the proprietor of one of the largest and finest department stores in England. They were commoners and extremely wealthy.

Some experienced servants who had been in service before the war preferred working for titled families, but Lucy didn’t care. Her potential employers had four young children, two nannies, and a nursery maid, but Lucy had applied for a job as a housemaid, which she knew she could do well. She wasn’t afraid of hard work.

She was told that the wife of one of the tenant farmers was willing to babysit for the housemaids’ children for a small fee during the day. It sounded like a perfect arrangement to Lucy. She would get one day off a week from morning, after her employers’ breakfast, until just before dinnertime, and she would be handsomely paid. It was exactly what she needed, and when they offered her the job before she left, she accepted immediately. She didn’t want to lose the opportunity, and it seemed like the ideal household for her to bring up her child. The chauffeur told her how much he liked working there on their way back to the train station. They had asked her to start the next day and she’d agreed.

She packed when she got back to the hotel, checked that the leather box with Charlotte’s papers was still in her suitcase, and felt for the key around her neck. The box of Princess Charlotte’s papers was Lucy’s insurance for the future, if it ever became advantageous to her to share the information in it with the queen. But for now, it was safe, and she was only going to use it if she had to. All she wanted now was to start a good job, and lead a good life.

They had told her that Annie could sleep in a crib in her room, or on a cot later when she outgrew it. Two of the housemaids had young children there as well. Their employers were supposedly modern and very flexible, but expected them all to work diligently and for long hours. They gave house parties nearly every weekend, dinner parties frequently, and balls in their grand ballroom several times a year. Unlike the more distinguished, aristocratic Hemmingses, with diminished funds, they seemed to have unlimited money to spend. It sounded like a very pleasant life and work experience to Lucy, and she could hardly wait to start the next day. She would be given her uniforms when she arrived, and a seamstress would fit them to her.

She took the train to Kent the next morning, and was picked up again, this time by a different chauffeur, who was even more pleasant than the first one. They stopped at one of the farms so she could drop Annie off for childcare, and once at the main house, he took her to see her room, on the top floor of the house. The chauffeurs and stablemen had already filled the rooms in the staff building, and the cottages were only available to couples, of which there were several on staff.

“What about you?” the young chauffeur asked her. “A husband or boyfriend?” He had looked her over thoroughly before he asked. She had an ordinary face, but a voluptuous figure, which would definitely appeal to some. She was a buxom girl and looked well in the black uniform and lace apron their employer expected them to wear. It made her look older than her nineteen years, very serious and professional, with a little white lace cap.

“All I have is my little girl.” Lucy answered the chauffeur’s question in a neutral tone. “My husband died in the war.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” the chauffeur said kindly. “Maybe you’ll meet a new man here,” he commented, and she smiled.

“That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to work.” And she meant it. By nightfall, after working all day, every inch of her hurt and felt strained, as it never had before, but she knew she had done a good job, cleaning, scrubbing, waxing, and polishing all day. She had helped two footmen carry tables, had vacuumed several large reception rooms, and set the table impeccably for an informal dinner for twelve. She learned quickly from her coworkers, and liked their employers’ style. She hadn’t met them yet, although she had been told that the lady of the house was very fashionable. “Informal” to them meant the silver service, not the gold one they used for formal events.