A Stairs - Eva Ibbotson

The old man became technical, explaining fertilization problems and grafting, while Anna, who had lifted the other roses towards her with questing fingertips, knelt before this one, reverent and untouching.

‘I need a name for her,’ he said. ‘It’s difficult, that.’

‘She’s like snow in Russia,’ said Anna. ‘Snow in the evening when the sun sets and it looks like Alpengluhen, you know? And if snow had a scent it would smell like that; so pure and yet so strong.’

Mr Cameron scratched his head. ‘I could call her that,’ he said. ‘ “Russian Snow”. It’s a good name, that.’

Anna’s face was sombre. ‘People wouldn’t like it. They are angry with us because we made peace too soon.’ Suddenly she straightened and turned towards him, her face illumined. ‘I have had such a good idea!’

she cried. ‘Why don’t you call her after his lordship’s fiancee? Call her Muriel Hardwicke? Or just Muriel? Consider the honour of such a thing!’

‘Hm.’ Mr Cameron was taking this in. ‘If it would please his lordship …’

After Anna had left, with instructions to pick what she wanted dew-fresh at dawn, he jammed his ear-trumpet into a trellis to show that conversation was over for the day, and stood for a long time contemplating his much-loved new rose.

Somehow she didn’t look like a Muriel? But why?

- - - -*

Later that evening, Anna received a summons to the dowager’s room.

It was a critical time below stairs, for Mrs Park was planning a brand-new dessert for Miss Hardwicke’s engagement party. This concoction, which had been stirring in her mind since the engagement was announced, was nothing less than a great swan made of meringue. But inside the swan - a challenge not to be denied - she wanted to put a filling of crime Bavaroise. And for this she knew (with her instinct and her fingertips, as she knew everything) she would need a cupful of Tokay. What’s more, not just any Tokay, but the 1904 Aszu puttonyos, which alone combined the necessary delicacy with a touch of earthiness. Proom was being uncooperative about supplying this admittedly priceless wine, declaring that it was absurd to open a whole bottle of the stuff just for a few spoonfuls.

When she was compelled to do with lesser ingredients, Mrs Park never sulked, but she nevertheless suffered and her suffering was reflected in Win’s uncomprehending and adenoidal melancholy and a general ‘atmosphere’, which prevented Sid from whistling and James from giving his biceps their usual evening canter down his forearm.

But when Anna’s summons came, the kind cook was able to put her own troubles aside for a moment.

‘Now don’t look like that, dear,’ she said encouragingly. ‘It’s nothing to be afraid of, I’m sure.’

Mrs Park was right. The dowager had sent for Anna to inform her that she was to wait on Rupert’s fiancee till a new lady’s maid should be engaged.

Anna stared at her, her huge, tea-coloured eyes turning quite stewed with despair.

‘But I do not know enough to do this, my lady!’

‘Nonsense, my dear, I’m sure you’ll do it splendidly. Mrs Bassenthwaite speaks very highly of your work.’

‘But in Selina Strickland there are terrible things in the part concerning lady’s maids. Like … for example, gophering irons. I do not know,’ said Anna desperately, ‘how to gopher!’

The countess was unimpressed. ‘I think that must be rather an old-fashioned book, dear,’ she said. ‘And anyway, my maid, Alice, will be only too willing to advise you. It’s just to help Miss Hardwicke dress and keep her room tidy and bring her breakfast tray. Proom will explain your duties, but I assure you there’s nothing that’s at all difficult.’

Anna, however, was hard to console and returned to the kitchen in a state of dejection which it took the combined efforts of Mrs Park, James and Louise to overcome.

‘For heaven’s sake, it’s an honour,’ said Louise. ‘Why aren’t you pleased?’

Anna launched into an explanation, from which the bewildered servants gathered that she was afraid of becoming like some character in a book who had been tossed up by the earth and rejected by the heavens.

‘Shall I still be able to have my meals downstairs?’ she asked tragically.

It was Proom himself who disposed of Anna’s fears of a life spent in limbo, informing her that she was still a housemaid who would be expected to carry out her usual duties, as well as lending her services to Miss Hardwicke when required, adding that if she had nothing better to do she could go and see to the shutters as it was coming on to rain.

- - - -*

It was not only in the house and in the gardens that preparations were being made to welcome the new bride. Potter, the head groom, had been entrusted by his lordship with a commission that brought a spring to his step and sent him whistling round the stables. He was to purchase a mare for Miss Hardwicke’s use. And not just any mare - but one of Major Kingston’s white Arabs from the stud in Cheltenham that was the envy of the world.

‘Pay anything you like. Potter,’ the earl had said before he left for London. ‘It’s the bridegroom’s present to the bride and to hell with being sensible. We may be broke, but we’ll hold our heads high over this one.’

So Potter, leaving for Gloucestershire, was a happy man. Only the earl’s old hunter, Saturn, and the dowager’s carriage horses now remained of the fine stables they had kept before the war. Potter himself had been wise, refusing to join in the traditional battle of groom against chauffeur. He had learnt to drive and been as willing to convey the dowager to the station in the Rolls as to drive her to the village in the brougham she still preferred when paying calls. But now he saw good times ahead for the new earl who, for all his quiet ways, was a brilliant horseman and, as he called in at the kitchens to say goodbye, there was pride in Potter’s bearing and a sparkle in his eye.

‘It is like a fairy story,’ said Anna who had got over the shock of her promotion. ‘Three presents for the bride: a white rose, a dappled mare, a snowy swan … and now she comes!’

‘Let’s hope she’s a bloomin’ princess, then,’ said Louise, whose feet were hurting her, ‘or there’ll be ructions!’

CHAPTER FOUR

Muriel Hardwicke had been, quite simply, a perfect baby. Born to parents already rendered wealthy by the gratifying sales of Hardwicke soups, Hardwicke sausages and a similar assortment of canned goods, her plump, pink limbs, golden curls and hyacinth-blue eyes were the wonder of all who beheld them. Her mother, an unremarkable and rather nervous woman, never ceased to be amazed at the physical perfection of her child; Muriel’s father, as though to prove himself worthy of what he had produced, redoubled his efforts at work, made mergers, formed companies and quite quickly became a millionaire.

Only Muriel herself, gravitating naturally to the ornate mirrors in the plush Mayfair mansion where she grew up, was not surprised at the {lawlessness of the image which greeted her. It was as though she knew from the start that she was not like other children. She hated to be dirty, could not bear mess or torn clothes and once, when a stray kitten brought in by the cook scratched her hands, she shut herself in the nursery and refused to come out until it was removed.

She had reached a full-breasted and acne-less adolescence when her mother, as though she knew she could do no more for her lovely daughter, contracted pneumonia and died. Five years later, her father collapsed at a board meeting with a perforated ulcer and, at twenty-two, Muriel Hardwicke found herself sole heiress of a group of businesses valued at some three million pounds.