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t uniform and rode in a hansom cab to Queen Anne Street, where she presented herself for Araminta’s inspection.
“I have Lady Burke-Heppenstall’s recommendation of your work,” Araminta said gravely. She was dressed in black taffeta which rustled with every movement, and the enormous skirt kept touching table legs and corners of sofas and chairs as Araminta walked in the overfurnished room. The somberness of the gown and the black crepes set over pictures and doors in recognition of death made her hair by contrast seem like a pool of light, hotter and more vivid than gold.
She looked at Hester’s gray stuff dress and severe appearance with satisfaction.
“Why are you currently seeking employment, Miss Latterly?” She made no attempt at courtesy. This was a business interview, not a social one.
Hester had already prepared her excuse, with Callandra’s help. It was frequently the desire of an ambitious servant to work for someone of title. They were greater snobs than many of their mistresses, and the manners and grammar of other servants were of intense importance to them.
“Now that I am home in England, Mrs. Kellard, I should prefer nursing in a private house of well-bred people to working in a public hospital.”
“That is quite understandable,” Araminta accepted without a flicker. “My mother is not ill, Miss Latterly; she has had a bereavement under most distressing circumstances. We do not wish her to fall into a melancholy. It would be easy enough. She will require agreeable company—and care that she sleeps well and eats sufficiently to maintain her health. Is this a position you would be willing to fill, Miss Latterly?”
“Yes, Mrs. Kellard, I should be happy to, if you feel I would suit?” Hester forced herself to be appropriately humble only by remembering Monk’s face—and her real purpose here.
“Very well, you may consider yourself engaged. You may bring such belongings as are necessary, and begin tomorrow. Good day to you.”
“Good day, ma’am—thank you.”
Accordingly, the following day Hester arrived at Queen Anne Street with her few belongings in a trunk and presented herself at the back door to be shown her room and her duties. It was an extraordinary position, rather more than a servant, but a great deal less than a guest. She was considered skilled, but she was not part of the ordinary staff, nor yet a professional person such as a doctor. She was a member of the household, therefore she must come and go as she was ordered and conduct herself in all ways as was acceptable to her mistress. Mistress—the word set her teeth on edge.
But why should it? She had no possessions and no prospects, and since she took it upon herself to administer to John Airdrie without Pomeroy’s permission, she had no other employment either. And of course there was not only caring for Lady Moidore to consider and do well, there was the subtler and more interesting and dangerous job to do for Monk.
She was given an agreeable room on the floor immediately above the main family bedrooms and with a connecting bell so she could come at a moment’s notice should she be required. In her time off duty, if there should be any, she might read or write letters in the ladies’ maids’ sitting room. She was told quite unequivocally what her duties would be, and what would remain those of the ladies’ maid, Mary, a dark, slender girl in her twenties with a face full of character and a ready tongue. She was also told the province of the upstairs maid, Annie, who was about sixteen and full of curiosity, quick-witted and far too opinionated for her own good.
She was shown the kitchen and introduced to the cook, Mrs. Boden, the kitchen maid Sal, the scullery maid May, the bootboy Willie, and then to the laundrymaids Lizzie and Rose, who would attend to her linens. The other ladies’ maid, Gladys, she only saw on the landing; she looked after Mrs. Cyprian Moidore and Miss Araminta. Similarly the upstairs maid Maggie, the between maid Nellie, and the handsome parlormaid Dinah were outside her responsibility. The tiny, fierce housekeeper, Mrs. Willis, did not have jurisdiction over nurses, and that was a bad beginning to their relationship. She was used to power and resented a female servant who was not answerable to her. Her small, neat face showed it in instant disapproval. She reminded Hester of a particularly efficient hospital matron, and the comparison was not a fortunate one.
“You will eat in the servants’ hall with everyone else,” Mrs. Willis informed her tartly. “Unless your duties make that impossible. After breakfast at eight o’clock we all,” she said the word pointedly, and looked Hester in the eye, “gather for Sir Basil to lead us in prayers. I assume, Miss Latterly, that you are a member of the Church of England?”
“Oh yes, Mrs. Willis,” Hester said immediately, although by inclination she was no such thing, her nature was all nonconformist.
“Good.” Mrs. Willis nodded. “Quite so. We take dinner between twelve and one, while the family takes luncheon. There will be supper at whatever time the evening suits. When there are large dinner parties that may be very late.” Her eyebrows rose very high. “We give some of the largest dinner parties in London here, and very fine cuisine indeed. But since we are in mourning at present there will be no entertaining, and by the time we resume I imagine your duties will be long past. I expect you will have half a day off a fortnight, like everyone else. But if that does not suit her ladyship, then you won’t.”
Since it was not a permanent position Hester was not yet concerned with time off, so long as she had opportunity to see Monk when necessary, to report to him any knowledge she had gained.
“Yes, Mrs. Willis,” she replied, since a reply seemed to be awaited.
“You will have little or no occasion to go into the withdrawing room, but if you do I presume you know better than to knock?” Her eyes were sharp on Hester’s face. “It is extremely vulgar ever to knock on a withdrawing room door.”
“Of course, Mrs. Willis,” Hester said hastily. She had never given the matter any thought, but it would not do to admit it.
“The maid will care for your room, of course,” the housekeeper went on, looking at Hester critically. “But you will iron your own aprons. The laundrymaids have enough to do, and the ladies’ maids are certainly not waiting on you! If anyone sends you letters—you have a family?” This last was something in the nature of a challenge. People without families lacked respectability; they might be anyone.
“Yes, Mrs. Willis, I do,” Hester said firmly. “Unfortunately my parents died recently, and one of my brothers was killed in the Crimea, but I have a surviving brother, and I am very fond both of him and of his wife.”
Mrs. Willis was satisfied. “Good. I am sorry about your brother who died in the Crimea, but many fine young men were lost in that conflict. To die for one’s Queen and country is an honorable thing and to be borne with such fortitude as one can. My own father was a soldier—a very fine man, a man to look up to. Family is very important, Miss Latterly. All the staff here are most respectable.”
With great difficulty Hester bit her tongue and forbore from saying what she felt about the Crimean War and its political motives or the utter incompetence of its conduct. She controlled herself with merely lowering her eyes as if in modest consent.
“Mary will show you the female servants’ staircase.” Mrs. Willis had finished the subject of personal lives and was back to business.
“I beg your pardon?” Hester was momentarily confused.
“The female servants’ staircase,” Mrs. Willis said sharply.
“You will have to go up and down stairs, girl! This is a decent household—you don’t imagine you are going to use the male servants’ stairs, do you? Whatever next? I hope you don’t have any ideas of that sort.”
“Certainly not, ma’am.” Hester collected her wits quickly and invented an explanation. “I am just unused to such spaciousness. I am not long returned from the Crimea.” This in case Mrs. Willis had heard only the reputation of nurses in England, which was far from savory. “We had no menservants where I was.”
