Her Ladyship's Girl Read Free

I did.
    That’s when I went back downstairs and found the copper boiling over and I’ve already told you about the rest of that day.
    Next morning, Bart the Brat woke me at five o’clock again and got me out of the bed where I’d been so safe and sound. I didn’t see much of the other servants during that first
day, because everything was so manic and full of mayhem. I didn’t know who was who or what they did, except for Irish Kathleen. Bart said it would be quieter today after having been thrown in
at the deep end yesterday, and I’d be able to get my bearings a bit better and settle in to service as a skivvy. He called me the same as Cook did, but I don’t think he meant any insult
by it like she did – it was what scullery maids were known as.
    The rest of the day passed without a boiling-over or a bungle on my part and I was starving half to death by dinner-time, which was at seven o’clock in the evening for us servants. Cook
was gone home from half past six and it was the first chance I had to get to know the other inmates – that’s how it seemed to me, like we were prisoners in a private workhouse.
    Bart was a trainee gardener. He was seventeen and from Leeds and a likely looker. Then there was Kathleen the parlourmaid, who I already knew – she was a shy type and only said a few
words. Mona was a lady’s maid and spent most of her time upstairs; she was twenty-one and snooty as a sow’s ear. Lilly, the nanny, was about thirty-five; she was a teacher-type and
plain in comparison to Mona. She ate with the two children of the house: Lucinda aged seven and Jonathan aged five. I didn’t see much of her the whole time I was there because she was always
with the kids. The two kitchen maids were Nora, who was nineteen, and Biddy, who was eighteen, and you could tell they liked to have a bit of fun with the boys. There was another upstairs
parlourmaid called Fanny, short for Frances, who was in her late twenties and might have been married. She went home in the evenings as well. There was the gardener and general handyman, who was
Bart’s boss, but over it all was the head butler, who opened the front door to me that first day, then slammed it in my face. His name was Mr Ayres and he looked like Uriah Heep from
David Copperfield
. He always wore an impeccably pressed dark suit, with a white shirt and black tie. He was clean-shaven and spoke like he had a hot potato in his mouth. Mr Ayres was the
king of this castle and a man who was not to be messed about with.
    We sat talking. Most of the other girls were human enough and I asked if there was any chicken left over from earlier in the day.
    ‘You don’t want to touch that.’
    ‘Why not?’
    The kitchen maids smirked and said they saw Cook put the arse-end of the chicken over a mantel and let the gas go inside like stuffing. Then she lit it and it flared up like a firework and after
that she washed and cooked it. I didn’t know what they were talking about and I thought that must be how the London entrepreneurial classes liked to have their poultry prepared.
    ‘It was smelly and slimy.’
    ‘That’s why she filled it with gas.’
    ‘To get rid of the pong.’
    Which struck me as strange, but I didn’t want to show my ignorance by asking stupid questions. So I just took their advice and stayed away from the chicken.
    It was pleasant enough having a bit of a chinwag with the other maids and they all mucked in to help me finish my jobs so we could go to bed at the same time. It was gone half past eight when my
head hit the pillow and I was spark out for the counting.
    The Brat woke me at five every morning. I wasn’t sure if he lived in like us maids, or went home every evening with the others. I heard his tap-tapping on the door, like a little bubble of
morning memory that rose up and burst on the roof of my brain.
    ‘It’s Bart, Anwyn.’
    ‘I know who it is.’
    I was so tired and stiff from the few days before that I could hardly