The upper servants—Mr. Hudson, Mrs. Budgeon, Mr. Arnold, and Betty, as first housemaid—rose and quietly left the room in somber procession.
“Where are they going?” Margaret whispered.
“To the moon—what do ya think? Pug’s parlor, o’ course.”
Mr. Arnold paused in the threshold and looked back. “Fred, I trust you will remember to walk the dog after your supper?”
“I will, sir.”
The under butler, Margaret noticed, carried a bottle of port beneath his arm, while the servants were left with small beer.
Margaret had heard of the custom of the “upper ten” partaking of their pudding and of finer dishes and wines separately from the under servants in the housekeeper’s parlor. Still, she felt a strange stab at finding herself at the lower end of the social hierarchy. Left out.
The feeling soon evaporated, however, because the stiff atmosphere in the servants’ hall melted into relaxed conviviality once the uppers—the bosses—were gone.
Thomas, the dark-haired first footman, raised his glass of small beer. “Here’s to the return of Mr. Upchurch.”
A female voice to Margaret’s right said, “I wish Mr.LewisUpchurch would return.”
Margaret snapped her head around in surprise. She took in the wistful expression of the heavyset stillroom maid she had met at breakfast.
“Do you? Why?” Margaret could not help but ask. She found it somehow disconcerting that she was not the only maid awaiting Lewis’s appearance.
Hester gazed into the distance but did not answer.
Dark-haired Thomas slanted Margaret a look. “You’ve never seen him, or you wouldn’t ask. All the girls flutter about Mr. Lewis.”
“I don’t know why.” The second footman, Craig, shrugged.
“Come on now,” Jenny said. “We all know it isn’t Mr. Lewis Hester pines for, but the young man what comes with him.”
Margaret turned to the kitchen maid. “Who’s that?”
Jenny looked at her, incredulous. “His valet, of course.”
“Oh, right,” Margaret murmured, noticing how pink Hester’s round cheeks had become.
“I don’t know what girls see in him either,” fair-haired Craig pouted. “What’s he got that I haven’t got?”
“Class, that’s what he’s got,” Jenny answered. “And genteel ways.”
Another kitchen maid answered, “And so handsome in his fine clothes.”
Craig frowned. “Well, I’ve got fine clothes.”
Thomas threw down his table napkin. “You call livery fine?” The footman’s lip curled. “For trained monkeys, maybe.”
Margaret was surprised the first footman despised the very livery he himself wore.
“Oh, now don’t listen to Thomas,” Jenny soothed. “I think you’re both quite handsome in your livery. Very smart.”
“Thank you, Jenny.” Craig added hopefully, “I don’t suppose you have a sister?”
Thomas smirked. “Or a grandmother. Craig isn’t fussy.”
Craig glared, but the others chuckled, enjoying the teasing nearly as much as their desserts.
The next morning Margaret began her first full round of work. If she had thought the day before taxing, this one promised to be more so. The previous day had been spent in learning and in observing Betty or assisting her. Today, Margaret was on her own. Betty had assigned her the drawing room, conservatory, hall, and steward’s office to clean before breakfast, while she would see to the library, salon, morning room, dining room, and servery. Fiona, meanwhile, would take care of the early morning duties abovestairs—taking up water and emptying the slops in the bedchambers as well as cleaning the family sitting room.
