It had been a very strange few weeks, but Etta was sticking with her ‘holiday’ for now. It was still better than Dave and his bloody mushrooms – and she didn’t miss her phone at all. Endless doom-scrolling on Instagram watching all the friends she’d grown apart from nursing their babies and going to NCT classes? No, thanks.
Bessie sat next to her now, crocheting something or other; her mother was lightly snoring across from them. They’d been travelling for hours by now and Etta was bored as hell.
‘Bessie, tell me about yourself. Where do you come from? How did you get to be my maid?’
‘Pa won on the races, miss. Won big, he did. First and last time, mind. Managed to persuade him to send me off to Miss Wimslow’s Academy for Household Staff, never looked back.’ Bessie paused. ‘Well, I look back enough to send theold man the odd bob or two now and then of course. Reckon I’ve paid him back a few times over by now.’
‘And you got a job dealing with me, then? What on earth made you stay?’
‘I don’t mind looking after you, miss. You’re no trouble.’
Etta winced, remembering her first major encounter with a chamber pot. As horrifying as the first had been, the second had put any and all dignity fully to rest.
It was hard, Etta thought, to be too formal around someone who’d seen you half-naked and covered in your own body fluids and who had immediately gone to your aid in the most kind and understanding way. They had laughed, they had cried, and then Bessie had told her about James the second footman.
‘Do you reckon you’ll stick around, if your bloke pops the question?’
Bessie snorted. ‘Reckon I’ll be too rich on his exorbitant earnings to bother working, do you? I earn more than he does, miss.’
Lady Bainbridge snorted, shifting in her seat, and a sharp look from Bessie told Etta their tête-à-tête was at an end. Etta had almost forgotten that Ladies Do Not take an interest in servants’ private lives – at least, not in front of other ladies.
‘Ladies Do Not’ seemed to precede a great many statements from her mother. Etta’s list of Things Ladies Do Not Do grew longer and longer by the day. Ladies Did Not:
Pull an appalled face when presented with a cod’s head for supper
Comment negatively, or indeed at all, on digestive issues
Hike up their skirts to above their ankles when going up or down staircases
Go downstairs before their hair was arranged, even when the hairdresser was expected
Disregard their mother’s opinion on hairstyles of the day
Swear profusely when pricking themselves with a needle
Sew their own sets of underwear at the tea table, even if they considered their own designs superior
Sleep during church services and then provide feedback to the vicar afterwards, however constructive it may be
What ladiesdiddo, apparently, was traipse around outside putting flowers in baskets and looking pretty.
Her mother seemed determined to get her to smear various dubious-looking lotions and potions on her face to ‘cure’ her freckles, but Etta was having none of it. GCSE History had taught her quite enough about Ye Olde Lead Poisoning – and her freckles, along with her eyes, were almost the only thing to add any colour to her face. As she told her mother, she had never seen anyone with freckles like hers. Lady Bainbridge, knowing a lost cause when she saw one, sighed and reluctantly agreed.
Etta wiped away some of the condensation clouding her window and peered through at the darkening sky outside. The carriage was beginning to slow. She refocused her eyes and saw they were drawing into a courtyard surrounded by stables. Thank god. She longed to stretch her legs and eat something – preferably something not from the digestive tract of any animal. Nothing with eyeballs either.
As she was helped down from the carriage by a very earnest-looking young man in what she had come, over the course of her journey, to recognise as ‘ordinary person clothes’, she could hear music and singing coming from the very large pub-slash-hotel. It sounded drunken and fun, which meant she probably wouldn’t be allowed to have anything to do with it.
She mentally shook herself, physically shook her skirts, and followed her mother, who was being led through the dark to a door of the building far away from the fun.
They were exhausted as they followed the servant down a well-lit and nicely decorated corridor towards what Etta was assured would be an excellent supper immediately followed by bed. Lady Bainbridge, however, could not have been as tired as she looked because as they approached an open door and saw a small group eating their own dinner she froze immediately, whipping around to face Etta. Her face was a mask of horror, but it was far too late for whatever she had to say.
‘Lady Bainbridge! Well, what a delightful situation! Why, I need not ask what brings you here!’
A well-built woman enthusiastically greeted her mother before turning a somewhat unnerving, critical eye on Etta. ‘Goodness me, could this be Hetty? Why, how changed you are, for sure! I am your mother’s old friend, Lady Best.’
Etta’s mother seemed to tremble at this description, but replied in a pleasant voice.
‘Yes, Henrietta is joining me in London for her first Season. Better late than never, I feel!’
