Diamonds at Dinner by Hilda Newman and Tim Tate

fabric but I knew enough to know that it was worth many times my weekly wages – she was to wear to dinner.
    ‘Excuse me, Milady, but is there anything else I can do for you?’ I asked in what sounded a very small voice. ‘It’s just that I don’t know what to do when I’m not wanted.’
    The Countess turned back to me. She was, as I hope you’ve gathered by now, really quite a frightening figure. How on earth had I plucked up the courage to speak to her?
    ‘Do?’ she asked, as if tasting and testing an unfamiliar concept. ‘I have no idea what you will do: you are to be my lady’s maid and that means you will do whatever I need you to do, whenever I need it. As for anything else,’ – she waved her hand vaguely at me – ‘well, I imagine your time is your own.’
    ‘Well, goodness,’ I thought. ‘That’s me told. I won’t make that mistake again in a hurry, that’s for certain.’ I gave my best imitation of a curtsey and fled as fast as decorum would allow. In the relative safety of the steward’s room I flopped down into a chair and went over my first encounter with Her Ladyship in my mind. This was my first taste of service and it was without doubt one of the rummest experiences in my life. Still, I was here, I was employed and I’d better make the best of it: that’s what I told myself, although inside I wanted to curl up into a ball and then roll all the way back to Stamford and Vine Street and Mum, Dad, Joan and Jim.
    In the end it was Dorothy Clark who came to my rescue. Although she was really only Second Housemaid – and so was termed one of the under servants – she had been looking after Lady Coventry since her previous lady’s maid had retired after many years of service.
    ‘Don’t you worry about Her Ladyship,’ Dorothy told me as I sat, still trembling, in the chair. ‘You just treat her with respect and she’ll treat you the same way. Or at least with as much respect as one of the gentry ever treats their servants!’
    It was good advice and would, in time, serve me well. But at that moment I was still completely overwhelmed by the whole business. There was never any doubt that I would treat my new mistress with the utmost respect: she was fartoo frightening a figure to do otherwise. But whether she would ever come to warm enough to me for there to be anything more than the most formal of relationships – well, on that score I definitely had my doubts.
    Dorothy, though, was full of comforting information and advice and I quickly sensed that here was someone who could not just teach me the ropes but with whom I could be friends. She was about my own age, pretty and vivacious. I immediately warmed to her and thought, ‘Here’s someone who will be a pal.’ And let me tell you, I had never felt as much in need of a pal as I did that day. But no sooner had the thought entered my head than Dorothy told me something that sent my heart sinking down again.
    ‘You need to remember that you’re a head servant. There are pretty strict rules about the way things are done here and one of those rules is that head servants aren’t supposed to mix much with us lower ones. You’re expected to keep yourself to yourself – a bit aloof, like. Friendships aren’t really encouraged here and, because you’re one level higher than me, you’ll be expected to socialise only with your equals.’
    I’d never come across anything like this in my life. Where I came from, people were people and it didn’t matter who they were or what their station in life was: if they were friendly to you, you were friendly right back atthem. But here in this great house the game was played very differently, it seemed. All of us beneath stairs were, of course, expected to know our place when it came to the family: but now I discovered that there were different rungs on our already very limited social ladder.
    As I’ve said, the head servants (apart from me) were the butler, the housekeeper-cook and the