Her Ladyship's Girl by Anwyn Moyle Page A

thanks.’
    I couldn’t tell if it was a giggle or a snigger, but she left the room with her hand still up to her mouth and, ten minutes later, came back with a pot of tea and a fried breakfast of
bacon, sausage, eggs and toasted bread. My eyes lit up and I started tucking in straight away because I was famished. Heather watched me for a moment, as if I was behaving exactly as she supposed I
would.
    ‘
Bon appetit
.’
    She said it in a fake French accent and I thought it must be some kind of sarcasm that fitted the context of Mrs Bouchard’s name.
    I waited again after breakfast, but still nobody came to tell me what my duties would be or when I should start them or what I should be doing now that I was here. At 11:00 a.m., I could stand
the prevarication no longer, so I decided to venture out of my room and take a look around, not knowing what parts of the house might be off limits to a lady’s maid in waiting.
    My room was on the second floor, as were three other private bedrooms, all much bigger than mine and one with a separate dressing room. There were two bathrooms, one en suite to the master
bedroom, which I presumed was Mr and Mrs Bouchard’s, while the other bathroom was smaller and I expected it was for use by the rest of the family. The first floor consisted of a large,
opulently furnished drawing room, a music room, which housed the piano, and a tea room, where I’d been the day before. The ground floor housed the large entrance hall, another drawing room,
smaller than the one on the first floor, and a library, similar in size to the one at Hampstead, and a room which I could only assume was Mrs Hathaway’s parlour. The basement of the house
accommodated the kitchen and scullery, of course, and the male servants’ quarters, while the top, or attic, floor housed the female servants’ rooms. There was also a third floor which
seemed to be unused at the moment, but which might be utilised from time to time as guest rooms, when the house hosted parties or soirées.
    It was midday by the time I finished my little tour and, while I was mooching about, I saw no one, except for a brief glimpse of Beatrice the housemaid in one of the drawing rooms, and the cook
and her kitchen maids in the basement. At one o’clock lunch was served and this time I was summoned to the housekeeper’s parlour. Jacob showed me in and I was confronted by Miss Mason,
all buttoned up in her black and still sporting her stern face, and a middle-aged woman with dark eyes and dressed in a tweed two-piece. She was of stout stature with a pleasant face and her
greying hair was done up in a loose sock bun on top of her head.
    ‘I’m Mrs Hathaway, the housekeeper. Please, sit down.’
    We sat and the maids served us with a lunch of tomato and cheddar soup, followed by pork cutlets dressed with fennel, dill and cucumber and accompanied with a spoonful or two of diced potatoes,
along with yellow watermelon for pudding. Not much was said during lunch and I found I wasn’t all that hungry after the big fried breakfast – I wasn’t used to eating like this and
my stomach would take time adjusting to it. But I did my best, as I was always taught to waste not and, consequently, to want not, and I believed that lie. The two other women settled back with
cups of tea when the dishes were cleared away.
    Mrs Hathaway was just about to say something to me, when the door opened and a tall man came into the parlour. He was about forty-five or fifty, dressed in a tailcoat and striped trousers like
Jacob’s. He wore a white shirt and black tie under his waistcoat and his hair was blackish grey and sleeked back by a pomade, which was an emulsion of water and mineral oil and stabilised
with beeswax. He looked a bit like Bela Lugosi and Miss Mason almost swooned when he came in. She and Mrs Hathaway rose from their seats to greet him.
    ‘Mr Biggs . . . we weren’t expecting you till later. We’ve already had lunch.’
    ‘Not to worry,