The Emperor by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page A

cheapest, most indigestible cuts, fivepence a pound; coals sky-high at five pounds a chaldron.
    Coals were her greatest problem. She glanced involun tarily over her shoulder at the tiny, sluttish cottage she had just quitted. The doctor said that Vendenoir must be kept warm at all costs, and though the cottage was only one room below and one above, it was hard to keep it warm when it had only an earth floor and the roof leaked like a sieve.
    Two small rooms; a stair, so narrow and precipitous that she had to descend it sideways for safety; a tiny, beetle- infested scullery: of this she was mistress. Behind was a common yard which gave access to the common water- pump and the common privvy. She gave a quirky smile as she thought of the house in Paris she had once owned. Even in England, she had known glory: King George had once kissed her cheek, and acknowledged her title of Countess of Strathord. Now she and her faithful Marie ate lentil porrage and rice pudding so that Vendenoir could have the little bit of stewed mutton they could afford.
    The contrast was ridiculous, and made her laugh more often than repine. She was of a cheerful, trusting nature, and believed that God had not lost sight of her, and her sense of humour saved her when things seemed darkest. There were things that tried her severely. It was not the loss   of those luxuries she had been used to, nor even the hard work and poor food. She had learned to be an inventive cook, and to make surprisingly tasty dishes out of very little. Marie brought the provisions, trudging all the way to the market at World's End to find the best bargains; and Héloïse, troubled with guilt over the hardships her former maid endured, would sometimes joke that though Marie had promised to follow her to the ends of the earth, it was rather too much to ask her to go to World's End twice a week.
    She didn't mind having to work for her living, either, for she had been brought up to be useful and active, and teaching French and music and Court etiquette to the daughters of the bourgeoisie was not exacting work, and was occasionally even enjoyable, when a pupil shewed aptitude, or succeeded at last in understanding something that had been eluding her.
    What did trouble her was the cold and the dirt. She had not been brought up to clean houses or wash clothes, wash dishes, lay fires, pump water. Marie did these jobs as far as she could, to save her mistress, but Héloïse would not let her entirely shoulder the disagreeable burden. It was very hard to get things clean, when the water itself was far from pure, or to dry them, once washed, on any but a hot, sunny day. The smell of poverty was something that Héloïse had found very difficult to bear; now she worried even more that she had stopped noticing it.
    She set off briskly down the lane towards the main road, picking her way carefully over the ruts. One good thing about the frost, she thought with an inward smile, was that the mud and other filth that accumulated in the lane were frozen hard, and much more pleasant to walk over. Pride prevented her from wearing pattens, the same pride which had made her only moments ago refuse Marie's offer of a shawl. Her pelisse, though not very warm, was still smart enough if you didn't look too closely, but Héloïse refused to go out with a shawl over her head and shoulders like a peasant. When I come to that, she had told Marie with a smile, you will know I am beaten.
    Yeman's Row fed itself into the main Brompton road, which linked the village of Brompton in one direction with Kensington, and in the other with Piccadilly and Park Lane. Nicely placed, as Héloïse put it, between the homes of the gentle and the homes of the genteel, Brompton housed a large population of French émigrés who, displaced from a variety of social stations in France, now made a living by teaching their accomplishments to the rich, by making their gowns and shoes and hats, or by dressing their hair or their meat.