A Pearl for My Mistress

But this is just a start, she whispered to herself. Just a beginning, and not the worst one, either.

Closing her eyes, Hester could see the course of action she charted for herself like a battle plan. Two, at most three years here; then she could apply for a post as a fully fledged lady’s maid through some well-reputed agency. She would ask for higher wages this time, of course; that was the only way a girl in service could progress, moving from one grand household to the next.

What then? Two years to gain more experience and ensure glowing references; then, perhaps, she could try her luck at one of the great families. The Londonderrys, whom her uncle admired so much. The Grosvenors. The Astors.

What makes you think they’d want you? her inner voice whispered. There’re plenty of unemployed girls who can sew. Now more so than ever.

I am better than any of them! Hester stiffened her grip on the pen.

How so?

Well, I am … I am industrious … I am patient … I am doing everything right!

From the depths of the room, the coloured postcards looked at her with mute expectation.

Hester remembered all these times when, still in her hometown, she used to find some pretext to go to the train station. She lingered there longer than was strictly necessary; she spent time gazing at the passing trains, reading about some possible destinations and imagining others. She felt possessed with longing to jump onto their steps. They would have taken her to the black stones of Edinburgh, to the ancient gates of York, or further South, all the way to the magnificent capital.

No, no, she had absolutely no reasons to complain. In only two months (how could it be March already?) she would be going precisely there. Lady Lucy was, after all, bound to have her second Season, just as she was bound to accompany her.

Hester didn’t doubt that her young mistress would become the belle of every ball. How could she not – with her graceful neck, her ivory skin? Admittedly, Hester was no expert when it came to the ladies of Society; to be precise, she had never met any. But she was sure that none – or, at least, very few of them – could be more beautiful, than her mistress.

But, of course, moving to London also meant another thing. A thing that had nothing to do with Lady Lucy and her romantic prospects.

Almost involuntarily, Hester’s gaze shifted to the lower drawer of her table. Somewhere there, another letter slumbered. It lay quietly in the darkness.

It waited to be answered.

Chapter Four (#ulink_abe2567a-d014-53b0-ba4e-1a01ae6e4e4a)

Both worked in silence, one with a pen and another with a needle.

Lady Lucy took to spending hours in her sitting room. The seclusion and safety of these chambers was a fiction, and they both knew it already. She wasn’t any safer from prying eyes or pointed questions here than she was in the other rooms of the house. Her life was just as prone to be laid out like a carpet, every thread examined thoroughly, every stitch called into question.

She still carefully hid the books she was reading. She still buried her personal letters in the geranium pot.

However, the closed doors granted her a certain illusion of protection; they soothed her, promising that now she could work almost in peace, only occasionally straining her ears for the sound of footsteps.

Lucy was now poised on the edge of the sofa, dangling her feet like a restless child. Sometimes she bit her pen nervously, her face all tension; sometimes she scribbled furiously, her eyes that of a huntress pursuing prey.

Hester tried not to glance time and time again at her mercurial lady and to focus instead on the expanse of blue fabric stretched out before her. Her task, after all, required arduous concentration.

More fortunate young socialites had the court dressmakers to prepare them for the fashionable whirlwind of the capital. Lady Lucy had only Hester.

And if you wanted to sew frocks for the typist girls all your life, you would’ve stayed in your hometown, her inner voice noted. You like challenges, admit it.

‘Hester!’ the young woman called, as if reading her thoughts.

Hester turned to see her sitting with her head raised, her notebook balanced precariously on her knees, a somewhat embarrassed smile on her lips.

‘I hope I didn’t disturb you?’ Lady Lucy enquired.

Naturally, she did; but, equally naturally, Hester couldn’t say that. Instead, she replied, keeping resignation out of her voice: ‘Not at all, my lady. How can I help you?’

‘Well, you see … Come here, Hester. Sit beside me.’

Hester duly obeyed.

‘You see,’ Lucy continued, ‘I’m now going over this article. I am planning to type it all up in the afternoon, but, to be honest, I’m still not sure about this paragraph. Perhaps, you wouldn’t mind looking at it? I know you like to read …’

‘Yes, of course.’

Privately, Hester was glad that the text wasn’t too long. Lucy’s anxious gaze seemed to weigh on her, like chains of iron.

‘It looks well, my lady. Except …’ She hesitated.

Lucy certainly wasn’t a cruel mistress, or even an overly demanding one. She always gave her orders with the softest smile. But how she might respond to a criticism from her servant was another matter altogether.

‘Go on,’ Lucy prompted, the anxious look growing heavier.

‘I think there’re too many adjectives,’ Hester managed to utter at last. ‘The sentences seem a little … bulky.’

The young woman sighed. ‘I suspected as much. It’s all the malevolent influence of Victorian novels, you see. Our library is practically brimming with them. I read too many of them when I was younger, and I am still recovering.’

Lucy pried notebook gently from her maid’s hands.

‘This one will have to be crossed out …’ she muttered, tapping on the page with her sharp fingernail. ‘You are lucky, in fact, that you haven’t seen my early writing. My sentences used to take at least five lines each. Otherwise I felt I didn’t do justice to the heroine’s complexion or the fragrance of the garden.’

‘You’ve written something before, then? A novel?’

Lucy’s face stiffened. ‘It was a long time ago,’ she said dryly.

Hester decided to change the topic. ‘And … do you like it now? Writing for the magazine?’

‘Sunday Express is a newspaper,’ Lucy corrected her. ‘Do I like it? Oh, it depends on the topic. But I am hardly their acolyte, to be honest. Writing about christening receptions and the length of women’s skirts isn’t the most thrilling pastime. Don’t tell Lord Beaverbrook about that, though.’

‘I won’t,’ Hester promised in the sincerest voice she could manage.

‘Well, I shall trust your word! It’s not as if I resent all these things so much, you see. But focusing on them now feels a little like decorating a doll’s house while the hurricane already brews on the horizon,’ she sighed, turning away from the notebook. ‘However, as it turns out, people prefer to hear about weddings than hurricanes. At least from me.’

And it pays. These words never left her lips, but they seemed to hang in the air, like heavy smoke.

‘I don’t know what I would’ve done, if I didn’t find that job,’ Lucy noted. ‘I would’ve probably smashed my head against a wall.’

The sudden coarseness of this image surprised Hester only mildly. After all, she had known Lady Lucy for two months now.

‘I can imagine. You must’ve been awfully bored.’ Hester nodded, trying to be compassionate. She herself wished sometimes for a couple of weeks of sheer boredom.

‘Oh, boredom has nothing to do with it. I rarely suffer from boredom; I have too many books for that. It isn’t about boredom; it’s about degradation.’