A Pearl for My Mistress

‘Degradation?’ Hester blinked.

The intensity of Lucy’s gaze was uncomfortable.

‘Have you ever seen a party of house guests, Hester? Have you seen … oh, I’m sorry. I forgot it’s your first time in service. Of course you haven’t. Then, perhaps, I should tell you; after all, you are unlikely to see anyone invited here any time soon. All my male friends are regarded with suspicion, and all the female ones are shameless. Just ask my father. I’ll relate it all to you from a house guest’s perspective, then. It starts the moment you arrive.’

Lucy put her notebook aside, leaning against the sofa’s back, as if settling in to recite a long tale. ‘You are small and humbled by your surroundings; you give the housemaid your luggage to unpack. You don’t really want to; you know, what she is going find there. You cringe, imagining her thoughts as she uncovers your shabby underwear, your thrice-mended stockings. Then, she lays your dress out on the bed; it’s your only dress, and she has seen it, and her pity is almost palpable.

‘You can, of course, be stubborn and insist on dealing with the luggage yourself, but it will not yield any results. If anything, it will only convince your hosts that you are the crude, badly brought-up girl from the crumbling Northern estate they thought you to be.

‘And then, there is tipping.’ Lucy’s features could have been drawn with the thin, brittle strokes of a pencil. ‘They know, of course, that you are an unmarried young woman, so you can’t have that much money at your disposal. They will be lenient, then; they won’t expect you to give each female servant more than five shillings. You reserve the sum in advance; you calculate it out of your allowance. You set it aside. You politely refuse all the offers of a card game, even if the stakes are reckoned in threepences.

‘You think long and hard about who will drive you to the station when it’s your time to leave, and how much he will expect. In any event, it will probably cost you the price of your lunch on the train. During the journey, you will drink endless hot tea, because it helps to ward off hunger.

‘And I am not the worst-case scenario, Hester. I’ve known some young men, who miscalculated their means so badly, that they sometimes had to borrow from one servant to tip another. I’ve never been in quite that much trouble; but I am, too, trapped by my means, as if I were a child. I get through every year paling and fumbling, begging and pleading, looking at those who have power over me pondering smugly whether I am a good enough girl to deserve this pin money. Even dogs resent being kept on a lead, Hester, and I am human.’

It was startling, hearing a titled young lady to speak about financial matters with such frankness and such heat. In Hester’s own old life, such discussions would’ve been ordinary enough; as far she could remember, the days were always filled with careful planning and budgetary concerns. She could see her mother in the kitchen, carefully dividing the weekly wages from the brown envelope into separate tins: one for food, one for coal, one for gas, one for rent. She could hear the coins clinking against the metal, reassuring as always.

But for people like the Fitzmartins such concerns wouldn’t be merely irrelevant (at least, in theory) – they would be practically indecent. Ladies of Lucy’s circle were supposed act as if their lives were as natural as that of fragrant flowers, requiring no sustenance and evoking no earthy concerns.

It was peculiar, yes – but at the same time oddly refreshing.

‘The Sunday Express gave me a chance to claw my way out,’ Lucy said, her neck startlingly white under her high chin. ‘I wouldn’t have passed it by, even if Lord Beaverbrook demanded me to descend into Mount Vesuvius and write about it.’

Hester considered the situation. How many opportunities, how much room to manoeuvre did Lady Lucy really have, all satin dresses notwithstanding? What kind of work could a young lady do without being torn apart by judgement? Journalism, yes. Gossip columns, skirts, and weddings. She could become a writer, if she was exceptionally talented. A decorator, if she was well connected enough to find some first clients.

It is said that a woman is either happily married or an interior decorator, an acidic joke from some magazine ran through her mind.

‘It’s funny, really,’ Lucy continued, her posture as straight and firm as an arrow. ‘In a way, I owe my career to a disaster – at least, indirectly. If not for that catastrophe five years ago, my family would have never allowed me to take up any serious job. They were quite horrified as it was; at least, until they heard the sum.’

Hester could imagine. She remembered other rumours of young aristocrats whose ancestors worked for their titles and who now made their titles work for them. There were ladies who received staggering sums for advertising Ascot hats or face cream. There were lordlings who were lucratively paid as ‘sneak guests’ at the country-house weekends to collect gossip for newspaper columns. There was Lady Cooper, who accepted tens of thousands of pounds to star in a movie.

The catastrophe five years ago.

Did she mean what Hester thought she meant? And, if so …

How does she know? How can she know?

And what does it have to do with her career?

‘Hester, are you quite all right?’ Lucy frowned slightly. ‘You look disturbed. Did I say something … Oh. I see,’ she sighed. ‘Did your family lose something in the Crash? Do you have someone in the States? Cousins?’

There it was.

Hester, you silly girl. Of course she isn’t talking about your catastrophe. She is talking about the disaster of Wall Street. That … that thing with the banks.

‘No, my lady,’ Hester managed to say. ‘No cousins there. No relatives at all, to be honest. I have never even seen the States. Although I’d like to,’ she added. She hoped to change the topic; she also hoped that Lucy, of all people, wouldn’t sneer at her dreams.

‘I can guess why. Judging by the films, one would think that everything exciting only ever happens in New York. Sometimes in Chicago, if it’s lucky.’

‘That’s unfair. There’re also …’ Hester fell quiet for a second, remembering furiously.

‘Yes?’ Lady Lucy prompted, with only the slightest hint of a smile.

‘There’re also films about Los Angeles,’ Hester uttered at last, relieved.

‘This makes a great difference! To be honest, I’d prefer the cinemas to show more British films. I cannot believe we have no interesting stories to tell. After all, we’d already buried the last Plantagenet when America was still ruled by its native tribes. Speaking of stories …’

Lucy eyed her closely. In her look was apprehension, and hope, and a hint of lingering mistrust. Hester knew now, though, that this mistrust was directed at everyone, and had nothing to do with her in particular. This knowledge was somehow reassuring.

‘Speaking of stories, would you be curious to read a little bit of my … other writing? I’ll quite understand if you wouldn’t; after all, you must be busy …’

‘I’m not!’ Hester hastened to say.

On the one hand, despite all reassurances, she could hardly say anything else to her mistress.

On the other hand … she was genuinely curious. She remembered Lucy’s florid language; she wondered now how it would look outside the rigid frame of a newspaper editorial. It could bloom, she supposed, into something beautiful.

But then, it could also become something completely unreadable.

‘Is it a novel you’ve written?’

‘A novella,’ Lucy corrected her. ‘I never could find enough patience for a novel.’

Hester found it very easy to believe.

‘I’ll bring it here. Wait!’ Lucy directed sharply, as Hester started to rise.

She should have been used to these sudden changes, which made her lady’s voice turn into a riding crop.

‘Wait,’ she repeated, her hand raised. She waited a split second to ensure that Hester was, indeed, safely seated and had no intention of stirring from her place or following her.

Alone in the room, Hester wondered precisely what kind of secret Lady Lucy was trying to hide. One of the hidden compartments that a castle of this age must have in abundance? Some child’s treasury?

Was Lucy really, truly worried that Hester could peek inside without permission, if she learnt about it? Or that she might betray her to someone else who would – as the parlourmaid had done?

As so many must have done.

But then, perhaps it was one of those cautious habits that grew on Lady Lucy’s heart over the years, like moss grows on a stone.

She emerged several minutes later, her cheeks flushed. She pressed a bundle of pages to her chest. Hester glimpsed the endless lines of tight, somewhat frantic handwriting.

‘Here it is,’ the young woman proclaimed, setting the precious package on the sofa. ‘At least now you’ll have something to do in the evening.’

Lady Lucy clearly had a somewhat distorted view of a servant’s free time, Hester couldn’t help but think.

But then, in some respects she was right. Hester did like to have something new to read. The problem was to find enough hours for it.

‘Thank you, my lady.’ She took the bundle, holding it as carefully as if it contained the family jewels.