A Pearl for My Mistress

‘You came here all the way from the Highlands on foot?’

‘It wasn’t so bad,’ the redhead assured her. ‘The big problem was to find somewhere to spend th’night. I was lucky sometimes: people let me in the sheds. But usually I had to stay in a workhouse. I had to toil all the next day as a payment – a lot o’ time lost.’

‘I think they’re called institutions now,’ Hester said automatically. ‘Not workhouses.’

Abigail shrugged.

‘A workhouse’s a workhouse. I’m lucky they took me in here; I thought the housekeeper would turn me away at once. But it turned out they just wanted a housemaid who wouldn’t ask for too much. They didnae have much choice either. I saw it after,’ she added. ‘There’s no queue to serve in this house; that much I can tell.’

‘But you like it here?’

‘They feed me very well.’ It was so strange, to hear this forced purity, devoid of dialect. Mrs Mullet must have worked hard to bring this girl up to standards. ‘Always real butter. Never tasted margarine here. My brother’s jealous.’ Abby bit her lip so as not to giggle. ‘He had to go further south, down to Manchester. Works in a factory now. It was better here afore, though,’ she noted. ‘I worked with another girl back then. She left after the New Year, and they still didnae find anyone else. No queue, just like I said.’

‘It must have been easier to work together.’

That was a bit of an understatement. Having scaled the enormous realm of Hebden Hall over these weeks, Hester failed to imagine how one could housemaid keep even a part of it in order.

‘Oh, it’s not just that.’ With an effort, Abigail stood up. ‘We had so much fun. We used to practise all the new dance steps, when no one saw, and …’ She looked at Hester with a slight suspicion, as if unsure whether to trust her with a grave secret. ‘Promise you won’t tell the Crow. She’ll have my guts for garters.’

It wasn’t hard to guess whom she meant by that soubriquet.

‘I’m deaf and mute.’

‘Well, it happened when we were still in town. It was so late, and we had to clean up after a party. So, we cleaned it …’ Abby made a dramatic pause. ‘Especially the cocktails guests didnae finish. We polished them right off.’

‘You didn’t!’

‘I know, I know! We felt so wild. But we’d never drunk anything like that before, so …’

‘What, even at Saturday dances? I mean … There’re Saturday dances in your hometown, aren’t there?’ Hester had never been to the Scottish Highlands, so she wasn’t entirely sure. Who knows how it was in that windswept wilderness?

‘Of course there’re!’ Abby sounded offended. ‘Every week, in the church hall or the baths. I’ve tried the Green Goddess during the break, but it was nothing like this.’

‘Oh, you’re bold! I’ve always wanted to try it, but could never bring myself up to it. I thought it was only for the most daring girls.’

‘You didnae miss much,’ Abigail assured her.

‘One minute!’ Hester remembered. ‘You said you were in town then? In London, that is?’

‘Aye. We all went there last summer, for Lady Lucy’s coming out.’

‘And how was it?’ Hester asked, her heartbeat firing up. ‘The city? How was it?’

‘It was stoating!’ The redhead exclaimed. ‘The house is much smaller, so I didnae have to clean so much. And on Sunday I could even go to the pictures.’

***

‘I wish all my readers good fortune; I hope my advice will help them in this dreariest of winter months!’

The typewriter clicked, and the last of the digits bloomed on the page in vivid fresh ink. Lady Lucy Fitzmartin leaned back in the heavy library chair and stretched her fingers. Her head hurt slightly; it was hard to decide whether it was due to the lack of fresh air or the excess of banality.

I swear to heaven, if I have to write the words ‘charming’ and ‘elegant’ one more time, the heads will roll.

Of course, it was all for naught – empty threats to the universe. That was what they were expecting her to write about: frocks and garden parties, weddings and tips on entertaining. Some Society gossip as well, of course. The heiress of such-and-such abandoned, at last, her Eton crop and began to grow her hair – congratulations! Lady Diana Mitford demonstrated a highly inventive way of wearing a tiara (on her neck, no less). A daring young gentleman came to a costume party in nothing but Zulu war paint and had to be turned away.

That was what they wanted her to write.

More importantly, that was what they were prepared to pay for her to write.

Lucy was certainly in no position to complain; at least, for now.

It was only now she saw, looking back at the last summer, just how haphazard was the start of her career, how fortunate. An encounter at a dinner party, a mentioned need for contributors to the fledgling Sunday Express, an ardent (too ardent to be ladylike) agreement from her.

A trial contract for three articles was signed during the same week.

She was not a fool, of course. She understood that this haste had nothing to do with Lord Beaverbrook’s belief in her talents, but everything to do with his desire to feature a titled name in his young newspaper. ‘Written by Lady Lucy E. Fitzmartin’: doesn’t it sound solid and respectable?

Never did Lucy feel herself in a greater grip of thrill and horror than in those weeks. The fact that someone deemed her writing interesting enough to print it (indeed, to pay for it) was unbelievable all by itself. For hours and days on end, Lucy refused to part with her notebook, writing and crossing out line after line, polishing the drafts until they shone. Despite all these measures, they all seemed to her unbearably silly, silly, silly.

But the Sunday Express was apparently pleased enough, and three articles soon turned into ten.

Lucy’s hands trembled as she signed above the dotted line.

It felt so strange. She always used to regard her penchant for writing as an embarrassing tumour rather than a useful asset. After all, she was neither deaf nor blind; she heard the sneer in people’s voices as they talked about silly and shameless women, who wrote romances, and horrid intellectual girls, who wrote anything else. She was used to scribbling when and where no one could see her, hiding the notebooks as soon as she heard the menacing footsteps.

Lucy was secretly relieved that her hasty handwriting was practically unintelligible: this way no one would be able to read her drafts, even if they unearthed them somehow.

Listening carefully, noticing small details, reimagining her life as a series of flowery sentences to make it seem more exciting – it was something she was always simply doing; recasting it as a serious profession seemed laughable. Holding her the first cheque (an actual cheque for a solid sum, intended for her, featuring her name on it – it seemed surreal), Lucy only thought about pin money, about petty pleasures and beautiful bookshops. But, as the time passed and the sums increased, her thoughts changed accordingly. Slowly but surely, she started imagining other things.

What else could money buy?

A household of her own. A name of her own. A life of her own.

Could it be possible?

The success depended just as much on the power of her title as it did on the actual quality of her writing. Again, she was not a fool. She doubted that regular journalists, however talented, were paid hundreds of pounds for ten articles.

Of course, any real influence her title ever held had drained away decades before she was born. The only inheritance it brought her was a swarm of illusions: illusions of elegance and sophistication for some, illusions of might and tradition for others.

However, in this day and age, even illusions could have their power, if wielded carefully.

Lucy used to picture the future very differently.

Only a year ago, she believed – indeed, she knew – that the only way out for her lay in marriage. That’s why she waited for her first Season with such impatience, such ardour. She believed – indeed, she was sure – that it would be enough for her to come out officially, to appear at a few debutante balls, and she would immediately catch the attention of some eligible young man. That was the whole point of the Season, after all.

She wasn’t particularly sure what this man should look like (although he must love books, otherwise life with him would be unbearable). But there was one vital, iron-wrought condition – he would marry her as soon as possible and take her away from this house.

These were all childish dreams, as she discovered soon enough.