Michael Cox (2 page)

I AM USUALLY required to be in constant readiness to attend my Lady, day or night; but on this particular evening I had been excused from all duties. After I had dressed my Lady for dinner, the hours that lay ahead had been mine to do with as I wished – a precious respite, during which the bell in my room would (I hoped) remain silent, even through the cold night watches.
My Lady does not sleep well, and I am regularly called down to her when she wakes from her often troubled slumbers, to read to her, or to brush her long dark hair (a service to which she is especially partial) until she is ready to return to her bed. If sleep does not then take her, she soon reaches for the bell-rope to summon me down again.
Sometimes the bell rings only once in my room, two floors above hers; at others, I might stumble, half asleep, out of my warm bed and descend the stairs to her panelled bed-chamber five or six times, returning to my own room vexed and fatigued. But on this particular occasion, my Lady had assured me that I would not be called until the morning.
After performing my evening duties, I had therefore closed my door with the most luxurious sense of relief. At first I curled up on my bed to read a new novel by Miss Braddon (novels are my passion), but found I could not settle; so, throwing the book aside, I tip-toed down to the gallery that overlooks the Crimson-and-Gold Dining-Room, to watch my mistress, her two sons by her side, entertain her guests.
Later, alone in my little room under the eaves, I began writing down in my Book of Secrets what I had seen and thought that day. It was the duty I must daily perform, as instructed by my guardian, Madame de l’Orme, through whose agency I had been sent to Evenwood, to serve the woman whose fourteen guests were now dispersing into the cold November darkness.

II
The Interview

‘WHEN YOU ADDRESS me – if, of course, you are successful in your application – I shall wish you to call me “my Lady”, never “your Ladyship”.’
These had been my mistress’s first words to me, after I was shown into her private apartments to be interviewed for the position of lady’s-maid.
‘Others may use a different form of address,’ she had continued, ‘but you may not. I hope you understand that, and remember it. Although few of them have deserved the distinction, it is a strict rule of mine that my maid should be looked upon differently by the other servants.’
When I had entered the room, she had been sitting at a little escritoire set before a window that looked out across the Park, lazily holding out her long-fingered hand to receive the character with which I had been furnished. Opening the letter, and still hardly acknowledging my presence, she began to read.
On a sudden, she looked up over her spectacles with a hard, sour expression, and spoke the words I have quoted above, as if I had already wilfully transgressed her instruction, although indeed I had been standing mutely, hands folded demurely in front of me, my face a picture of innocent compliance.
There was a copy of the
Morning Post
on the escritoire. An advertisement had been neatly ringed in red ink.
‘Everyone who has come here today for the position has placed an advertisement,’ she said, seeing that I had noticed the open newspaper. ‘My last maid, Miss Plumptre, may have come from a very respectable agency, but she did not suit at all. I shall never use agencies again. I was forced to dismiss her after a most unpleasant and distressing incident, which I do not wish to speak of. As a consequence I now prefer people who place advertisements. It shows initiative, and reveals character. For a position such as this, I like to decide these things for myself, so it is fortunate for you that your advertisement caught my eye.’
She bestowed on me a frigid smile before returning to the letter.
‘Your last employer, Miss Gainsborough, writes that you gave excellent service,’ she said. ‘And how did you like Miss Gainsborough?’
‘Very well, my Lady.’
It was all a well-prepared fiction. ‘Miss Helen Gainsborough’ never existed, being a creation of Madame de l’Orme’s. Everything had been most carefully arranged beforehand, and Madame had assured me that, if Lady Tansor chose to write to this chimeric lady, in order to confirm the opinion of me contained in the letter she was now reading, then a reply would be forthcoming that would amply satisfy her Ladyship on every particular. Even if she called on ‘Miss Gainsborough’ in person, or sent some agent, the eventuality had been anticipated, and the necessary means to meet it put in place.
Lady Tansor slowly removed her spectacles, laid them down, and fixed her unmediated gaze upon me.
I had the confidence of youth in my ability to play the part assigned to me by Madame; but Lady Tansor’s scrutiny was nonetheless unnerving. She seemed to be sifting through all my secret thoughts, in search of the truth concerning my true identity; and it required considerable effort on my part to maintain my composure.
‘It is such a dark afternoon,’ she said, her eyes still fixed on me. ‘Stand closer, child – here, nearer the window, where I can see you better.’
I did as she asked, for some moments remaining motionless and uncomfortable under her examination.
‘You have a most striking look about you,’ she said at last. ‘Most striking. I imagine people do not easily forget you.’
I thanked her, and said that she was very kind.
‘Kind?’ she replied, giving me another sharp look. ‘No, no; not kind. You will have to earn my kindness.’ Then, more absently: ‘I do not flatter. It is the simple truth. Yours is a face that would always be remembered.’
She looked down again at the letter.
‘I am informed here that you are an orphan, and that you never knew your parents.’
‘That is so, my Lady.’
‘And you were residing with an old friend of your mother’s in London, before taking up the position with Miss Gainsborough?’
‘Yes, my Lady.’
‘And before that, I read that you lived in Paris, under the care of a guardian, a widowed lady.’
‘That is correct, my Lady.’
She once more resumed her reading of the letter.
‘Do you consider yourself to be a competent needle-woman?’ was her next question; to which I answered that I had generally been considered so.
‘I do not often leave Evenwood these days,’ she went on, ‘but when it becomes necessary for me to go up to Town, I shall require a most careful packer.’
‘I am sure I shall not disappoint, my Lady,’ I said. ‘Miss Gainsborough was a great traveller. I believe she is even now in Russia, although I never travelled nearly so far with her.’
‘Russia! How fascinating!’
She thought for a moment, then asked whether I had any followers.
‘No, my Lady,’ I answered – truthfully.
‘No attachment of any kind?’
‘None, my Lady.’
‘And no living family either, I believe?’
‘That is correct, my Lady. The person nearest to a parent is my guardian, Madame Bertaud. My mother’s oldest friend, Mrs Poynter, with whom I lived in London before being employed by Miss Gainsborough, I regarded as a kind of aunt; but she has recently passed away.’
After a moment or two’s further perusal of the letter, Lady Tansor looked up and once again fixed her great dark eyes on me.
‘You are somewhat young, and this is merely your second position,’ she said.
My heart began to sink, for it was imperative that I secure the situation.
‘I have seen two or three very experienced and competent people today,’ she continued, ‘who come with excellent references, and who would be well able to fill the position satisfactorily.’
She thought for a moment, and looked intently at the letter again, as if searching for some hidden meaning in it. Then, to my relief, her look began to soften.
‘But Miss Gainsborough gives you a very good character, although I do not have the honour of an acquaintance with the lady. In the normal course of matters, I would accept such a recommendation only from someone I knew personally; but I might make an exception, in your case. I suppose,’ she added meditatively, almost as if she were speaking aloud to herself, ‘that I could write to Miss Gainsborough, or perhaps…’
She paused, leaving the sentence unfinished, then suddenly shot one her most severe looks at me.
‘Having been brought up in France, I must suppose you to be proficient in the language?’
‘Yes, my Lady. I believe you might consider me to be fluent.’
‘And do you follow events?’
I replied that I did my best to inform myself concerning the world.
‘Then tell me what you think about the Turkish War – in French.’
Now I knew little enough of the matter, no more than the bare, vaguely comprehended fact that hostilities had broken out. As to the causes, or the possible consequences, I was at a complete loss. I made a reply, nonetheless, in French, to the effect that I considered it to be a dangerous situation, and that war, in general, was always a thing to be deplored, and avoided if possible.
She gave me a humourless smile, but said nothing. Then she asked:
‘What do you read?’
Here I was on solid ground, for I had ever been a great devourer of books, and Madame had fed my appetite constantly as a child. My tutor, Mr Thornhaugh, who lived at the top of Madame’s house, and of whom I shall speak more fully in due course, had also guided my reading. I had a little Latin, too, and some Greek, although I found that I quickly forgot much of what I had so painfully acquired of both languages, and thus had scant aptitude for the serious study of either of the great classical literatures.
My passion was for modern works of the imagination, in French and English; poetry and, above all, novels absorbed me.
‘I am very fond of Stendhal,’ I said in answer to Lady Tansor’s question, with the spontaneous eagerness that I always exhibit when speaking of my favourite books; ‘and of Voltaire.’
‘Voltaire!’ Lady Tansor broke in, with an amused laugh. ‘How advanced! What else?’
‘And then I adore Monsieur Balzac, and George Sand; oh, and Mr Dickens, and Mr Collins, and Miss Braddon…’
Again she interrupted me, raising her hand to prevent me from continuing.
‘Your tastes seem a little irregular and ill-disciplined, child,’ she said; ‘but perhaps that is excusable in one so young, and taste can easily be corrected.’
Then she asked: ‘And what of poetry? Do you read poetry?’
‘Oh, yes, my Lady. In French, I am very fond of Lamartine, de Vigny, and Leconte de Lisle. Byron, Keats, Shelley, and Mr Tennyson are my favourites in English.’
‘And do you know the work of Mr Phoebus Daunt?’
The question was posed with detectable emphasis, as if she had a peculiar reason for asking, which of course I knew that she had. Mr Daunt had been the man she was to have married, before he had been cruelly murdered by an old school-friend, who had harboured a long-standing resentment against him. It was a question that I had anticipated being asked; for Madame had made a point of telling me the story of Lady Tansor’s dead fiancé, and of how she had continued to worship his memory with undimmed reverence and passion. Madame had also given me several volumes of Mr Daunt’s poems, which I had dutifully read, with little pleasure.
‘Yes, my Lady,’ I answered, looking straight into her unblinking eyes.
‘And what is your opinion of his work?’
I had my answer pat.
‘I consider him to have been a poet of singular and remarkable originality, a worthy successor in every way to the epic poets of former times.’
I spoke the words with all the warm conviction that I could muster, and waited anxiously to see whether she had detected any trace of dissimulation in my voice or manner; but she said nothing, only sighed, laying aside the letter of recommendation with a languid gesture of her hand.
‘I do not care to see anyone else about the position,’ she said after a short period of reflection. ‘You have an honest face, as well as a striking one, and I judge you to be a quick learner. My last maid was incurably stupid, as well as being – well, it does not matter now what she was. You, I see, are not stupid at all – indeed, you appear to have been educated to an uncommon degree for someone applying for the situation of lady’s-maid. No doubt you have your reasons for doing so, but they do not concern me at present. I have therefore decided: the position is yours. Does that surprise you?’
I said that it was not my place to question her decision, for good or ill, at which she cast me another sharp look, and I once again lowered my eyes submissively, although exulting that my design had been achieved, just as Madame had foreseen. She had promised me that coming to Evenwood would be the making of me, and that I should not entertain the slightest doubt of my power to charm Lady Tansor on sight, as the first and necessary step. So it had proved.
There was a moment’s silence as I stood, head bowed, waiting for my new mistress to speak.
‘Very well,’ she said at last. ‘That is settled. Remuneration as set out in my secretary’s recent letter, and everything provided, until we see how you go on. Naturally, I expect my servants to observe certain standards of behaviour, and I shall not hesitate to punish insubordination or misconduct; but you will find me a liberal mistress, on the whole, with my own way of regulating the household. Some, I know, would regard me as being shockingly lax, by allowing my servants – those, at least, who have proved themselves deserving of my trust – too much freedom of action; but I do not mind that. It is how I like to do things. If properly managed, it makes for contentment, above and below stairs.
‘And now: what shall I call you, I wonder? I see that your Christian name is not given in Miss Gainsborough’s letter.’
‘It is Esperanza, my Lady.’
‘Esperanza! How charming! Although I am not sure that will do either. It is rather…Continental. Have you another?’
‘Alice, my Lady.’
‘Alice!’
She placed a hand, fingers splayed theatrically, against her breast, as if this item of intelligence had momentarily deprived her of breath.
‘Nothing could be better. Alice! I like it exceedingly. So fresh! So English! I shall call you Alice.’
She turned away to ring a little silver bell that stood on a table beside her. With surprising promptness, a liveried footman, tall and gaunt, appeared at the door.
‘Barrington, this is Miss Gorst. She is to be my new maid. Tell Mr Pocock to send the others away, and then wait outside to show Miss Gorst to her room.’
The footman, giving me a rather queer look – inquisitive and knowing at the same time – bowed and left the room.
‘I shall not need you this evening, Alice,’ said Lady Tansor when Barrington had gone. ‘One of the maids can help to dress me. Barrington will show you where you are to sleep. You will come to me at eight in the morning. Sharp.’
At this, she picked up a book lying open on the adjacent table, and began to read. I caught sight of the title and author blocked in gold on the spine: