The Edwardians (2 page)

Down in the steward's room the butler offered his arm gravely to the Duchess of Hull's maid, and conducted her to the place at his right hand. Lord Roehampton's valet did the same by Mrs. Wickenden the housekeeper. Mrs. Wickenden, of course, was not married, and her title was bestowed only by courtesy. The order of precedence was very rigidly observed, for the visiting maids and valets enjoyed the same hierarchy as their mistresses and masters; where ranks coincided, the date of creation had to be taken into account, and for this purpose a copy of Debrett was always kept in the housekeeper's room—last year's Debrett, appropriated by Mrs. Wickenden as soon as the new issue had been placed in her Grace's boudoir. The maids and valets enjoyed not only the same precedence as their employers, but also their names. Thus, although the Duchess of Hull's maid had stayed many times at Chevron, and was indeed quite a crony of Mrs. Wickenden's, invited to private sessions in the housekeeper's room, where the two elderly gossips sat stirring their cups of tea, she was never known as anything but Miss Hull, and none of her colleagues in the steward's room would ever have owned to a knowledge of what her true name might be. It is to be doubted whether Mrs. Wickenden herself had ever used it. Mrs. Wickenden and Vigeon the butler, between whom a slightly hostile alliance existed, prided themselves that no mistake had even been made in the Chevron steward's room, and that consequently no disputes had ever arisen, such as were known to have happened, most distressingly, in other houses. The household at Chevron was indeed admirably organised. For one thing, any servant who had been at Chevron for less than ten years was regarded as an interloper; at the end of ten years' service they were summoned to her Grace's presence and received a gold watch with their name and the date engraved upon the back; a few encouraging words were spoken by her Grace and henceforward they were accepted as part of the establishment. But for this one, brief, intimidating occasion, the underservants rarely came into contact with her Grace. It was to be doubted whether all of them knew her by sight, and it was quite certain that many of them were unknown to her. Various anecdotes were current; one to the effect that the duchess, meeting the fifth housemaid at the foot of a stair, had asked whether Lady Viola were in her room and had been completely routed by the reply, “I'll go and see, madam; what name shall I say?” Then there had been that other terrifying incident, when her Grace, taking an unusually early walk in the park on a Sunday morning, had observed the black-robed, black-bonnetted procession setting off for church, and had descried a white rose coquettishly ornamenting a bonnet. The white rose had bobbed up and down across the grass. It was a gay little flower, despite the purity of its colour, and to the shocked eyes of the duchess it had represented insubordination. Mrs. Wickenden, summoned on her return from church, was equally scandalised. She explained the whole matter by a deprecatory reference to “those London girls,” and the culprit had been discharged from Chevron by the afternoon train.

It was, however, seldom that any complete stranger obtained a situation at Chevron. The system of nepotism reigned. Thus Mrs. Wickenden and Wickenden the head-carpenter were brother and sister; their father and grandfather had been head-carpenters there in their day; several of the housemaids were Mrs. Wickenden's nieces, and the third footman was Vigeon's nephew. Whole families, from generation to generation, naturally found employment on the estate. Any outsider was regarded with suspicion and disdain. By this means a network was created, and a constant supply of young aspirants ensured. Their wages might range from twelve to twenty-four pounds a year. To do them justice, it must be said that the service they one and all gave to Chevron was wholehearted and even passionate. They considered the great house as in some degree their own; their pride was bound up in it, and their life was complete within the square of its walls. Wickenden knew more about the structure than Sebastian himself, and Mrs. Wickenden had been known to correct her mistress—with the utmost tact and respect—on a point of historical accuracy. Such disputes as might arise between them—and the household was naturally divided into factions—were instantly shelved when any point concerning the interest of Chevron arose. Shelved, perhaps, only to be renewed later with increased but always dignified animosity. A vulgar wrangle was unknown, and indeed it was only among the upper servants that any such thing as a jealous friction existed. Such small fry as under-housemaids and scullery-maids and the like were not supposed to have any feelings: they were only supposed to do as they were told. The severest discipline obtained. But it was known that an occasional clash occurred between Mrs. Wickenden and Mr. Vigeon; and when that happened, in however dignified a privacy, the repercussion was felt throughout the house, and the ragtag and bobtail might be observed scurrying with additional diligence through hall and passage about their tasks, and many an eye might be furtively wiped under the stimulus of an undeserved scolding.

But when the steward's room was full of guests, and the table had been extended by the addition of several leaves, no indications of any schism were allowed to appear. Mrs. Wickenden and Mr. Vigeon, presiding at opposite ends of the table, were held to be models of their profession. They treated one another with immense ceremony, so that a foreigner, unversed in the ways of English service after the grand manner, might well have refused to believe that they had lived side by side for five-and-twenty years in the same house. Mrs. Wickenden was small, prim, and birdlike; when she moved, she rustled. In cold weather she wore a black shawl tightly drawn around her shoulders; her steps were quick and precise; her nose was sharp, and her manner slightly deprecatory, even mournful. Vigeon, on the other hand, though correctness personified in his professional capacity, was inclined to be facetious in private life. The duchess did not know this, but Sebastian and Viola did. As children in the house, they had of course been on terms of familiarity with the servants, especially when their mother was away, and as a small boy Sebastian had counted among his treats a particular game that he played with Vigeon. Vigeon could not always be coaxed into playing it—“No, I can't be bothered now,” he would say—but sometimes he condescended, and taking Sebastian in his arms he would lift him up to a painting that hung in the pantry. Sebastian in his sailor suit would squeal and wriggle with excitement. The painting represented a still life of grapes and lemons beside a plate of oysters. Vigeon would make passes before the picture, finally making the gesture of picking a grape off the canvas, when lo! a real grape would appear between his fingers, and with a final triumphant flourish he would pop it into Sebastian's mouth. “Pick off an oyster, Vigeon!” Sebastian would cry, “pick off an oyster!” but only on one occasion, never to be forgotten, had Vigeon obliged.

Grapes were on the steward's room table now, for Mrs. Wickenden controlled “the fruit” from her lair behind the still-room, and no one troubled as to the exact number of bunches ordered daily from the kitchen garden. It was all part of the system of loose and lavish extravagance on which the house was run. Everybody, from Sebastian downwards, obtained exactly what they wanted; they had only to ask, and the request was fulfilled as though by magic. The house was really as self-contained as a little town; the carpenter's shop, the painter's shop, the forge, the sawmill, the hothouses, were there to provide whatever might be needed at a moment's notice. So the steward's room, like the dining room and the schoolroom, was never without its fruit and delicacies. More especially when visiting maids and valets were there to be entertained by the domestic deities of Chevron, for snobbishness must be satisfied, and only by extravagance and waste could the honour of Chevron, in the opinion of Vigeon and Mrs. Wickenden, be maintained. They would not have Miss Hull and Mr. Roehampton go away on the Monday morning, and relate at their next weekend that Chevron fell below the proper standard.

Sebastian's mother tapped at Lady Roehampton's door an hour before dinner. She had not remembered exactly which room had been allocated to Lady Roehampton, for she had settled such matters with Miss Wace at least a week earlier, but she knew that she would find her in one of the best bedrooms, and in any case the name of each guest would be neatly written on a card slipped into a tiny brass frame on the bedroom door. This question of the disposition of bedrooms always gave the duchess and her fellow-hostesses cause for anxious thought. It was so necessary to be tactful, and at the same time discreet. The professional Lothario would be furious if he found himself in a room surrounded by ladies who were all accompanied by their husbands. Tommy Brand, on one such occasion, had been known to leave the house on the Sunday morning—thank goodness, thought the duchess, that wasn't at Chevron! Romola Cheyne, who always neatly sized up everybody in a phrase—very illuminating and convenient—said that Tommy's motto was “Chacun a sa chacune.” Then there were the recognised lovers to be considered; the duchess herself would have been greatly annoyed had she gone to stay at the same party as Harry Tremaine, only to find that he had been put at the other end of the house. (But she was getting tired of Harry Tremaine.) It was part of a good hostess' duty to see to such things; they must be made easy, though not too obvious. So she always planned the rooms carefully with Miss Wace, occasionally wondering whether that upright and virtuous virgin was ever struck by the recurrence of certain adjustments and coincidences. She knew that she could trust Wacey to carry out, her instructions; nevertheless, looking for Lady Roehampton's room, she glanced critically at the name-plates. Wacey had done her work well. Lord Robert Gore was in the Red Silk Room; Mrs. Levison just across the passage. That was as it should be. Julia Levison was the duchess' bosom friend; indeed, it was largely owing to her friendship that Mrs. Levison was admitted into such society at all. The Archbishop's Room, the Queen's Room, the Tapestry Room, Little North, George III.'s, George III.'s Dressing room—she passed them all; they all bore names she did not want. Their counterparts would hang on cards beside the bell-indicator outside the pantry, for the information of the visiting maids and valets: the Tapestry Room: the Duchess of Hull; the Queen's Room: H.E. the Italian Ambassador—thus the pantry indicator would read. Little North—a humble room, a bachelor's room—Mr. Leonard Anquetil; but Anquetil, she reflected, would have no valet; he would be valeted by a Chevron footman. Anquetil was the lion of the moment; an explorer, he had been marooned for a whole winter somewhere near the South Pole in a snow-hut with four companions, one of whom had gone mad, but for some reason it was difficult to make him talk of his experiences; a pity, for they had been reported in all the papers; still, Polar sufferings were perhaps on the whole a bore, and, since one must certainly have the lion of the moment at one's parties, it was perhaps just as well that he should not boringly roar. So she passed by the rooms, and found Lady Roehampton in the Chinese Room. “How nice to see you alone for a moment, Sylvia,”—as the experienced maid withdrew. The professional beauty was moving idly about the room looking like a loosened rose: she was wrapped in grey satin edged with swansdown. “How attractive you look, Sylvia; I don't wonder that people get on chairs to stare at you. I don't wonder that Romola Cheyne gets uneasy. But seriously, no one would believe that your Margaret was eighteen.” “Nor your Sebastian nineteen, Lucy dear.” They were intimate friends; they had known the undeniable facts, dates, and current gossip about each other's lives from their youth upwards. Lucy sank on to the sofa. “Oh, these parties! Sylvia, dear, how very nice to snatch a moment with you alone. Really that old Octavia Hull is becoming too terrible for words; did you see how she dribbled at tea? She ought to be put out of the way. Sebastian nineteen—yes. Absurd. To think that you might be his mother.” “Or his mother-in-law,” thought Lady Roehampton; it was an idea that had occurred to her more than once. She did not utter this aloud, nor the supplementary remark, “Or his mistress,” which had entered her head for the first time that day. Instead, she said, “Speaking of Romola Cheyne, wasn't she staying here last week?” Lucy knew from her tone that some revelation was imminent, and when she saw Lady Roehampton take up the blotting-book she instantly understood. “How monstrous!” cried Lucy, moved to real indignation; “how often have I told the groom of the chambers to change the blotting-paper, in case something of the sort should happen? I'll sack him tomorrow. Well, what is it all about? It makes one's blood run cold, doesn't it, to think of the hands one's letters might fall into? I suppose it's a letter to . . .” and here she uttered a name so august that in deference to the respect and loyalty of the printer it must remain unrevealed. “No,” said Lady Roehampton, “that's just the point: it isn't. Look!” Lucy joined her at the mirror, and together they read the indiscreet words of Romola Cheyne. “Well!” said Lucy, “I always suspected that, and it's nice to know for certain. But what I can't understand, is how a woman like Romola could leave a letter like that on the blotting-pad. Doesn't that seem to you incredible? She knows perfectly well that this house is always full of her friends,” said Lucy with unconscious irony. “Now what are we to do with it? The recklessness of some people!”

The two friends were both highly delighted. Little incidents like this added a spice to life.

Lady Roehampton carefully tore out the treacherous sheet. “There's no fire,” she said laughing; “for the moment I'll lock it up in my writing case. I daresay I'll find some means of destroying it safely tomorrow.” Lucy laughed too, and agreed, knowing well that Lady Roehampton had no intention whatever of destroying it. She might never use it, but on the other hand it might be useful. “But meanwhile is it safe?” asked Lucy. “You're sure your maid hasn't a key of your writing case? Servants are so unscrupulous, one can't trust them a yard. However long they have been with one,—even if one looks on them as old friends,—one never knows when they will turn nasty. You're sure you hadn't better give it to me?”