All I Want Is You (5 page)

The tune was ‘Jazz Baby, Be Mine’, and I was so surprised. All Robert had ever done was mock me, and it was he who’d told me that the man I’d thought was my father was no such thing. But now he whispered, ‘You’re really getting quite pretty, Sophie, you little tease. How old are you?’

‘I’m sixteen,’ I told him.

‘Hm. Sweet sixteen,’ he grinned, and he pulled me into his arms. I think he’d half expected me to refuse, but I so longed to dance that I almost forgot it was Robert who held me.

I picked up the steps quickly because I’d seen the young people do them. Robert was startled and pleased. ‘Sophie,’ he said. ‘How on earth did you learn to move like that?’

‘I watched,’ I said simply. How I relished the look of surprise in his eyes. ‘I watched them all, every time there was a party here.’

He grinned and gave me an extra twirl. ‘Attagirl,’ he said. He liked using modern phrases like that.

And all of a sudden my dream didn’t seem so impossible after all.

I was enjoying myself so much. I floated to the music. I danced up and down the hall with Robert, while the house guests were still outside. It must have been towards the end of June, and so warm that – even though the stars were coming out – none of the young people wanted to leave the gardens. Some footmen had taken out baskets of cold meats and salads so the guests could
have what they called a picnic. How they all laughed, and were excited, to take their supper out there with lamps placed around the lawn and their champagne in buckets of ice!

Our dancing had stopped, and although the gramophone was still spilling music out into the night air, I knew I had all my evening jobs to do. Reluctantly I started on the washing-up in the scullery, putting on my pinafore and stacking the dirty plates. But when I went back into the servants’ hall to collect more dishes, I froze.

Most of the staff, like me, had moved on to their usual tasks of damping down the fires around the house, trimming lamps and making sure there was hot water in all the bedrooms. But a dozen or so of the younger ones hadn’t moved from the servants’ hall. Someone had put out most of the lamps, and I realised, with a slow chill of alarm, that they were in pairs, kissing.

Nell was on her Eddie’s knee in a corner, and I saw that he had his hand down her gown to feel at her breasts, while her hand was between his legs. I could feel a flush of heat rising from my pounding heart to my cheeks. Then someone – it was Richard, one of the new footmen – got to his feet and rang the servants’ handbell. ‘Time’s up!’ he called. ‘Roll the dice again. Your turn to throw, Robert.’

Slowly – stupidly slowly – I realised what they were doing.

Robert shook a six, then each girl rolled the dice, and the first to get six – it was Harriet – promptly sat herself on Robert’s knee, flung her arms round his neck and
started kissing him. Richard, meanwhile, snatched up the dice and threw a four, then sat waiting, with a grin on his face, for one of the girls to shake a four and join him.

I shrank back into the shadows. I could see that Nell didn’t want to let Eddie take his turn, but he shook her off with a laugh. ‘It’s a game, Nell. Don’t be stupid.’

Robert, who still had Harriet tight in his arms, suddenly caught sight of me. ‘Don’t look so shocked, little Sophie – come and join us. You never know, you might enjoy yourself.’

My cheeks burning, I fled back to my washing-up in the scullery. I scrubbed those dishes, plunging my hands in the hot water and carbolic that would make my skin even more sore, and I felt real despair. My life was passing me by. My longing to get to London and be on stage seemed ridiculous and futile. I thought with a pang of Mr Maldon, and how each time I posted my letters to him, my heart grew heavier, because he was becoming only a distant memory, like a dream.

That night, as I say, was a strange night, and so hot as to become almost oppressive. I was in my bed by eleven, but the other girls from my dormitory were still downstairs.

I remembered them all giggling and dancing and kissing. I wriggled between my sheets and opened a book of my mother’s, but I couldn’t get comfortable and my calico nightgown felt harsh against my sensitive skin.
A waste.
That was what I was. A waste of a life and youth, with my foolish memory of the man with blue eyes, my stupid dreams.

Someone was very quietly opening the door to our
attic room and I sat up quickly. It wasn’t Nell or Betsey but Lady Beatrice’s personal maid, Margaret. Her dark eyes glittered and again I noticed the pale scar on her cheek.

‘You’re reading,’ she said. ‘Like books, do you?’

‘It belonged to my mother.’ My heart for some reason was thudding.

She picked it up and her thin lips curled. ‘Poetry. La-di-dah. I’m in need of an extra girl to tidy Her Ladyship’s sitting room. You’ll do.’

On Lady Beatrice’s last visit, for Lord Edwin’s birthday party, Margaret had asked me if I’d press some of Her Ladyship’s clothes. I’d agreed, because I’d thought at the time I could maybe learn about London ways if I helped Margaret, though I was well aware she was just using me to get rid of her own jobs.

No doubt that was her aim now. I got up to dress again – we maids were, after all, at the beck and call of our guests and their servants. But as I tugged off my old nightgown I was aware of her watching me. She seemed to be taking note of the slenderness of my figure, and I felt my breasts tingle suddenly under her gaze. Clumsily I pulled on my maid’s gown, and once I was dressed she took my arm to lead me along the corridor and down the back stairs. ‘Lady Beatrice doesn’t believe in letting her life go to waste,’ Margaret said to me. ‘Be prepared.’

What?
I stumbled on the next step.

She stopped and looked at me. Her teeth were white and pointy; the tip of her tongue slid a little over her thin lips. ‘You’ve seen her, haven’t you? My mistress? She knows life is for living.’

‘But her husband died,’ I whispered.

‘And she’s done her mourning. I’m just telling you this so you’re not shocked.’

I froze. Shocked by what? She cupped my chin with her fingers; my pulse thudded again. ‘You’re pretty. Very pretty. Her ladyship’s noticed you. Not done it with anyone yet, little Sophie? Who are you saving yourself for? Boyfriend lost at the war?’

I thought of the servants below with their kissing games. I thought of Will, but most of all I thought of Mr Maldon. ‘There… there isn’t anyone.’ My words came out in a foolish rush and I moistened my lips, agitated.

‘No one?’ She grinned, and I thought I heard her murmur,
All the better
, but I couldn’t be sure. It was so late, and I was very tired and low in spirits.

In Lady Beatrice’s sitting room, several lamps were burning, and it looked as though a private party had been held in there, because the side-tables were littered with empty glasses and ashtrays, and the chairs were all out of place. But I remember noting through another door that the bedroom was pristine, the bedcovers unturned.

‘We’ve plenty of time to clean up before Her Ladyship returns.’ Margaret was looking around.

I nodded. ‘Where…’

I was going to ask where Her Ladyship was, but I broke off in confusion, because I’d heard the other servants say how after the lights went out at these house parties the corridors were full of visitors tiptoeing around to each other’s beds in the dark, then creeping
back before dawn. My blood heated with embarrassment again.

By the time we’d got the room tidied, it was past midnight. I said, ‘I’ll go now. I’ll just take these glasses and ashtrays down to the scullery.’ I was bone-tired.

Margaret stopped me. ‘Sit a while. Have a drink.’

Something held me there – despair, I think. In my tiredness, my usual obsession to make a better life for myself seemed quite hopeless.

She poured me gin, with something else in it – tonic, I guessed. It was not unpleasant though it made my head swim a little. Then Margaret was guiding me to a small settee covered in striped silk and with her own glass of gin in her hand she sat down, sighed and leaned against me. Her voice was husky in my ear and prickles of alarm ran up and down my spine. She whispered, ‘Sweet little Sophie. Don’t you ever get lonely? Don’t you ever feel you’re missing something? Don’t you ever –
long
for something?’

All I Want Is You.
Though the gramophone was silent now, its music still echoed in my mind. She put her hand on my breast and I jumped as if she’d shot me.

‘Hush,’ she said. ‘Hush, now. It’s all right. It’s nice, isn’t it? It feels nice, when I do that?’

Tremors of alarm and of something else, some indescribable sensation, were shooting up and down my spine. I hadn’t had time, of course, to put on my corset and chemise, and she knew it. She undid some buttons of my black maid’s gown and before I realised her intention her hand was sliding over my bosom. When her fingertip touched my nipple, I jumped again, as a bolt of
startling awareness charged through me, then suddenly she was leaning closer, her hand still on my breast, but her lips were on my mouth. I trembled as her tongue slipped between my lips and teeth.

I could smell her musky perfume. She kissed my cheek and drew away. ‘Stay there,’ she said. ‘Let me show you something.’ She’d risen, one finger to her lips, and glided into Her Ladyship’s bedroom to come back with a leather-bound book. Curling up beside me, she spread open the pages, one after another.

My heart hammered. The book was full of engravings: lewd portraits of couples engaged in intimacy, the likes of which I’d never imagined.

‘This is one of Her Ladyship’s favourites.’ Margaret was pointing to a picture of a country churchyard – an idyllic scene, dotted with trees and ancient crosses. But if I looked closer, I saw that a lively looking youth was leaning back against the church wall with his breeches round his knees. He clasped a half-clad girl to him, whose skirt was up around her waist and whose legs were wrapped round his hips. I could see his aroused male member disappearing between her thighs and I felt a huge surge of shock.

‘You like that one, little Sophie?’ Margaret was whispering. ‘Then see here, and here. You’ll like these too.’

She was turning the pages with great care, and I saw some writing, but couldn’t understand it; the book was French, I guessed. ‘Now,
this
,’ said Margaret, ‘is what my lady finds the gents all simply adore.’

I was shaking as she pointed to a naked, voluptuous woman sitting astride a man’s lap with one of her breasts
lowered to his mouth. I was a country-bred girl, I heard the chatter of the servants day after day, I ought to know these things happened, but…

‘You’re such a sweet little thing,’ Margaret was whispering as she turned the pages. She reached to kiss my cheek. ‘Such a pretty little thing. Not had a man yet? Not let any of those louts of footmen get inside of you?’

I shook my head numbly.

‘Oh, you’re a prize then,’ she went on, ‘my lady won’t half be interested in
you
.’

Lady Beatrice, interested in me?
I could scarcely breathe, and something was churning and clenching low in my abdomen.

Margaret took the book away. ‘That’s your first lesson. But now, let me teach you a little more.’

The gin raced through my blood. She was humming one of the tunes they’d been dancing to in the garden earlier – ‘Everybody’s Crazy on the Foxtrot’
.
Her hand was sliding up my leg to where I was warm and wet and I shuddered at her intimate touch, but at the same time I drew in a deep, deep breath of longing.

Margaret stroked me there more swiftly, her fingertips sliding against my furls of flesh until I felt torrents of sensation flooding through me. She’d also pulled my bodice down further and her teeth were gently rasping at my nipple; her finger coaxed at my sex, finding the hot little bud there. My body stiffened; my delight cascaded as I cried out.

She held me while I shook. ‘There,’ she whispered archly at last. She was still caressing my breast. ‘You see how that sort of treat will do you just fine for a while?
No men, no mess, no babies…’ She got to her feet and sighed a little, smoothing back her dark hair into its pins. ‘Her ladyship is leaving for London tomorrow. But she’ll be back, and you’ll find that I know exactly what Lady Beatrice wants before
she
does.’ Her eyes suddenly glittered. ‘I haven’t always been a serving maid, you see. I used to be a dancer. In London.’

‘You were a dancer? On the stage?’ Again my pulse raced.

‘Oh, indeed,’ she said. ‘I was up there nightly, kicking out my legs and flaunting my finery with the rest of them. I had so many fine gents after me – until
this
happened.’

She pointed to the scar on her cheek. ‘I was too ambitious, you see. I thought to play one gent off against the other, but one of them turned nasty and put paid to my looks with a beer glass. Since then – ’ she regarded me thoughtfully – ‘I’ve found my entertainment in other ways. Oh, and I’m in charge of keeping Lady Beatrice happy too.’

Suddenly she gazed intently down at me. ‘Are you sure you’re a virgin, Sophie? Ready to swear it on the Bible?’

I could barely breathe. ‘I swear it,’ I whispered.

She kissed me on the lips, then went to a drawer and pulled out a purse, which she pressed into my hand. I could feel the coins in it through the soft leather.

‘Take it,’ said Margaret. ‘Milady pays me well. And you’re my investment.’

I stumbled back up to my room with my ill-gotten gains. The other housemaids were by then in bed and
fast asleep; it was I who lay there awake, with the purse a dark secret under my pillow.

I was her investment, she’d said. What did she mean? Oh, what had I done?

He was dead, my Mr Maldon, he had to be dead, or I would have heard, I would have known. The next day I wrote to him nonetheless.
Something has happened. I wish I had someone to talk to. I know that I’m foolish, but I think of you all the time.

Lady Beatrice and Margaret left for London the next day, but I had little time to either be sorry or glad about their departure because after lunch Mrs Burdett called me into her room to tell me that Will Baxter was home at long last from the war.