Lady Rose's Education (2 page)

September, 1891

Mr. Wyndham leaned his chin to his fist. The position did not make him look as professional and capable as one might have hoped.

”I'm afraid there is not much I can do,” he said.

”How could he do it, Mr. Wyndham? My own flesh and blood! I can hardly believe that he could have done it, but here is the proof. In black and white.”

”Yes, quite, in black and white, as you said.”

”How little we know about our fellow man,” Lady Rose said. ”If you thought that those closest to you have no skeletons in their closets, Mr. Wyndham, you should check.”

The notion did not seem to faze Mr. Wyndham. After all, he was a country lawyer who had seen a thing or two during his long career. Mostly wills and minor land disputes.

”Mr. Wyndham,” Lady Rose said, losing her patience. ”You have been this family's lawyer for decades. I expect more from you. You need to correct this wrong.”

”There are limits to what a lawyer can do. I am sure you understand, Lady Rose.”

Lady Rose got up onto her feet and paced restlessly.

”I can't say I do. At this moment I understand very little,” she said without looking at Mr. Wyndham. ”Except that I trusted the wrong person. The completely wrong person. One cannot see clearly those who are closest. That is what they say, but I have not believed it until now. Am I to lose everything because of my mistake?”

Mr. Wyndham treated this as a rhetorical question.

”In any case, Lady Rose...” he said, getting up. As far as he was concerned, the matter was quickly coming to a close. Lady Rose would not let him off that easily.

She stared at the paper. No matter how great a wordsmith she might become, she hardly had hope to ever have such an impact on anyone as these words had on her.

Her family was ruined.

May, 1891

Norah was walking towards the Abbey early in the morning. The sun was only a sliver of white and yellow in the horizon. She was carrying a small bag, for she was to live in the servants' quarters of the great house from this day on.

The sky arched dark and majestic above Norah, but she only looked up when the lid was suddenly lowered on her. She had arrived at the tree-lined entryway to the Abbey, and the plane trees formed an oppressive cavity around her. She raced through it as fast as she could without actually running.

Her ears were still ringing from her aunt Sarah's many pieces of advice the night before. Aunt Sarah thought that Norah's new job was ”a smashing stroke of luck” for a girl like her that had finished school at the age of 12 and had not had any professional training. Though aunt Sarah said that Norah would certainly do well, she said it with her whole face wrinkled with concern. She went on to say that Norah was to take her cue from other servants and not to make a show of herself.

Aunt Sarah had also told her that she was to go around the house and straight to the servants' door. Norah had marvelled at her knowledge about the house's ins and outs, and as a response aunt Sarah had told her something fascinating. Norah's mother Mary had also worked in the Abbey as a maid, years ago, before she was married.

This had led to a downpour of questions from Norah, but her aunt had been sparse with information after the first titbit. No, she couldn't say why Norah hadn't known about this. Yes, her mother had left her post, met Norah's father and moved to North Cumberland with him. No, aunt Sarah couldn't remember much more and even if she did, she would not feel free to tell Norah every detail. She said, ”It is not for me to tell you things that your poor ma wanted to keep to herself.”

In any case, all of those things had happened years and years ago. It was not likely that the present servants would remember Mary or realize that Norah was her daughter. She should just get there bright and early in the morning and be her own person. After all, Norah had been chosen for the job by Lady Rose herself. Clearly the kind lady had taken a liking to her.

Norah saw the Abbey's impressive silhouette from the path. The tree-lined street arrived straight to the main entrance, but Norah walked around the manor, as she had been instructed. The rows and rows of windows stared at her inhospitably as she scurried past them. Fortunately the servants' door was a great deal less intimidating. Norah touched her scarf and straightened her skirt and her posture. Then she took a deep breath and rang the bell.

As soon as the door opened, Norah was swept into the bustle and rhythm of the house. The surly maid at the door took a good look at her.

”So you're Lady Rose's new maid,” the maid said. She told Norah that her name was Nellie. Then she turned around and said, ”Come along with me,” and off they went.

”This is not a regular house, you'll soon see,” Nellie said. It clearly gave her some glee to have the chance to instruct a novice and take her through the long corridors with a knowing step. ”Now less so than ever. After Elsie died things have been all askew.”

”Yes, I saw Her Grace right after it happened –” Norah began to say, but Nellie looked at her irritatedly.

”Who is Her Grace?” she asked.

”I meant, Her Ladyship,” Norah said awkwardly.

”You meant Lady Rose, didn't you? Were you raised in a barrel?” Nellie made a frustrated sigh, rolled her eyes and explained.

”The only one we call Her Ladyship is the lady of this house, the Countess of Stowton. The master of the house is the Earl of Stowton, His Lordship to you. Their children are Lady Letitia Travers, Lady Rose Travers and Lord Charles Travers. When you talk to them you may say 'My Lady' and 'My Lord' although I can hardly see any reason you should ever address Lord Charles. Poor Elsie sure paid a price for it.”

Norah wished she had a pen and a notebook to write all of this down, but she did her best to arrange the information in a steady row in her mind. Nellie returned to her earlier train of thought and went on with her account of ”things being askew”.

”For one thing, Lady Rose and Lord Charles have hardly come out of their rooms since it happened. It is not as if the family usually dine together much, but now they are all getting a tray in their rooms. It is
so much
extra trouble for us.”

They seemed to cross a dim hallway after a dim hallway. Why did rich people like things with faces of their own? Engraved little gargoyle faces and wooden creatures stared at her nastily. Along the corridor there were candlesticks attached to the wall and dark wooden furniture with carved decorations shaped like fruit.

”In any case, Lady Rose must have been very impressed with you. I don't want to scare you,” Nellie said and took a good look at Norah, ”but you have better turn out to be great, because this whole thing is quite unheard of. Ordinarily they would never hire a servant without Mrs. Motley interviewing her. Lady Rose was so shaken up by Elsie's death that they didn't want to tell her no. Not that they often do.”

Norah suppressed an urge to curtsy.

”I will do my best,” she said.

”Did you learn to do hair in Paris?” Nellie threw the question at Norah over her shoulder. ”Elsie did.”

”Paris? Heavens! No, I've never been outside of England,” Norah answered, puzzled.

”Where was your last post?” Nellie asked Norah while whizzing by a doorway to what seemed like a modest dining hall. ”This is where the servants eat,” she informed Norah in the passing.

”I haven't been a maid before,” Norah confessed. Her words were followed by an echoing silence.

”Not anywhere?” Nellie said. ”Does Lady Rose realize that? You are at least handy with a needle, right? You do know that your duties include making Lady Rose's underlinen?”

Norah let out a nervous little laugh. She was not entirely without sewing skills. In fact she
had
made the petticoat she was wearing, when her mother was still there to guide her, but it was a shoddy contraption. She couldn't imagine imposing anything resembling it on a proper lady.

***

Norah had to stop for a second and catch her breath. She was still carrying her little case, and she had left her aunt's house without eating anything. She was starting to feel it.

She changed her bag into the other hand, and rolled her wrist a little. When she looked up, Nellie had disappeared.

Norah was standing in a hallway with four doors, feeling confused. Nellie popped her head from one of the doors and said, ”Keep up. This way.”

Norah ran after her and remarked, ”You are a busy bee, aren't you?” And the resident busybody, she said quietly to herself.

”I must get you to work, right away,” Nellie said cheerily. ”It looks like you have plenty to learn and no one to teach you. This is your room, and mine.” They had arrived at the door of a tiny bedroom with two beds, a small desk and a rustic wooden armoire. There was a small window, but Nellie lit the oil-lamp on the desk anyway, with a quick expertise.

”The room looks very nice,” Norah said, to be polite.

”I have laid your uniform on the bed, so you can go ahead and change into it now. I'll come back in a few minutes and take you to Lady Rose.” Nellie click-clacked away and closed the door.

Norah put her bag on the floor and changed into her new uniform as quickly as she could. The room was quite cold, and besides, she did not want condescending Nellie to catch her in her petticoat or practicing to tie her white bonnet. She tried to calm herself, but it had begun to dawn on her that she might not be equal to her task. Nowhere near equal to it.

”While in Rome,” she said out loud, taking solace in the familiar maxim, ”do as the Romans do.”

From Lady Rose's phrase book:

I never anticipate, - carpe diem – the past at least is one's own,

which is one reason for making sure of the present.

Lord Byron

Lady Rose was sitting by her dresser. Her hair was down and her feet were resting on a velvet cushion. The crimson fabric of the cushion was somewhat worn and its edges were faded, but it was comfortingly soft under her soles.

Lady Rose looked at herself in the mirror. Her face looked small in the middle of it, a white and serious oval with plenty of empty space around it.

She knew that any of the servants downstairs would give anything to trade places with her, to get to sit in this beautiful room completely idle. Sometimes she wondered, if she wouldn't willingly trade places with them, too. What a relief it would be, to busy her hands with labour. She was not quite desperate enough for cross-stitching.

There was a knock on the door. The door was opened, and Norah ventured in. Lady Rose turned around to receive her.

”Oh, good, you have arrived! You look different from the last time I saw you,” she said.

Indeed, if Norah had been a butterfly in the meadow, she was now a severe pianoforte in her black and whites. Early in the morning her aunt Sarah had helped her make her hair into a rigid bun. It was pleasant to feel that almost every bit of her personality was safely wrapped inside the uniform.

”Yes, I believe it, My Lady,” she said.

”Look at my hair,” Lady Rose said, raising some of the locks falling wildly off her shoulders with her hands. ”This is what we call a clean slate.”

The room had a bounty of colourful things: guilt hand mirrors, porcelain vases with intricate patterns and perfume bottles. The bottles gave the room a flowery scent. There were also several shelves with intimidating rows of books. Some of their dust jackets looked very worn, as if they had been taken out and read again and again.

Norah tried not to see the room the way her mother Mary would have: hopelessly cluttered. Mary had seen most things primarily as obstacles to thorough cleaning. One of her favourite expressions had been, ”Even the poorest can afford cleanliness and good manners.”

Almost every time she had added sternly, ”And we are not the poorest, Norah.”

***

Lady Rose pointed a linen towel to Norah. She placed it on the lady's shoulders and started to comb her caramel-coloured tresses. Norah was doing her best not to painfully pull at the lady's hair but not always succeeding.

Apart from her own, Norah had only ever combed her mother's hair, during her last weeks on this earth. Her dark hair had still been as beautiful as ever, but her scalp had grown very sensitive towards the end. A few days before Mary passed away, Norah had made her hair into two thick plaits and left it alone.

”Norah,” Lady Rose said, turning her head so suddenly that the comb got tangled in a lock of her hair. A ”tsk” sound escaped Norah's lips before she had time to check herself.

”I will tell you my plan,” Lady Rose said, seemingly oblivious to Norah's struggles with the unruly hair. ”I do not intend for your role to be just my maid.”

”You do not, My Lady?” Norah asked, startled. She was ready to admit that she had not demonstrated much skill at the maid's tasks yet, but it seemed unfair she should not be given more than half an hour to attempt to learn.

”No, you see, I am a great admirer of poets such as Lord Byron and John Keats,” Lady Rose said, as if this explained everything.

”Yes, My Lady?” Norah was still standing by with her comb poised and waiting for Lady Rose to face the mirror once again.

”I have longed for someone to share my thoughts with, a confidant.”

”Yes, My Lady.” Lady Rose turned her head, and Norah could get back to the combing.

”I am offering you that task, Norah. Outwardly you will be a perfectly ordinary lady's maid, but when we are alone, in this room or elsewhere, you will be my confidant and my equal.”

”Equal, My Lady?” Norah asked. She saw now that they had arrived at the real reason she was here. They were teetering on the edge of something, but she did not know what it was. She stared at her hands intently, as they twirled and twirled the same curl of hair.

Lady Rose gathered her thoughts for a moment. It was clear to her she had not yet explained herself well.

”Do you know the phrase 'Carpe diem', Norah?” she asked.

”No, indeed I do not,” Norah said, having now found a better grasp of the task at hand, the task of combing Lady Rose's hair. She was going to twirl it into a pretty bun with the two silver combs placed on the table for this purpose. She would have liked to ask Lady Rose whether such a hairdo would be agreeable to her, but she did not dare interrupt.

”'Carpe diem' means 'seize the day'. It is a Latin expression that Lord Byron uses in his letters. I believe his meaning to be that since we can't know about the future and should not dwell unnecessarily on our past, we have to make most of the present day.”

Norah did not say anything, so Lady Rose went on.

”I believe he means that one should approach each day as an opportunity to feel completely alive and make life a rich tapestry of experiences.”

Norah was still painfully silent, so Lady Rose added, ”To have a fire under one's belly, so to speak.”

”It sounds like a daunting task, My Lady,” Norah said.

”It is nevertheless what I am proposing to you, Norah,” Lady Rose said, attacking her goal head on. ”I want us two to form a secret society and pledge to always follow this principle. I want never to bow blindly to convention but always search for the new and inspiring, and I am asking you to do the same.”

Norah gathered the mass of hair all in one hand and spun it into a thick twine, which would then be coiled around itself until the bun could be attached with pins and the two combs.

”What do you say, Norah? Are you willing to be a member of my secret society?” Lady Rose asked eagerly.

Norah stopped fiddling with hair and met Lady Rose's eyes in the looking glass.

”I am not sure what is being asked of me, My Lady,” she said.

”I am asking you to adopt a new attitude to existence, Norah!” Lady Rose said. ”To seize the day. To approach each day as a set of new and wondrous experiences and to be my personal friend and confidant.”

Again her words were followed by a stunned silence.

”Am I also to do the tasks that belong to a lady's maid?” Norah finally asked.

”Yes, I suppose you must do my hair and the other things as well,” Lady Rose said testily, ”or Mrs. Motley and mother would not be happy with you. But in my heart of hearts I will see you first and foremost as my confidant. As my fellow member in the secret society. What do you say?”

”You are very kind, My Lady,” Norah said and curtsied. ”Your hair is now done, if you think this will do.”

Lady Rose turned her head and looked at her silhouette in the looking glass.

”Yes, Norah, it looks neat enough, thank you.”

”Shall I fetch a frock for you now?”

”Yes, please, bring me the grey one with purple fringes,” Lady Rose said.

When Norah came back with the grey frock prettily around her arm, Lady Rose had gathered her thoughts.

”You see, Norah, there is a reason why I am intimidating you with all of this right upon your arrival. For the daughters of peerage there is only one path in life: marriage. Of course I have always known it, but now it seems that the guillotine is already hanging above me, getting ready to drop.”

”That is a horrendous thing to say, My Lady!” Norah said.

”My mother has a list of prospective candidates 'from our circles'. It is a short list, and all the men on the list are dull or small-minded or both. There is only one reason the guillotine has not yet been swung,” Lady Rose said, refusing to abandon her metaphor. ”The thing that holds back the pressure is that my sister Letitia is not yet married. Since she is the older sister, they cannot put excessive strain on me until she marries. Fortunately she is not too likely to find a beau in any immediate future.”

”Why is that, My Lady? Is she unattractive?”

”No, not unattractive exactly,” Lady Rose said and wondered how to explain Letitia's special qualities. ”Neither of us is very good at the most feminine skill my mother agitates: that of hiding our intelligence. We are both awkward creatures and like to read more than is generally thought desirable for a woman. But I at least have some artistry at other feminine pursuits, such as fashion. I enjoy things like going to a ball or getting a new frock; Letitia would more happily dress in a potato sack than an evening gown. I have a good handwriting, but no one can decipher Letitia's scribblings. And worst of all, she is now a student at Cambridge. A woman in the academia, quite a scandal for marriage prospects.”

”I have never heard of a woman studying at university, My Lady,” Norah said earnestly.

”Oh yes, there are two halls for women in Cambridge. Letitia has told us about her female peers in her letters. They sound quite terrifying, I must say.”

***

Norah retired again to the dressing room to acquaint herself with her new mistress's wardrobe. Lady Rose called out after her.

”Norah! I realize that my proposition is not what you were expecting on your first day here. I hope you will give it some serious thought.”

Norah came back to the room, with a silky sash neatly folded on her arm as she imagined a maid should hold it.

”Yes, My Lady, I will,” she said and began to undo the clasps at
the back of the dress clumsily.