Manor of Secrets (14 page)

“I refuse to call you ‘Miss Seward,’ I refuse to show you deference, and I refuse to wait on you. I’d rather lick my pots than yours any day.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Janie asked.

Tess just turned her back. But Mollie laughed from the scullery doorway.

“It means,” Mollie said in her high, clear voice, “that the upstairs maids clean the chamber pots. We would never get our hands so mucky.”

Janie stared as Mollie went back to the sink full of dishes. She didn’t even want to be a lady’s maid. It wasn’t even real.

When the dressing gong sounded, Janie went in to clear away the dinner dishes in the servants’ hall, getting caught in the hurricane as the servants rushed to down a final gulp of tea or the last piece of meat on the plate. Bells rang in the hall — Lady Diane’s, Miss Caldwell’s, Lord Edmonds’s.

“The potatoes were cold,” Sarah told Janie coolly. “Just because you have a fancy hairstyle doesn’t mean you can get away without feeding us.”

“I did feed you,” Janie snapped. She had forgotten about her hair. Or, to be honest, she’d left it because it made her feel pretty. Prettier than she’d ever been in the drab gray dress splattered with gravy and soaked in greasy water.

“I couldn’t eat them.” Sarah pushed her plate away and left the room.

What she’d left behind was equal to what would have been served to Janie and her two girl cousins on Romney Marsh. Sometimes, that was all they got, because the men got the bacon or the bit of mutton. When it was available.

“Defeated by a plate of potatoes,” she said quietly, and picked it up and tipped it over the slop bucket. It made her want to cry. And she hated crying.

“Don’t let her get to you,” Harry said. Janie had forgotten that he still sat at the table. “She’s just jealous.”

“Of me?”

“Of your promotion.” Harry put a ribbon into his book and set it down on the table.

“Hardly a promotion,” Janie snorted. “And it’s meant to be a secret.”

“Not much of a secret anymore.”

Janie stopped and stood very still, refusing to blink or look at him until the threatening tears subsided.

“It’s one of the Ten Commandments. ‘Thou shalt not better yourself.’”

Janie sniffed. “I’m not trying to.” She tossed the last remnants of the servants’ supper into the pig bucket. So much
waste. Her outrage at the inequity seared her from the inside. “I’m fit only to gather scraps and scrub the floors.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Harry’s unruffled — almost teasing — defense only infuriated her more, and she considered throwing the bucket and its contents at him. But she knew the only person who would clean it up was her. So she dropped the bucket instead and turned to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” Harry reached for her, but Janie jerked out of his grasp.

“I’m going back to my place, Harry Peasgood, in the
kitchen
. Why don’t you skulk off to the soot and coal scuttles? Where
you
belong.”

Swallowing her guilt along with the unshed tears, Janie went back to the kitchen. It felt more like a sauna than usual, the rising temperature outside outmatched by the temperature inside.

Janie gathered a little pile of mushrooms for the
sauce aux champignons
and attacked them with the French knife, hacking them into smaller and smaller pieces.

“Rather be doing your swanky work?” Mollie goaded. “No need to take it out on the mushrooms.”

Janie felt the last remnants of her restraint leave her and she slapped the knife down on the table. “I’ll take it out on you if you like.”

“That’s quite enough of that, young lady.” A new voice came from behind her.

Janie turned. Mrs. Griffiths, the housekeeper, stood in the doorway, keys jangling from her waist. Out of the corner of her eye, Janie saw Mollie smirk.

“I think it’s time we had a little chat, Janie,” the housekeeper said. “Please see me in my sitting room.”

“Those mushrooms aren’t going to chop themselves,” Tess muttered when Mrs. Griffiths was out of earshot.

“I’m coming back,” Janie said.

Tess may have smiled. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

Janie wiped her hands on her apron, noticed the stains already on it, and took it off, laying it on the table next to the mushrooms. Hoping she would come back.

“Close the door,” Mrs. Griffiths said when Janie came into her little sitting room. A plate of Janie’s cakes sat on the desk, a single china cup next to it. The room smelled of lavender and tea, furniture polish, and regulations.

Mrs. Griffiths didn’t invite her to sit. Janie kept her eyes on the edge of the desk, not looking into the housekeeper’s face. Showing deference.

“Look at me, Janie.”

Mrs. Griffiths had a penetrating gaze, the kind you’d expect from a school matron. Or a government interrogator.

Brawling was explicitly prohibited among the servants. But Janie would never have hit Mollie. Surely Mrs. Griffiths knew that.

“Some disturbing news has come to my attention.”

Janie blinked. “This isn’t about what I said to Mollie?”

“It is and it isn’t.”

Mrs. Griffiths reached into the desk drawer in front of her and extracted a sheaf of papers, folded neatly in the middle. Janie couldn’t stifle her gasp.

“Did you put these in the cookery book in the kitchen, Janie?”

“Yes.” Janie hung her head again. “I did.”

Poor Charlotte. Janie wanted to curse her and her half-baked secrets, and wanted to curse herself for not hiding them better. Shame tingled at the backs of her knees and the base of her skull.

“Is this part of your campaign to better yourself?”

Janie looked up quizzically. “I’m not sure what you mean, Mrs. Griffiths.”

“When do you find time to write, Janie?” Mrs. Griffiths said. “Are you neglecting your work?”

“No!” Janie cried.

“Don’t use that tone with me, young lady.” Mrs. Griffiths stood. “You’re in the wrong here, and you know it. We have
nothing against writing
per se
, but it does seem to indicate that you have too much time on your hands. Are you telling us that your position isn’t necessary?”

“No, Mrs. Griffiths,” Janie said hastily. “I’m not telling you anything.”

“Oh.” The housekeeper closed her mouth with a snap like the metal clasp of a purse.

“I mean, that isn’t what I meant to say. Mother — Mrs. Seward needs all the help she can get right now. With the extra guests and visiting servants.”

“And yet you are taking time away from your work to play at being a lady’s maid and do your hair and write this … smut.”

Janie’s eyes widened.
Smut?

“The characters you describe are easily recognizable, Janie. And many of them don’t come across favorably. Especially the girl who resorts to fisticuffs when she’s insulted.” Mrs. Griffiths gave Janie a warning look from beneath her brow.

Janie opened her mouth to argue — she’d never been in a fight in her life and was surprised that Charlotte would write about a girl who had.

But Mrs. Griffiths wasn’t finished. “Not to mention the sentimental relationships between the men and women. Romantic novels are the territory of Elinor Glyn, not the kitchen maid.”

“It’s not —” Janie tried to protest, but the housekeeper cut her off.

“You are young, and obviously very impressionable.” She restacked the papers and carefully put them back in her desk drawer. “I will keep these. And hope that you will not return to your scribbling. Or your overactive imagination. I would hate to have to show these pages to Lady Diane.”

Oh,
no
! The only thing worse than Mrs. Griffiths thinking Janie had written the stories would be Lady Diane
knowing
that Charlotte had. Janie started to speak again, but Mrs. Griffiths wasn’t finished.

“So far, I have had no indication that you thought to act on any of these romantic notions,” Mrs. Griffiths said, and Janie wondered exactly what Charlotte might have written. “But you know that fraternizing with any staff member of the opposite sex is strictly forbidden.”

Janie felt the blush travel from her fingertips all the way to her scalp.

Lawrence
.

“If I hear one word —
one —
that you are spending time with any boy, much less
kissing
him, I will tell Lady Diane immediately.”

Janie looked up into those cold gray eyes. “I’ll be sacked.”

“Yes, you will be.” Mrs. Griffiths didn’t sound in the least bit sympathetic.

Who could have found the pages? And who would have handed them to Mrs. Griffiths? Janie wracked her brain. Mollie? Tess?

“You just take care, Janie. It’s not only your career on the line here, remember. That is all.”

“I promise to do my work efficiently, Mrs. Griffiths,” Janie said with a curtsey. “You needn’t worry about me wasting my time or kissing anyone.”

And she would take care. Of whoever was spying on her.

“See that you do, Janie. See that you do your work and only your work, none of this larking about upstairs. You are a kitchen maid; that’s what you’re paid to do.”

No more Charlotte. Regret pinched behind Janie’s eyes.

“Don’t frown at me, Janie Seward. You will be watched. You will be judged. And if you do not live up to our standards, you will be leaving The Manor. Forever.”

In the course of a single evening, Janie had lost her status in the kitchen, her self-respect, and her friend. She couldn’t lose her job and her home, too.

“I understand, Mrs. Griffiths,” she said, and left the room.

A
t dinner, Charlotte sat between her youngest brother, Stephen, and Andrew Broadhurst, feeling trapped. Her jaw hurt from clenching it. Far up the table, at the place of precedence on Lord Edmonds’s right, Aunt Beatrice didn’t look any less miserable. She was dressed in a deep burgundy gown covered in red and gold seed beads in a pattern that swirled like flames. She didn’t sit rigidly and austerely like Lady Diane, but almost seemed to slouch into herself.

Charlotte’s father didn’t notice Aunt Beatrice’s reticence. He just talked, and kept saying things like “Isn’t that so, Beatrice?” without waiting for a reply.

No one in her family ever waited for a reply.

Charlotte wondered if her aunt really was just at The Manor to steal Mrs. Seward away. Poor Janie.

Lawrence entered with the final course — cheese and fruit and biscuits — and Charlotte felt relief lift her shoulders slightly. She watched him the entire time, but he didn’t even look at her. Not once.

His gloved hands carefully laid the plates of cheese on the table, and deftly served the strawberries and plums from another tray to each diner’s plate. Charlotte watched his hands, unable to look him in the face for fear everything she felt would be broadcast to the entire table.

“Diane.”

Aunt Beatrice’s voice was clear and musical. Like a bell.

“Why are you not hosting the servants’ ball this year?” Aunt Beatrice asked, suddenly as vibrant as her gown. “Didn’t you always have it the night before the first shoot of the season?”

Charlotte stared at her mother. Unlike other great houses, The Manor never had a servants’ ball, where the household staff came above stairs and crossed social boundaries to dance with the family.

She imagined herself in Lawrence’s arms. In a gown. Almost as if she were at the Season in London. She could see the two of them shocking the entire company with the hesitation waltz.

“We haven’t had a servants’ ball in years.” Lady Diane’s tone implied the end of the conversation.

“Why, Mother?” Charlotte heard herself asking.

“Because.” Lady Diane flicked a glance at her sister. “The timing is infelicitous.”

“But we
never
have a servants’ ball,” Charlotte persisted, causing her brothers to shift and prompting David to cough into his sleeve. She knew she shouldn’t be speaking. But she couldn’t stop. “It can’t always be the timing.”

“It is timing and it is planning, Charlotte,” Lady Diane said.

The more her mother argued, the more Charlotte knew it had to happen. It was better than her imagination. It was kismet.

“But the ball is already planned,” she argued. “And it’s just for the houseguests and neighbors, anyway. It doesn’t have to be elaborate.”

Elation swept through her, followed by a hot rush of fear and doubt. Her mother would kill her. Right there on the spot.

“We cannot inconvenience our guests in such a way.” Lady Diane was so stiff her lips hardly moved when she spoke.

“It would be no inconvenience,” Andrew interjected, leaning forward. “I, for one, would be delighted to include your staff.”

Lady Diane stared. Charlotte tried not to. Andrew’s face was as bland as ever, but there was mischievous warmth in his dark eyes.

“What a capital idea,” Fran said, smiling not-so-discreetly at Lawrence standing on the other side of the room.

Charlotte held her breath.

“Of course, Lord Broadhurst.” Lady Diane’s face was a mask of indifference.

During the following silence, Charlotte caught Aunt Beatrice smiling and almost grinned in response. It was like they were in cahoots. But she couldn’t let Lady Diane think that, so Charlotte kept her expression as blank as possible when she murmured, “Thank you, Mother.”