The Lost Ancestor (6 page)

Mary nodded and reluctantly closed her
case.  ‘Maybe this afternoon?’

‘We don’t finish until nine o’clock. 
I’ll help you with it then.’  Clara smiled again.  ‘We should
probably head downstairs now.’

Mary stood aside to allow Clara past and
took a quick look back at her new room.  To all intents and purposes, this
was her new home.  Not exactly what she had dreamt of, but at least she
was now living at Blackfriars—under the same roof as Cecil Mansfield, Earl of
Rothborne.

‘Come on, or you’ll get us both into
trouble with Mrs Cuff,’ Clara called from the corridor. 

‘Coming,’ Mary answered.  Mary
followed Clara back down the ninety-six wooden steps into the innards of the
house.  In her naïve stupidity, Mary had assumed that the servants had
full use of the main house, that she would be using the grand central staircase
to get to her bedroom, which would be on the same floor as the ladies of the
house.  How wrong she had been.

Clara stopped at a closed door along the
corridor which led to the kitchen and softly tapped a finger on the brass plate
which said ‘Housekeeper.’  Moments later, Mrs Cuff pulled open the
door.  ‘Hello, Mary.  Welcome to Blackfriars.  Come in.’

Mary watched Clara intently, mimicking her
pose by standing, hands held together behind her back, with a slight deferential
bow of the head.  The two girls stood silently as Mrs Cuff opened a tall
mahogany cupboard and retrieved a full set of uniform, which she handed over to
Mary with a smile.  ‘Here you go, now you’re a fully paid up third
housemaid!’  Mrs Cuff closed the cupboard and, turning to face Clara,
said, ‘Take Mary to change then you need to get a move on with your duties,
ladies.’

‘Yes, Mrs Cuff,’ Clara said, bowing her
head and leading Mary back out into the corridor. 

Clara moved closer to Mary and
whispered.  ‘She’s nice, just don’t get on the wrong side of her.’ 
Clara pushed open a door opposite.  ‘Go and change in there—it’s an
inside
female toilet—bet you’ve never seen one of those before!  I’ll wait
here.  But be quick—we start duties in four minutes.’

Mary hurried inside and changed into her
uniform.  A tiny hand-mirror rested on the side of the sink.  Mary
held it up and was shocked to see what she looked like in uniform.  Her
mother’s words came flooding into her mind. 
Once you put that uniform
on, you belong to them.  They’ll take everything from you until you’ve
nothing left to give, then they’ll send you to the Rye workhouse where you’ll
wait for humiliation and shame to take you to a pauper’s grave. 
Her
heart began to pound in her chest as she saw her mother’s and grandmother’s
hoary, exhausted reflections staring back at her.  ‘I can’t do this,’ Mary
uttered to her reflection.  ‘I can’t do this.  I won’t end my days in
an unmarked pauper’s grave, nobody knowing or caring about me.  I won’t do
it.’

Mary took a deep breath, set down the
hand-mirror and began to pull off her uniform. 
Now I don’t belong to
anyone!
she thought, as the black dress tumbled to her ankles. 
I
belong to me and to nobody else. 
She was just in the process of
removing the ties from her hair when the door crept open.

‘You nearly done, Miss Mercer?’ Clara said
playfully, before she spotted that Mary was half-naked, her uniform cast aside
on the stone floor.  Clara hurried inside the toilet and closed the door.
‘What are you doing?’

‘Going home.  There’s been a terrible
mistake.  This job was my sister, Edie’s.  She’s spent her life
training to be a housemaid.  She could do it standing on her head. 
It’s like my father said, I can’t even make my own bed,’ Mary said
breathlessly.  ‘I’ll run home.  Edie can be here in fifteen minutes.’

‘Stop!’ Clara shouted, grabbing Mary by
the arm.  ‘It’s too late to change your mind: you’re one of us now.’ 
Clara’s demeanour changed and Mary could see anger in her pale blue eyes. 
‘Get dressed now, or I’m going to get into serious trouble if I’m not sweeping
the drawing room floor in two minutes’ time.  You’re not leaving here
unless you’re in full uniform, ready to work.’  Clara turned sharply and
left the room.

Through gritted teeth and watery eyes,
Mary bent down and pulled on her uniform.

Five minutes later, the girls were in the
drawing room, diligently sweeping up every morsel of dust.  Mary silently
observed and copied Clara’s actions, trying to ignore the heavy doubts that
weighed on her mind about taking Edie’s prized job.  Once swept, Clara
showed Mary how to dust furniture and ornaments and how to wash the oak
panelling.  When the room was complete, Mary rested her elbow on her broom
and sighed.  ‘Can I get a quick glass of water, please?’

Clara emitted a half-mocking laugh. 
‘No.  Now we do the same to the dining room, the front hall, followed by
the sitting room, the saloon and finally the smoking room.’

‘Today?’

‘Today and every day.  It’s also the
duty of the third housemaid to clean the fire grates in each of those rooms and
to light and maintain a fire.  I’ll help you this week, but next week
you’re by yourself.  Let’s get a move on—we need to have all of that
complete by half-past eight breakfast.’

Mary stared at Clara incredulously.  It
would take her a month of Sundays to sweep and dust all of those rooms. 
To have them completed by breakfast was plainly absurd.

‘Come on,’ Clara called.  ‘Put your
back into it.’

When
the breakfast bell finally sounded and the girls headed to the servants’ hall,
Mary sank back into her chair, closed her eyes and groaned.  She was
seated at the end of a long wooden table.  Her seat at the far end,
reflecting her position in the household staff, did not go unnoticed by Mary,
or indeed some of the other servants seated at a higher position.  At the
head of the table were Mrs Cuff and Mr Risler, the butler.  As she moved
her eyes down the line of servants, Mary spotted her cousin, Edward, smiling in
her direction.  To his right, two men were staring at her and
laughing.  Edward elbowed his immediate neighbour and said something to
them which made them pull mock-dejected faces.  Mary briefly returned
Edward’s smile, then turned to Clara, seated beside her.

‘Can I get myself a drink now?’ Mary
asked.

Clara cast a quick uncertain look along
the length of the table then shook her head.  ‘You have to wait to be
served.  Eliza, the upper housemaid, will serve us tea or coffee, while
the butler, Mr Risler, carves the cold meat.  Sit patiently.  And
don’t talk so loudly; it’s not the Blackfriars way.’

Mary matched the deportment and posture of
the other maids, her back up straight and head held high, and waited to be
served.

Once the tea, coffee and cold ham had been
served to the table of almost twenty-five servants, quiet, discreet
conversations occurred between seated neighbours.  Mary realised that
however much she might like to converse with her cousin, it would be considered
entirely inappropriate.  
Not the Blackfriars way,
she thought.

‘Why must we speak so quietly?’ Mary asked
a young girl opposite her, wearing a white uniform with a mobcap on her head.

‘So we don’t disturb the family,’ the girl
said, as if she were answering the most obvious question in the world.

‘What’s your name?’ Mary asked.

‘Joan,’ came the short reply.

‘And what’s the nature of your slavery?’

Clara and Eliza’s soft conversation
stopped and they looked curiously between Joan and Mary.

‘What?’ Joan said.

Mary fully understood the look from Clara
and Eliza. 
It was not the Blackfriars way to be talking in this
manner. 
‘What is your job here?’ Mary rephrased.  Clara and
Eliza turned back to each other and continued talking.

‘Scullery maid.’  She lowered her
voice so that it was barely audible to Mary.  ‘Lowest of the low, that’s
why I’m down here with you.  Welcome to the bottom of the pile.’

Mary looked uncomfortably along the table
at the line of domestic servants, convinced that she had made a catastrophic
mistake in accepting the third housemaid’s job. 
If only I had just gone
home this morning,
Mary thought. 
If only I hadn’t been so bloody
stupid and gone off exploring Blackfriars while Edie had had her interview.

Mr Risler, a lank man with black greasy
hair, walked behind the line of servants opposite Mary, forking out extra
pieces of ham, making polite conversation as he went.  ‘Some of my meat,
ladies?’ he asked with a smirk when he reached Mary and Joan.

Joan shook her head vehemently.  ‘No
thank you, Mr Risler.’

Without looking up, Mary could feel the
penetrating stare of the butler.

           
‘And you, Miss?’

           
Mary met his eyes.  ‘No thank you, Mr Risler.’

Mr Risler licked his lips.  ‘Pity,’
he said, walking behind Mary to begin the line of servants on her side of the
table.  ‘Nice to see a new addition to the
virgins’ wing
,’ he
muttered, barely audibly, before moving on to Clara and Eliza.

Mary shot a glance at Joan, who quickly
lowered her eyes.  ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means he’s a bit of a letch and
someone to keep at arm’s length,’ Joan mumbled.

For the duration of breakfast, Mary tried
in vain to talk with anyone other than Joan, the curt and rude scullery maid
opposite her.  However, distinct hierarchical lines sliced the table into
conversation pockets, most of which excluded Mary.  She was actually
relieved when breakfast was formally declared over.

‘Now what?’ Mary asked Clara, as they
proceeded from the servants’ hall in the order at which they had been seated.

‘Female servants’ quarters followed by the
male servants’ quarters.’

‘What about them?’

‘We make the beds, replenish the candles,
dust then sweep the floors.’

Mary swallowed back her exasperation and
silently followed Clara up the ninety-six stairs to the female servants’
rooms.  The daily harsh reality of the role of the third housemaid at
Blackfriars was slowly becoming clear to her.  She recalled, with
sufficient embarrassment to flush her cheeks, her behaviour in the library with
Edward and the informality with which she had addressed Lady Rothborne. 
She was
very
fortunate that Lady Rothborne had humoured her and even
offered her a job.

At the top of the stairs, Clara opened the
first door to reveal a small cupboard stocked with a host of cleaning items,
bedding and candles.  Reaching inside, she pulled out two soft-headed,
hair brooms and passed one to Mary.  ‘It’s your duty to dust and sweep and
to clean and stock the fire grate.  It’s my job to do the bed linen and
candles.  You start in our room, I’ll start in Eliza and Sarah’s.’

Mary pushed the door shut and stared at
her bed, sorely tempted to bury herself under the blankets and forget that she
had ever agreed to this awful job.  She wandered over to the window and
looked outside, barely able to take in the brightness of the morning.  It
had felt like days since the sun had bothered to rise, having capitulated to
the gloomy winds and heavy snow that had poured across the channel for days on
end.  The concrete-grey clouds had vanished, leaving a beautiful turquoise
sky.  Even the beading of snow which ran along the window pane was now beginning
to thaw.  From the corner of her eye, something moved.  Mary shifted
her focus and saw an elegant female form in a crimson dress walking through the
rose gardens.  It only took a split-second for Mary to identify her as
Lady Philadelphia.  From her meandering and unhurried gait, she guessed
that she was taking some gentle exercise and fresh air.  Mary stared at
her, transfixed, feeling as incongruous as a caged animal at London Zoo. 
I
don’t belong here
, she lamented. 
At least not like this, sweeping
and cleaning; I belong down there, in a beautiful silk dress, enjoying a walk
in the winter sunshine.

Behind her, the door creaked open. 
It was Clara.  ‘Are you nearly done here?’

The reality of her new life suddenly
returned to Mary: she was nothing more than a housemaid.  A
third
housemaid at that. 
The bottom of the pile. 
‘Not quite. 
Sorry.’  Mary could tell that Clara was annoyed.

‘It’s okay, I’ll give you a hand.  I
remember my first day here, I think I was next to useless,’ she said with a smile. 
‘I’ll try and be as patient as Eliza was to me.  Then in two years’ time,
you can show the new third housemaid the ropes.  Just remember how you’re
feeling today.’

Mary was sure that, for as long as she
lived, she wouldn’t forget today.  The very idea of doing this job, day
in, day out for another two years horrified her. 
There had to be an
alternative,
she
thought
.

Working together, it took the girls ten
minutes to finish their room before moving on to the other six female
bedrooms.  Once completed, it was time to move onto the male servants’
quarters.  Mary was intrigued to learn the location of their rooms and to
catch a glimpse of her cousin’s bedroom.  Unexpectedly, she was led back
down the ninety-six steps, along the gloomy corridor to another door.