She stopped. She had not thought of that. But it was too late to withdraw now. “I’ll be careful,” she conceded. “I’ll say it is my mother or something.”
“And how will you account for the fact that your mother lives in Bloomsbury?” he asked.
“I . . .” At last she faced him.
“You haven’t thought,” he said candidly.
For a moment she blessed him for not being patronizing. If he had been gentle it would have been the last straw. She remembered her own early days of social aspiration, the constant struggle to keep up, to say the right thing, to please the right people. Those born to acceptance can never understand the feeling. That was one of the things she and Jack shared, a sense of being outside, accepted as long as they charmed and amused, but not by right. He had felt the sting of unconscious superiority too often to practice it himself.
He was waiting for her to flare up; instead Emily was reminded of how much she liked him. He had said nothing of the risk to her social position.
“No,” she agreed with a small smile, quite calmly. “I would be obliged if you would help me sort out such details. I shall have to say my sister is in service, if they ask me. There are plenty of residential servants in Bloomsbury.”
“Then she must have the same surname. What are you going to call yourself?”
“Er, Amelia.”
“Amelia what?”
“Anything. I can’t use Pitt, they might remember it from Thomas. I once had a maid called Gibson; I’ll use her name.”
“Then you’ll have to remember to write to Charlotte as Miss Gibson too. I’ll tell her.”
“Thank you, Jack. I really am very obliged.”
He grinned suddenly. “I should think so!”
“You are going to do what?” Great-aunt Vespasia’s silver eyebrows arched high above her hooded eyes. She was seated in her spare, elegant withdrawing room, dressed in mulberry silk with a pink fichu at the neck that was fastened with a seed pearl star. She looked frailer than before, thinner, since George’s death. But some of the fire had come back into her glance, and her back was as straight as ever.
“I’m going to go to the Yorks’ as a lady’s maid,” Emily repeated. She swallowed hard and met Aunt Vespasia’s eyes.
And Vespasia stared unflinchingly back at her. “Are you? You won’t like it, my dear. Your duties will be the least part of your burden; even obedience will be less irksome to you than assuming an air of meekness and respect towards the sort of people you normally treat as equals, whatever your private thoughts may be. And do remember, that goes for the housekeeper and the butler as well, not just the mistress.”
Emily could not dare to think of it or her nerve would desert her. A small timorous voice inside her wished Aunt Vespasia would come up with some unanswerable reason why she could not possibly go. She knew she had been unfair to Jack; he had been concerned for her, that was all. She would have been hurt if he had not objected to the plan.
“I know,” she admitted. “I expect it to be difficult. I may not even last very long, but this way, I can learn things about the Yorks that years of visiting couldn’t achieve. People forget servants; they think of them as furniture. I know. I do it myself.”
“Yes,” Aunt Vespasia agreed dryly. “I daresay your own maid’s opinion of you might be a salutary thing for you to learn, if you ever get above yourself. No one knows your vanity, nor your frailties, quite like a maid. But remember, my dear, for precisely that reason one trusts a maid. If you break that trust, do not expect to be forgiven. I do not imagine Loretta York is a forgiving woman.”
“You know her?”
“Only in the way everyone in Society knows everyone else. She is not my generation. Now, you will need some plain stuff dresses and some caps and aprons, some petticoats without lace, a night shift, and some ordinary black boots. I am sure one of my maids will be near enough to your size. And a plain box to carry them in. If you do this highly bizarre thing, you had at least better do it properly.”
“Yes, Aunt Vespasia,” Emily said with a sinking heart. “Thank you.”
Late that afternoon, without perfume or the merest rouge to heighten her pale color and clad in a dowdy brown dress and a brown hat, Emily alit from the public omnibus carrying a borrowed and much used box. She walked to number two Hanover Close to present herself at the servants’ entrance. She had in her reticule, also borrowed, two letters of recommendation, one from herself and the other from Great-aunt Vespasia. She had been preceded by a call on the new telephone, which Aunt Vespasia delighted in, to announce her coming. After all, there was no point in applying for this position if it were already filled. Aunt Vespasia had learned that it had not been filled, although there were applicants in mind. The elder Mrs. York was very particular, even though the maid was actually to serve her daughter-in-law. Still, she was mistress of the house, and would say who worked in it and who did not.
Aunt Vespasia had asked after Mrs. York’s health, then proceeded to commiserate with her about the distress and inconvenience of losing a maid in such circumstances. She had remarked that her own lady’s maid, Amelia Gibson, who had served her most satisfactorily, was now, in Aunt Vespasia’s declining years and semiretirement from Society, really more than she required, and was consequently looking for a new position. She was a girl of reliable family, long known to Vespasia, who had also been in the service of her great-niece, Lady Ashworth, whose accompanying testimonial would bear witness. Vespasia hoped that Mrs. York might find Amelia of satisfactory skill and disposition. Vespasia would vouch for her character.
Mrs. York thanked her for her courtesy and agreed to see Amelia if she presented herself forthwith.
Emily clutched her reticule with the letters and three pounds, fifteen shillings in silver and copper (maids would not have gold sovereigns or guineas) and lugged the unaccustomed weight of a box containing a change of dress, aprons, caps and her underwear, a Bible and some writing paper, pen and ink, as she descended the area steps, her heart knocking in her ribs, her mouth dry. She tried to rehearse what she was going to say. There was still time to change her mind. She could turn round and simply go away and write a letter making some excuse: she had been taken ill, her mother had died—anything!
