‘Is this your handiwork?’ she asked Mary.
Mary nodded.
Mrs Cuff threw it to one side. ‘Notgood enough,’ she said reprovingly, continuing through the stack. Everyrepair that Mary had undertaken ended up in its own jumbled heap. ‘Well,you certainly weren’t employed here for your needlework skills, were you?’
‘No, Mrs Cuff,’ Mary mumbled.
‘This stitching is very shoddy, look,’ shesaid, tugging at a loose thread on an overcoat. One pull and thestitching came apart. ‘I can see you’re going to take a lot of work,young lady. What have you got to say for yourself?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Eliza, Clara—you need to have thesegarments corrected before you finish for the day,’ Mrs Cuff said.
‘Yes, Mrs Cuff,’ they responded in unison.
Mrs Cuff left the servants’ hall carryingthe approved clothing. The still maid entered and began setting the tablefor tea. Mary could feel Eliza and Clara’s disapproval.
‘What did they employ her for?’Eliza whispered to Clara, as she scooped up the garments in need ofcorrection. ‘Come on, we’ll work through tea.’
‘Let me help,’ Mary begged.
‘I don’t think so, Mary,’ Eliza saidfrostily.
The two gaps beside Mary at the dinnertable only heightened her feelings of isolation and segregation from the restof the staff. Nobody, not even Joan or the awful Mr Risler attemptedconversation. Mary sat in cold dismal silence, eating her bread and butterand taking small sips from her cup of tea, desperately hoping that the daywould just end. But it didn’t end, it kept on going. Half an hourafter she had sat down and the sun had given way to darkness, Mary was back upon her feet ready to return to her duties. Once all the other servantshad departed the room, Mary left and was collected by Clara at the door.
‘Did you manage to get them done?’ Maryasked in the muted, flickering glow of the corridor lamp.
Clara nodded. ‘Eliza’s just takenthem in to Mrs Cuff.’
At that moment, the housekeeper’s dooropened and Eliza stepped out. ‘Back to work, girls,’ she instructedhaughtily. ‘Let’s not repeat that tomorrow.’
Clara led them back upstairs to the femaleservants’ quarters and pushed open their bedroom door. Inside was darkand freezing: Mary shuddered.
‘It does warm up,’ Clara said. ‘Ourduties now are to turn down the beds, close the curtains and light thefires. Watch and copy.’
Mary stood back and watched as Claracarefully pulled one side of the bedding into a neat diagonal line beforepulling out the creases.
‘Your go,’ Clara instructed, as she tuggedclosed the curtains.
Mary copied with her own bed.
‘Perfect. I’ll light the fire, thenI’ll show you what’s next.’
Once the small splinters of kindling hadignited, Clara showed Mary where to fill the water jugs. As soon as allthe rooms in the female servants’ quarters were ready, they repeated the taskin the male quarters.
At eight o’clock, the girls returned tothe servants’ hall for supper, which consisted of cold ham and hot vegetables,but Mary was too tired to eat a single thing. All she wanted was her bed,irrespective of how cold or uncomfortable it was: she just wanted to lie downand close her eyes.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Joanwhispered.
‘I’m exhausted. You’ve no idea howmany times I’ve been up and down those wretched ninety-six stairs. Itmust be at least a hundred,’ Mary said, a little too loudly.
Joan put her forefinger on her lips. ‘Keep it down, or you’ll get into trouble.’
Mary rolled her eyes and emitted a smallsigh.
Supper in the servants’ hall lastedprecisely half an hour. By the end of it, Mary had gulped down three cupsof tea, but not touched her food. Without uttering a word, she followedClara for the final duties of the day into the main bedrooms of the house.
‘We need to check the water jugs, thefires and take a hot can of water to each bedroom,’ Clara told her, leadingMary into a large, warm bedroom. A four-poster mahogany bed with fine,delicate cotton sheets stood in the centre of the room. Beautifullydecorative curtains covered the tall windows which, in daylight, afforded viewsacross the lake. A carved wooden dressing table, chest of drawers and awriting desk completed the room.
‘Whose room is this?’ Mary said, mentallycomparing it to her own insignificant bedroom upstairs. This shouldbe her bedroom. It was perfect. Mary approached the bed and strokedthe soft fine linen.
‘Don’t touch it,’ Clara warned. ‘It’sLady Rothborne’s bedroom.’
‘And Lord Rothborne’s?’
Clara shook her head. ‘His bedroomis next door.’
Mary puzzled as to why they would notshare a bed. Maybe it wasn’t the Blackfriars way, shereasoned. She had once read that most of the former kings and queens ofEngland slept separately from their spouses and thought it must be commonpractice among the upper classes. Mary had a sudden, intense desire tosee Cecil’s bedroom. ‘You finish up here and I’ll do the next one,’ Marysaid quickly, hurrying for the door. She was in the brightly lit hallwaybefore Clara could answer.
Mary entered Lord Rothborne’s bedroom,closed the door behind her and smiled. The size and layout of the roomwas comparable to Lady Rothborne’s, yet somehow it struck her as definitelybelonging to a man. The wallpaper, carpets and curtains all exudedmasculinity. She approached the bed and ran a finger over the crisp,pristine pillow. Unlike Edward’s inferior bed, there was no revealingindentation. Unable to help herself, Mary lowered her face down onto thepillow and closed her eyes. Over the sterile scent of fresh laundry, shecould detect the faintest whiff of an expensive cologne. Never in hermost fanciful childhood dreams did she imagine such intimacy with Lord Mansfield,Earl of Rothborne. Cecil. For just that single moment, theywere together. Mary took a long, deep breath, yearning to hold thefragment of his smell inside her for as long as possible, then stood andreturned to herself: Mary Mercer, third housemaid of Blackfriars. Sheturned down the bed, added logs to the fire, refilled a jug of water andbrought in a hot can of water. She did her duty, took one last longinglook into the bedroom, then moved on.
When, at last, Mary climbed the ninety-sixstairs for the last time that day and fell into bed, sleep would notcome. Clara had fallen asleep the moment she had crawled under theblankets, but for Mary, the emotion and difficulty of her
