Page 9 of A Marriage is Arranged

Two weeks later saw Louise and Rose ensconced in the Countess’s comfortable carriage. It was lined in pale pink silk, her ladyship being of the firm belief that when exposed to natural light a woman of her age needed all the help she could get. Rose was wearing the dresser’s uniform of a plain dark gown cut high to the throat. It gave her something of the look of a girl pretending to be a grown-up, but it actually suited her fair prettiness, and the color of the carriage lining certainly made her glow even more than usual.

It was hard to say, though, whether Louise was improved by the gentle light. Her mother had loaned her a poke bonnet lined in a bright yellow that suited her own vivid complexion, but did nothing at all to enhance her daughter’s sallow coloring. With it she wore a light grey pelisse with matching traveling gown that were too large for her, since they too were on loan from her mother, who was of a more opulent build.

In Louise’s trunk were her old brown dress and the new blue sprigged muslin, together with a vivid pink silk day dress and a gold evening gown that had also been her mother’s. They had been altered, not altogether successfully, to fit Louise’s slimmer figure, and neither color suited her.

Arriving in London, both young ladies were overawed by the Countess’s town home, not so much by the building itself, though it was large and elegantly furnished, as by the number of servants. There seemed to be footmen everywhere and the butler was so superior that if Rose had been told he was the Prince Regent himself, she would have believed it. Louise recovered more quickly than her maid, and was able to greet her ladyship with genuine warmth before being shown to her bedchamber to change out of her traveling clothes and refresh herself before tea.

After helping her mistress, Rose was taken downstairs by one of the footmen who was inclined to be superior towards this country mouse, pretty though she was. But her good looks, unassuming manner and cheerful disposition soon endeared her to the rest of the staff, especially as she was innocent enough not to realize she was being pumped about the future Countess. She sat with a welcome cup of tea at the long pine table where the staff took their meals and willingly answered their questions.

“So she’s just come home from school, then?” enquired the housekeeper, “and not Out yet?”

“Well, with her poor papa dying so sudden as he did, she couldn’t very well be out gallivantin’, could she?”

“And she’s quite the bluestocking, you say? Reads the newspaper every day?”

“I don’t know about being a bluestocking. But she do say women ought to know as much as men about what’s goin’ on.”

The staff looked at each other in amused shock.

“I wonder if the Earl knows anything about that?” said the footman Peter, who had brought Rose downstairs. “He’s very much the Master of the House, even here.”

“I agree with her,” said Emmie, the chef’s assistant, a pert young woman who had plans to improve herself. “No reason why women shouldn’t be as hinformed as men. Our brains is almost the same size. I saw a Hexibition at the Royal Society just last year.”

“Go on with you! You’d best stick to your pots and pans if you want an ’usband!”

Peter was trying to improve his speech, but occasionally slipped. He had his eye on Emmie and was secretly pleased that she, like him, wanted to move up in the world.

“If yer talkin’ about yerself, Peter Simpkins, stand in line. I’m not takin’ the first man wot proposes!”

Peter’s interest in her hadn’t escaped her, and in truth, she wasn’t displeased. She knew he had aspirations to the butler’s position. That august individual would be retiring in a couple of years and Peter was imitating his speech and his ways. Besides, like all footmen, who were engaged as much for their appearance as for their ability to do the job, he was tall and good-looking.

Emmie herself was learning all she could from the French chef presently employed by her ladyship. The great houses generally had male chefs, but at Shrewsbury House when his French chef had taken off in a fit about something, as they often did, the Earl had simply kept on going with the woman who’d been the chef’s assistant. By all accounts, everyone was well pleased with the female chef, though, of course, she was called by the less elevated title of cook . When the time came that the Countess’s Henri took off for a household offering a greater range for his talents than that of the widowed lady, Emmie would make it known she was ready to step in. But she wasn’t about to let Peter Simpkins know how she felt. Let him cook. A stew is always better for a long simmer.

Rose, meanwhile, completely unaware of the currents of romance and intrigue swirling around her, looked at the huge kitchen. Behind the staff dining table stood an enormous open cupboard displaying row after row of blue and white dishes. At the other end of the kitchen were two long work tables covered in all sizes of pots, pans and bowls. On one side was a contraption she had never seen before, into which the chef was now placing a large dish .

“That’s a Rumford stove,” said the housekeeper, seeing her looking. “What an improvement on the open hearth! You’ve no idea! Her ladyship doesn’t have much to do with kitchens, of course, but the Earl insisted on her having one. Takes a bit of getting used to, of course, but the work you save, not to mention the fuel!”

A little later, when she was upstairs helping her mistress, Rose confided, “There’s a big iron thing in the kitchen for the cookin’. I’d be afraid to go anywhere near it. But it was the Earl wanted it, seemingly. They say he’s ever so much Master of the house.”

“I don’t doubt it,” was Louise’s only reply.