Page 19 of The Maid of Fairbourne Hall

“You’re in for a treat tonight, Nora. Monsieur Fournier has prepared quite a feast to welcome Mr. Upchurch home. And we’re to have the leavings for our supper.”

And feast it was, though Margaret was not accustomed to being served from dishes with portions missing, partial jelly moulds, and congealing sauces. But the other servants beamed at the dishes in anticipation, not minding the secondhand nature of the feast.

Monsieur Fournier waved his long arm and pointed a hairy-knuckled finger as he named each dish: vermicelli soup, trout en Matelote, stewed pigeon, French beans, and vegetable marrows in white sauce. And later, the finale—gooseberry tarts and fresh pineapple.

Everyone ooh ed and ahh ed over the dessert, for pineapple was a rare luxury.

Mr. Hudson gave thanks, and they began the supper, passing things politely when asked and eating quietly.

How unexpectedly formal the meal was. Margaret felt transported back to an uncomfortable evening when her great-aunt had invited her to dine with a crusty dowager countess.

This was not how she had imagined servant suppers tobe.

Abruptly, a few people began to rise, Betty among them, and Margaret made to follow. But this time, Fiona grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. She hissed in her ear, “What are ya doin’? Only the uppers go.”

The upper servants—Mr. Hudson, Mrs. Budgeon, Mr. Arnold, and Betty, as first housemaid—rose and quietly left the room in somber procession.

“Where are they going?” Margaret whispered.

“To the moon—what do ya think? Pug’s parlor, o’ course.”

Mr. Arnold paused in the threshold and looked back. “Fred, I trust you will remember to walk the dog after your supper?”

“I will, sir.”

The under butler, Margaret noticed, carried a bottle of port beneath his arm, while the servants were left with small beer.

Margaret had heard of the custom of the “upper ten” partaking of their pudding and of finer dishes and wines separately from the under servants in the housekeeper’s parlor. Still, she felt a strange stab at finding herself at the lower end of the social hierarchy. Left out.

The feeling soon evaporated, however, because the stiff atmosphere in the servants’ hall melted into relaxed conviviality once the uppers—the bosses—were gone.

Thomas, the dark-haired first footman, raised his glass of small beer. “Here’s to the return of Mr. Upchurch.”

A female voice to Margaret’s right said, “I wish Mr. Lewis Upchurch would return.”

Margaret snapped her head around in surprise. She took in the wistful expression of the heavyset stillroom maid she had met at breakfast.

“Do you? Why?” Margaret could not help but ask. She found it somehow disconcerting that she was not the only maid awaiting Lewis’s appearance.

Hester gazed into the distance but did not answer.

Dark-haired Thomas slanted Margaret a look. “You’ve never seen him, or you wouldn’t ask. All the girls flutter about Mr. Lewis.”

“I don’t know why.” The second footman, Craig, shrugged.

“Come on now,” Jenny said. “We all know it isn’t Mr. Lewis Hester pines for, but the young man what comes with him.”

Margaret turned to the kitchen maid. “Who’s that?”

Jenny looked at her, incredulous. “His valet, of course.”

“Oh, right,” Margaret murmured, noticing how pink Hester’s round cheeks had become.

“I don’t know what girls see in him either,” fair-haired Craig pouted. “What’s he got that I haven’t got?”

“Class, that’s what he’s got,” Jenny answered. “And genteel ways.”

Another kitchen maid answered, “And so handsome in his fine clothes.”

Craig frowned. “Well, I’ve got fine clothes.”

Thomas threw down his table napkin. “You call livery fine?” The footman’s lip curled. “For trained monkeys, maybe.”

Margaret was surprised the first footman despised the very livery he himself wore.

“Oh, now don’t listen to Thomas,” Jenny soothed. “I think you’re both quite handsome in your livery. Very smart.”

“Thank you, Jenny.” Craig added hopefully, “I don’t suppose you have a sister?”

Thomas smirked. “Or a grandmother. Craig isn’t fussy.”

Craig glared, but the others chuckled, enjoying the teasing nearly as much as their desserts.

The next morning Margaret began her first full round of work.

If she had thought the day before taxing, this one promised to be more so.

The previous day had been spent in learning and in observing Betty or assisting her.

Today, Margaret was on her own. Betty had assigned her the drawing room, conservatory, hall, and steward’s office to clean before breakfast, while she would see to the library, salon, morning room, dining room, and servery.

Fiona, meanwhile, would take care of the early morning duties abovestairs—taking up water and emptying the slops in the bedchambers as well as cleaning the family sitting room.

In the drawing room, Margaret did as Betty had taught her.

First she lugged all the furniture she could move to the center of the room: chairs, settees, tea tables, and end tables.

These she covered with cloths to protect them from the dust she was about to raise whilst sweeping the carpet.

She grasped a handful of damp tea leaves from a wide-mouth jar, gave them a final squeeze, and sprinkled the leaves over the carpet.

This was meant to freshen the carpet and sweeten the air, but to Margaret it seemed illogical to cast debris on something she was meant to clean.

Selecting the carpet sweeper brush from her box, she went to work on her knees, sweeping the scant dirt and occasional pebble toward the hearth, from which she had already removed the fender and polished the grates.

Afterwards, she wiped her hands on a cloth.

She removed the dust covers and dusted the furniture and then began dragging the pieces back to their places.

Perspiration trickled from beneath her wig and down her back, causing the skin beneath her long stays to itch.

She was breathing heavily and her back ached by the time she restored the last piece of furniture to its proper—she hoped—place.

Gathering up her tools into the housemaid’s box, Margaret paused to wipe a hand across her brow.

One room down. Three to go.

———

After breakfast, Betty hurried upstairs to help Miss Upchurch dress, leaving Margaret to sweep the main stairs and rub the banister with a little oil.

They attended morning prayers and then Margaret helped Betty clean Miss Upchurch’s apartment—Betty still did not trust her with the family bedchambers, nor to make beds alone. She helped Betty tie back the bed curtains and strip the bed to air, emptied the washbasin, and tidied the dressing room.

As the afternoon wore on, Margaret found her knees aching and her hands dry and stiff.

She helped Fiona collect the soiled laundry throughout the house and was then assigned to scrub the basement passageway leading from the servants’ entrance on one end, all the way to the men’s quarters on the other.

On her hands and knees, with a bucket of hot water heated on the stove, Margaret scrubbed a floor for the first time in her life.

Her knees throbbed against the hard stone floor, and her hands burned from the harsh soap.

She was midway down the passage when hall boy Fred came in the servants’ door with a rangy wolfhound, its wiry grey hair slick and wet.

Margaret sat back on her heels. “I’ve just washed that floor,” she grumbled.

“It’s all right,” Fred said. “Jester’s cleaner than either of us. He’s just had a swim in the pond.”

Suddenly the dog at Fred’s heel shook himself mightily, spraying muddy water all over Fred’s trouser legs and Margaret’s face and bodice.

She squeezed her eyes shut, sputtered, and groaned. “Oh, no...”

“Sorry, miss,” Fred said.

Mrs. Budgeon appeared in her doorway nearby.

“What is the matter?” She looked from Margaret, to Fred, to the dog and back again.

Surveying Margaret, her lips thinned and she sighed.

“Well, Fred, you’ve won the honor of finishing that floor.

Nora, I would tell you to bathe, but we haven’t time for all that now.

Go on up to your room and clean up as best as you can. You do have another frock, I trust?”

“Yes, ma’am. Well, one.”

“Let’s hope it suits.”

Margaret took herself up to her room and cleaned her face, neck, and hands as best she could at the washstand with her allotted bar of soap.

She had peeked inside the servants’ bathing room Mrs. Budgeon had referred to.

The small room lay at the end of a narrow side passage, past the servants’ hall.

But she had yet to use the tub it contained.

Until she figured out how to remove her stays, she would make do with sponge baths in her room.

She changed into the blue gown, eyeing her bed with longing, but forced herself back downstairs.

After the family ate their dinner, Margaret helped Mrs. Budgeon wash the china in the storeroom adjoining her parlor. The room was fitted with a special wooden sink lined with lead for the purpose. Once dry, the housekeeper meticulously examined each piece for damage before checking it backin.

As evening darkened to night, Margaret began longing for her narrow attic bed with the most ardent zeal—though she wondered if her wobbly legs would carry her up the many stairs even one more time.

And to think she had to do it all again tomorrow!

Tears filled her eyes from fatigue and self-pity.

She would never live through another day of this, let alone three and a half months.