Mine Is the Night A Novel - By Liz Curtis Higgs Page 0,54
is done, there’s music and dancing in the marketplace.”
The lass chattered away as they crossed the road to Hawick and began climbing the grassy track toward Bell Hill. While the sun rose higher, bathing the pastures in the soft light of morning, other folk appeared on foot, all aimed in the same direction. Only when they neared the admiral’s property did Molly’s comments return to the matter at hand. “Will there be onie ithers, d’ye think, who’ll want to be parlormaids?”
“I cannot say,” Elisabeth told her truthfully, unfamiliar with the ins and outs of domestic service. In the Kerrs’ six-room house in Edinburgh, they’d managed with a housekeeper, butler, and maid. But Bell Hill would require dozens of servants, carefully ranked and paid accordingly. Grooms and footmen, cooks and scullery maids, housemaids and dairymaids. Would she be expected to know the duties of each? Or might she be assigned a small sewing room and left to her own devices?
When they started up the long drive, Elisabeth’s stomach twisted into a knot and stayed that way as the leafy trees she’d seen from a distance now loomed over her. The gray stone mansion, rising three stories above the ground, seemed loftier and more imposing with each step. Laid out like the letter L, the house was older than she’d imagined, with the remnant of a medieval castle joined to a longer section with a bank of windows overlooking the freshly planted gardens.
Molly whispered as if the gables and turrets might hear, “I have niver seen such a place.”
Elisabeth had once danced at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, so she could not say the same. But she’d never worked or lived in so fine a house as this. As they turned the corner, bound for the open door, voices floated out to greet them. She and Molly were not among the first arrivals, then. They quickened their steps, the massive carved entranceway beckoning.
When she crossed the threshold, Elisabeth’s heart sank. Dozens upon dozens of eager applicants milled round the broad hall, many more folk than would ever be needed or hired. How many other dressmakers might there be among the sea of faces? Molly Easton’s dismayed expression mirrored her own.
Standing just inside the doorway was a tall, middle-aged woman with carefully styled hair the shade of a shiny new ha’penny. Though she lifted her voice, the woman never shouted. “Housemaids in the center. Laundry maids under the window. Scullery maids by the far door.” Clearly she was Bell Hill’s housekeeper, in charge of the female staff. An impressive gentleman, who could only be the butler, stood beside her, giving similar orders to the men as they entered, sending them to various stations on the opposite side of the entrance hall.
“Parlormaids, mem?” Molly asked tentatively.
The housekeeper appraised her with a quick, sharp glance. “With the housemaids, if you please.”
As Molly darted off, Elisabeth lifted her chin, hoping to make a good first impression. “Madam, my name is Mrs. Kerr. I have come to offer my services as a dressmaker. Where shall I stand?”
Her steel gray eyes narrowed. “You have never worked in service.”
Elisabeth blanched.
“If you had,” the woman said curtly, “you would know there are no permanent positions for dressmakers or tailors. They are engaged only when needed and never on Whitsun Monday.”
Embarrassment swept over Elisabeth like a wave. Why did I not ask someone? Why did I make assumptions? She locked her knees, lest they give way entirely, and found the courage to respond. “You are right when you say I’ve not been in service. But I have been a seamstress in two tailoring establishments—”
“Still, you’ve not worked for a gentleman.”
“I have not,” Elisabeth conceded, “though I did live in a gentleman’s house.” She swallowed, then said the rest. “As his wife.”
The housekeeper abruptly took her by the arm. “Come with me, madam.”
Twenty-Seven
The grandest of heroic deeds are those
which are performed within four walls
and in domestic privacy.
JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER
lisabeth could not guess where the housekeeper was leading her or what she had in mind. Was an audience with Lord Buchanan literally round the corner?
“I am Mrs. Pringle,” the older woman said, then ordered one of her maidservants to take her place at the door. Turning her back on the busy entrance hall, she escorted Elisabeth toward the longer wing of the house. “Whether or not his lordship is prepared to engage a dressmaker for the servants’ gowns, I cannot say,” Mrs. Pringle told her, “though I shall address the matter when he