‘Oh yes, madam,’ she said. ‘We were all very proud of you downstairs over that last business. Even Mr Pallister, now that the master knows all about it and has given it his blessing.’ Grant delivered all of this in her usual blithe tone, then finished it off with a belated and unconvincing: ‘If you’ll excuse the liberty.’
‘Right, well, good,’ I said. ‘In that case, what I’m about to ask you will come as less of a surprise. I’m going undercover, Grant. Do you know what that means?’ She nodded, looking thrilled.
‘What as?’ she breathed. ‘I can drop everything this minute and get a costume run up for you, madam. When do you need it?’
‘I’m starting on Monday. I’m going downstairs. I’m going to be a lady’s maid.’
Grant’s lips twitched once, twice, then she bit her cheeks and pulled her eyebrows very firmly downwards.
‘And your “mistress”, madam?’ she said, with her voice under commendable control. ‘Is it her you’re investigating?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s she who has employed me.’
‘Oh, well then,’ said Grant, lifting her hands high and then letting them clap down softly against her skirt again, ‘in that case you’ll be fine.’ As votes of confidence go it was a stinker but, like most other people, I always claim to value honesty and so I could not refuse such a good dollop of it when it was served up to me.
By the time I fell into bed on Sunday evening, my head was heavy with great spilling heaps of new facts and long lists of outlandish preparations and I had a thick notebook full of daily, weekly and monthly chores.
‘Crêpe de chine, satin, tussore – cold. Cashmere, chiffon, mohair – cool. Silk, faille, wool – warm. Lawn, cotton, linen – hot,’ I repeated to myself. ‘I’ve got it. And down again – wring, squeeze, press, drip. And up: sprinkle iron cool, sprinkle press cool, damp iron warm, wet press hot. It’s easy!’ I turned over, ignoring the crackling sound of the cold sugar-water waves in my hair; Grant had spent much of Sunday afternoon teaching me how to make them after a brief and alarming episode with the hot irons in the morning. I punched my pillow and clicked my tongue to make Bunty come up the bed a bit and let me put my arms around her. I had never been separated from her for more than a night or two since she had arrived – tiny, fat and wriggling – all those years before and I did not look forward to driving away and leaving her behind me. She would be quite happy with Alec and Millie, his spaniel, but I had slipped a photograph of her into my bag as a comfort to me. The bag was sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor with a plump black umbrella leaning against it and an extravagantly hideous hat balanced on top. The shoes, cleaned and re-dyed by Grant with much tutting, were lined up neatly under my chair, the grey serge suit laid out over its back. My tin trunk was already downstairs by the stable-yard door ready to be lifted onto the dogcart and taken to the station in the morning. I gave Bunty a squeeze, kissed her head and closed my eyes on it all, hoping that sleep would come swift and dreamless.
3
The train, at least the third-class part of it, was packed to the walls, every seat in every compartment taken, luggage racks bulging, corridors jammed tight and thick with pipe smoke. I had been banged on the elbow twice already by a sample case – I could not guess what its owner was selling but the case itself was painfully sturdy – and on shifting away from him had been dripped on by the melting iced lollipop of a child drowsing on its mother’s lap to my right. I tucked both elbows in tighter, hugged the plump umbrella and peered out to see where we had got to.
‘Today doesn’t suit me at all as it happens,’ said a woman opposite. She had been carrying on a conversation of loud complaint with her travelling companion since joining the train at Dunblane, or actually since joining the compartment at Bridge of Allan, after spending the first part of her journey standing in the passageway glaring in at two young men, silently demanding their seats. ‘Half-day closing Wednesday is my usual day for Edinburgh and this has thrown me right out for the whole week. I’d not be surprised if I got one of my sick headaches tonight.’
‘I did say that, Minnie,’ her friend put in mildly. ‘I was happy to wait and see what happened. I don’t think they’ll really stop the trains.’
‘Transport, building, printing and heavy works,’ said the salesman, in a thick Glasgow accent. ‘Of course, there winnae be trains.’
‘Och, they’ll sort it all before midnight,’ said an elderly man in the corner, speaking around his pipe. ‘Mr Baldwin and Mr Pugh’ll get it seen to between their two selves.’
‘They might try right enough,’ said the stout salesman, ‘but what about Red Bevin and that wee Churchill toerag – they’re just itchin’ for a dust-up.’
With some relief I saw the large white lettering on the Jenner’s depository building go by outside the window and felt a jolt as the brakes gripped and the train began the long slow pull in towards Haymarket station. The young salesman stood up, giving me a farewell bang on the knees with his case, and talk of the strike sank under the shifting of bodies and parcels and the general struggle of departure.
I was very glad to be leaving the train at its final destination, for I should have been at a loss on the question of how to extricate myself and my bag from a compartment and get my trunk out of the guard’s van during a short station stop. Did servants summon porters? Grant’s instructions had not covered this point but I hardly thought so, and even if a porter volunteered to help how was one to manage the tipping? As it was, I stood helplessly on the platform looking in at my trunk through the opened doors and wondering if I should try to shift it.
‘Needin’ a wee hand, hen?’ said a voice beside me and the two young men – apprentice boys, perhaps – who had been ousted by Minnie hopped up into the guard’s van and turned their caps backwards.
‘Which one’s yours?’ asked one of them and, when I pointed, they hefted the small trunk between them and leapt back out onto the platform again.
‘Where do you want it?’ asked the other.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. I gazed about myself. Lollie had not gone into any details about my arrival and I had no idea if I was to be met. I could not, obviously, hail a cab but nor could I manhandle this trunk onto a bus and off again.
‘Startin’ in a new place, eh?’ said one of the lads, squinting at me past the smoke of his cigarette. I nodded. ‘Maids’ store, Sandy,’ he said, and they set off towards the station building with me trotting after.
The maids’ store was in a part of the station I had never seen before, under some brick arches with metalled walkways crossing overhead. A queue of girls in serge and bad hats shuffled forwards, kicking their trunks or rolling them on barrows, towards an opening with a counter where a middle-aged man in uniform was writing down details in a ledger and tearing off pink tickets from a roll.
‘Name?’ he said when I got to the head of the queue.
‘Miss Rossiter,’ I said. He looked up and frowned at me.
‘Address?’
‘31 Heriot Row,’ I said. He put his pencil down, folded his arms and stared at me.
‘There’s no Rossiter in Heriot Row,’ he said. ‘Are you taking a lend o’ me, lassie?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand,’ I began, feeling my face start to change colour. There was some tittering from behind me.
‘Get yourself round to the left luggage and pay your tuppence,’ said the man with the pencil. ‘This is the maids’ store.’
‘I am a maid,’ I told him. ‘I’m starting today as a lady’s maid for Mrs Balfour of Heriot Row and my name is Rossiter.’ The struggle between wounded dignity and maid-like meekness was making my voice tremble.