Chapter Eight #2
Tessa looked in the mirror and blinked. She didn’t look like a scruffy hedgehog anymore; she looked like a . . . pixie? An elf? Tiny curls clustered around her head, framing her face in a way that was disconcertingly . . . pretty.
“Oh, Bragge, what have you done?” she whispered.
Bragge seemed pleased. “Luckily short hair is very much à la mode, m’lady. You look quite dashing.”
“Dashing?” Tessa echoed dolefully.
“Yes, very. Lady Gosforth will be delighted.”
Tessa sighed. “Thank you, Bragge.”
#
THE NEXT MORNING TESSA went out job hunting again, a dowdy hat crammed over her head. She would never have cut her hair if she’d known it would make her look up-to-the-minute-fashionable. She’d intended to look plain and unassuming.
She left by the kitchen door, taking Billy with her. She didn’t want to leave him alone all day, and he was used to the streets. Besides he was good company.
She was visiting the agencies lower down Peverill’s list, this time with higher hopes. But even though she now had a better story to tell, and a glowing reference from herself as Lady Holgrave to present, things went, if anything, even worse than the day before.
In the first interview, after waiting for forty minutes, the two women in charge took one look at her and dismissed her, saying, “We are an exclusive agency, Miss Blaxland,”—she’d decided to use her maiden name—“and our clientele is very select. You are not suited to our needs.” They didn’t even want to see her character reference. Even though it was from a baroness.
The final straw came when she’d stepped into the manager’s office of second last agency on her list. She’d had to wait over an hour to be interviewed but when she was finally admitted to the interviewer’s office she was made to wait again.
The well-dressed woman behind the big desk didn’t even look up when Tessa entered.
She wrote in a ledger, checked a file, took a sip of the tea at her elbow and grimaced, muttering, “Cold,” before she even looked up to see Tessa standing there.
Her eyes swept Tessa from head to foot. “Yes?” she said in an arctic voice.
Tessa explained that she was recently widowed and was looking for a position, perhaps as a companion or some such.
She offered the woman her reference, but the woman ignored it.
She looked Tessa up and down again, then gave a scornful snort.
“Covent Garden fare, that’s what you are, missy,” she said, dropping her faux genteel accent.
“Go on, get out of here. We’re a respectable agency, we are, and we don’t want nothing to do with the likes of you and your kind. ”
“Covent Garden fare?” she’d repeated. “I don’t understand.”
The woman explained in one pithy, brutal sentence, adding that with a face like hers it wouldn’t be long before some rich gentleman would snap her up and she could then earn her living on her back. As she was no doubt used to.
Her cheeks burning, Tessa turned to walk from the room with as much dignity as she could manage. At the door she stopped, her temper rising.
Now she understood why so many agencies had stressed their respectability as they curtly dismissed her: they thought her some kind of courtesan. Or worse.
It was mortifying, not only for the undeserved slur on her character, but because Edgar had implied much the same fate awaited her if she refused to marry Sir Henry Lester. And she’d had enough of it!
She turned back and marched toward the desk.
“As a lady I would not deign to acknowledge such a nasty, vulgar and unjustified slight, but then I’m not a lady, am I?
According to you I’m Covent Garden fare.
In which case—” She picked up the scummy cup of cold tea and threw it over the woman who let out squawks of indignation.
Feeling much better Tessa stalked from the room, but the minute she was back outside, even Billy’s joyous welcome failed to cheer her up. A momentary rebellion, but a pointless result. She was still no closer to finding employment.
Disheartened, she trudged slowly back to Alverleigh House. As she entered the house again by the kitchen entrance, Peverill said, “Lady Gosforth asked to speak with you as soon as you came in, m’lady. She’s in the small sitting room.”
Tessa sighed and, deciding to get it over with, went straight to the small sitting room, leaving Billy to coax a treat out of Cook. There she found Lady Gosforth knitting some small, delicate white garment. The sight surprised her, but she wasn’t going to ask.
The old lady looked up, set her knitting down and eyed Tessa through her lorgnette. “I see today’s efforts have been as successful as yesterday’s,” she said sarcastically.
Tessa shrugged. “These things take time.”
“I wouldn’t know.” She picked up her knitting and resumed it. “But it’s clearly not as easy as you imagined. I suppose next you’ll be advertising yourself in a newspaper.”
“Oh. Good idea,” Tessa said. “Thank you for the suggestion.”
The finely plucked eyebrows flew up. The gnarled old fingers didn’t stop knitting. “It was not a suggestion. Women of our class do not advertise themselves in newspapers.”
“Perhaps they don’t. But then, I’m no longer of your class, am I? I will soon be some kind of servant.”
“Pshaw! Ridiculous. Blood is blood, and though your father and elder brother were a disgrace, their ancestry was distinguished and your mother was a lady from an excellent family.”
“Nevertheless, needs must,” Tessa said and left the room. She found Peverill and asked him for some recent newspapers.
“Newspapers, m’lady? For what purpose?”
“To read, of course.” Tessa wasn’t going to tell him her purpose. He was sure to disapprove as much as Lady Gosforth.
She took the newspapers up to her room and examined the advertisements, first to see if anyone was advertising a position that might suit her and, if there was nothing, to draft one advertising herself as a companion.
But to her delight, she found a notice requiring the services of ‘a genteel female to act as a companion to an elderly lady.’ It was in Yorkshire, which would be perfect.
She knew nobody in Yorkshire and hoped nobody there would know of her background.
She wrote a letter of application, describing herself as a widowed lady, sealed and addressed it.
Then sat staring at it. How to post it? It cost money to send letters, and she had not a bean to her name. In any case, she’d always had a husband or Edgar frank her letters to NannyJune. Dare she ask Lord Alverleigh to frank this for her?
#
THE FOLLOWING MORNING at breakfast, Lady Gosforth almost made Tessa choke on her tea when, out of the blue, she said, “My nephew claims he proposed marriage to you.”
“Yes, that’s correct.” Tessa hid a smile, recalling the fleeting look of shock in his eyes when he realized what he’d done.
The old lady raised her lorgnette. “He says you refused?”
“I did.” She served herself a small portion of scrambled egg and added two spoons of grilled mushrooms. She liked mushrooms. She often used to collect them at Ferndale—she knew just which ones were good—and she and NannyJune would have them on toast for their supper.
“Hmm.” After a moment’s narrow-eyed contemplation, Lady Gosforth asked, “Why?”
“That’s my business.” Tessa took a mouthful of egg.
“A trifle reckless, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t think so.”
The old lady pursed her lips at the implication. “So, you haven’t had any second thoughts about refusing him?”
“Not one.” It was true too, Tessa thought. He’d done quite enough for her. Even if she wanted to marry again—which she emphatically did not—marriage to her would ruin him.
“Most young woman would snap him up.”
“These mushrooms are very good,” Tessa said. Would the old lady never leave the subject alone? Did she believe Tessa was playing some convoluted game of hard-to-get? Nothing could be further from the truth.
There was a short pause, then the old lady said, “I know my nephew is cold and unapproachable—”
“Cold and unapproachable?” Tessa echoed. “Clearly you don’t know him very well. I have always found him both kind and thoughtful.” She returned to her breakfast.
Lady Gosforth raised her lorgnette again and stared at her through it for a long time. Tessa affected not to notice. Having finished her eggs and mushrooms, she spread marmalade on a piece of toast, then cut it into triangles. She would not let the old lady discompose her.
Eventually the lorgnette was lowered. “Be that as it may, prepare yourself for receiving morning calls this afternoon. Visitors will start arriving at about two.”
“Morning calls?” Tessa looked up from her plate in surprise. “I won’t be making morning calls.”
“No of course not—you will be receiving them, with me.”
“But I told you I had no intention of mixing in society.”
Lady Gosforth eyed her down her long Roman nose. “You are a guest in this house, are you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then you will sit with me in my drawing room and meet my guests.”
“But—”
The old lady raised her lorgnette. “You wish to become a lady’s companion, do you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then you will need to meet ladies, and they will need to meet you. Which you will do here, under my eye. Bad enough that you vulgarly registered yourself at employment agencies,” she said acidly. “We’ll have no more of that nonsense!”
Peverill must have told her, Tessa thought. “I have applied for a position in Yorkshire. As a companion to an old lady.” It wasn’t quite true — she hadn’t yet seen Lord Alverleigh to ask for a frank.
The old lady stamped her foot. “You will do no such thing! Who is this so-called old lady? A complete stranger? A person who advertises in a newspaper? Faugh! You know nothing about her—or him: it might not even be a lady. No, it’s not to be thought of.”
Tessa said nothing.
“You wish to be employed by the better class of lady, don’t you?”
“I don’t really care,” Tessa said honestly. “It’s not as if I have much choice, after all.”