Chapter 12 #2
Color tinges her mother’s cheeks as she explains that the modiste had had a dozen yards of Russian flame silk on hand and very few of the blossom.
“She had already promised it to another, but she was open to persuasion. She did not mention a specific amount, but I knew it would be too dear and, really, the Russian flame is lovely. I am sure Jane is being unduly harsh in her judgment. The only shade that does not flatter her is cabbage green, and I would never buy her a shawl in cabbage green, no matter how many yards of it Madame Valenaire wishes to remove from her shelves.”
Gleefully, Miss Nutting announces that she gave the detestable shawl to her maid and then grins at her mother triumphantly. “Not much of a bargain now, is it?”
Mrs. Nutting turns purple and drops her glass to the table with a hard thud.
Brandy splashes over the side. “You stupid girl! You ignorant chit! If you had any idea of the contortions and compromises your father and I have to make to provide you with all the advantages you enjoy, you would not be so pleased with yourself. We are one step ahead of the creditors, and yet you have the audacity to stand before me with a smile on your face and brag about treating hard-won extravagances like rubbish.”
The speech has the desired effect, and the girl shrinks back in horror. “Wh-wh-what…do you…you m-mean…we are one st-st-step…ahead of the…the…cr-creditors?” she asks, her face devoid of color. “Are we poor?”
Offering no reassurances, her mother marches across the room, opens the door, and demands to see Hester. “Right now, this instant!”
The startled footman rushes off to do her bidding, while Miss Nutting sinks into the sofa cushions and begins to cry in earnest. As devastated as she is by Mr. Keast’s death, she is utterly ravaged by the prospect of her own indigence.
Mrs. Nutting, standing in the entrance to the room, alternates her glare between her daughter and the empty corridor.
She taps her foot impatiently as she waits.
Finally, Hester appears.
Only two minutes have passed since Mrs. Nutting issued the order, but she acts as though she has been waiting an age and chastises the maid on taking her own good time.
Dropping into a curtsy, the maid murmurs, “I am sorry, ma’am.”
“Come in, come in, do not stand on the threshold! Step inside already so I may close the door!” Mrs. Nutting says in harsh rebuke. “I do not wish for the entire house to know my private affairs.”
Hester apologizes again.
“It is about the shawl,” Mrs. Nutting announces.
The maid, needing no further explanation—perhaps not even needing this explanation—says she knows.
Her employer does not like the response. “You know? You know? And yet you accepted an extremely expensive present from my daughter as though you did not know.”
“That is not true, ma’am,” Hester says calmly. “I tried to refuse.”
Snickering, Mrs. Nutting mocks the servant in her own words. “You tried to refuse? You tried to refuse? Clearly, you did not try very hard.”
Her contempt is scathing, and yet the maid retains her composure.
I am agog at her ability to remain matter-of-fact in the face of the onslaught and can only assume the experience is not unique.
The staff must be subjected to cross reprimands at regular intervals.
(If there is one advantage of working for Vera Hyde-Clare, it is that she is too intimidated by the servants to offer anything but the mildest critique.
I wonder if we need to have all three sconces in the drawing room lit at the same time, Dawson.)
“Miss Nutting was insistent, and I did not want to give offense, so I accepted the shawl with gratitude,” Hester adds in the same mild tone. She attempts to explain further but is forestalled by her employer’s exultant cry.
“Aha!” Mrs. Nutting says again, as though everything she has ever known has been confirmed. “You accepted an extremely expensive present from my daughter as an act of kindness to her. You are a philanthropist. How convenient!”
The maid, continuing as though the interruption had not occurred, reveals that she gave the shawl to Mrs. Todd—because it was so inappropriate.
Mrs. Nutting’s gasp in response to this news is comical.
Having barely finished describing Hester as “devious,” she has already begun to call her “cunning” when she realizes the insult is inaccurate and all but trips over her tongue as she rushes to swallow the rest of the word.
Blankly, she repeats the name: “Mrs. Todd?”
“Mrs. Todd,” the maid replies.
“You gave the shawl to the housekeeper?” Mrs. Nutting says with a doubtful look. “If you gave it to Mrs. Todd, then why did she not mention it to me?”
Hester does not know.
Although that is the correct response to the query, for it is not the servant’s place to speculate as to the thoughts and actions of her superior, Mrs. Nutting looks more annoyed than ever and marches back to the doorway to demand the housekeeper’s presence.
Mrs. Todd enters the room with daunting swiftness, an indication that she and the rest of the staff had gathered in the corridor to eavesdrop.
This supposition is confirmed a minute later, when she provides a comprehensive answer to Mrs. Nutting’s initial question, explaining that she gave the shawl to the butler.
“It was sometime in early May. I cannot recall the exact date off the top of my head, but I recorded it in my diary. I am happy to check it if you wish.”
Robbed of the opportunity to impugn the housekeeper’s integrity, Mrs. Nutting assails her logic.
“I must take issue with your ability to think rationally, Mrs. Todd, if it did not immediately occur to you to bring the extremely expensive present to me. I am the girl’s mother and as such the true owner of the shawl. It is mine! It belongs to me!”
“I was respecting Mr. Hewitt’s authority, as he is my superior.
Per the chain of command among the servants, the female staff report to me, and I report to the butler.
Whenever a matter of a delicate nature arises, I pass it along for him to resolve.
I would never think to undermine his authority by going around his back to you, ma’am,” Mrs. Todd replies flatly, her dislike of the household’s hierarchical arrangement readily apparent in her tone despite its lack of inflection.
Outmaneuvered, Mrs. Nutting emits a loud sigh.
She cannot very well turn around and tell Mrs. Todd that she could in fact undermine the butler. Reversing course on her own rules would create havoc belowstairs.
Consequently, she casts a baleful glance at her daughter for putting her in the abominable position and calls for the butler, who appears before she has even finished saying his name.
Having decided not to keep up the pretense of discretion, Mr. Hewitt announces that he gave the shawl to Mr. Nutting, a stunning admission that causes her face to go through a series of contortions.
All that raging at the servants, and her husband was the culprit the whole time!
Mrs. Nutting thanks them all for handling the matter appropriately but does not offer Hester an apology for assuming the worst. She just sends the maid back to her duties, instructs the housekeeper to bring a fresh pot of tea, and asks the butler to inform Mr. Nutting his presence is needed in the drawing room.
When all three are gone, she lowers herself onto the chair and orders her daughter to stop crying.
“We are not poor, you vindictive ninny. We are straitened, which I will beg you to remember the next time you want to give away an extremely expensive shawl in a fit of spite. And you will abide by my judgment. When I tell you Russian flame flatters your complexion, that is because Russian flame flatters your complexion. With your coloring, blossom would have made you look like a flamingo. I am glad Madame Valenaire did not have enough in stock, because it spared me an argument.”
Chastened, Miss Nutting manages only a soggy, “Yes, Mama.”
“Good,” her mother says. “And I will not hear another word about the steward.”
Arriving less than a minute later, Mr. Nutting greets me warmly as he enters the room, and Mrs. Nutting visibly starts at the reminder of my presence.
In the fracas over the shawl, she had forgotten I was there, and she looks at me now with horror at the scene I witnessed, which is the correct reaction.
I should not have been allowed to watch her increasing confusion as she interrogated her staff.
Mr. Nutting steps to the right, and taking note of his daughter’s desolation, thanks me for my willingness to help comfort the girl.
“Her fond mama cannot do it all on her own, as it gets rather fatiguing after a while. I did a spell this morning over breakfast and had to retreat to my study after ten minutes,” he says with a broad smile that lets us know he is only teasing.
Then he turns on his heels again and apologizes for disturbing our coze.
“I shall get out of your way and allow you lovely ladies to get back to your conversation. Good day, Miss Hyde-Clare. Please remember me to your parents.”
The expression on Mrs. Nutting’s face as she watches him walk toward the door is tragic.
She cannot allow him to leave without holding him to account for the shawl debacle, but she cannot allow him to stay and answer for the shawl debacle, at least not while I remain.
First, she must get me to leave, for I have already seen too much.
And then she remembers why I have seen so much.
With narrowed eyes, she accuses me of displaying an inordinate amount of interest in her daughter’s Russian flame shawl from Madame Valenaire, and I am compelled to remind her that I asked about the modiste’s shawls in general, not the Russian flame one in particular.