Chapter 9
MARIANNE
“Marianne!!” Juliet called as she burst out of the carriage and ran towards her. Marianne opened her arms and received her friend, holding her close.
“You are here!” she said. “I cannot believe it, you are here.” She looked at her friend, who had not changed at all over the last few months. She still wore the same gray dress she always wore at the convent, the same simple leather shoes.
Marianne suddenly felt awfully overdressed, even though she had made sure to wear one of her simpler gowns.
“Goodness, this is your home. It is a palace. It is a true palace.”
Juliet gazed around, her eyes wide with wonder.
“It is not my home,” Marianne said. “It is, as I wrote to you, only temporary. I shall soon vacate the place. The two of us shall explore the country and then the continent, and then perhaps the whole world. We will be free, and we will be explorers, Juliet,” she said, still holding onto Juliet’s hands.
“Whatever we wish to do, we shall do it,” replied Juliet, squeezing Marianne’s hands with gratitude. “We shall go anywhere you wish to go. But if you wish to remain at this place for the rest of your life, I shall gladly be at your side. Though I warn you, I shall be the most hopeless lady’s maid.”
“And I am the most hopeless countess. The most hopeless stand-in mother,” Marianne said.
“Mother? Are you meant to be the boy’s mother after all? I thought it most peculiar when you wrote to me about your arrangement with the Earl. Has he married you without any expectation that you should mother his child?”
“He did. But I am finding it more and more difficult. I have been here now for four days, and the child is ever-present. We do not take breakfast together, but he dines with us, and he wishes to converse with me and tell me about his day, and I do not know what to say. It is the most uncomfortable thing. I have taken to dining in my chambers for the last two nights, claiming I have a migraine.”
“Marianne, you cannot continue this. You must make an effort. What does... what is his name? Lucien?”
“Yes. But when you talk to him, you must address him as ‘my lord’ or ‘Lord Wexford.’”
“I know. I am not entirely without social graces, my dear. Now, can I see my chamber? Can we talk while you show me the way?”
Marianne linked her arm under Juliet’s while one of the footmen took down the plain, rather beaten-up portmanteau that she had come with.
“We shall go together and order you some dresses. You will need something to wear about the house, and then for when we go promenading, and then for when I have to attend balls—”
“We will attend balls?” Juliet said, eyes sparkling with excitement.
“Well, I will. Most of the ladies’ maids go to one of the retiring chambers and wait.”
“I see,” she said. “That is perfectly fine. I imagine they shall have some refreshments available while we wait in the retiring chamber—something better than what we had at the convent.”
“I am certain,” Marianne said, although she felt a little awkward now. Back at the convent, they had been equals; here, they would not be. How did Juliet truly feel about being beneath her station now? Perhaps this had been a mistake.
“...Poor girl, she will have a baby any day now.”
She blinked and looked at Juliet. She had been speaking of Anna, no doubt.
“She must have been dreadfully sad to see me leave.”
“She was. But two new girls have arrived since then in a similar state, and I think she shall have all the company she can manage. Sister Bernadette was very sad to see me leave, however. She even cried. I never thought I would see the day.”
“Sister Bernadette,” Marianne said, stopping to look at her friend. “She cried? I did not think she could.”
“I know it. I stood there like a statue as she embraced me, and genuine tears rolled down her cheeks. I have never seen such a thing. I did not know how to react.”
“Goodness. Miracles do happen,” Marianne said.
The two entered the house through the grand front entrance, and it was not until they were in the hall that it occurred to Marianne that they should probably have gone around the back—the servants’ entrance.
However, Juliet was more than a servant.
She was her friend. She would not treat her as less than, because she did not think of her as less than.
They were making their way up the front staircase when Juliet stopped.
“Am I not to use the servants’ stairs?”
Marianne paused. She had not been aware that Juliet would even know there was such a thing as servants’ stairs.
“I have lived at the convent for more than twenty years. I have met many fine ladies in unfortunate circumstances. I do listen when people speak,” Juliet told her reproachfully.
“Also, Sister Bernadette told me all about etiquette. She and the Mother Superior knew quite a bit about it, and Sister Mary Agnes as well. I am well aware that as a lady’s maid I am supposed to be invisible—walking up and down the back staircase so that none shall see me. ”
“It is not like that. Lucien will not mind.”
“But I do mind,” Juliet said firmly. “You brought me out of the convent to be a proper lady’s maid, with promises of seeing the continent and even the world.
I shall be content with whatever staircase you wish to take me up and down, and please do not look so frightfully worried. I am well aware of my place.”
Marianne breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. I was concerned. I do not want you to feel as though you are beneath me in station.”
“Oh, but I am. I always was, even at the convent. Please, Marianne, I know my place. I am the bastard daughter of nobody. I am grateful for this position.”
The two continued up the stairs and then stopped in front of the servants’ quarters located below the attic.
“Sister Bernadette told me that the servants are usually below stairs.”
“They are,” she said. “In many of the grand country estates, they are. But the valet and ladies’ maids and housekeeper, as well as the butler, all have their quarters upstairs because.
..” She shrugged. “I do not know why. But it has always been that way. I do not know which one is yours,” she said and paused.
“You see, I am a hopeless countess. I do not even know who stays in which chamber.”
“I can help you with that,” Mrs. Greaves said and walked down the stairs, the keys clinking on her chatelaine as she came down the hall. “You must be Juliet. What is your family name?”
Juliet paused. “I have not got one,” she said. “You see, I was born in a convent. I do not know who my father was, and my mother left long ago, so I never did receive one. But one of the nuns suggested I should choose ‘Summers,’ because I was born in summer.”
Mrs. Greaves blinked and looked from Juliet to Marianne and back again, apparently unaccustomed to such forthright speech.
“Miss Summers, then. Very well. Your chamber will be the second door on the right, my lady. I can show your maid to her chamber now. You need not concern yourself with it.”
Marianne blinked. She had envisioned spending the afternoon sitting on Juliet’s bed talking, but she realized that perhaps that was not to be.
“It is quite all right,” Juliet said. “I am rather fatigued. I would like to unpack my portmanteau, though—all five items contained within—and rest a little, if that is all right.”
“Of course,” she said. “I shall see you this evening. I can take you for a walk in the garden and show you the grounds.”
“I should like that,” Juliet said, giving her a small smile before going into the room designated as hers.
The housekeeper turned and smiled at Marianne.
“You need not worry. I shall take very good care of your friend. I know she is your friend, but you do have to keep in mind that you are a countess now. If you are seen being quite as friendly with Miss Summers as you have been just now, people will talk.”
“I do not care if they talk,” Marianne said. “Besides, His Lordship was rather particular in his friendship with you as a housekeeper, and I am certain people talked about you sitting in the second row at our wedding.”
The woman gasped and curtsied. “I beg your pardon. I forgot my place.”
With that, she made her way into Juliet’s chamber, and Marianne walked back down the stairs. This was not her world. This attic space belonged to the servants. Juliet belonged to the servants. She belonged—nowhere really.
She felt so far removed from high society, from the lady she was meant to be. And yet that is what she was. She had been born an Earl’s daughter, and she was now an Earl’s wife. The next six months would be far more difficult than she ever thought possible.
By the time she had arrived on the ground floor again, the pitter-patter of feet running across the marble floor could be heard.
“Henry! Master Henry!” the governess called just as Henry came flying around the corner.
“Henry,” she called, unsure of what else she was going to say. Was she to chastise him for running away from his governess? To stop him so she could catch up with him? She was entirely uncertain.
“Marianne!” he said. “Marianne, look!” He opened his hand to reveal a number of dirty rocks.
“Oh,” she said, and took a step back, not wanting to get dirt on her gown. She did not want Juliet’s first task as a lady’s maid to be cleaning one of her dirt-stained gowns.
“Gemstones!” he said.
“They are not gemstones, little master,” the governess said. “They are simple garden rocks.”
“Not if I paint them,” he said, and then looked up at Marianne again. “Do you know I can paint them with different colors, and they will shine like gold and silver, so they will be gemstones?”
They would still simply be stones with paint, she wanted to say, but knew that was probably not the right thing to say to a little boy.
“I am sure they will be very pretty,” she said.
“Yes! Will you help me paint them?” he asked.
She straightened, shoulders back. Paint rocks with a child? Was that what was expected of her now?
“I... I suppose so.”