Chapter 14
Etta gazed out of the carriage’s thin glass window and shivered in the cold air. She shot her somewhat anxious-looking mother a reassuring smile and returned to her thoughts, carefully fingering her golden bracelet.
It had been a very strange few weeks, but Etta was sticking with her ‘holiday’ for now.
It was still better than Dave and his bloody mushrooms – and she didn’t miss her phone at all.
Endless doom-scrolling on Instagram watching all the friends she’d grown apart from nursing their babies and going to NCT classes? No, thanks.
Bessie sat next to her now, crocheting something or other; her mother was lightly snoring across from them. They’d been travelling for hours by now and Etta was bored as hell.
‘Bessie, tell me about yourself. Where do you come from? How did you get to be my maid?’
‘Pa won on the races, miss. Won big, he did. First and last time, mind. Managed to persuade him to send me off to Miss Wimslow’s Academy for Household Staff, never looked back.
’ Bessie paused. ‘Well, I look back enough to send the old man the odd bob or two now and then of course. Reckon I’ve paid him back a few times over by now. ’
‘And you got a job dealing with me, then? What on earth made you stay?’
‘I don’t mind looking after you, miss. You’re no trouble.’
Etta winced, remembering her first major encounter with a chamber pot. As horrifying as the first had been, the second had put any and all dignity fully to rest.
It was hard, Etta thought, to be too formal around someone who’d seen you half-naked and covered in your own body fluids and who had immediately gone to your aid in the most kind and understanding way. They had laughed, they had cried, and then Bessie had told her about James the second footman.
‘Do you reckon you’ll stick around, if your bloke pops the question?’
Bessie snorted. ‘Reckon I’ll be too rich on his exorbitant earnings to bother working, do you? I earn more than he does, miss.’
Lady Bainbridge snorted, shifting in her seat, and a sharp look from Bessie told Etta their tête-à-tête was at an end. Etta had almost forgotten that Ladies Do Not take an interest in servants’ private lives – at least, not in front of other ladies.
‘Ladies Do Not’ seemed to precede a great many statements from her mother. Etta’s list of Things Ladies Do Not Do grew longer and longer by the day. Ladies Did Not:
Pull an appalled face when presented with a cod’s head for supper
Comment negatively, or indeed at all, on digestive issues
Hike up their skirts to above their ankles when going up or down staircases
Go downstairs before their hair was arranged, even when the hairdresser was expected
Disregard their mother’s opinion on hairstyles of the day
Swear profusely when pricking themselves with a needle
Sew their own sets of underwear at the tea table, even if they considered their own designs superior
Sleep during church services and then provide feedback to the vicar afterwards, however constructive it may be
What ladies did do, apparently, was traipse around outside putting flowers in baskets and looking pretty.
Her mother seemed determined to get her to smear various dubious-looking lotions and potions on her face to ‘cure’ her freckles, but Etta was having none of it.
GCSE History had taught her quite enough about Ye Olde Lead Poisoning – and her freckles, along with her eyes, were almost the only thing to add any colour to her face.
As she told her mother, she had never seen anyone with freckles like hers.
Lady Bainbridge, knowing a lost cause when she saw one, sighed and reluctantly agreed.
Etta wiped away some of the condensation clouding her window and peered through at the darkening sky outside.
The carriage was beginning to slow. She refocused her eyes and saw they were drawing into a courtyard surrounded by stables.
Thank god. She longed to stretch her legs and eat something – preferably something not from the digestive tract of any animal. Nothing with eyeballs either.
As she was helped down from the carriage by a very earnest-looking young man in what she had come, over the course of her journey, to recognise as ‘ordinary person clothes’, she could hear music and singing coming from the very large pub-slash-hotel.
It sounded drunken and fun, which meant she probably wouldn’t be allowed to have anything to do with it.
She mentally shook herself, physically shook her skirts, and followed her mother, who was being led through the dark to a door of the building far away from the fun.
They were exhausted as they followed the servant down a well-lit and nicely decorated corridor towards what Etta was assured would be an excellent supper immediately followed by bed.
Lady Bainbridge, however, could not have been as tired as she looked because as they approached an open door and saw a small group eating their own dinner she froze immediately, whipping around to face Etta.
Her face was a mask of horror, but it was far too late for whatever she had to say.
‘Lady Bainbridge! Well, what a delightful situation! Why, I need not ask what brings you here!’
A well-built woman enthusiastically greeted her mother before turning a somewhat unnerving, critical eye on Etta. ‘Goodness me, could this be Hetty? Why, how changed you are, for sure! I am your mother’s old friend, Lady Best.’
Etta’s mother seemed to tremble at this description, but replied in a pleasant voice.
‘Yes, Henrietta is joining me in London for her first Season. Better late than never, I feel!’
‘Better late than not at all, I think,’ said Lady Best, openly assessing Etta.
Etta turned her chin up and said nothing, smiling in what she hoped was a mildly polite manner. She didn’t like the way Lady Best looked at her, like she was a distasteful museum exhibit.
A brunette about Etta’s own age – perhaps slightly older – joined Lady Best. She peered timidly around the door frame at Etta.
‘Do let me introduce my daughter. Like you, she too will be enjoying the Season. Clarissa, this is Lady Bainbridge and her daughter Henrietta.’
Clarissa Best smiled, seemingly inclined to be friendlier than Lady Best. She was short, plump, with warm brown eyes. Etta held out her hand, and then wondered too late whether this was how ladies greeted one another in 1817.
Luckily she was not too far off. Clarissa briefly took her hand, then bowed slightly. Etta quickly dipped back at her, about half a second too late.
‘It is lovely to meet you, Miss Bainbridge. You must call me Clarissa.’
Etta blinked. She had honestly not considered any other option until this moment, but she knew there were far more rules than her mother had been able to fill her in on in the last week.
‘Yes, please call me Etta. Henrietta. Or Etta. Whichever you prefer. Henrietta, probably.’
Her mother shot her a barbed glance, but thankfully Clarissa just laughed. Her laugh was tinkling and elegant, Etta thought, but she found herself unable to be annoyed. The girl in front of her seemed genuine. Etta liked her at once.
Lady Best cut in before Clarissa could reply. ‘Well, Clarissa, let us leave Lady Bainbridge and her daughter to their supper. We must call on you when we’re in town – after all, we are practically neighbours.’
Etta reflected on this exchange over her beef bourguignon. She hadn’t even made it to London yet, but at least there would be one friendly face – albeit perhaps not one her mother wholly approved of. She was sure that, in time, she’d find out why not.
The city came on slowly, Etta thought the following day as they embarked on the last leg of what was the longest, most interminable journey she’d ever suffered through – more slowly than it had in 2023.
At first, she thought she was entering a small town as she gazed through the carriage windows.
But then the streets became increasingly crowded, and she saw the distant but unmistakable shapes of St Paul’s and Westminster Palace.
Of course, there was no Shard or Gherkin or even the London Eye. No Tate Modern or BT Tower. But London was London, she realised. Even two hundred years in the past, full of horses and stinking of their excrement, it was still somehow the same.
Oh, there was dirt and deprivation. But London had dirt and deprivation in 2023 as well, albeit from cars rather than animals.
The only real difference was the colour of everyone’s skin; she had never seen so many white faces.
Out in the Bainbridges’ large country estate she hadn’t really thought about it, but London without its visible multiculturalism was nauseating.
It was one thing to see people in period clothing, she thought, but the thin, short, pale bodies were somehow much more jarring.
‘Everybody looks the same here,’ said Etta.
Lady Bainbridge looked at her quizzically. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘Never mind, Mama. Never mind. I’m sure there are all kinds of people in London, of course,’ Etta backpedalled, seeing she’d put her foot in it. She belatedly remembered that no Londoners ever liked being told London wasn’t the best city in the world, regardless of what century it was.
‘Oh yes, people of all kinds reside in London. You know, the Bests even have a footman from the colonies! Think of that!’
‘Which colonies?’
Lady Bainbridge paused. ‘Goodness, you know, I’m not sure. We shall have to ask.’
The carriage came to a stop. As Etta was helped down from the carriage in her wildly impractical muslin maxi dress, wrinkling her nose at the stench of horse shit and body odour, she gazed up at an enormous cream stone building.
It was, she thought, the kind of building she used to look at on Rightmove and dream about.
In 2023, it would be owned by a Russian oligarch.
She was almost certain of it. Or a Saudi prince.
But in 1817, it belonged to her.
Or, no, her brother Charlie. Because of primogeniture and anyway she, a woman, couldn’t exactly just nip to the local estate agent. She pulled at her suddenly too-tight bonnet strings.
One of the coachmen/horse-type people had already knocked on the front door and a staid-looking man who had very much come out of the ‘Butlers R Us’ catalogue was standing by it ready to usher them in.
Footmen appeared and began to unload the carriage and her mother stepped forward to greet the elderly retainer in charge of them.
‘Good afternoon, Monsett. Do come, Henrietta. I expect there is a nuncheon waiting for us.’
Etta sighed and followed her mother. She very much hoped that a nuncheon was similar to a luncheon, because yet again she was extremely hungry.
Perhaps she would try inventing the sandwich again.
Last time her mother had been appalled to see her create one, never mind eat it, but Etta was nothing if not optimistic.
‘What ho! Looking pretty smart there, Hetty!’
Charlie had appeared at the door, hat in hand.
‘And you, I must admit,’ Etta said, looking at his outfit. ‘Off to a funeral, are we?’
He looked down at his black coat and breeches and then back up at her, puzzled.
‘Oh, this old thing? Bang up to the nines, isn’t it? Max doesn’t like it either, mind.’
Etta perked up. ‘Have you seen him, then?’
‘Seeing him now, old girl,’ Charlie said, planting his hat firmly on his head. ‘Off to my club. Toodleoo!’
Ah, Max. She’d been looking forward to seeing him. She had enjoyed some extremely X-rated, frustrating dreams about him. X-rated enough that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to face him without blushing.
Thank goodness for the lovely notebook Hetty had left her – without it, she might have forgotten them.