Lucy (2 page)

Lucy reflected with some irritation that older people always seemed to ask the most unnecessary questions, but she bobbed a curtsy and answered, politely, that she was picking brambles for jam. “How jolly,” he remarked lazily, sitting down on an outcrop of rock near the bush and crossing one muscular leg over the other. He drew out a gold cigarette case, snapped it open so that the pale gold flashed in the sunlight, selected a cigarette, and then settled back to enjoy a peaceful smoke, his blue eyes gazing tranquilly over the scenery spread out below them.

Lucy realized that her mouth was hanging open and shut it and then stood irresolutely wondering if she should wait until she was dismissed.

One blue eye slid around to survey her. “Don’t let me keep you from your work,” said the stranger carelessly and then resumed his study of the landscape.

Lucy felt strangely piqued. “I have finished,” she said defiantly, leaning forward to pick up the heavy pails.

The sun shone on her long, glossy black hair, making it seem to dance with purple lights. Lucy straightened up and turned and looked straight at the stranger for the first time.

He saw before him a classic Celtic beauty: hair like midnight, clear light-green eyes—green as fairy grass and ringed with heavy black lashes—in a small elfin face. Her skin was so white and fine that it looked translucent. He said suddenly, “In the highlands, in the country places,/ Where the old plain men have rosy faces,/ And the young fair maidens/ Quiet eyes.”

“That’s pretty,” said Lucy. “Who wrote it?”

“One of your countrymen,” he replied lightly. “Robert Louis Stevenson.”

Lucy felt her nervousness receding. “Are you a foreigner?”

He laughed. “I suppose I am considered one in this neck of the woods. I’m English.”

“I didn’t mean that,” said Lucy, blushing. “It’s just—well—it’s just that I thought English people like you would have haw-hawy sort of voices.”

“Some of us do,” he said, grinning. “I know the sort of thing you mean. ‘Thet cawr parked in the gawrawge is meyine.’ “

Lucy giggled. “Something like that.”

He got lazily to his feet. “Let me help you with your pails. Do you live in the town?”

She nodded without replying. He bent and picked up the brimming pails and moved up the slope to where his hunter was tethered to a rowan tree. He neatly looped the reins over his arm and headed slowly down the hill toward Marysburgh, seeming unconcerned whether the girl followed him or not.

The sun was beginning to set behind the mountains, sending long red shafts burning across the loch and flaming over the autumn colors of the countryside. He stopped at a bend in the narrow winding road to wait for her. He was smiling at her as she came toward him and Lucy did not realize that she was looking at a picture that she was never, ever going to forget: the tall blond man standing at the bend of the road as a mischievous wind whipped down the mountain sending the scarlet and gold leaves whirling up around him and making his glossy horse stamp and whinny; the scarlet berries bending down the rowan trees with their weight; the purple of the heather blazing from mountainside to mountainside in the fiery dying rays of the sun; and the evening smells of pine and heather and crushed fruit mingling with the tarry, fishy West Highland smells rising from the sea loch below.

Then abruptly the sunlight was gone and they walked silently and amicably together toward the town. Lucy only began to wonder about the identity of her companion when they reached the outskirts of the town and she noticed several people stopping to stare at them.

“I live just here … Glebe Road,” said Lucy shyly, pointing to a tiny terraced house with a pocket-handkerchief garden. She felt suddenly ashamed of her modest home and then ashamed of herself for feeling that way. But the strict code of Scottish hospitality must be observed.

“Would you care to step into the house for some refreshment?” she said.

He shook his head. “I must get back to Castle Inver in time to change for dinner. What is your name?”

“Lucy, sir. Lucy Balfour.”

“Well, Lucy, thank you for a pleasant interlude. My name is Harvey, Andrew Harvey.” He put the pails down beside her and swung himself up onto his horse, raised his hand in a kind of mock salute, and galloped off down the road. She stood for some minutes staring after him.

Smells of fish and chips and hot dripping were emanating from the house and she suddenly realized she was hungry. She walked around the path to the back of the house and pushed open the kitchen door. The front door was only opened once a week on Sundays. On all other days, the kitchen door had to be used so as to leave the front step gleaming white under its pristine coat of pipe clay. To her surprise, her parents were seated on either side of the kitchen table with the whiskey bottle between them.

Lucy thought for the hundredth time how alike her parents looked. Lucy had been born when both were in their forties. Both had snow-white hair and wrinkled rosy faces, small twinkling eyes, and rather severe mouths. Both were thin and wiry and not given to speaking much on any subject whatsoever. But that night there was an almost festive air about them.

“Pull up a chair, Lucy, and have a dram,” said Mrs. Balfour, pouring out a generous measure of whiskey. “We’ve got great news for you.”

Lucy sat down and waited. To cry “What is it?” or to show any other sign of excitement would have been firmly repressed. She knew it must be something extraordinary for her parents to produce the carefully hoarded bottle of whiskey.

“Now drink that down like a good girl,” said Mrs. Balfour. “I went to see my lady this afternoon.” My lady was Mary, Countess of Marysburgh. “Her daughter, Lady Angela, is returning from her finishing school in Switzerland on Monday and
you
, Lucy Balfour, are to be Lady Angela’s personal maid!”

Lucy blinked in surprise. “Are you
sure
—Ma?” she faltered. “Are you sure she didn’t mean housemaid?”

“No,” said Mrs. Balfour, enjoying her triumph to the fullest. “Lady’s maid. That’s what you’ll be. That’s what I’ve dreamed of for you. It’s a tremendous honor.”

“Will I be able to live at home like you and Dad?” asked Lucy. Mr. and Mrs. Balfour were unusual in that they preferred to retain their independence by living “out.”

Mrs. Balfour shook her head. “No, lassie. You’ll bide up at the castle with the upper servants and you won’t even have to wear a uniform. Plain, simple clothes, mind you, but your own clothes. Now let’s go up to your room and I’ll show you what I’ve bought you.”

Lucy drained her glass and followed her mother’s small figure up the narrow uncarpeted stairs. Lying on her bed was one simple print dress for morning wear and a plain dark one to be worn in the afternoons and evenings. There were also two bolts of cloth, one of print and the other of dark wool. “You’ll need to get busy with your needle and make a few other dresses to the same pattern,” said her mother. “Now, what do you say? Wasn’t it worth paying Miss Johnstone sixpence for each of those French lessons?”

Lucy hugged her mother close with a rare demonstration of affection, for such weaknesses were not often encouraged in the Balfour household. “Oh, Ma, thank you for everything,” she cried. “Now I’ll be able to work hard and pay you back for all your trouble.”

“That you will, lassie,” said Mrs. Balfour, producing her trump card. “You’ll be earning £25 a year. Think of that!”

Lucy could hardly sleep that night for excitement. She would never dream of asking anything more out of life. No other girl in Marysburgh had ever risen to such heights, since most of the upper women servants at the castle came from England or France—a source of much bitterness and jealousy to the townspeople.

The picture of Andrew Harvey standing at the bend of the road came into her mind only to flee before the exciting thoughts of her new job. Men would probably have no place in her life … no place at all.

Lucy felt that she had been waiting all day. First she had had to rise at dawn and wait patiently until her mother had put her hair up for the first time, pinning it so tightly and severely that her head ached. Then she had had to wait for Mr. Hopkins and his grocery cart to take her on the long tradesman’s route to the castle. Then there was a two hour wait in the servants’ hall to be received by the countess.

And now she was seated in a hard chair in the countess’s bedroom, waiting for her ladyship to finish reading her mornings’ correspondence.

The castle was old, medieval, with walls nine feet thick, enclosing the inhabitants in a luxurious world of silence. The bedroom was lined with real lace over turquoise-blue. The toilet set on the dressing table was in turquoise and gold. Low cushionlike settees which furnished the room were in pale-blue brocades. The rest of the furniture was painted white, including the huge four-poster bed which was hung with white lace. Huge bunches of white chrysanthemums stood at attention in white vases.

The countess was dressed to match her surroundings in a tea gown of moiré crepe de chine with an overdress of the finest Bruges lace.

Despite the almost oppressive femininity of her room, the countess was a squat, masculine woman with a powerful jaw. Artificial flowers in blue and white were threaded through the countess’s dull brown hair and were pinned in profusion over the bosom of her dress, spoiling its elegant lines. She looked, as Mr. Oscar Wilde would have remarked, like a well-kept grave.

“So you’re the new maid,” she said at last, throwing aside her letters. “Come over here. Know needlework? French? Work hard? Good, good,” she went on, although Lucy had not had time to reply. “M’maid will show you the ropes. I hope you realize it’s a privilege to work for my daughter. She’s a beauty. Not like me, eh?” She let out a short bark of laughter and fell to studying Lucy again, putting one plump beringed finger into one cavernous nostril and picking it with relish.

Lucy lowered her eyes from the spectacle. Picking one’s nose was an unheard of social crime in the lower orders but Lady Mary seemed happily oblivious of any social misdemeanor. There was a polite scratching at the door and a faded and subdued lady’s maid entered. She was curtly introduced as Jones and told to take Lucy away and “instruct her.”

Miss Jones seemed to have worked with the overpowering personality of Lady Mary so long that she had lost any of her own. She instructed Lucy in a hurried whisper, always looking over her shoulder, twitching nervously at every sound.

To Lucy it seemed as if her duties were to be refreshingly simple. She was to be called at seven in the morning by an underhousemaid who would serve her tea and light her fire. In her turn she would have to clean the grate and lay the fire in the schoolroom, tidy, sweep, and dust it, and then go for breakfast in the servants’ hall which would be served to her by the underkitchenmaid. At eight o’clock Lucy would call Lady Angela with morning tea and gather up the clothes she had been wearing the night before. Then she would lay out her clothes for the day and prepare her bath. While Lady Angela was having breakfast, Lucy would busy herself in cleaning out the bedroom and lighting a fire in the schoolroom. The schoolroom was in fact an informal sitting room with easy chairs, bookshelves, games, and a piano. After that she would be expected to accompany Lady Angela everywhere and be at her beck and call. She would not accompany her to parties or dances—a suitable chaperon would be found for that—but she would be expected to wait up until Lady Angela returned. And to fill in her waiting hours, she would be expected to repair Lady Angela’s clothes and make her underlinen. Bolts of cloth had been imported from France, explained Miss Jones in a whisper, and she would be expected to make it up into pants, slips, petticoats, and vests.

She would take her meals in the servants’ hall but join the other upper servants in the Pug’s Parlor, a sitting room-cum-dining room used by the butler, head parlormaid, cook, housekeeper, valet, and ladies’ maids. No, Miss Jones could not explain why it was called the Pug’s Parlor. It had always been given that name as long as she could remember.

Lunch was a silent meal presided over by the butler, MacGregor, who sat at the head of the table. He was a tall, thin, elderly man with a cadaverous face, bushy eyebrows, and deep-set black eyes. His sparse hair was oiled and slicked down over his forehead and he wore the hardest and highest collar Lucy had ever seen. Neither Lucy’s mother nor father acknowledged her presence. But as she rose to leave the room with the other upper servants, she glanced back. Her mother’s face was alight with a fierce pride.

The Pug’s Parlor was small but cosy, crammed with elegant but shabby furniture which had found its way from the other parts of the castle. Coffee was poured and Lucy blinked as the formidable MacGregor produced a bottle of rare old cognac and a tray of goblets and proceeded to pour a generous measure all around.

He hitched his thumbs into his lapels and peered at Lucy from under the eaves of his bushy brows. “Well now, this is a real Highland beauty we have here, if effer I saw one.” He had a lilting Highland voice complete with the soft
s.
“Is” was pronounced “iss.”

Lucy was later to learn that MacGregor had made a meteoric rise from the slums of Glasgow. He had adopted a Highland accent when speaking to the other servants and a cupped Oxford accent when speaking to his masters. He did both remarkably well.

“You’ll be seeing my daughter tomorrow. She’s a beauty, not like me, eh?” MacGregor gave a short bark of laughter. Lucy stared and then began to giggle. The butler had just given an uncanny imitation of the countess’s voice. It was better than that. For that moment he had been the countess.

The other servants—with the exception of Miss Jones—began to relax and Lucy was introduced all around. Apart from Miss Jones and MacGregor, there was the cook, Mrs. Maclean, a thin wispy woman with a red face, the head parlormaid, a sallow Frenchwoman with snapping black eyes, the earl’s valet, Briggs, a taciturn Yorkshireman, and the English housekeeper, Mrs. Benson, a formidable and severe-looking woman. Given another butler at their head, Lucy judged that they would not be so friendly. But there was a sort of mad charm about MacGregor with his imitations, his absurd jokes, and his lilting voice.