The Disgrace of Kitty Grey

Contents

 

 

 

 

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

 

What Happened Next

Some Historical Notes from the Author

Bibliography

Also by Mary Hooper

Chapter One

 

 

Suddenly nervous about why the two young ladies had asked to meet me in secret, I hurried through the kitchens, went up the servants' stairs and stood waiting in the hallway between the drawing room and the front parlour, just as Miss Sophia and Miss Alice had requested.

I checked my nails, smoothed down my pinafore and sniffed. I was not used to being right inside the house and the air seemed to close about me stiflingly; an
inside
sort of air, stuffy and tickling my nose, a mixture of the previous night's coal fires, the fibres of the thick wool carpets and the scent from the bowl of dried rose petals on the hall table.

I looked at my reflection in the glass of the nearest portrait and tucked a few wayward strands of hair under my cap. Lady Cecilia was known to be a stickler for cleanliness, especially in the dairy, and I couldn't help but be worried that there had been a complaint against me. But then surely Milady would have asked Mrs Bonny, the housekeeper, to tick me off, rather than delegate the reprimand to Miss Sophia and Miss Alice, who (not just from my own observances but according to kitchen gossip) had little else in their heads but handsome young gentlemen, ballgowns and supper dances.

I sniffed again and wished for them to hurry themselves so that I might learn my fate, whatever that was. I gazed down the hall; from where I was standing I could see right up to the double front doors one way and back the other to the little room (I had heard Lady Cecilia call it a
petit salon
) where she took tea at precisely four o'clock every afternoon. All along the walls of the passageway, placed at the same distance from each other, were portraits of the family. These were mostly gloomy-brown old things, starting with Lord Baysmith the Army Major, stuffed into tight red dress uniform outside the salon door, down to Miss Sophia and Miss Alice (lighter, brighter) in blue dresses with white sashes. Directly opposite the Misses was an oil portrait of their older brother, the present Lord Baysmith's son and heir, Peregrine, who was away at school.

I counted the portraits: fourteen in all, going back years and years and depicting all the notable Bridgeford Hall residents. There was, I knew, a much more recent portrait of the present Lord Baysmith with Lady Cecilia, dressed as if for a ball but, strangely, sitting under a tree on the estate with two enormous hunting dogs borrowed for the occasion. It had been painted, apparently, by someone very famous, and now hung over the fireplace in what they called the
grand salon
. I had only seen this painting a few times but I liked it very much, for in the background the sun could be seen glinting on the river, far away, and upon this river my sweetheart, Will, worked as a ferryman. The painting showed, faintly, a rowing boat with (I had convinced mysel
f
) a smudged representation of Will inside, his strong brown arms pulling at the oars.

I slipped into a little reverie, smiling to myself as I thought of Will. We had been walking out together secretly for some months now, and the time was coming when he must call on Mrs Bonny and Mr Griffin the butler with a request that we be allowed to see each other formally. This would mean that we could meet openly after church on a Sunday or, if the ferry business was quiet, stroll to the village on a summer's evening. After we had been granted permission and walked out together for several years, we might be able to wed, providing my family were in agreement and we had somewhere to live. I was hoping that he might speak to Mrs Bonny soon – and I'd dropped plenty of hints that he should – but he was very much a waterman by trade and by type (that is, he did not give a stick for convention). Moreover, I was slightly worried that, not being aware of social pitfalls, he might say the wrong thing at the wrong time and spoil our chances.

Miss Sophia and Miss Alice suddenly came through the drawing-room door, giggling together. Miss Sophia looked at me, put her finger to her mouth to indicate I should not speak, then said in a low voice, ‘Is there anyone around, Kitty?' (I should say here that although I was born Katherine, everyone in the house called me Kitty, as Katherine had been thought too much of a name for a milkmaid.)

I bobbed a curtsey. ‘No, miss. Everyone's about their duties.'

‘I don't mean servants! I mean family.'

I shook my head. ‘I haven't seen anyone.' How would
I
see anyone, I thought, unless they came into the dairy? ‘Your mother is still abed, I believe,' I added. I knew this because I'd passed through the kitchens and heard one of the upstairs maids complaining that she couldn't get into Milady's room to lay the fire and it was going to set her back for the entire day.

‘Because we've got something secret to do,' said Miss Sophia. ‘Something we want you to assist us with.'

I couldn't help but be surprised at this, for unless they wanted to know how to churn butter or separate the whey, there was surely nothing in the world that I knew which they didn't, what with their governesses and their riding master, their deportment lessons, their needlework and their art classes.

‘And you mustn't tell a soul about it!' Miss Alice said. ‘Unless you absolutely have to tell Mrs Bonny, that is.'

‘Nor would I, miss,' I said earnestly (but not truthfully, for I was already concocting a story for the servants' hall).

‘You know it is the first of May on Saturday . . .' began Miss Sophia.

I nodded, for of course every last servant in the hall had been talking about this date, their afternoon off, where they were going and what they would wear.

‘Well, our mother is hosting a musical evening with poetry and so on, and Alice and I want to do something rather special.' She began giggling again; she was a giddy goat, much worse than her sister.

‘Oh, honestly, Sophia!' Miss Alice frowned at her. ‘Kitty, it is this: we are planning to present to the assembled company what is called a
tableau vivant
.'

I recognised that these were foreign words, for they were uttered in the strange way that Milady said
petit salon
, but they meant absolutely nothing to me.

‘Silly! She won't understand that,' said Miss Sophia. ‘Kitty, it means . . . it's like a still life picture. Art come to life.' She looked around the hall and pointed to an oil painting of an ancient Baysmith aunt handing a basket of provisions to a poor family, all of whom were looking up at her with grateful eyes. ‘We could replicate this painting, for example: all dress up in costume and take a part.'

‘But we won't do that, because we want to be milkmaids!' said Miss Alice.

‘We'll be hidden behind screens, you see, frozen into graceful attitudes,' Sophia went on, adopting a pose like a ballerina, ‘and then when the music finishes the screens will be taken away and everyone will be
terribly
surprised and applaud us.'

I did not ask the obvious question: Why? Why should anyone want to do such a thing?

‘It's quite the latest fashion in London,' said Miss Sophia, as if guessing my thoughts.

‘And we are keen that our guests should be charmed!'

‘It will be an excellent amusement.'

‘Yes, it will, miss,' I lied, thinking that I had never heard anything so daft in all my life – barring when our chickens at home had lost their feathers and my ma had knitted them waistcoats.

‘And this is where you come in, Kitty,' said Miss Alice. ‘We are going to present a
tableau
showing milkmaids in a pastoral setting. Miss Sophia and I are to play the two milkmaids, of course, and we are having new white muslin frocks run up by the dressmaker.'

‘With matching bonnets,' added her sister.

‘Very nice, miss,' I said, thinking that white muslin frocks would be completely foolish and impractical for a milkmaid and that the two young ladies would look much more realistic in brown cotton smocks. Maybe not quite so picturesque, though.

‘One of the gardeners is making us garlands of flowers to wear.'

I looked at them blankly.

‘They say that the milkmaids in London dance down the street garlanded with flowers!' Miss Alice explained.

‘I see,' I said. Miss Alice was a bit of a bookworm, so she was probably right. It seemed a strange thing to do, however, even in London. Were the cows in the procession, too? Did they go first or bring up the rear? Did the cows join in the dancing?

‘So, we intend to get into our places behind screens in the music room, and ask the musicians to finish their performance with something suitably pastoral,' said Miss Sophia. ‘When the screens are removed there we will be, as pretty as a picture, with trees and flowers and perhaps a lamb or two.'

‘And milk churns and most definitely a cow, of course.'

‘A cow in the music room, miss?' I asked incredulously.

‘Just one nice cow. A pretty one with long eyelashes. The reason we asked you here, Kitty, is we want you to choose one and prepare it –'