Page 27 of Lady for a Season
“I won’t stay in those rooms.” He didn’t turn to look at her.
“Why not, if they belong to whomever is the duke?”
“They were my father’s. And my brother’s after him.”
“They are yours now,” she said gently. “If they offend you, if they hold bad memories, I’m sure you may change the décor. Or choose other rooms.” She could not help a small laugh. “It is not as though Atherton Park lacks rooms to choose from.”
He gave a half smile.
Encouraged, Maggie pressed a little further. “I have been put in the Wisteria Room. It is very pretty.”
He looked out of the window. “Then I will take the Iris Room.”
“Where is that?”
“Next door to the Wisteria Room.”
She was surprised that he could recollect all the rooms and where they were in relation to each other. “Shall I ask Joseph to make it ready for you?”
“I am not allowed to leave this room until I am properly dressed,” he reminded her, his face sullen again.
Maggie settled herself in a small nursing chair, set low to the ground. “We shall make ourselves comfortable here for now,” she said. “I can sleep in that side room, if we are not to be seen by anyone. Although who would see us, anyway, and why would it matter?”
“You look like a maid,” he pointed out, not unkindly. “I look like a farm hand. The servants would prattle if they saw me dressed like this, my mother will not hear of it. She will not rest until a tailor has been sent for.”
“How many servants are there? I have only seen Joseph and Celine and know of the cook.”
He laughed out loud. “There are almost two-hundred-and-fifty servants at Atherton Park,” he told her, amused. “You have not seen them because we have been carefully managed, kept out of sight, taken to my mother only when everyone else has been told to stay out of the way.”
She gaped at him. “Two-hundred-and-fifty? What do they alldo?”
He settled in a chair and rubbed his face as though refreshing his memory. “Do you want a list? The estate manager, the steward, the butler, the housekeeper. They all have assistants because they have so much to do, so an under-steward, an under-butler, an under-housekeeper. The footmen, I believe there are eight of them. Maids of every kind and every description, from Duval all the way down to a scullery maid, there must be two or three dozen of them, including the dairy maids and the girls who work in the still room. The laundry maids, there are five of them who do nothing but wash the clothes and linens in the laundry house. The cook has an under-cook, six girls and two kitchen boys under her. There’s a boot boy to polish everyone’s shoes. The hallboy. The stablemaster, the coachmen and the grooms, the stablehands and stable boys. A farrier. Probably a tiger. The gardeners and their assistants, there are more than forty of them alone. The gamekeeper and his assistants. Groundsmen. A gatekeeper.”
Maggie gaped at him. “Atiger?”
Edward laughed out loud. “A young boy who sits behind a gentleman when he is driving his own carriage, to hold the horses when he is out of the carriage. Like a tiny groom, I suppose.”
Maggie shook her head. “How is it I have seen none of them?”
“You can see the gardeners from the windows sometimes, and the groundsmen. Indoors you will not see servants unless you have summoned them. My father…” He paused. “My father used to say he did not wish to see any of the maids unless it was in chapel for prayers.”
“Is there a village nearby, a church?”
“We have a chapel here.”
“In thehouse?”
“Yes.”
“It is more like the Hospital than a real house,” said Maggie.“With laundry-houses and a chapel and so many staff. What are we to do all day, if we are not allowed out of this room?”
They searched the room, removing holland covers to reveal a dappled grey rocking horse, from which Edward turned away. The side room contained only a simple bed like the one in the main nursery. Other holland covers covered a chest of drawers, inside which they found playing cards as well as an old pair of battledores with a decrepit shuttlecock.
They passed the afternoon playing vingt-un, then progressed to a game of battledore and shuttlecock, though their shuttlecock flew poorly, its feathers badly crumpled.
“We must have a new one to play properly,” said Edward, as the shuttlecock fell to the floor yet again.
Late in the afternoon, there was a discreet knock at the door and Celine appeared. “I have brought some clothes from Her Grace’s rooms I think may fit you. Can you try them on now? I can adjust them in the coming days.”
