Read Online Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains by Catriona McPherson - Free Book Online Page B

believe me?’
    I descended the stairs slowly and spent a good ten minutes staring out at my cherry tree before I wrote another word in my notebook. When Phyllis knocked on my door to tell me it was supper-time I was still puzzling.
    ‘Mistress looked lovely,’ she said to me as we climbed the stairs. ‘I saw her come down. The last one – Miss Abbott – didnae hold with rouge and lipstick and mistress never could put her foot down, but she looked a picture tonight.’
    ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll show you sometime if you like.’ I had correctly interpreted Phyllis’s wistful tone.
    ‘Oh, Miss Rossiter, would you really? Would you do me for my day out? Not to go and see my ma and fa because my fa would kill us both but every other week I go to the dancing with my pal and she aye tells me I look like a milkmaid.’
    I scrutinised her face as we passed under a lamp in the kitchen passageway, and wished I had made Grant instruct me in the mysteries of the kohl pencil and lash black, but I had hardly foreseen the respectable Mrs Balfour needing such attentions. Could I remember it from the times Grant had insisted on painting it onto me? (For the disposition of power between ‘mistress’ and Miss Abbott had its reflection in my bedroom at home.)
    That first evening in the servants’ hall was a perfect admixture of comfort, tiredness and boredom, and if one can get these three ingredients in proper proportion nothing is nicer; to be too tired to mind that one is bored and too comfortable to mind that one is tired makes for an evening of guilty pleasure that comes my way rather seldom. Mrs Hepburn and I occupied the armchairs once more, with Mr Faulds joining us between bursts of duty in the dining room; Mattie, Harry and John played gin rummy; Clara was nowhere to be seen – busy upstairs with the dinner guests, I supposed, as was Stanley – but the other girls sat sewing and chatting until the dirty plates began to come down again, then Millie and Eldry returned to the scullery with groans and yawns and Mrs Hepburn sauntered after them to supervise and plan for the following day.
    Phyllis immediately took up Mrs Hepburn’s place in the armchair; I was fast beginning to see that these soft chairs were the prize of the servants’ hall and that no amount of time was too short to make it worth claiming one whenever all of one’s seniors had left the room.
    ‘So have you met master then?’ she said softly to me. The lads at their card-game were not listening. I nodded, trying not to perk up too visibly. ‘And what did you think of him?’ I took a while before I answered.
    ‘He seemed very nice,’ I said. ‘Very friendly. But I did wonder . . .’
    ‘Oh, he’s friendly all right,’ said Phyllis. ‘Just make sure you lock your door tonight, that’s all.’
    ‘Really?’ I said. ‘One of those, is he?’ I felt a thrill of sophistication as I said this and Phyllis nodded, her eyelids half-closed and her tongue exploring her cheek in a triumphal show of ennui.
    ‘And who goes in to light his fire of a morning?’ I said. ‘Not you, dear, is it? I hope not.’
    ‘He’s never bothered me – thank goodness,’ Phyllis said. ‘Not in that way.’
    ‘But Miss Abbott?’ I said. She nodded.
    ‘And Mr Faulds can say what he likes about that baronet in North Berwick being a step up,’ she said, ‘but we all know why Maggie didn’t work her notice.’
    ‘Forgive me prying, dear,’ I wriggled forward in my chair and spoke even more softly to her, ‘but when you said he didn’t bother you in that way , what did you . . .’
    ‘I’m on notice,’ said Phyllis, ‘for giving him cheek. I’m on my last warning and if I don’t behave I’ll be out on my ear with no character.’
    ‘Well, I like that!’ I said. ‘For sticking up for your chums? For telling him to leave the others alone?’
    ‘No . . .’ said Phyllis, slowly. ‘It’s a funny thing, Miss Rossiter, but I can’t even