Park Lane by Frances Osborne Read Free Book Online Page B

over the clatter of knives and forks. And a din it is, for they eat quick as they can to get something inside before the bells start ringing. Bea keeps glancing up at the bell board on the wall above Mr Bellows’ head.
    ‘Deaf now?’ says Susan who has seen her looking up. ‘A housemaid who can’t hear, that’s all we need.’
    Susan’s tongue’s as sharp as her face and she’s taken against Grace. Not right from the start, a few days in. Mary explained: first housemaids must always be wanting to go up to lady’s maid or housekeeper. The only person upstairs who might be needing a lady’s maid of her own is Miss Beatrice, though for now, whoever hears the bell goes to her. But sometimes Miss Beatrice does ask for one or the other of them, and Grace can’t say she’s not pleased when it’s her, even if she’s surprised at herself with the thought. Keep your head down, Mary tells her, and your mouth shut. If Susan has a whiff that you’ve a decent head on your shoulders she’ll be trying even harder to knock it off.
    Always the most dangerous, them that’s near the top but not quite there.
    Mrs Wainwright silences Susan. ‘Grace, you’ll hear the bell, I’d stick to your plate.’ There’s silence again for a second then James,who, even though he’s above Joseph and should have some dignity about him, can never keep his mouth shut when he should, leans forward and goes back to yesterday.
    ‘I’m sure she noticed.’
    ‘It’s Lady Masters to you, or you’ll find yourself changing places with Joseph.’
    James drops his eyes. ‘Yes, Mr Bellows.’
    Joseph’s not saying a word. He had a right dressing down yesterday for the state he was in when he came back from the cart. Grace wants to rub his cheeks, put some colour back into them. There’s more not said around this table than’s spoken out loud. Still, now Grace wants to know something and the question rushes up on her and out of her mouth before she’s had a chance to hold it back.
    ‘How’d sh—her ladyship know it?
    ‘Those cigarettes of Miss Celeste’s. From Turkey, or wherever’s you’ll have it. Stink like a public house where no one’s opened the window for a week.’
    ‘James …’
    ‘Yes, Mr Bellows.’ And James quickly glances up at Summers and his buttons and back again, as if he’s expecting to be told off by him, too.
    ‘That’s daft!’ Susan cuts in again. ‘There’ll be hundreds who smoke them.’
    Mrs Wainwright is looking very hard at Miss Suthers and Miss Suthers is looking straight back across at Mrs Wainwright. A lady’s maid is as close as you can get to upstairs but there’s not a word on Miss Suther’s lips, it’s all in her eyes, saying it clear. Don’t forget what’s said while I am doing her ladyship’s hair, and a dozen other things beside. Then Miss Beatrice’s bell snaps the silence, and the table lets their breath out. ‘Earlier than usual,’ mutters Susan, two mouthfuls into her toast, but she is up to brush the crumbs off her pinny quick as a hare. ‘For me, I think.’
    Grace feels resentment rising in her, then checks herself. Is that what’s become of her ambitions, and so quick? She can’t let herselfbe jealous of a maid’s work. Not when she’s supposed to be a secretary. And not with what her family need her to send home.
    Grace started with answering the advertisements in The Times in her best handwriting, learnt with Miss Sand, and paid for by Ma’s sister, Aunt Ethel. She was a schoolteacher, and so mindful of reading and writing, said Ma, that you’d’ve thought there wasn’t any other talent in the world. Aunt Ethel, not being married herself, had always helped Ma with the five of them. Bit of money as she could, here and there.
    Five is the sign of a happy marriage, Ma used to say, eyes pale above the dark circles under them, but she didn’t want the same for her daughters. Don’t you do this, Grace. Waste it all in some man’s kitchen, she’d say, while she went