A Girl Called Foote Read online

He thought for a moment and wrote:

  Please consider Miss Lydia Smythe for employment at Whitehall. She is a very good and capable sort of woman who learns more quickly than the average person and achieves whatever she sets her mind to. Sincerely--Mr. Lucas Farington, Former Schoolmaster at Birkhead Boys’ School, now residing at Hawthorne House at Cross Street, Shinford.

  He blotted and folded the page, then slid it across the table to her.

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  Lydia slipped the letter into her handbag along with the advertisement which she had carefully torn from the newspaper. Rising, she thanked Mr. Farington for the tea and headed toward the front door.

  “Wait one moment, please,” he said and disappeared into his study.

  Which were her favorites? He asked himself, studying the bookshelves.

  He returned to the front door, carrying five books which he pushed into the arms of the astonished girl.

  “I’m not likely to read these again,” he lied.

  “Oh, Mr. Farington,” Lydia breathed. “I can’t take all of these beautiful books! They belong here. And I never did return The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

  “Nonsense! The best home for a book is in the hands of an enamored reader.”

  What else can I do for her?

  “Oh! Another thing I’ve just recalled, and the remembrance is fortunate for you because it will likely cover your travel expenses should you be hired at far-off Whitehall.” Farington reached into his pocket and pulled out a few coins. “I owed this to your father for a delivery he made just before he passed. Please forgive me for taking years to make good on the debt.”

  He held out the money to her.

  She stared at the coins in his palm, biting her lower lip. Slowly, her eyes lifted to his face.

  He assumed as honest of an appearance as possible and shook the handful before her. Yes dear, of course you know I’m lying, but please, please take it anyway. Please.

  “Thank you…Mr. Farington.” She said slowly, picking up the coinage delicately. “Thank you for your… honesty. And, of course, thank you for my one reference…and for a decade of fine reading and…”

  She glanced away from him, a tear in each eye.

  “It’s all been my pleasure,” he assured her, his voice husky. “I only wish I could do more.”

  Clearing her throat, the girl shook the handful of coins and smiled beautifully, gratefully. Then she was out the door and walking down the path.

  Farington watched her go. In his mind, a line of Shakespeare pushed itself forward from his vast memorized collection.

  Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers come to dust.

  He turned from the door, shaking his head, angry that that was the quotation his brain happened to recall just then.

  Arriving

  ~ Lydia

  Whitehall

  “Whitehall!” called out the coach’s driver.

  Lydia reached past the sleeping woman to her left and lifted the canvas flap to look out, eager to see her new home. All that she saw was trees and a narrow drive.

  “Whitehall?” she questioned the man who had opened the door and was retrieving her trunk from the top of the coach.

  “Down that way, I believe.” He pointed down the drive which eventually curved right and disappeared into the woods.

  Lydia hesitated, astonished.

  He believes? He doesn’t know for certain?

  Suddenly, she realized that the eyes of all her fellow passengers and the coachmen were on her. Even the woman who had appeared to be asleep just seconds before was looking at her expectantly, impatiently.

  Reluctantly, Lydia climbed out of the vehicle.

  The moment her feet hit the ground, the door swung shut and the coach started off again without a word from anyone. She stood in a cloud of dust, watching the coach rush off without her.

  What would Father say if he saw how unceremoniously I’ve been dumped at the side of the…

  No! I will not cry. I will not cry. I will sit for just a moment and collect myself.

  Lydia moved the trunk to the side of the road and sat on its lid.

  Why did I leave home?

  No! I am here now. For the next few months I am to be a parlor maid. No one will choke me in my bedroom at night. I am strong and capable. Many, many girls from worse situations are forced into servitude. They survive and so will I. I will not cry. I will go to my new home and present myself ready for service to make my way in this world. It is an adventure, like in a book. When it is over, I will return home.

  I will not cry.

  Lydia stood, her knees shaking and lifted the small trunk. Down the drive she lumbered, the trunk’s handles biting into her fingers.

  Rounding the bend, she stopped, her mouth agape at the sight she saw through a break in the trees.

  Before her and beyond an expanse of lawn was a building too dignified and beautiful to be called a house.

  It’s like a governmental building or a bank in London, she thought, recalling drawings she had seen in newspapers.

  The entire multi-storied edifice was built from blocks of a cream colored stone. It was symmetrical in design so that every window on the right of the house was matched with one on the left. Six chimneys stretched to the sky from the slate colored roof. Little windows sprouted from there as well. A wide staircase stretched from the gravel drive to the front entryway, which was flanked by two solid columns.

  See? It is beautiful. I will be living with a baronet’s family in this grand place…and cleaning every one of those windows.

  She smiled at her little joke and trudged forward with her trunk over the gravel drive. Many breathless moments later, she had ascended the stone staircase to the front door. With relief, she set her trunk down and smoothed out her skirt and bodice.

  Now I will present myself as the capable and intelligent woman that Mr. Farington described me as to Dorothea Smith.

  She patted her hair, hoping her plaits were in decent order and knocked on the door.

  A moment of silence passed and she reached for the bell-pull when the door opened a couple of inches.

  A plain, austere face filled the narrow space.

  “Hello,” she began, haltingly. “I am…Lydia Smythe. Is Dorothea available?”

  “Go around to the left. That’s your entrance,” a crisp voice said and the door promptly shut.

  A flush of embarrassment and anger warmed Lydia’s face, distracting her from the near despair that had threatened to overtake her during the previous fifteen minutes. She stood a moment longer to fortify herself for lifting the trunk yet again and then went in pursuit of her entrance, which was apparently somewhere to the left.

  Just then, a spry elderly man with muddy knees came into view.

  “Oi. I’ll give you a hand with that!” he said, reaching for the trunk with a smile.

  “Oh, thank you,” said Lydia as her burden was lifted.

  A bit of kindness on this adventure, she thought, gratefully as she fell into step alongside the stranger. They turned the corner and approached a small wooden door over which grew a rambling rose in full bloom.

  “You’re going in here, I suppose,” he said, nodding toward the door. “And I must be getting back to the garden, so here I leave it.” He placed the trunk on the ground as the door opened from within.

  A thin, tired looking woman exited as the man jogged off to the garden.

  “I am Dorothea Smith, housekeeper here at Whitehall,” said the same brittle voice which had spoken to her through the ajar front door. “You will call me Smith. Oh, I see you have a trunk. Hmm. Most servants arrive with a small bag. You must have more than just clothes in there, hmm?”

  She paused long enough that Lydia began to wonder if servants were not allowed to have trunks, and if they did have trunks were they only supposed to hold clothes, but Smith waved her inside.

  “Well, do come in. This is the servants’ door and you will always
use it when entering the house. You may answer the front door if necessary, but even then you may not exit it. As far as your body is concerned, this is the only entrance and exit, unless you are on the far side of the house where there is another servants’ entry.” She paused here with her eyebrows raised, looking hard at Lydia.

  I don’t like you, thought Lydia as she nodded and passed through the permissible doorway behind Smith into a kitchen.

  At the cooking range, a solid female figure stood, stirring a large pot. Nearby, at a counter top, stood a tall ginger-haired girl kneading dough. In the corner, sat an older woman mashing something green with a mortar and pestle.

  None of them looked up from their work as Lydia and Smith went through the kitchen to a smaller door at the far side. Lydia followed Smith as they passed through and found herself on a dark narrow staircase.

  Ugh…

  It seemed that all the smells that had emanated from the kitchen for years were trapped there in a noxious collection of fumes. Lydia detected the scent of boiled cabbage, onions, eggs and beef, roasted long ago.

  The steps were so shallow that Lydia needed to step almost sideways in ascent. This was made even more difficult by carrying the awkward trunk.

  Lydia followed the tidy, upright figure in front of her.

  “Be careful to never bump this wall.”

  In the gloom, Lydia could see Smith was pointing at the wall to their right.

  “Just on the other side is the Family’s dining room and we don’t want to disturb them when they are dining.”

  Yes, we wouldn’t want them to hear a single thump, now would we? thought Lydia. Mayhem might ensue.

  Once liberated from the stairwell, they continued down an equally narrow hallway.

  “Here…” Smith opened another small door, “is your room.”

  She motioned Lydia into the tiny room behind it. The ceiling was sloped and low, just inches above their heads. Lydia was surprised to see that two beds had been wedged onto the floor space.

  “You may put your things there.” Smith pointed to a corner past the slightly wider bed as she again eyed the trunk suspiciously.

  “You and Wells will share this bed and Ploughman sleeps in that one.”

  “Excuse me?” Lydia was startled. “Ploughman?”

  “Oh, don’t worry yourself,” the housekeeper said, smiling at Lydia’s concern. “The groomsman and gardener sleep above the carriage house. Ploughman is a woman. All the servants go by their family names here, which brings to mind a problem. Because your surname is ‘Smythe’ much like mine, you ought to think of something we can all call you instead. Perhaps your mother’s maiden name?”

  ‘Stewart’, thought Lydia. People will assume I am a man when they hear ‘Stewart’ called out. But I suppose it’s better than ‘Ploughman’.

  “Another thing I ought to tell you: You may or may not be familiar with servitude in a great house. It differs here from other places where I have had placement. Lady Clyde prefers that all of her servants do many jobs around the house. This means, instead of just doing the work of a parlor maid, you will at times be required to help in the kitchen or even act as a lady’s maid to the Lady or her daughter. Lady Clyde believes this arrangement makes for a more capable staff.

  “Also,” Smith’s eyes and voice dropped as she continued. “In most great houses, the head servants such as the butler, housekeeper and head cook eat separately from the other servants, but here we eat all together, once the Family’s needs are tended to.

  “Well, I’ll leave you for just a moment to tidy yourself before you go before her.” Smith’s pale blue eyes rested heavily on Lydia’s face before she turned to go. “You will find water in the ewer there on the table.”

  Now alone, Lydia looked at what little there was to see in the small room. A cloudy looking-glass hung above the table that held the ewer. There were two boards jutting out from the wall as shelves which held a short stack of folded articles of clothing. A few roughly hewn pegs jutting out from the wall were hung with aprons and shawls. The room had one small, highly-placed window.

  It must be one of the little ones sprouting out of the roof.

  Climbing up on the larger bed, Lydia looked out the window and saw the long gravel drive and the lawn. East of there was a kitchen garden. To the West, an orchard stretched far out of sight behind the stables and stable house. There were also rows of hedges in a maze-shape, and in the far distance were the trees of a nearby wood all around.

  See? It is absolutely beautiful and I get to live here now. She sighed and clambered down from the bed, turning to the ewer on the small table.

  She avoided looking at herself in the mirror as she washed her face.

 

  Presenting the New Maid

  ~ Smith

  In her own room, Smith paced the floor.

  That Mr. Farington called her a woman in his reference! I doubt she is older than Miss Sophia! Oh, the Lady is not going to like this.

  She turned to her looking glass and quietly practiced, “I’m sorry, Lady Clyde. I thought she was older.”

  No, she turned from the mirror, disgusted. That will never do. Then she’ll chastise me for not inquiring about her actual age before sending for her.

  But she was the only applicant! Nearly a month I waited and no one else even inquired about the position.

  What was I to do?

  It was a well written advertisement. I’m certain of that.

  Perhaps people have been warned about serving at Whitehall? No, that is ridiculous. Although, the issue of payment…ugh…

  She thought back to Pryor’s dismissal for which Smith had been present, surprisingly. The Lady had told him, “With the passing of the baronet, this household will no longer need your services. Rest assured that I have written out a highly favorable recommendation to aid you in your search for placement elsewhere.”

  Did she honestly think that Pryor only had valet and butler duties? And who was expected to work her fingers to the bone, making up the difference?

  We need this girl. I need her.

  Smith took a deep breath and looked again in the mirror, trying to relax her features into an unperturbed look.

  Well, let’s get this over with…

  Moments later, Smith was leading the new arrival back through the kitchen and servants’ hall to the front entryway. They stopped in front of the wall that displayed the Baronets’ portraits.

  “These,” Smith waved her hand with a flourish and began the speech she had many times recited, “are the William Walter Clydes, the First through the Fourth.

  “Sir William Walter the First,” she pointed to the smallest and most crudely painted of the four, “obtained the baronetcy in the year 1697 at the age of 57 and it has been inherited along with the name over the following four generations.

  “He started his life as a humble…” Smith broke off.

  The girl was leaning in and studying the portrait of William Walter Clyde the Second, a faint smirk on her face.

  How dare she? What is she looking at?

  Smith turned and saw that directly over the face in the portrait, a small oval of paper had been affixed. On it was drawn a large nose, a crooked mouth and crossed eyes as if the painting’s subject was wearing a buffoon’s mask.

  Why that spoiled overgrown boy!

  “Oh,” Smith said as smoothly as she could. “A bit of Sir Jonathan’s tomfoolery, I think. The eldest son enjoys playing jokes on anyone he can, though I fear his mother may not be pleased at this. No, not at all…”

  She shook her head, forgetting the historical account she had begun to retell.

  “Come this way.”

  They ascended a wide flight of stairs. Once on the upper level, they started down another hallway and finally arrived at the particularly ornate door of the Lady’s favorite room.

  Smith stood silently for a moment with her hand on the knob, breathed in deeply and knocked upon the door.

&
nbsp; “You may enter,” a voice said from within.

  The housekeeper opened the door and waved the new girl inside. She was pleased to see that without even being told, the girl followed her example of curtseying to the Lady.

  Good, one less thing to displease the Lady.

  The finely dressed woman who sat on the silken settee uprightly was gazing out the window. She wore a day dress and her hair was hidden under a heavily embroidered cap. Her eyes were half closed and her mouth was an unamused line. She looked as bored as a person could.

  The Lady sighed, still looking outside and asked, “What is her name?”

  “Lydia Smythe,” Smith answered.

  The answer roused Lady Clyde, who turned her head.

  “What? Is she a relation of yours?”

  “No, Ma’am.”

  “Well, two servants with the same name in one household will never do.” The woman shook her head slightly.

  Smith looked at Lydia, a little smile played at the corners of her mouth.

  Yes, I knew that.

  The Lady continued. “She will go by…‘Foote’. The other Foote is gone now and we are all accustomed to saying that. Yes, ‘Foote’ will do nicely.”

  “Very good, Ma’am,” Smith said.

  “Have her turn around for me that I might have a look at her.”

  Smith turned and relayed the message as though the girl had not heard it herself.

  The great woman’s gaze assessed the young, lithe figure before her.

  “Hmm. She’s not as tall as a parlor maid ought to be. She doesn’t look terribly strong…but she is not so pretty as to incite a wayward temptation for any of the men. Hmm…what qualities does she possess that deem her a better choice over the other applicants?”

  Smith had a carefully chosen answer for this question. “She’s spent a lot of time in a kitchen, Ma’am, so I thought she could be of help to Cook before the large parties.”

  “She knows cooking and cleaning? That is good. Where was she employed before, did you say?”

  “Near Shinford, Ma’am.” Smith said, hoping the questions would stop there.

  “In what household, Smith?”

  “In a farmhouse, Ma’am.” Smith said, wanting it to sound like the most natural thing in the world.

  “A farmhouse?” The great woman stiffened. “What on earth was she doing in a farmhouse?”

  “She was a…farmer’s daughter, my Lady,” Smith said, her face growing warm.