The house is a whirl of activity as we prepare for the arrival of the Everards and the party that will welcome them, not to mention the grand debut of Twelfth Night of course. Meanwhile my head and stomach are also in a constant whirl. I’m unable to eat, unable to concentrate, unable to think of anything but Thomas and America.
We meet in the kitchen garden whenever we can both get away which, with the party looming ever closer, is becoming increasingly less frequent. I seem to be constantly busy, helping in all areas of the house when the girls don’t need me, and Thomas is wanted by the family all the time as his parents’ visit gets nearer. But none of that has stopped him making the plan he promised. True to his word he is planning my escape, and he is coming with me.
He wants us to leave on the night of the party.
‘There’s a ship that sets sail from Liverpool the next day,’ he says. ‘It’s the perfect opportunity.’
‘How can I leave everyone in the lurch on the busiest night Haverford has known for years?’ I ask. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘The house will be chaos though,’ he goes on. ‘It will be full of temporary staff and all the maids and valets that come with the guests. Nobody will notice you’re gone until we’re miles away.’
I know he’s right, but I am awash with guilt and whenever Mrs Derbyshire asks me if I’m all right I feel that I can’t do it; I can’t leave. But I know I have to. I’ve come too far to stay now.
I am to travel as Thomas’s wife, which fills me with a mixture of horror and excitement. ‘Annie Everard,’ I say to myself.
‘No,’ he replies. ‘We should probably get rid of the “Annie” while we have a chance. So you can disappear.’
I hadn’t realised I was disappearing. Do I want to disappear?
‘A fresh start,’ he corrects himself. ‘Do you have a middle name?’
A fresh start I can get behind. I tell him my middle name.
‘And when we get to New York we can get married for real,’ he says, kissing me gently. ‘That is, if you want to. This offer of taking you to America still comes with no conditions at all. You are your own woman, Annie Bishop. You can do as you like.’
‘Are you asking me to marry you?’
He nods, a shy and hopeful look on his face.
‘Then the answer is yes,’ I say. Of course it is yes! As if I’d have said anything else. All those weeks of waiting for Thomas to propose, wondering if it would ever happen, and when it did it was over in heartbeat.
And he proposed to me.
How could I say no, and yet how could I not feel guilty at the prospect when I know full well Prunella is still expecting something, still expecting him to say those words to her.
My head is full of plans, full of fear that I’ll back out at the last minute, fear that we’ll get caught, fear that we’ll hurt people. But there is something else. Too late I remember that I’m not as free as I thought I was. My mother may not be in Cranmere anymore but Polly still is. How can I leave her?
Mrs Derbyshire has been to see her, but Polly told her that nothing was wrong, that she was happy in her marriage.
‘She didn’t ask me to come inside the house though,’ Mrs Derbyshire had told me. ‘She opened the door herself, which was strange as I’m sure her mother-in-law has a maid, and she hovered in the dark hallway as though she didn’t want to be seen.’
But if Polly didn’t want our help what could we do? I would have to leave her behind and carry that guilt with me as well.
The girls are caught up in what they are going to wear for both the arrival of the Everards and the party. Well, Lady Prunella is caught up in all that at least. Lady Cecily claims not to care and spends most of her time with Hannah Rivington. Prunella talks about the coming weeks a lot. Thomas’s parents will be here in a couple of days and then the party is to take place a week from then. In less than two weeks I will be packing my few belongings in my box again and leaving Haverford forever. I am worried about my lack of clothing but Thomas assures me he has sorted that out. We are to travel second class as well. He doesn’t want to bump into anyone who might know him or his parents. Not until we are in New York and married and it is too late for anyone to object.
‘I suppose he is delaying his proposal until his parents arrive,’ Lady Prunella says one night as I help prepare her for bed. I hadn’t really been listening, thinking instead about that day in the not-too-distant future when I would never have to prepare anyone but myself for bed, and her statement feels as though it has come out of nowhere. She hasn’t mentioned Thomas or his imminent proposal for several days and part of me had thought she had given up on him. At least that what I’d hoped. Anything to allay the guilt.
‘My lady?’ I ask in a non-committal way, not really sure how to respond.
‘When Thomas proposes,’ she says, turning around to look at me. ‘Weren’t you listening to a word I said? I must say, Annie, you seem to be in dreamland most of the time these days. Are you all right?’
I cannot bear everyone asking me if I’m all right. Of course I’m not, I want to scream, my mother has died and I’m about to run away to America. Would you be all right in those circumstances?
‘I’m fine,’ is all I say out loud. ‘It’s just quite stressful downstairs what with the Everards arriving and this party coming up and Mr Prentice training the temporary staff.’
‘I’ll bet,’ Prunella says with a smile. ‘But the sooner his parents get here the sooner he’ll finally propose.’
‘I suppose so, my lady.’ I think it’s the lying I hate the most. I’ll be glad when I don’t have to lie anymore.
‘He’ll need to ask Papa’s permission too, of course,’ Prunella rattles on. ‘But I suppose that has already been done. After all let’s not kid ourselves, why else would he stay all summer other than to marry one of us – and Cec is hardly going to marry him.’ She gives me a wry look, one eyebrow raised.
‘Do you love him?’ I ask. The question is wildly inappropriate for a lady’s maid to ask but I suddenly need to know. Am I going to be breaking her heart with what I am about to do?
‘Oh no,’ she says breezily, getting into bed and settling back against the pillows. ‘But I imagine I will grow to love him. He is incredibly handsome after all. It’s hard to marry for love when you are the daughter of an earl. You either marry for connection or, as is the case with us, for money. Lots of the bloody stuff. It’s all Papa cares about.’
I am relieved to hear she doesn’t love him.
‘All that love stuff doesn’t really matter you know, Annie,’ Prunella says, sounding unusually cynical. ‘Not in the grand scheme of life. You’d do well to remember that.’
But it matters to Thomas, I think to myself. I know him and I know it matters to him.
And I also know that I love him desperately and that Prunella is wrong.
Love does matter. It matters tremendously. And that’s why I have to try to do something about Polly before I leave.
*
As it turns out Polly comes to us for help in the end.
The Everards arrive on a Friday evening. We, the staff – including the temporary staff Mr Prentice had hired to boost numbers – greet them in the formal manner on the steps of the house and we therefore hear their complaining right from the start. Thomas had told me they were difficult people, but I’d just put that down to the normal arguments between parents and children, and the fact that they hated his acting career.
They complain relentlessly – Mrs Everard has a headache from the ‘dreadful British weather’. It is too hot and stuffy and, according to her, British hotels have no idea how to look after their guests. She’s hated all the food she’s eaten so far and takes immediately to her bed upon arrival at Haverford. Mr Everard Senior complains about the roads, the pollution, the state of the British people, the chaos.
‘You wouldn’t get this sort of thing in Germany,’ he says, as he shakes His Lordship’s hand vigorously. ‘That Mr Hitler has everything back in order it seems. A great man.’ I watch His Lordship’s mouth tighten and hear Mr Prentice sniff beside me. Neither of them is a fan of Mr Hitler and what he is doing in Germany. Mr Prentice, who rarely offers an opinion about anything, will not have him spoken about below stairs. Mr Everard Senior will need to keep those opinions to himself if he hopes to get along with everyone over the next few weeks and I make a mental note to say something to Thomas when and if I can.
Like their son, neither of the Everards have brought any staff with them. Unlike Thomas, however, they do expect to have everything done for them so it is up to me and James to act as their lady’s maid and valet respectively. James is not happy about it, but I haven’t got time to listen to his whining as I’m now busier than ever, looking after Mrs Everard as well as the girls and performing all the other duties necessary as we prepare for a house party in a very understaffed house.
On that first evening I help Mrs Everard to bed. She has brought a box of American medications, which all have long, complicated names that mean nothing to me. When she asks me to prepare her ‘headache tincture’ I have no idea what she’s talking about.
‘You British girls are hopeless,’ she says, snatching the medicine box from me and preparing a complicated tonic herself. ‘I do hope my Thomas doesn’t end up marrying one of you, no matter what Teddy might think.’ Teddy is her husband, Theodore. I already know that he is keen for Thomas to marry into the British aristocracy. That’s what his visit to Haverford has been about all along. Mrs Everard (her name is Marjory, but I don’t think she wants anyone to know that) is less keen it seems.
The next morning Lady Prunella is full of questions about Marjory Everard, the woman she thinks will become her future mother-in-law.
‘Did she mention the wedding at all?’ she asks.
‘No, my lady,’ I lie. ‘She wasn’t at all well last night and went straight to bed with some American medicine.’
‘American medicine? How intriguing. Illegal drugs do you suppose?’ Lady Prunella has always had an eye towards the salacious.
‘I couldn’t possibly say, my lady.’
‘Hmmm.’ Lady Prunella seems disappointed by this. ‘Hopefully she’ll be well enough for the play this afternoon.’
The play! I’d almost forgotten that the one and only performance of Twelfth Night is to take place this afternoon.
‘I’m sure she will, my lady,’ I say.
But Mrs Everard doesn’t want to see any play at all.
‘This headache still bangs like a drum behind my eyes,’ she tells me when I arrive to take her breakfast tray away and help her dress. ‘And now Thomas wants me to watch some goddam play.’ She looks up at me, eyes narrowed. ‘Are you in it?’ she asks.
‘No, my lady,’ I reply.
‘Now tell me, Annie,’ she goes on, still glowering at me. ‘Why do they call you Annie? As a lady’s maid shouldn’t you be called by your last name whatever that is? I’ve been reading up on all this British etiquette but what’s the point if you can’t stick to it.’
‘I started as a housemaid, my lady,’ I say. ‘Lady Cecily and Lady Prunella always called me Annie then and it stuck.’
‘I shall call you by your last name,’ she proclaims. ‘What is it?’
I think about the paperwork Thomas is putting together for the ship to America and how my name on that will be ‘Elizabeth Everard’. I don’t know how or where he is getting this paperwork from and I don’t ask. I have this feeling that asking will get somebody in trouble, somebody who is not Thomas.
‘Bishop,’ I reply.
‘Bishop,’ she repeats and begins to bellow her orders.
*
The play goes badly, which is no real surprise. Nerves have hit and if only some of the cast knew their lines in rehearsals, none of them seem to remember anything at all today, not even Hannah Rivington. The only person who knows their lines is Thomas and he knew them all before. His Lordship has insisted that all the staff are to watch the play from the edges of the garden and this means that I cannot be there to prompt the actors. Unfortunately they have become too reliant on me and fall apart completely. Mr Everard Senior stands up during the second act and storms off.
‘Complete waste of my time,’ he says as he leaves. Mrs Everard clutches her temples, her headache clearly still bothering her, and I wonder if I should fetch her medicine box.
Thomas breaks for an interval early and I manage to catch his eye before he goes off to find his father. His face is a mask of despair. I remember how the play was supposed to be fun, something to while away the long hot summer. But none of it seems fun anymore and the summer has become too hot, too oppressive. Mrs Everard isn’t the only one with a headache.
It is as I am helping to serve afternoon tea to everybody that I notice Ned standing at the edge of the garden in the shadow of one of the bushes. I haven’t seen him properly since the night he approached me in the kitchen garden, before my mother died, back when I had decided not to go to America. I wonder how much he knows now.
He beckons me over and I try to ignore him and carry on with the tea service. Mr Prentice already disapproves of how distracted the play has made me – the play has become a handy foil for what is really on my mind – and he will not appreciate me breaking for a liaison with the gardener’s boy. Everyone stands or sits about, drinking tea and eating the tiny, delicious cakes that Cook has baked, wondering what is going on. The interval came early and now Thomas has disappeared. The actors mill around, waiting for instructions.
When everyone seems suitably distracted I slip across the garden to Ned.
‘What do you want?’ I hiss. ‘I’m working.’
‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he says.
‘What visitor?’ I ask. ‘I can’t see anyone right now.’
‘I know you’re still seeing Mr Everard in the kitchen garden,’ he says, changing the subject and making me wonder if there is a visitor at all.
‘Please, Ned,’ I beg. ‘Not now. You can’t say anything now it’s…’
‘America,’ Ned says. He knows and that means I’m in trouble.
‘Do I have a visitor or are you just trying to distract me?’
‘Come with me,’ he says.
I look over my shoulder, hoping that nobody can see me, as he leads me away. I follow Ned towards a small copse between the garden and the near side of the lake and I see that somebody is there waiting in the shadows.
Ned turns to me. ‘I don’t know what trouble you’ve got yourself into, Annie,’ he says. ‘But I do know when I need to keep my mouth shut and I will if you want me to.’
‘I need you to,’ I say, peering at the figure in the trees. ‘Please.’
He shakes his head. ‘I’d have given you a good life you know, Annie. Don’t forget that.’ And with that cryptic statement he walks away just as I realise the person in the trees is Polly.
She turns to me as I approach and I gasp when I see her. She has two black eyes today and a cut on her lip that is still bleeding a little. There is blood on the front of her blouse.
‘You have to help me,’ she whispers.