Her Ladyship's Girl (18 page)

He laughed. One of the other maids flashed a disapproving look at me.

‘Henry Rivers.’

‘I’m Anwyn Moyle.’

‘A very pretty name.’

‘Thank you, Sir.’

‘Henry . . . please.’

The disapproving lady’s maid looked like she’d swallowed a wasp. But I didn’t care, she was no better than me now – none of them were. The days of them looking down their
nose at scullery-maid Moyle were gone. Henry Rivers was still smiling at me.

‘I like your accent.’

‘It’s Welsh.’

‘I know.’

‘Will you be at the ball tonight, Anwyn?’

‘I’m sure I will.’

With that he rode off and I watched as he galloped away. My heart was beating a bit faster than normal and I wondered why – maybe it was love at first sight? I’d heard about such
things happening. Then I laughed to myself at such a stupid, girlish thought – I loved my family and I loved Lucy and I loved Miranda, in a way, but I certainly didn’t love Henry
Rivers. I didn’t even know who he was. Yet I felt something, and it was like nothing I’d known before. The cranky lady’s maid looked at me.

‘You’ll be sorry.’

‘Will I?’

‘Wait and see.’

When we got back to Bolde Hall, I ran a bath for Miranda and helped her to change, then I took her hunting clothes away to be cleaned, and tidied up the bathroom and bedroom after her. As the
other ladies had their own maids, I wasn’t required to assist them as I was after the pheasant shoot. By the time my work was done, it was getting on for seven o’clock and I went and
had dinner with Mrs Hathaway and Miss Mason. They weren’t as cheerful or as chatty as they were before.

‘Well, Anwyn, did you enjoy your first hunt?’

‘It was an eye-opener, Mrs Hathaway.’

‘Rumour has it you were talking to a young man.’

Gossip moves fast in this place, I thought to myself.

‘His name is Henry Rivers, Mrs Hathaway.’

‘
Lord
Henry Rivers, or he will be when he inherits the title.’

Mrs Hathaway went on to tell me that Henry Rivers’ family line went all the way back to the tenth century, when they were known as de Revers. They were a blue-blooded family and there
would certainly be no place in it for a girl like me. Mrs Hathaway and Miss Mason both warned me to steer clear of Henry Rivers, because aristocratic boys like him were known to take advantage of
‘common’ girls like me, leaving some of them with child, before going on to marry whatever woman their family would have had arranged for them. That’s what Mrs Hathaway and Miss
Mason told me – but this was the twentieth century, not the nineteenth or the eighteenth, and my teenage heart was telling me something else.

After dinner, I went back to Miranda and helped her get ready for the hunt ball. She wore a stunning black evening dress with frou-frou bodice and corsage, along with a pair of stiletto slippers
that looked like they were made of glass. I put her hair up in a high style that exposed her elegant neck and she wore a discreet diamond tiara in it with a matching necklace and bracelet. She
looked truly beautiful and I thought maybe she’d taken a fancy to the Earl after all. She told me to join the other ladies’ maids at the back of the ballroom in case she needed me for
anything during the night. I then went to my own room and washed and dressed as prettily as I could and slapped on some extra make-up and went down to the great hall, from which the house took its
name.

I stood at the back and watched the dancing and partying. The Earl was paying a lot of attention to Miranda, but she didn’t seem to be reciprocating, much to the annoyance of her father.
Her brother James seemed more interested in talking and drinking with the young hunt boys than dancing with any of the ladies. And I wondered if Miranda had some kind of agenda for tonight –
maybe William Harding would arrive and carry her away from the Earl and she’d drop one of her glass slippers on the stone steps outside and the Earl would pick it up and shed a tear into it.
And maybe I was reading too many books.

Somebody touched my arm and I looked round to see Henry Rivers.

‘Would you care to dance?’

‘Oh no . . . I’m not allowed.’

‘I insist.’

‘No . . . it wouldn’t be right.’

He leaned over and whispered into my ear.

‘If you turn me down, I’m going to look a fool in front of all these people around us . . . even the servants. Would you want me to look a fool?’

Of course I wouldn’t. So I let him lead me onto the dance-floor for a version of Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’ which the small chamber orchestra was playing. He was wearing
an evening suit with a long tailcoat and a scarlet bow-tie and his dark hair had fallen over his brown eyes. He moved me delicately round the floor and I responded well to his touch. We danced
slower and slower and moved closer and closer. I could smell his cologne, feel the pressure of his chest against my breasts. His lips touched the top of my head and my hand moved under the back of
his jacket and onto his spine. I could feel the heat of him. Smell the scent of him. I knew something was stirring in him and I leaned in closer against his body. We weren’t dancing any more,
we were being sexually delinquent.

The music stopped and I opened my eyes.The other guests were no longer dancing; they were watching me and Henry Rivers as we moved slowly from one foot to the other in a sensual rhythm. Before
he could disengage from me, a middle-aged woman wearing a black lace evening gown strode onto the dance floor and grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away to the safety of her party. I stood
alone on the floor, with all eyes upon me. So I curtsied like I saw the debutantes doing, in the general direction of Henry’s abrupt departure and said, in a hoarse whisper –

‘Thank you.’

The crowd stirred from their mesmerisation and the orchestra began to play Handel’s ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’. A hum of conversation resumed as Miranda Bouchard appeared
miraculously by my side and escorted me to the back of the room where the other ladies’ maids stood sniggering.

It was very late when the ball ended with the National Anthem and I accompanied a very inebriated Miranda to her bedroom. She fell on the bed and I undressed her where she lay and hung her
clothes up and was about to leave the room.

‘Anwyn . . .’

I turned to see that she’d managed to sit up in the bed.

‘Yes?’

‘Quite a stunt you pulled tonight.’

‘Stunt?’

‘With the Rivers boy.’

I didn’t know what she meant. Was what I did in having one dance any worse than what she was doing with Mr Harding? I was convinced she was expecting him to turn up tonight and
that’s why she’d made a special effort to look extra beautiful. But he didn’t, so she got drunk. I decided to ignore her remark and, anyway, she’d already lain back down in
the bed.

I tried to sleep but my head was full of Henry Rivers and then, at about 3:30 a.m., I heard a gentle knock on my door.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me . . . Henry.’

I opened the door and let him in and he kissed me and held me in his arms for a long time. When our lips finally parted so we could breathe again, he spoke in a whisper.

‘I had to wait for everybody to fall asleep.’

‘You shouldn’t be here, Henry.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Neither do I.’

He kissed me again and moved me backwards towards the bed. We pulled at each other’s clothes, even though I knew it was wrong and I might, like Mrs Hathaway and Miss Mason said, be left
with a child. But I didn’t care. Right then, in that moment, there was no future, just a passionate and overpowering present.

But Henry Rivers proved to be no Don Juan, no Romeo to my Juliet, no Lancelot and no Tristan and no Mr Darcy. He was a boy, even though he thought he was a man, and just as nervous as me. That
nervousness, combined with the alcohol he’d imbibed to give him Dutch courage, foiled his futile attempts to send me into an ecstasy of erotic pleasure – and, after exhausting himself
trying, he fell asleep. I was so tired I fell asleep too and didn’t hear Jacob’s tapping on my door in the morning. I was woken by the rough hands of Mrs Hathaway shaking me by the
shoulders. Henry Rivers woke too and rushed red-faced from my room, almost knocking over the many servants who’d congregated in the corridor outside.

‘You’re in trouble, young lady!’

I was allowed to dress, then frogmarched to the library where Mr Brandon senior was waiting, along with Miranda, who’d obviously managed to dress herself, or had been helped by one of the
other ladies’maids or Miss Mason. Mrs Hathaway pushed me inside and closed the door.

‘Miss Moyle, I’m afraid your conduct has been . . .’

Miranda put up her hand to silence him.

‘Father, please, let me deal with this.’

He threw his arms into the air in an exasperated fashion, while she took me to one side.

‘I’m sorry, Anwyn.’

‘Nothing happened, Miranda.’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘Why not?’

‘You don’t understand . . .’

And that’s all she said. It was clear that I’d challenged one of the ridiculous rules that couldn’t be challenged – by a woman. Mr Brandon asked if I wanted to go back to
London or home to Wales. As there was nowhere for me to go to in London and Wales was closer and I hadn’t seen my family in nearly three years, I decided on Llangynwyd. He paid me my wages up
to that day and a week in lieu of notice and Miranda said I could keep the clothes she’d given me. I packed a trunk and Tom the chauffeur drove me up to Birmingham railway station, where a
ticket was waiting for me, paid for by Mr Brandon.

The train journey to Maesteg was a sad and lonely one – down through Herefordshire and into Wales and across the Brecon Beacons. It took hours and hours and I had plenty
of time to think. I was disappointed that Mrs Bouchard hadn’t stood up for me more, after I’d been loyal to her and kept her secret and stood by her when she wanted me to cover for her.
But that was the way of life, you never knew who your friends were until you needed them. I’d learned another valuable lesson.

I didn’t know how my family would take my coming home. I had plenty of money, because there was nowhere to spend my wages in Warwickshire and, even in London, I rarely got to go anywhere.
So, all told, I had six pounds and fifteen shillings in my purse after buying myself a cup of tea and a sandwich while I was waiting for the train. That was a lot of money and I resolved to give
most of it to my mother for my keep, until I could get myself another job.

It was 4:30 p.m. when I arrived at Maesteg station. The November late afternoon was already dark and I had a big trunk to carry. I didn’t know how I was going to get it the two-and-a-half
miles to Llangynwyd. My family didn’t have a phone and nobody knew I was coming and there were no taxis or anything like that – so I was stuck. There was only one thing for it, I asked
a porter at the station if I could leave my trunk there overnight and come back for it in the morning. He asked what was in it and I told him nothing but ladies’ clothes.

‘No dead bodies?’

He laughed and I gave him a sixpenny tip and he took the trunk away. I set out to walk to Llangynwyd. It was starting to rain, as it does in Wales in November, and I had no umbrella. By the time
I reached the door of our house I was soaked through and my mother didn’t even recognise me.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘It’s me, Mam . . . Winny.’

She looked closer, then turned back into the house.

‘Father, look, it’s our Winny!’

‘Winny?’

Mam hugged me when I finally got through the door and so did my sister Gwyneth, who was nearly fifteen now, and Bronwyn, who was over twelve. Walter was going on seventeen and had left school
and was already working in one of the mines that were still operating, so he wasn’t home yet. My father stood me at arm’s length.

‘Let me look at you.’

‘I’m like a drowned rat.’

‘No you’re not. You’re a fine-looking lady now.’

Then he kissed me on the forehead and Mam got a towel to dry my hair and the girls fussed about my fine clothes that were ruined by the rain.

‘Have you no suitcase?’

‘I left it at the station.’

‘I’ll go get it.’

‘No, Dad, they’ll keep it till tomorrow.’

That night, after Walter got home and had his tea, we gathered round the fire and I gave Mam five pounds of my money. She didn’t want to take it, but I made her. Then I told them all about
London and Warwickshire, leaving out why I had to leave Hampstead and how I got fired from Bolde Hall.

‘And are you going back there, Winny?’

‘Not to Warwickshire. I may go back to London, when the new season starts.’

‘When will that be?’

‘Maybe February or March.’

They asked what I was going to do until then and I said I’d get a job here in Wales to tide me over. My father shook his head and my mother clucked her tongue and they both said there
wasn’t much doing at the moment. But, I thought, with my experience, I was bound to find something. For now, I was glad to be home and they were glad to have me and I slept soundly in my
little Welsh bed that night.

After saying a thankful prayer.

N
ext morning, I went with my sisters and a handcart and collected my trunk from Maesteg station. The girls were star-struck by all the fine clothes
and shoes and stoles and camisoles that Miranda gave me when we were friends, and I shared with them whatever fitted or whatever could be altered to fit. As the days and weeks went by, I searched
the surrounding area for a job – going as far as Bryn and Pontycymer and Aberkenfig and even Port Talbot and Bridgend, but I could find nothing but grimaces and shaking heads. In the
meantime, King Edward VIII abdicated to be with Mrs Simpson on 10 December, but us poor people in Wales were too busy trying to survive without any work to be very much concerned. I supposed the
Brandons and their social peers might be buzzing with the drama of it all, but not us here in the redundant hills.