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The winter was finally ending; the days were warmer and a bit brighter, although it still rained nearly every day. “Next year,” Uncle Tom said, “Next year, Sara, I should like to take you to the French Riviera.”
“I don’t need to go to the French Riviera,” Sara said, stoutly.
“I know, but I should like you to see it.” Though Mr. Carrisford’s health had improved a great deal since that day when he had finally found Sara, he was still weak enough that his doctor had recommended against any long trips. (“Though you might go to some respectable establishment in Brighton for a month or two,” he’d added. “The sea air would doubtless do you good.”) “And Paris. You should see Paris.”
“Paris,” Becky breathed in mild horror when she heard. “Ain’t that one of those countries where they don’t speak English?”
“Paris is a city, not a country, but yes, it’s in France,” Sara said. “Don’t worry, Becky. If we go, you’ll have me with you, and I’ll tell you what people are saying.” Becky was sitting behind Sara, carefully brushing her hair. “Also, I can’t imagine it will be soon. Travel is a strain on Uncle Tom, still. I could even teach you some French, if you wanted.”
“Me learn French?” Becky said with a laugh.
“Why not? Ram Dass learned English.”
“That’s English.”
“You could have been born in France,” Sara said. “It’s just an accident of birth you were born in England. If you’d been born in France, you’d have grown up speaking French, and it would be English that was the strange, foreign language!”
“If you say so, miss,” Becky said, in a tone that suggested she considered this one of Sara’s wilder fancies.
“Ermengarde’s father speaks eight languages,” Sara said. “English, of course, and French, but also Greek and Latin, German, Italian, Russian, and Sanskrit. Sanskrit is the great classical language of India. Ram Dass speaks Hindustani, but I don’t think he speaks Sanskrit, any more than I speak Latin.”
“You speak ‘Industani,” Becky said. “And French, and English. Do you speak any of the others?”
“I would like to study Latin and Greek,” Sara said. “If I’d been born a boy, I’d have doubtless been taught both at school. Miss Minchin’s school didn’t teach either one, though if my Papa hadn’t died, I could have had a tutor if I’d wanted. Oh!”
“Did I ‘urt you, miss?” Becky’s hand, still holding the brush, froze.
“No, not at all. I just realized — Becky, I could have a tutor now. I could hire someone to teach me anything I wanted. All the things that are hard to learn alone from books — Greek and Latin, Sanskrit, algebra, anything I wanted. What would you learn, Becky, if you could?”
“How to do your ‘air properly. I do my best for you, miss, but you should have a maid who can do more than brush it out at night.”
“Don’t be silly, Becky, my hair would look ridiculous all done up in curls and what-not. It never gets long enough, anyway.”
“All the same, miss.”
“All right, Becky. If you want to learn, I’m sure there’s someone who could teach you, and we could bring her in and pay her some money, but I hope you know I don’t care if you never learn to braid my hair.”
Later, as Becky was fluffing up Sara’s pillow, Sara tried again. “Becky,” she asked. “If there were something you wanted, would you tell me?”
Becky smoothed out the quilt. “Like the ‘airdressing lessons?”
“If there were something you wanted that was just for you, Becky. Like, I don’t know. Like a warmer coat. A book. Anything.”
“You just got me a coat, miss, it’s still new! And I’m not much for readin’.”
“All the same, Becky. If there’s anything you want – any sort of lessons, a visit to the seaside – I do want you to tell me. Will you tell me, do you promise? Anything.”
“I promise, miss,” Becky said. Sara looked at her face – was Becky’s brow furrowed? Was she thinking of something she wanted, or was she merely perplexed by Sara’s insistence that there must be something she wasn’t revealing?
Sara wished Becky a good night and Becky retired to her own room, which adjoined Sara’s. Once they were settled in their beds, Becky knocked twice on the wall, for old-time’s sake. Sara rapped three times; Becky knocked four. Smiling to herself, Sara pulled up the quilt and closed her eyes.
***
Over breakfast the next morning, Sara raised the question of a tutor with her Uncle Tom. “Do you know how I might go about hiring one?”
“What sort of tutor?” Mr. Carrisford asked. He gave her a pleased, indulgent smile. “When I was a boy, I had a tutor who used to cane me when I couldn’t remember my Latin declensions properly. I can’t imagine you want a tutor like that.”
“I certainly don’t want anyone cruel,” Sara said, “but I do want someone who can teach me Latin and Greek, and algebra. And maybe Sanskrit. I don’t know if that’s possible, but Latin, Greek, and algebra surely would be.”
“Surely, in the whole of London, there’s someone of good character who could instruct a clever young lady in Sanskrit,” Mr. Carrisford said. “But Latin and Greek and algebra -- really, algebra? -- those should be quite easy. We’ll place an advertisement or I’ll send a note to King’s College. Or University College -- I heard someone mention they’ve started allowing young ladies to attend lectures in some of their departments. Perhaps we could find you a tutor who’s an educated woman.”
Sara had been imagining that her tutor would be a man, because it was boys who were taught Greek and Latin, but of course, she was a girl who wanted to learn Greek and Latin. She pushed away the brief, terrible image of some version of Miss Minchin appearing at Uncle Tom’s door and tried to imagine an older version of herself, instead. Someone who’d loved to read and learn. “I would like that,” she said. “But as long as they’re knowledgeable and not cruel, I will manage.”
“I’ll start enquiries, then,” Mr. Carrisford said.
“Also,” Sara added, “Becky would like to learn hairdressing. I think Mrs. Carmichael’s maid probably would know someone who could come teach her, so I will pay the Carmichaels a visit later this morning.” Becky shot her a grateful smile from across the room and Sara gave her a conspiratorial one back.
“I’ll leave that to you,” Mr. Carrisford said. “I have to admit, there’s very little I know less about than how ladies get their fancy hairstyles.”
***
Mrs. Carmichael did indeed know just the person, and after a pleasant visit with Janet and Nora, Sara returned with a note for Ram Dass to deliver on her behalf, engaging a local ladies’ maid for a series of visits. Warned in advance by Janet of what to expect, Sara recruited some of her old friends from Miss Minchin’s to come over for the afternoon and eat sponge cake and scones with jam while lending their hair to Becky for demonstration and practice.
Becky, much to her own surprise, took quickly to the skill, needing very little demonstrated more than once before she caught on. The lesson moved quickly from a basic chignon to some of the most fashionable current styles.
“I look almost pretty,” Ermengarde said, peering into a mirror at the results. “Even with my fat cheeks.”
“Your cheeks are just fine,” Sara said. “And you do look pretty.”
“Lavinia’s been getting ready to Come Out,” Ermengarde said. “Her mother’s come three times in the last few months to take her to dressmakers for fittings. I’m just glad that soon she’ll be off and married and not at the school anymore. She’s just as much of a horror as she ever was, although mostly these days she takes out her bad temper on Miss Minchin.”
Becky was standing behind Lottie and met Sara’s eyes, briefly. It was strange, hearing gossip about Lavinia and knowing it didn’t affect either of them in the least.
“Are you going to Come Out, Sara?” Lottie asked.
“I don’t want to get married,” Sara said.
“But you could be presented to the Queen!” Lottie said.
“I suppose I wouldn’t mind being presented to the Queen,” Sara said. “So perhaps. In any case, I won’t be old enough for years yet.”
“Imagine Lavinia being presented to the Queen,” Ermengarde said. “For once she’ll have to hold her tongue and make herself behave, or people will talk, and not just the other girls at her school, people who matter.”
“I think you and Lottie matter as much as any Duke or Duchess,” Sara said, “although it’s true that Lavinia probably thinks Dukes and Duchesses matter more.”
“Jessie’s got a whole year yet before she can come out,” Ermengarde said. “She’s become almost friendly. I think she regrets being as beastly as she’s been.”
“Well, that’s good,” Sara said. “She ought to regret that.”
“It’s just because Lavinia’s her only friend,” Lottie says. “And Lavinia will be gone.” She turned to Sara. “Why don’t you want to get married, Sara? Don’t you want to be a Mama? A real one, not a pretend one, like you were with me.”
“If she gets married her husband will control her fortune,” Ermengarde told Lottie.
“That’s actually not true,” Sara said. “There was a law passed just a few years ago, and I could keep my fortune, even if I married.” Mr. Carmichael had explained this to Sara, along with many other things. “I quite like children. Perhaps when I’m older I will adopt an orphan. Or several orphans. Anyway, if I married, even if legally my husband wouldn’t control my fortune, he might want to tell me what to do. I don’t think I should like that.”
The last head of hair being beautifully curled and braided, and supper being near, the girls took themselves back to Miss Minchin’s. Becky put away the brushes and combs as the parlour maid cleared away the plates. “Becky,” Sara said, “Do you think you would like to get married, someday?”
“No, miss,” Becky said. “I couldn’t stay with you any longer, if I were.” She sat down in the chair next to Sara. “I suppose you’d let me visit…” Sara nodded encouragingly “…but I’d miss seeing you every day.”
“I’d miss you, too, Becky, but if you should fall in love, and want to leave me, I promise you’ll always be my friend.”
“Oh, I know, miss.” Becky gave her a warm smile. “I know that.”
***
Mr. Carrisford’s advertisement for a tutor ran, and the following Tuesday, a procession of applicants presented themselves at their doorstep. Normally, when a Greek, Latin, and Algebra tutor was hired for a thirteen-year-old child, it was the father of the thirteen-year-old employing them, and quite a few of the would-be tutors made precisely the wrong assumption when they entered his sitting room for their interview with Sara and Tom Carrisford. “I will brook no laziness,” said one grey-haired older woman who already reminded Sara too much of Miss Minchin for comfort; Mr. Carrisford saw Sara flinch slightly and Ram Dass showed her to the door without another word.
But in late afternoon, Miss Hannah Schreiber arrived.
Miss Schreiber was young -- perhaps twenty-five -- and carried none of the glowing testimonials from parents of former charges that the older, stuffier tutors had brought. She did have a letter of recommendation from one of the librarians of the University College library. She was proficient in Latin and Greek, could teach algebra, trigonometry, and geometry, and best of all, when she came into the room, she looked at Sara, not at Mr. Carrisford.
“Miss Crewe,” she said. “It would be a pleasure and an honor to teach you what I know.”
There are occasions when two people, upon meeting, know themselves instantly to be in sympathy, and this was such an occasion. In addition to Latin and Greek, Miss Schreiber could also teach her German, Hebrew, and Russian, should Sara be inclined to learn them, though not, alas, Sanskrit.
“How soon can you start?” Sara asked.
“I would be happy to return tomorrow morning,” Miss Schreiber said. “As early as you would like.”
“What can’t you teach?” Mr. Carrisford asked.
“There are many things I cannot teach,” Miss Schreiber said, her tone growing slightly apologetic. “I cannot teach dancing or music. I can draw adequately but I am self-taught and would not recommend myself to teach that.”
“If I want to learn dancing, music, or art, I will employ someone else,” Sara said. “I wish to hire you to teach me Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, and to teach my maid Becky anything she might like to know that you can teach. Please come tomorrow morning. We will begin at nine o’clock.”
***
One of the pleasant rooms on the ground floor of Mr. Carmichael’s house had some months ago been given over to Sara to use as she wished. She’d used it as a drawing room when Ermengarde and Lottie came to visit, and on one memorable occasion, she’d held a tea party there for all her former young charges, most of them around Lottie’s age; they’d feasted, delightedly, on tea cakes and jam buns; the greatest thrill of the afternoon had been when Ram Dass brought his monkey in to visit them. (They would have shrieked with delight, but for the fact that Sara had made them all swear not to scare the monkey.)
Now, at Sara’s request, a round table and three comfortable but upright chairs were brought in, along with a blackboard and chalk, and tea for three. Ram Dass met Miss Schreiber at the front door and showed her into the sitting room turned school room. Sara and Becky were waiting – expectantly and eagerly in Sara’s case, nervously in Becky’s.
“Good morning,” Miss Schreiber said, and then, “Salvete, discipulae.”
“Salvete,” Sara repeated, her eyes alight.
“You would say ‘salve, magistra,’” Miss Schreiber said. “That means ‘greetings, teacher.’” Sara repeated the words.
Out of Miss Schreiber’s carpet bag came a battered elementary Latin grammar; also a copy of Virgil’s Aeneid and Caeser’s history of the wars of Gaul, both in Latin. “Latin,” Miss Schreiber said, “has spent centuries as the common language of scholarship. But there is nothing quite like reading the words of Caeser or Virgil precisely as they set them down almost two thousand years ago. We will begin with the basics, but each day I shall read you a passage from each, and then we will work through the translation together.”
Becky had watched all this with increasing apprehension, and when Miss Schreiber turned her attention to Becky, she was wringing her hands in her lap.
“You must be Becky,” Miss Schreiber said. “Miss Sara’s personal maid.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Becky said, lowering her eyes.
“Do call me Miss Schreiber, as your mistress does. Would you like me to call you Becky, or Rebecca?”
“Becky, if you please, ma’am – I mean, miss.”
“Becky, do you know how to read and write?”
“Yes, miss, a bit,” Becky said. “There was schoolin’, in the workhouse, sometimes. I learned my letters. I can’t write proper-like.”
Sara froze a little at the word workhouse. She supposed she should have known, or guessed, that Becky had no home to return to, if Miss Minchin had thrown her out.
From the carpet-bag came a primer for basic reading, and a copy-book that had been written in by someone who clearly was not fully committed to the task of learning, since most of each page was still blank. Miss Schreiber had Becky read aloud to her from the primer; Becky could, indeed, read, though she was slow and stumbled frequently on the longer words. “I’m sorry,” she said, when she’d finished.
“There’s no need for apology,” Miss Schreiber said. “All you need is practice.”
“A lady’s maid should sound more genteel,” Becky said, softly, her eyes down on the book.
Sara looked up from her own work. “It doesn’t matter one bit to me, Becky, you know that.”
Becky looked at her, and at Miss Schreiber, not speaking.
“Becky, I had to learn to speak like an educated woman,” Miss Schreiber said. “I would be happy to teach you a more refined-sounding accent.”
“I don’t want to sound like I’m puttin’ on airs, neither,” Becky said.
“I quite understand, Becky,” Miss Schreiber said. “I promise it’s not hard to switch back and forth, one to the other. It’s a bit like learning a new language.” She nodded at Sara with her Latin book.
“Like learnin’ French,” Becky said.
“I speak French, but not well enough to teach it,” Miss Schreiber said.
“Je parle français,” Sara said, absent-mindedly. “But I never speak it by accident, Becky.”
Becky nodded, slowly.
“Now, if you please, let me see your writing,” Miss Schreiber said.
Given the copybook and a pen, Becky set to work writing out each letter. Her handwriting was shaky and she had a tendency to make a great deal of blots; Miss Schreiber assured her she was doing as well as anyone else learning to write, and as the whole point of a copy book was practice, she wasn’t ruining it by writing in it.
While Becky practiced writing, and Sara worked through her Latin grammar exercises, Miss Schreiber went to examine Sara’s bookcases. “Are these your books, or your guardian’s?” she asked Sara.
“Some of them are Uncle Tom’s, but they’re here because I like to read them,” Sara said.
“So you did not engage a History tutor because you are already a young historian,” Miss Schreiber said with a wry smile, “and not because you find the subject dull.”
“I love history, but I can learn history just by reading,” Sara said. “Most of my favorite books are about history.”
“Becky,” Miss Schreiber said, “Do you like history?”
“I do when Miss Sara tells me about it,” Becky said, her eyes alight. “You should ‘ear her talk about the French Revolution, miss!”
“I should quite like to,” Miss Schreiber murmured, and returned to the table with a volume to read while Sara and Becky worked.
***
That night, as Becky brushed out Sara’s hair, Sara asked, “You lived in a workhouse?” When Becky had come to Miss Minchin’s, she was fourteen, but Sara’s French maid had said she was so starved and undersized she looked closer to twelve. Sara had assumed, in the way it’s easy to assume things you’ve never put into words, that Becky had no family to go back to, but they’d never discussed it.
They’d never discussed it because Sara didn’t want to make Becky talk about things that made her unhappy. Sara remembered being furious at Ermengarde for asking her if she was very unhappy, those few weeks after her own father’s death, and she didn’t want to put Becky in that same uncomfortable position. But it occurred to her now that possibly Becky was not uncomfortable talking about this; perhaps she was trying to avoid making Sara uncomfortable.
It had also occurred to her that if Becky had family, she could help them, as well.
“Yes, miss,” Becky said. “Before Miss Minchin’s, I lived in a workhouse.”
“Do you have parents?” Sara asked. “Living parents, I mean? Sisters or brothers?”
Becky put the brush down and sat down on the stool opposite Sara. “When I was ten, the cholera came,” she said, matter-of-factly. “My Da got sick and died. So did Robert, he was the baby, and Solomon, he was also real little, and Juliet, she was near my age. Ma and me and David was all left behind, but Ma had been so sick she was too weak to take in washin’, like she use to. So we went to the workhouse. David and me, we was taken away and sent to live with the children, and Ma was in with the sick ‘uns. A few months later they told us Ma had died as well. And then David died the next year, from a fever, and I was all alone after that.”
Robert, Solomon, Juliet, David. “What beautiful names your sister and brothers had,” Sara whispered.
“Don’t look so sad, miss,” Becky said, distressed at having distressed her. “It was a long time ago.” She picked the hairbrush back up. “Miss Janet’s maid said I should do an ‘undred strokes a night, when I brush your hair,” and she set back to work brushing.
Sara didn’t want to pry any further, especially since she could tell that her distress was upsetting Becky, and they fell into silence for a bit.
“Which workhouse?” she asked, finally.
“St. Matthew’s,” Becky said. “Bethnal Green.”
Sara knew where Bethnal Green was, but had never been to that part of London. She suddenly wanted to see it, though she couldn’t explain why. When they tapped on the wall to wish each other goodnight, she lay awake for a long while after, in the dark.
***
A month went by. Sara studied tenses and declensions and vocabulary. Becky’s writing became legible, then – greatly to her surprise – quite lovely. Her hairstyling was quick and adept now, although she lamented the fact that should Sara wish to be presented to the Queen in a few years, likely the styles would have changed completely. Beyond enjoying pretty things, first in her days as a princess and now in her life as an heiress, Sara had never found fashion particularly interesting, and Becky explained to her that fashion, both the clothes and the hairstyles, changed constantly. The particular technique she had learned was particularly modish – in fact it was in great demand from the young ladies preparing to come out.
Becky and Sara learned just how in-demand this hairstyle was when they received an entirely unexpected visitor – Lavinia.
Lavinia came on a Thursday afternoon. Technically, Sara’s lesson from Miss Schreiber was over, but Miss Schreiber had lingered, as she did more and more often, over tea, to discuss a book she’d recommended to Sara. (Sara’s fascination with the horrors of the French Revolution had inspired Miss Schreiber to suggest a few additional historical periods she might find particularly interesting, such as Renaissance Florence. Having devoured three books on the Borgias in less than a week, she was now reading The Prince by Machiavelli.) When the doorbell rang, Sara assumed it was one of her friends come for a visit, and went out to the front hall – unfortunately foiling Ram Dass’s attempt to tell Lavinia that Sara was indisposed.
“Sara, my dear,” Lavinia cried, and handed Ram Dass her hat as she shouldered past him. “How well you look.”
Sara, put on the spot, fell back on manners – as, she realized a moment later, Lavinia had counted on her doing. “Lavinia,” she said. “Won’t you come have tea?”
Lavinia settled herself on the settee in the library, ignoring both Becky and Miss Schreiber as if they weren’t there. “You must tell me what you’ve been up to,” she said.
“I’ve been learning Latin and Algebra,” Sara said. “May I introduce my tutor. Miss Schreiber.”
Miss Schreiber looked up from her book and gave Lavinia a slightly wary nod. “How do you do,” she said. Becky kept her eyes on her primer and said nothing.
“What a pleasure,” Lavinia said. “Schreiber, is that a … German name?”
“My parents are immigrants,” Miss Schreiber said.
Lavinia’s eyes widened very slightly at that, and she turned back to Sara, telling her in rather more detail than Sara particularly wanted to hear about the preparations for her coming out. There had been trips to dressmakers, hatmakers, hairdressers, and here she finally arrived at the purpose of her visit. There was a particular hairstyle, very much in-fashion, that Ermengarde had come home wearing after a visit some weeks earlier – was she to understand that Sara’s personal maid (she didn’t use Becky’s name) had been taught how to create this particular hair-based confection?
“Oh, yes,” Sara said, as she suddenly understood the reason for Lavinia’s effusive pretense of friendliness. “Yes, Becky wanted to learn hairstyling, and so we engaged a teacher for her. She’s quite good at it, isn’t she?”
“Dear Sara,” Lavinia said, with a forced laugh. “Would you be a dear and lend me your maid for a few mornings? It seems every other maid in London who has learned this hairstyle is already engaged on the day of the Presentation.”
Sara looked at Lavinia, thinking about how utterly ridiculous Lavinia had made herself, and all for a hairstyle. Pretending that she liked Sara! Pretending that they were friends. Even during Sara’s princess days, Lavinia had never been anything but contemptuous of her – she could see now that this was borne of jealousy, but Lavinia’s scathing contempt had only deepened after Sara’s fall from grace.
Still, if it hadn’t been for that incident with Ermengarde’s hamper, when Lavinia had told tales to Miss Minchin and nearly gotten Becky thrown out into the street – if it hadn’t been for that, Sara might have been willing to let bygones be bygones.
Sara looked at Becky, who’d raised her eyes from her primer. Becky’s cheeks were pink and the expression on her face told Sara everything she needed to know.
“The answer is no,” Sara said. “Ram Dass? Please show Miss Lavinia to the door, she’ll need to be back at the seminary in time for tea.”
“Thank you, miss,” Becky said, when she’d gone. “I was afraid for a minute you’d say yes to her. Don’t you think that’s what a princess might do?”
“A princess would never forget her most loyal retainer. She’d never throw her most loyal retainer to someone she didn’t find trustworthy,” Sara said. “And you, Becky, are my most loyal retainer.”
Miss Schreiber’s eyes came up from her book, and she smiled warmly at both of her students.
***
That night, Sara could tell, something was on Becky’s mind.
“Please tell me what you’re thinking,” Sara begged. “You can tell me anything, Becky, you know that.” She thought perhaps that Becky had realized how much money she could make styling ladies’ hair during the Season, and was trying to work out how to ask Sara if she would mind if Becky took other work for a month or two.
Instead, Becky said, “I was thinkin’ about Agatha.”
“Agatha?” Sara said. She’d never heard Becky mention this name before. “Who is Agatha?”
“In the workhouse,” Becky said, slowly, “I had a friend.”
Sara turned to look at Becky, and Becky laid the hairbrush down. “Tell me about her,” Sara said, when Becky fell silent.
“Agatha also came to the workhouse after the cholera. Lost both her parents, she did, and I cried on her shoulder after Ma died. And David. There weren’t much she could do but at least I wasn’t alone – you understand, miss.”
“I do understand,” Sara said.
“She were older than me, and went out in service, oh, half a year before I did. No one told me where. Sometimes I wondered, my first year at Miss Minchin’s, if she were workin’ for someone cruel, or someone kind. If she were cold, on the cold days – if she were ‘ungry, or fed. If she had anyone like you, miss, looking out for her. I don’t know if it would even be possible to find her, but if I could, I’d like to know how she’s doing.”
“We can do better than that,” Sara said. “Once we find her, if she’s not in a good position where she’s treated well, I’ll have Uncle Tom hire her on as a house maid. We’ll find her something.”
“Thank you, miss,” Becky breathed.
***
Sara broached the topic of the St. Matthew’s workhouse the following morning over breakfast. Mr. Carrisford, eager to answer Sara’s wildest whims when they involved things like tutors or books or clothing or trips to the opera, was much more hesitant about a trip to the workhouse.
“It’s not a suitable place for a young lady to visit,” he said.
“And yet Becky lived there,” Sara said. “For years. And I well might have wound up somewhere like that, if Miss Minchin had made good on her threat to turn me out.” She regretted her words when she saw the look of pain and horror that flashed across his face at the image. “But I could start by sending a letter.”
“Yes,” Mr. Carrisford said. “Start by writing a letter. Ram Dass can deliver it.”
So Sara set aside her Latin that morning, and wrote out a careful letter. “Do you think it would be better to make it sound as if I am older?” Sara asked Miss Schreiber. “Should I tell them I’m an heiress? People are often a great deal more interested in doing what you ask if they know you have money.”
“Quite,” Miss Schreiber agreed. Her lips quirked. “Bethnal Green, you say?”
“Where do you live, Miss Schreiber?”
“I grew up in Whitechapel,” Miss Schreiber said. “It’s quite close to Bethnal Green. I live in Paddington now.”
“I wanted to go myself to St. Matthew’s,” Sara said, “But Uncle Tom – well, he never quite forbids me from anything, but he clearly didn’t like the idea.”
“Nor do I,” Miss Schreiber said. She’d heard Sara’s story by now, and added, “Even when you were being used as Miss Minchin’s maid-of-all-work, you were being sent on your errands around this part of London. Which is not like Bethnal Green.”
Sara tightened her lips – she couldn’t very well argue that point – and returned to her letter.
There was no reply to her letter; no reply to her second letter. In the end, Mr. Carrisford sent Mr. Carmichael, who after all was quite experienced in attempting to track down missing girls. From what was said on his return, Sara was fairly certain a bribe had been paid. At any rate, he had been given the name and address of the person who had hired Agatha Jones on as a scullery maid five years previously.
Agatha had been hired to work in a house, rather than a school. The family’s name was Selby, and their home was in a rather exclusive part of London (as opposed to a merely fashionable one.) Ram Dass went out for a look and returned to report that according to local gossip, the family had arrived in town recently from their country estate because they had a daughter who was to be presented to the Queen and would be coming out in this year’s season.
“I’m not sure what to do next,” Sara confessed to Miss Schreiber and Becky, after receiving Ram Dass’s report. “I could ask Mrs. Carmichael to take me to call on them, but it’s not as though I could say ‘excuse me a moment’ and slip off for a quick word with Agatha. And they’re not likely to tell me they’re cruel to their staff – Miss Minchin certainly would never admit it.”
“And the likes of you, talking to a scullery maid, miss?” Becky said. “She’d never tell you even if they starved her and threw her down the stairs.”
“Becky,” Sara said, something occurring to her. “You could do it. You could go.”
“Me, miss?”
“Yes. Lavinia, of all people, tried to engage you as a hairdresser. The Selbys are in town for the Season, Ram Dass said. All we need to do is let them know you’re available, and they’ll leap at the opportunity to have you come. And you would recognize Agatha, if you saw her, and she’d surely tell you honestly if they were treating her well.”
For a moment, Becky looked utterly daunted.
And then she smiled. “You’re right, miss. They’d probably think they were lucky to have me. But ‘ow do we let them know where to find me?”
“Leave that to me,” Miss Schreiber said.
***
Becky presented herself at the Selby townhouse with a case of pins and pomades and false hair to be added as needed. She’d been engaged to show the style and the process to Eustacia Selby’s own maid, who was a skilled hairdresser but was uncertain exactly how the most current mode was properly achieved.
Becky forced herself to set aside her nerves; Sara pretended to be a princess when she was nervous, and Becky thought that she could certainly pretend to be a princess’s loyal retainer. She swallowed down on her fear of “puttin’ on airs” and used the more refined speech that Miss Schreiber had been teaching her, though she knew she’d slipped up a few times. But it didn’t matter if Eustacia’s maid was exchanging looks with the housemaid – she had been invited because she knew how to do something Eustacia’s maid didn’t, and if she cared to learn, she’d better pay attention to the chignon, not Becky’s accent.
She showed the process twice, on two giggling younger sisters, and then the maid styled Eustacia’s hair while Becky supervised. That accomplished, Becky was paid a startlingly handsome sum for her services. On the way down the stairs, she asked the maid if she could bide a minute or two in the kitchen before being on her way.
“Yes, yes, that’s fine,” the other maid said. At the door to the kitchen, she asked, “How did you obtain your position?” Becky’s cheeks warmed; it was not a friendly question.
“It’s a bit of a long story,” Becky said, wondering if the other maid would follow her into the kitchen. “I can tell you if you like.”
For a moment, she thought the other maid would take her up on it, but instead, she let out a slight impatient huff and said, “Perhaps another time,” before heading back upstairs.
The Selby’s cook was the good-natured sort. She offered Becky one of the crumpets left over from breakfast with a bit of butter and jam.
“I heard an old friend of mine was workin’ here,” Becky said. “Agatha. Is she anywhere about?”
There was some momentary puzzlement and then the cook said, “Do you mean Aggie? She’s gone out to the grocers, but I expect she’ll be back before too long. Take a load off--” She nodded at a stool next to the big table.
It still felt strange – to sit, in a kitchen, and not be shouted at for laziness. It was a relief to hear the back door open and close.
Agatha came in, a basket on her arm. She was taller than Becky remembered, and her cheeks were pink from the fresh air. “They didn’t have parsley,” she said to the cook. “I bought chives, instead.”
“That’ll do,” the cook said, and nodded at Becky. “This lass here was asking for you, maybe.”
Agatha turned, and for a moment she stared at Becky in complete befuddlement. Then recognition flashed through her eyes. “Becky!” she gasped, and Becky leaped to her feet as Agatha swept her into her arms. “Becky, whatever are you doing here?”
“I came here to teach hairstylin’,” Becky said with a grin.
Agatha looked her over – her neat, well-fitted dress, her crisp apron. “Becky, you’re never a lady’s maid!”
“I am. You’re working in the kitchen?”
“Yes, but I’m a kitchen maid now, not just a scullery maid. Cook thinks I might be able to find a position as a cook in another few years, though I might stay on anyway, as I have a young man also in service here.”
The cook clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “If he’s worth anything, he’ll want you to make something of yourself.”
“Becky, you look wonderful.”
“So do you,” Becky said. “Are you happy here, then?”
“Cook’s kind and the Housekeeper’s fair. I have enough to eat and my wages are good. I get to spend half the year in the country, that’s not so bad. Are you happy, with your young lady?”
“Couldn’t be happier,” Becky said.
Agatha had to get back to work, but she gave Becky another hug, and Becky wrote down Mr. Carrisford’s address so that Agatha could come see her on some future day off.
“What’s your day off?” Agatha asked.
“You just come whenever you can,” Becky said. “Miss Sara won’t mind. If you come I’ll tell you the whole story.”
***
Sara was watching at the window when Becky arrived home. “Did you find her?” she asked. “Oh, you did find her, I can tell!”
“I did. She’s well. She has a young man, and a good job. She might come to see me the next time she has a day off.”
“I’m so pleased,” Sara said.
They went into the sitting room. Sara hadn’t realized, until she saw Becky’s face, just how worried she’d been that they’d be unable to find Agatha. She felt almost giddy with relief. “Tell me everything,” she said.
“The cook there is kind, and that makes such a difference,” Becky said.
“I can imagine.”
“I know there’s cooks out there that don’t hit or yell or blame you for things as aren’t your fault, but there’s enough of the bad sort, Agatha could ‘ave easily been unlucky.”
“Like you were. And me.”
“Exactly so. But no one starves in the Selby house, and Agatha’s trainin’ up to be a cook herself. There’s a young man in the stables she’s sweet on, and who’s sweet on her.” Becky trailed off, looking slightly wistful.
“What are you thinking about, Becky?”
“How we both had families, and we both lost our families. But now we both have families again. Agatha has her young man, and the Selby’s cook. And I have you, miss, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Of course I don’t mind you saying so, Becky,” Sara said. “If you should ever find a young man, and leave me to get married, I hope you know – you’re like a sister to me, Becky. You’ll always be my family.”
“I don’t know that I’d want to be sister to a princess,” Becky said.
“Then it’s a good thing it’s only ever been pretend,” Sara said. “I’m not really a princess. But I am truly your friend, Becky, and you are mine, and we will never lose each other, ever.”
“All right then, miss,” Becky said. “Good. Because being your friend is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
They sat by the fire a bit, and then Becky said, “If I wanted to learn a bit o’ French, could you teach it to me?”
“Nothing would make me happier than to teach you French,” Sara said. “We can start any time you like. We have all the time in the world.”