Page 7 of A Mayfair Maid

A jar of blue dye with an oilcloth cover came next. It was used to prevent the yellowing of the white linens. Bluing, Peggy had called it.

“Lastly, but most important, ox-gall from the butcher.” Peggy wrinkled her nose at the bottle but explained that the contents of the bovine gallbladder were essential for removing stains from brightly colored fabrics that would be damaged by the harshness of the lye.

Marilee had always felt that as a lady’s maid, taxing though that may be, she had been fortunate not to have to deal with some of the more grotesque aspects of servanthood. This, she realized, was exactly the sort of thing she had avoided. Ox-gall, she shuddered. Was she truly supposed to touch that refuse with her hands? She was well aware that lye was dangerous enough. Peggy had warned her that the woman who bought their ashes and sold them their lye in return made the strongest concentration of the product that Peggy had ever seen.

“An egg floats to the top immediately,” she said with wide eyes. “Everyone in London gets their lye from her. It’s not even worth making it yourself when hers would scour the sin off a Frenchman.”

Marilee snorted at the expression. Her grandfather had been French and so she had often been the butt of jokes as a child, but Peggy’s comment had not been directed at her. Peggy did not even know her last name. Besides now, Marilee was English through and through.

They worked in silence for the next hour. They added lye and lemon and then sunk the clothing into the steaming vats with large wooden paddles. The work was exhausting. That evening, when the flames had died to embers, they left the mixtures to leach all the dirt and oils from the most soiled garments, soaking overnight.

Marilee followed Peggy to the back of the house where the servant’s sleeping quarters were housed. In a small dormitory with three sets of bunked beds that lined the walls they found their rest for the night.

* * *

That night,Marilee expected to fall into a dreamless and exhausted sleep, but she did not. Images of the young man in the kitchen came to her. He brushed back her curls from her face and pulled the cap from her hair, letting it fall free. Free, she thought.

CHAPTER3

When morning came, the dream was forgotten. As Marilee was eating her oatmeal, she spoke with Peggy. “I don’t know how you managed all of this work on your own,” Marilee said to Peggy. “At Gravesend Manor it took four women three days to complete the weekly laundering of undergarments and two extra days each month for the more delicate gowns and silk coats. Cloaks and outerwear were another day’s work and even longer in drying. One woman working at the task daily would still not equate to that amount of labor.

“As you can see I didn’t,” Peggy laughed. Then, she heaved a heavy sigh. “At best, I kept Lady Lydia in her finery. Her father doesn’t leave the house so he is less demanding, but the staff has often had to go days without fresh underclothes. I know some of the maids have taken to washing items in the basin and hanging some clothing on their bedposts to dry at night, especially their small clothes.

“Why does the family not hire more help instead of waiting for those criminals to bring them a slave?” Peggy flinched at Marilee’s choice of words but did not correct her. They were slaves. Trapped, unpaid, and forced to serve against their will, Marilee thought.

Peggy took a deep breath and filled her cheeks with air, as if by preventing the release she could somehow hold in the words that she wished to say. “I have no idea. Lady Lydia is constantly making new, fine purchases. The woman could outfit every lady in London with her wardrobe alone. Still, her father seems unwilling to spend a farthing. Perhaps he is just a miser. Or, perhaps it is just the fact that they know they can get things for free so why would they want to pay? It isn’t as if they find their way down here to observe how hard we all have to work to make up for the lack. Upstairs, you wouldn’t know we were short on numbers at all,” Peggy said as she found her bed. Marilee had survived nearly certain death. She would survive this too.

“Is there any reward for doing well?” She asked. Marilee was still looking for the silver lining. She was at her core an optimistic person.

“Reward?” Peggy snorted. “The only reward for doing as you are told is to fall beneath notice,” Peggy revealed. “Suffice it to say, that’s a good thing. If they treat you like you are invisible. It is how I’ve lasted so long. I keep my head down. If they are noticing you, it is likely because you have done something wrong. The repercussions are… not ideal.” Peggy had turned on her side to sleep and her last words were muffled.

Marilee thought she would get some sleep too, but instead, she wondered for half the night if it would help to get on Mrs. Cavendish’s good side. Did the woman even have a good side? Her dreams had been filled with scenarios where the cranky old woman had taken a liking to her and secreted her out of the house. Even if not for freedom, Marilee knew that the only way that she would be let through those doors was if the order came from that woman. If she could incur the favor of the head housekeeper, then perhaps, she might be sent out on errands where escape might be more attainable. Running into a London crowd was an excellent way to make oneself disappear.

Then, she would need only to make it to Northwick to tell all to Baron Wickham. Miss Caroline could be rescued and all would be right in the world. There was only one problem with this fantasy. Well, two problems. Marilee did not know where Miss Caroline was held, and it did not seem likely that Mrs. Cavendish would allow her to go outside, and onto the streets of town; even if she could make the journey to Northwick alone.

Marilee doggedly tried to fall asleep, but rest was elusive. She lay awake for a long while listening to the sounds of the females sleeping around her. How many of them were here willingly? None, she guessed if they had been stashed together. How many of them had tried to escape and failed? How many of them would disappear in the time that she waited for the ransom to be paid? Lastly, what were the odds that she herself would ever see her old life outside of these walls? Suddenly, Marilee wanted to weep. She sniffed and buried her face in the hard little pillow trying to suppress the sobs.

The next morning, Marilee scrambled from the bed and threw herself into the hideous dress from the day before. She did not know if she would be given anything else to wear, but she knew that if it existed it was buried somewhere deep in the pile of soiled servant’s clothing. When she joined Peggy out in the hall, the laundress had already collected two bowls of porridge, a plate of biscuits, and a pot that might have had a few tea leaves in it. Marilee took the tray so that Peggy could retrieve a bucket that had been filled with the supplies.

Then, they made their way down the hall and back into the room in which they had first met.

* * *

That day Marileeworked harder than she had in her entire life. They pulled the well-soaked clothes from the water of the first two basins and rinsed them in the last of the three basins. Then, as they were short one footman, Peggy called the sole footman, the driver, and one of the burly door guards to haul buckets of soiled water out into the street before they were asked to fill the basins anew.

Marilee had hoped to see that this would leave one door unattended, but that was not the case. As soon that the man had vacated his post, the old butler took to pacing in front of the door until the task could be completed.

While the men hauled water, Marilee and Peggy began the arduous process of wringing out the clothes. Each laundress was forced to hang on to one end of the garment while they twisted and pulled and wrung the item out between them. Only several minutes into the task and Marilee’s hands were aching. Still, they went on for hours wringing and folding and wringing some more. By the time the drying racks were draped full of dripping items, the vats had been refilled with water and they were ready to begin the next load. The room was hot enough now that Marilee had to keep wiping the sweat from her brow with her sleeve. The problem with this was that her sleeve had become soaked from reaching into the water and the residue from the lye was turning her forehead as red as her hands. Her cap was soaked with it.

“Careful, don’t get the lye in your eyes,” Peggy warned as Marilee pulled off the sodden cap.

Peggy ripped a long strip of fabric from a ruined shirt and tied it around Marilee’s forehead.

“As soon as we have a path through the laundry, we can reach the latch and open the window,” Peggy promised. “I haven’t been able get to it in months and the summer was horrible. I cannot tell you how relieved I am that cooler weather is upon us.”

“I won’t even care if the snow comes through the window,” Marilee breathed. “It will be a relief.” When Peggy nodded in agreement, they both worked at an increased speed. They sorted out similar items and pushed them down with their paddles into the two copper basins of warming water. Peggy added the lye, and they gave their respective cauldrons a stir. Then, they turned again to face the giant pile of laundry.

“There isn’t enough room to move the pile to the floor, even temporarily, so that we can get to the latch,” Peggy groaned. With the fires ablaze in the center of the room it was too risky to move anything flammable to the already crowded floor. That was the very reason all of the piles had been relegated to the edges of the room.

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