Why would Lady Mary want to put her children through this, Jane wondered . . .
BY ALISON CARTER
OF course I will stay on, Mr Egmont. I don’t leave a house because its mistress is not to my liking.”
Jane Merritt was offended by the steward’s suggestion that she might quit in high dudgeon.
She was a professional cook of great skill and proud of her reputation.
The family at Heath Road would not have employed her if she hadn’t brought impeccable credentials.
Mrs Merritt only worked for the best people.
Although the master of this fine Twickenham mansion was in coal mining, he was also a member of Parliament and had been an ambassador abroad.
It was a good house to work in.
In addition, the Wortley Montagus had been happy for Jane to bring her children with her.
Henry, Jane’s husband, worked in the stables, and not all great families were willing to take on a family below stairs.
“That is good, Mrs Merritt,” the steward said with some relief. “I am glad to hear it.
“Now, shall we look at the week’s menu?”
Mr Egmont took a seat at the table in the servants’ hall.
He tapped the tips of his long fingers together.
“I understand your hesitation about Lady Mary. She is an unusual woman.
“But I have been with the family since they came back from Turkey, and you will get used to her ways.”
Unusual? The word was scarcely sufficient.
Lady Mary was extraordinary.
She was bold, and too like a man in her way of asserting herself.
She never complained about the food, but that was not the issue, nor was it her flamboyant headdresses.
It was Lady Mary’s new-fangled and frankly worrying ideas that had upset Jane that evening.
Dr Maitland had called, followed into the house by no less than three seedy-looking men from the London broadsheets.
Lady Mary had talked all afternoon with the three men about “variolation” and “inoculation”, which seemed to Jane unsuitable subjects for any woman, let alone a member of the aristocracy.
Jane took them coffee.
It was not usually a cook’s job, but the maids had a day off.
In the drawing-room she heard talk of arms and legs, scratchings of the skin – and even of pus!
The other servants had told Jane that, while in Turkey, Lady Mary had given her own son, not yet five, a dose of the smallpox.
The procedure was mysterious and
