A Glorious Disaster

Behind me the ballroom shimmers, wreathed in red roses and silvered by diamond chandeliers, a fairy bower, a vision of romance.

I stand at the terrace door, dreaming of escape.

"Beattie! The mistress is looking for you. They're about to start."

It's Mrs Henderson, the housekeeper. Her bright, round face brims with excitement. You hear such stories of horrible housekeepers who work their domestic staff into the ground, but Mrs H is nothing like that.

"Beattie? You're white as a sheet. You're not nervous, are you?"

I shake my head. "Terrified."

"You've no reason to be, child. You've a lovely voice!"

But it's one thing singing to the other servants in the kitchen after a small glass of cooking port; it's quite another to perform at an assembly like this. Whatever possessed me?

It's February the fourteenth, an auspicious date for the engagement party of the young lady of the house, Miss Bianca. She's eighteen years old, the same as me, but there the similarity ends.

I have no place at an event like this; normally I'd be in the kitchen, simmering soup and steaming puddings. It's all out of the natural order, me in a pretty dress, preparing to entertain the high and mighty.

Here's how this unlikely thing came to happen. I was singing away to myself one day last week, peeling a mountain of spuds, when I heard a distinctive clickety footstep and sprang to my feet.

I knew it was the mistress; we servants wear soft-soled shoes because the family don't like us to make a clatter. I curtseyed.

Well, she'd heard me singing and said I had a pretty voice. Then she asked me to sing at the party.

"Bianca's intended is American, you know, and partial to novelty. I think he'd be delighted if we included a kitchen maid in the programme. And, between you and me," she added with a twinkle in her eye, "I want to outshine the entertainments at Mrs Farrow's soirée last month. What do you say, Beattie?"

What could I say but yes? She's my mistress, and she was so complimentary.