Gertie Golden Girl Pt. 05

Chapter 5 THE MANOR

Gertie spends the weekend with the Lord and Lady of the Manor

It was one of the earliest heavy frosts of the winter she had ever experienced, although she was over a hundred miles north of her home latitude in East London, and Gertie mentally shivered as she looked across the endless lawn that seemed to disappear into the mist gently rising up from the edge of the woodland a couple of hundred yards away. She didn't actually shiver, as she was warmly wrapped in a comfortable woollen dressing gown and she sighed in contentment.

This was her first weekend visit at Standhope Manor, the magnificent country seat of the noble and wealthy Winter family in Derbyshire. She had been warned before leaving home by both Johnnie and Evie, that locals called the Queen Anne-style manor house "the Palace". It was a large and elegant house by any measure you care to make, with more than a hundred bedrooms, three ballrooms and its own gothic chapel. There were half a dozen various-sized dining rooms, the smaller informal family ones being rotated in use according to the season and the number of extended family members present. Gertie needed a map to find her way around and a thoughtful member of the lady's maid staff quietly provided one for her on her dressing table.

Her bedroom was within the 'close family' area of the house, which so squarely constructed that it didn't have 'wings' as such, just an enclosed courtyard within. This bedroom was large, light and airy and conveniently next door to Johnnie's bedroom, so looking out at this view across the lawn, a short patch of woodland and beyond that, she had been told, was a view of the lake that had been installed when the grounds were lavishly landscaped in the 1820s. Today, or at least early this morning, the mist hovered above the trees after a heavy overnight frost and completely blocked the view she understood would be memorable.

They had driven up from London quite late last night after a banking problem at the Standhope Winter merchant bank that had held Johnnie back by at least a couple of hours, so they arrived late, in the dark, had missed dinner and made do with a delicious round of sandwiches that the house chef had put together for them despite their protestations of not being hungry or wanting to put the staff to any trouble.

Apparently the problem at the bank wasn't just an ordinary customer in the form of a company, but the finances of a country. The State of Hungary needed to raise what to Gertie sounded an eye-watering number of millions of Swiss Francs (even though she had no idea how much even a single Swiss Franc was worth) in order to refit a factory to enable it to construct fairly modest motor cars to an Italian design for marketing in Hungary and other countries in Eastern Europe. However, there emerged during negotiations a difficulty over what security the State of Hungary could provide investors by way of guarantee for the bank's large investments. The State had offered the guarantee of income from their State-owned coal mining collective but the Standhope Winter merchant bank had just discovered that the income from those very same mines had already been promised to an American bank consortium who were loaning the State money to upgrade the railway system which was desperately needed to get their coal in the bulk required to their customers, electricity power stations and heavy industry. The motor car factory deal had eventually collapsed late on Friday and they were going to restart negotiations on Monday, based on the State of Hungary coming up with an alternative form of security that hadn't already been committed elsewhere. Johnnie privately disclosed to Gertie in his frustration that he doubted they had any securities at all.

Johnnie was exhausted having decided to give his driver the weekend off and driven them up himself, and she was sure he would not rise early this morning. Being a passenger for the three hour drive, through a bewildering number of towns and villages, Gertie had not been as tired on arrival as Johnnie had admitted to being. Gertie resolved to learn how to drive a motor car herself when she got back to London, so that she could share the driving with Johnnie in future emergencies.

Johnnie and Gertie had been a couple, in the form of boyfriend and girlfriend, for five weeks now and she was more certain, now that he had brought her to his ancestral home to meet his parents, Lord and Lady Standhope, that their futures were to be forever entwined.

A light knock on the bedroom door woke her from her reverie and prompted her to turn from the window and call out softly, "Come in."

A petite housemaid came through the door wearing a black short-sleeved dress with a white lace pinafore and a white lace hat perched on the top of her head, who Gertie thought looked even younger than herself. She entered two steps into the room, carefully closed the door behind her, curtsied and asked,

"Good morning, Ma'am, can I help you get dressed this morning? Breakfast will be served at eight, in about twenty minutes' time."

"No, that's fine, I can dress myself. But as you are here, you can come and tell me about the house and people who live here. It's my first visit."

"Oh, er, yes, I know, er, yes of course I am here to help but I'm pretty new here too," the housemaid replied nervously.

"Come on in, I won't bite, honest," Gertie smiled, "I'm Gertie, I'm pleased to meet you and glad you're here to help me, and you are...?"

"Mary, Ma'am," the girl said, "Only they already have three Marys here, so in private the staff have started calling me Maisie."

"What name do you prefer?"

"I think it's nice to be called something a bit different, Miss, so I've sort of grown to like Maisie, but the Standhope family call me Young Mary, to distinguish me from the older ones."

"Then between you and me, Maisie it shall be. And so, you are assigned to me while I'm staying here?"

"Yes, Ma'am, I'm the Under House Maid, and I am directed to set out your clothes, help you get dressed and undressed, make your bed, take any clothes, linens and towels that need washing, pressing or mending and this morning I'm to direct you to the present breakfast room."

"And you are how old, Maisie?" Gertie asked,

"I'm fifteen, Ma'am, I joined the staff straight from school in the summer."

"Well, Maisie, if you are going to be looking after me for the weekend, you can please stop calling me 'Ma'am', at least when we are alone together. I'm only two years older than you and still a Miss, a spinster. I won't be eighteen until 5 June next year, and another four years before I'm no longer regarded as a child, so please call me Gertie."

"All right, Miss, er Gertie. Shall I at least lay out the clothes what you are going to be wearing today for you?"

"Well I only brought a couple of changes of day clothes and something to wear tonight at dinner. We should be driving back to London on Sunday night, tomorrow night. My clothes are in the top drawer over there."

"Thank you Miss Gertie, I will lay them out and if you do decide you need a hand... well, I'll be here." Maisie said and enthusiastically opened the drawer and started getting things out and carefully laying her selection out on the side of the bed and putting the rest back in the drawer. As she did so Maisie spoke about the house.

"Well, as for the house here, since the war there's been a reduced staff of fifteen in the house, Miss Gertie."

"Fifteen? Why so many?"

"According to Betty Weaver, she's the Upstairs Family Housemaid, there was over thirty regular staff before the war and in the heyday of the house in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, when there were lots of parties and weekend guests, they'd have retired staff and other help in to cover the work on a day by day basis. Now there's just Lord and Lady Standhope living here permanently and they live very quietly compared to the old days. Lord Standhope was quite poorly last winter and has stayed here, although he walks around the grounds every day and quite briskly I think, despite having to use a walking stick, so he must be getting his strength back. Lady Standhope had spent several weeks in the London house during the late summer and early autumn, because of meetings with her charities and attending the theatre, which she loves, but has come back home in the last two weeks and is expected to stay and celebrate Christmas here. I'm so looking forward to Christmas, Miss Gertie, apparently they go all out in decorating the house with Christmas trees, ornaments and lights.

"As for the children of their Lord and Ladyship, the eldest Miss Mildred I've never seen at the house, although as a young girl I saw her a couple of times, I think she lives in Paris nowadays. Mr John rarely comes up from London, I understand, this is only his second visit since the early summer. Lady Dorset used to come up every other weekend, spending the other week in Hertfordshire, but recently we've not seen her here at all."

"Ah, my friend Evie's been busy with me for the last five weeks. She said she was coming up today and will probably stay until Wednesday. Mr John has to go back to London on Sunday night and I have been given a choice of going back with him or stay with Lady Dorset and go back with her on Wednesday."

Gertie looked out of the window, noticing that the trees looked darker, meaning that the mist must be getting thinner. The window faced east and she could see the sun trying to break through the mist.

"If you are thinking of staying for a few days, Miss Gertie, there's plenty of things to see here. The gardens are not so good at this time of year, of course, but in the walled garden there will still be roses and chrysanths and michaelmas daisies, with many more flowers in the heated greenhouses and the orangery. The woods are great places to walk through, with lots of the trees still holding onto their golden leaves and there are mushrooms and toadstools everywhere. There's plenty to see, the lakes are always beautiful and so crystal clear that you can see the trout and the other fish."

"You like it here, Maisie?"

"Oh yes, it is a lovely place. Obviously, there are problems with this building. It was used as a hospital during the war and quite a lot of damage was allowed to happen. I suppose their priority was the care of the patients, while we've cared for this building for many years. There are workmen in the north section that are dealing with dry rot in the attics and leaks in the roof from broken tiles, so there's a tarpaulin stretched over that part of the roof and the old tiles stacked up against the back wall. My grandfather worked here in the gardens before he retired and had a right go at them, cos where they stacked 'em is where there's a load of bulbs planted underneath."

"Will the roofers be gone by the spring?"

"Yes, they say they'd be done by the New Year or Janu'ry at the outside, but though the bulbs flower in the spring, they start growing in the autumn and by Christmas they are poking through the soil. Grandad told them straight, if those tiles are still there in Feb'ry, the bulbs might not flower but they'll still grow through and those bulbs have been there for two hundred years and they will come through, he said, 'come hell or high water' so powerful that they'll have more broken tiles to replace than they had bargained on."

"I know, I've seen ordinary weeds grow through concrete and break it up like it was green cheese. So, this place is two hundred old, eh?"

"It's a lot older'n that," smiled Maisie, "there's been Lord Standhopes here since before Queen Elizabeth's day, the very first Lord was an Admiral and served her dad, Old King Harry, when he was having spats with the King of France over something important enough to be given the honour of Earlship. This was his family home, just a small manor house then, but it is said he had a fleet of ships that were nothing more than legalised pirates and they brought in enough money that they bought up all the land around here, then they bought up a lot of land in America where they planted tobacco and cotton. That's when they built a few factories in the Dales for making cloth from the cotton, but found they weren't so economical, so they bought into some of the Lancashire mills as partners instead and they made a fortune, enough to build this 'palace' on the foundations of the old original farmhouse."

"Evie warned me that the locals call this house a palace," Gertie laughed as she started to dress with the clothes that Maisie had selected from the limited choice Gertie had brought with her and carefully laid them out ready.

"Compared to the tiny village, this has always been considered a palace. Mind you, you can't really see it from anywhere in the village as it is screened off by trees and hills, but anyone coming in through the gates can see the front of the house lit up by the setting sun and it looks amazing, just like a palace. It's not as big as where the King lives in London but here in Derbyshire it looks fit for a king and queen to live here."

"Ah, fit for a king and a queen, well, I suppose Mr John is wealthy enough to be a prince and in time, he will be the Lord of this Manor, isn't that right?"

"Oh, yes, Miss Gertie, and everyone thinks that Mr John would be a perfect Lord," Maisie said with a broad smile on her youthful face, "one of the best."

"So, what is the general opinion among the staff regarding his present girlfriend?" Gertie asked coyly. "I hope you will give me the honest answer."

Maisie stopped picking up and folding the nightwear clothing that Gertie was discarding as she was getting dressed and stared at the young woman she was supposed to be helping.

"Oh, Lor'," she said, chewing at her lower lip and looked down for a moment, a hank of her brown hair that had worked loose from the bun tied behind her head, drifted across her eyes. Then she raised her eyes and smiled at Gertie, mischievously.

"Well, Miss Gertie, Betty told me that you are unlike any other young lady, not at all like the friends of Miss Eveline or the female cousins of the family that stay here from time to time."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Oh, a good thing, yes, Miss Gertie, a really good thing."

"And why is that?"

"Because what the servants and staff want, what we all need, is a future that we are certain of, that the Manor will continue to be in good hands and will continue to be the family home where the family stays most of the time."

"And you think that I will help with that 'certain future'?"

"Oh yes. You see, both Mrs Bridger, she's the Housekeeper, and Mr Johnson, the Butler, say that having you in the family, alongside Mr John, will be a breath of fresh air that will be needed when the Lord and Ladyship changes, as it always must do eventually."

"Really?" Gertie was astounded, "why would they say that?"

"Because, Mr Johnson told us, that history repeats itself, Miss Gertie. There have not always been Winters at Standhope, once, maybe over a hundred years ago, the male line of Standhopes actually died out. I think the old Lord had a couple of sons and a couple of daughters, but both the sons died without children, but one of the daughters had married a Winter, one of the banking Winters and they had a baby son. When the Lord died, rather suddenly, the Winter baby, being the only male in the family, inherited the title and lands and became Lord Standhope. The mother was a Standhope and had been born and brought up here but was estranged from her father for many years. She came home shortly after her father died, and her husband came with her too. They found the house in a state of disrepair, the old Lord had not been a good businessman, had lost the income from the cotton and tobacco plantations in the American Civil War and the factories in Lancashire kept running out of cotton and many had been closed down. The banker was rich and he was able to secure new sources of cotton for the mills and he repaired the house and restored the gardens. The staff were re-employed which made everyone happy and the new young Lord grew up here from a babe in arms up to an adult and he loved the Manor.

"So, even when he took over the ownership of the bank from his father and worked in London part of the time, he still looked upon here as his home. He raised his family here. We hope that you are like that first Winter banker, that you will like us here and set up your family home here, and have your babies here so we have a new generation of family at the Manor, that will invite their friends to come and stay, to have parties and dinners and balls and we servants can rotate between here and your London home. Yes, Miss Gertie, we look to you as holding our future in your hands. We want to support you and advise you and make you so happy here that you love this place just as much as we do."

"Mmm, 'oh Lor', indeed, 'oh Lor', indeed," Gertie mused almost to herself thoughtfully considering a future in such a lovely place as this. "I think I'm ready for breakfast now, Maisie, can you show me the way there?"

"Of course, Miss Gertie, please follow me."

***

Gertie was almost finished breakfast by the time Johnnie got to the breakfast room. Gertie thought he looked tired, but his face did appear to light up when he saw her sitting there.

"I looked into your bedroom in case you were still there, but your lady's maid told me you were in this room. Did you sleep well?"

"I did, thank you, but what about yourself? You were very tired by the time we arrived after your long working day and long drive and I didn't want to wake you until you awoke naturally."

"Yes, it was a long, frustratingly tedious day yesterday but I feel much more refreshed now. Thank you for letting me sleep in, Gertie. Weren't you bored on your own though?"

"No, Maisie is fascinating to chat with, she was telling me about the history of this place," Gertie then remembered something Johnnie had just said, "what did you mean, my Lady's maid?"

"Yes, little Mary Andrews is your lady's maid, she's been appointed to you as your personal maid whenever you are here and, she can accompany you wherever we stay, if you want her to, that is. She's a very sweet girl and as she's close in age to you, so we hoped you'd get on well together. She still has much to learn, but like you she's very quick minded and smart and we thought you'd support each other growing into your roles together. Did you like her?"

"Yes, I do like her, she is indeed a sweet girl and has a lively spark about her. Who do you mean by 'we' exactly when you talk of 'we thought'?"

"Well, mother and I basically, of course, but she had already spoken to Mrs Bridger the Housekeeper about how best to look after you. I knew Mary's father, Andrews, quite well; he was a fine gamekeeper, but unfortunately he died serving with the Sappers in North Africa in '42 I think it was. Mary was mostly brought up by her grandparents, who also worked here for many years. What did she say to you that was particularly interesting?"

"She told me about your family, the Winters. About how they came to live here about a hundred years ago, she said that it sort of helped liven up the Standhope bloodline."

"Ah, yes, and you think that my courting you now was part of a scheme, some sort of grandiose breeding programme to improve our human bloodstock?"

"No!" Gertie gasped in astonishment, then, softer, said, "No, Johnnie, not at all. I couldn't possibly think that, let alone believe it. One of the things that I liked about you when I worked in the theatre, was how gentlemanly you were, you were respectful to the people around you, patient while waiting your turn, even allowing older and less mobile ladies to go before you, so they had plenty of time to get to their seats before the doors closed. I noticed that and I imagined that you would be kind and a nice gentleman to know, although of course I never imagined...."

Johnnie moved his chair closer to Gertie and took both her hands in his. "Gertie, let me assure you of one thing, you have never been part of some scheme, although my mother did notice me allowing what you call 'older ladies' to go in front of me because at first, and I think it must've been completely involuntary on my part. By letting others go first, well, it gave me a little longer to observe you, when I hoped you'd be occupied and too busy to notice me observing you."

"I confess I was and hadn't noticed that at all. And why were you observing me, Johnnie?"

"Ah, well, firstly you are very pretty, Gertie, so you're easy on the eye as they say, but then so are lots of girls. You were more interesting to me partly because you had seemed to devise your own method of storing the coats in different places."

"Well, I didn't like the set method, it was too inflexible and people are creatures of habit, so those regular guests who hate to linger and rush for the exits as soon as the curtains close, I have their coats more ready to hand than others."

"Ah, I see that now, I didn't see that pattern at all. And that intrigued me. I'm both a banker and a military man, I like order and I notice patterns, whether they be in figures on a balance sheet or behaviour in my men or in movements of the enemy. Your predecessor, Marjorie, did your job for eighteen months or so and she put the coats on the racks in strict ticket number order, but you didn't. It appeared haphazard, yet when it came to the end of the show, you were able to find the coats more quickly and more efficiently and often whole groups of people together. Also, while observing you, I was impressed by how unflustered you were, how careful with handling the coats, how patient you were with those who couldn't find their tickets right away, and in one instance, your absolute honesty."

"Honesty?" Gertie asked out of curiosity.

"One old lady appeared to have left her purse in the pocket of her coat. You must've felt it as you handled the coat, so you checked with her to make sure she was aware that her purse was left behind in the coat and ask if that was what she intended. She leaned over and whispered to you and you removed it from her coat and handed it to her."

"That wasn't really honesty, Johnnie. Besides, it wasn't even a purse at all, not a money purse anyway. It just felt to me like a purse and that it was relatively heavy like it was half-full of change. She whispered back to me that it was once an old purse that now just contained her opera glasses; her eyes she said had worsened since before the war without her noticing and she only realised how much sight she had lost when she started going to the theatre again after a gap of some years. She hated wearing spectacles or to even admit to needing those opera glasses, so she kept them in the purse until the lights went down and she could then use them discretely. Once she had admitted that and I kept her little secret, she often stopped to chat to me about the show. I think she was a little lonely, a really nice old lady. I hope she doesn't miss me since I left."

"I am sure she does and I still think you're amazing and a few weeks ago I wanted to know a little more about you. That was why I was in Whittaker's office when that drunkard was reported to him that he under surveillance by your doorman and barman."

"You were asking Mr Whittaker about me?"

"Discretely, trying it on that my mother was looking for a likely girl to employ among her domestic staff, but Whittaker's no fool," Johnnie laughed, "I must have seemed such a loon mooning after his pretty hat check girl."

"Ex-hat check girl."

"Yes, I was quite surprised that you gave in so easily about your job, old girl."

"Your sister Evie is devilishly persuasive, Johnnie, as you no doubt know. 'Gertie,' she said to me in that school-ma'am voice she puts on with truculent doormen and cabbies, 'you are learning how to be a lady, a proper lady, mind, whose job one day will be to hold this family together in times of strife or even tragedy. You are a student studying to be a Lady and a full time student at that, who needs to graduate with honours. There are no second places, Gertie, you must pass this course with flying colours and you need to concentrate every single moment of your time to it. Now, we have opened a bank account for you at Standhope Winter. Although we are not a clearing bank like the High Street banks are, the Bank of England does allow the cheques that we issue to be cleared through the system just like everyday banks. We do get charged for this privilege but for certain of our customers and family we judge that to be an acceptable expense. So, Gertie,' Evie insisted, 'from this week, two pounds, ten shillings and ninepence goes into your new account each Friday and the bank also pays your weekly 6d National Insurance stamp. It's like you're the bank's student and when you qualify you'll find you have a job in this family for life.' In all innocence, Johnnie, I asked Evie, if I'd ever have to actually work in the bank for my money and she said, 'If we ever have another war like the last one, then yes, you will. We had so many staff volunteer to join up in those first few weeks of September 1939 that for the family it was all hands to the pumps. I worked at least four days a week until things settled down after Christmas '39 and then I was able to cut it down to a couple of days a week. Even Mama helped out for a week here and a week there, and carried on long after I had joined the ATS in 1941.' So I folded, knowing that to do this job of learning to fit in with society properly I had to take it all seriously."

"Yes, Gertie, it is a job. I'll tell you that everyone in the Winter family gets paid an income, some directly from the bank itself, like you are at the moment, but more established family members have income from trust funds, which hold investments, shares etc. It keeps everyone independent in many ways but it also ties them into the responsibilities of being in the family. The principle investments that pays the dividends can't be touched, well not without convincing the Trustees that investments need to be changed but the dividends that accrue are free to do with as you want.

"My Mama, for example, uses a large portion of her dividends to reinvest until she has built up sufficient money to fund a favoured project, the reinvestment of her dividends is handled by the Trustees but those reinvestments are not included in the ring-fenced investments and can be withdrawn when the project is ready to go. She used hers to fund shelters for families bombed out of their homes in various seaports, industrial towns and the Docks area of East London during the war. That charity is still existing to help those families still in distress to get housed and furnished with furniture and coal until they can get back on their feet."

"I'm looking forward to meeting your mother again, and your father I've never met. I understand from Maisie that he is poorly?"

"He's got some bronchial issues at present and, as you know, I left the Army after he had a heart attack and had to step down from managing director. You will see them later, they tend to dine together in his room mostly, but he insisted that we will see them both at lunch. You know Mama, anyway."

"Yes, Evie took me to meet her at the Dorchester for lunch two weeks ago. Of course I recognised her from among the theatre-goers, she used to come even for performances when you didn't escort her."

"Of course she did, she's always loved the theatre, she was a professional singer called 'Milly Martyn' on the theatre circuit before she married my father. You know, she always entertained us at home where we were all encouraged to perform for the family. My older sister Milde particularly loved dressing up and singing and dancing, I, naturally, hated it."

"You hated performing?" Gertie smiled, "I can imagine you as a child, dressed with a fancy frill around your neck and your make-up running under the hot gaslights."

"We didn't take it all that seriously, although Mama did put all the make up on for her own performances, I suppose she must've been on the stage for two or three years before she was married."

"Really? I would never imagine that, she looks absolutely fantastic for fifty and carries herself like she was born to be regal."

"No, she was from an ordinary background and yes, she was a rising star in musical revues and light opera on the West End towards the end, although she had acted and danced in repertory companies in seaside resorts from the age of about 15. Papa fell in love with her when she was about 20 and he was four or five years older. My grandfather didn't approve of the match apparently but my grandmother loved 'Milly' immediately they met, so it was a done deed. So you see my dear Gertie, we don't seek out the girls that we fall in love with for any breeding purposes, nor do we feel a need to marry a rich girl in order to save the family finances. No, Gertie, my dear sweet old thing," he smiled, "we marry who we marry for only one good reason my love, and that is love. The fact that you have a pretty face, a strong and sharp, independent mind, good teeth, bright eyes and breasts succulent enough to keep twins happy for hours, has absolutely nothing at all to do with it... except that all your pros added together makes you amazing, bewitching."

"You beast!" Gertie grinned at her boyfriend, "eat your breakfast and we can go for a walk and get some fresh air and cool down my overly reddened cheeks, fuelled by embarrassment caused by you. Perhaps outside away from listening ears, I can hear more about your family, such as your mysterious sister Mildred."

"Sounds like fun, telling you all my family stories, I've often wondered what the Spanish Inquisition must've been like," Johnnie laughed as he helped himself to bacon and kidneys from the heated dishes laid out on a tray on the sideboard, "After breakfast do you fancy riding around the estate by horseback? I promise that you can still quiz me and I'll be like an open book, no family secrets left untold."

"I don't know how to ride, Johnnie, the nearest I've ever got to a horse is when the milkman is running behind in his delivery rounds and I catch him during my morning constitutionals."

"On horseback, Gertie, is the very best way to see the grounds, although you might get saddlesore if you've never done it before, but we'd be no more than an hour at a time the first few times we try it, I'm quite out of practice myself. Do you want to try it?"

"Yes, why not?"

"Good girl, you'll love it once you've ridden a couple of times and you get used to the motion of the horse."

"I suppose you started riding young, Johnnie?"

"I did, when I was maybe four or five. In my late teens, and very early twenties, I even rode with the Standhope Hunt before the war, they used to go out the first and third Friday of the month during the winter, but the war stopped all that. Not sure if the hunt's restarted since the war. I know our stables had only half the usual stock of horses in the stalls last time I looked."

"Did you have your own horse before the war?"

"Yes, always, you need a horse that you build a rapport with and they remember you for life. The last one that was my own horse was Rory, he's retired now and lives in a small field with a donkey for company. We can go visit him if you like, get to feed him and his pal an apple each or maybe a carrot."

"Do we have to go via the kitchen to get the apples and carrots?"

"No, there's a root store, below ground behind the stable, and there's shelves down there where the harvested apples and other fruit and vegetables are stored for the winter. They are protected from the frost down there."

***

"Two hours on horseback!" Gertie winced as she started to climb the stairs to her bedroom, leaning heavily on Johnnie. "Don't get me wrong, I loved every single minute of it while we were riding and even though I thought I picked up the horse's rhythm and was able to ride the motion without too much impact on my rear, but damn, Johnnie, my legs feel just like water!"

Johnnie laughed, "I thought you rode like a natural, old girl. When you declined the sidesaddle offered, because as you said, 'I want to learn to ride properly', I was a little concerned you had bitten more off than you could cope with but you looked as though you belonged on the back of that sweet mare. Next time we visit we will walk, there are many attractive woodland and field side walks on the estate and lots of hill walks within a short drive. I've always loved long walks, it is so refreshing after a week of long hours spent in stuffy meeting rooms at the bank or customer's offices."

"Good, I like long walks, I loved to walk along by the River Thames during day times before being cooped up in the theatre cloakroom all evening."

"Well, you'll love the walks around here and, if you get too tired for the stairs..."

Keeping one arm around her shoulders, he put his left arm behind her knees and lifted her as if she was a feather and continued to climb smoothly up the curving steps of the grand staircase.

"Whoa!" Gertie screamed as she put both arms around his neck and pulled herself tight into him, "Don't drop me, we're surrounded by solid marble and I already hurt all over."

"I won't drop you," he replied, then softly, "I will never drop you, Gertie old thing, never ever, and you can take that to the bank and cash it."

Gertie eased off her deathly grip around his neck and took her head away from where she had naturally buried her face at the point where his neck met his shoulder. She looked into his eyes as he continued to carry her up, not needing to look at his feet as he knew these steps so well.

"I know you will never drop me Johnnie," she said softly, "and I could never drop you. I... I love you, Johnnie, John Jacob Winter. I've never before felt the deep and freely-given love that's anywhere near the love I've had from my mum and dad, nor the depth of love I've felt in my heart for them, in any other person until you. I know this is the first time I've actually said the words 'I love you' but being with you, doing anything at all with you, even doing nothing with you, is really the best time in my life every single time. I'm never afraid of anything when I'm with you."

"And I love you too, Gertie, Gertrude Elizabeth Thornton," Johnnie said as he reached her bedroom door.

The door was opened by Maisie, who had heard them approach. She instantly went bright red seeing the couple looking so lovingly in each other's eyes with Mr John holding her in his arms, but soon recovered, opened the door fully and welcomed them in.

"I was just returning your clothes you wore yesterday, Miss Gertie, freshly washed, starched and ironed and put away in your drawers," Maisie gushed, "I'll leave you now and come back after lunch to deal with this morning's things. Ma'am, Sir." She curtsied and left the room by backing out and closed the door behind her.

"Thank you, Maisie," called out Gertie after her, still wrapped in laughing Johnnie's arms with her arms around his neck.

"Oh dear," she said quietly as she rested her forehead on his forehead, "I suppose 'this', will be all around the servants in five minutes. I'm so sorry."

"No, it won't be, Gertie," Johnnie hushed her concerns with his calm, reassuring voice, "Mary is, well, I suppose I better get used to calling her Maisie now. Anyway, Maisie is your lady's maid, she's your personal maid. Whenever you are here, or anywhere else she accompanies you, she's yours. That brings her privileges that raise her status very high in this household."

"Even though I'm only a houseguest and your girlfriend?"

"You are more than my girlfriend, Gertie," as he squeezed her before allowing her legs to gently slip to the floor while keeping his arms around her and pressed against his chest, "after all, haven't you just told me that you love me?"

"I have, and I do," she admitted, biting her lower lip, "how could I not? You are the perfect gentleman and you care for me. Yes, Johnnie, I cannot help myself, I do love you."

"And I do love you, also," he said softly as he leaned in and kissed her passionately.

This was not their first kiss, they had been together at this point for least part of every day and evening since they had dined together at the Dorsets just under five weeks earlier. They had immediately adopted the custom of kissing affectionately, if not quite this passionately, on the lips upon every good night or goodbye, and on every hello and, on several evenings alone at his apartment they cuddled, kissed and explored each other with increasing passion in their lovemaking without going so far as touching any of their primary exogenous areas.

Leaving her breathless after their kiss, Johnnie released her from his embrace and slowly dropped to his knees before her, while reaching into the right pocket of his riding breeches and pulling out a small, well-worn, once-burgundy ring box that showed the colour had worn off all the corners and edges.

"We have only known each other for a few weeks, Gertie," he said, looking up at her from where he knelt below, her hands having gravitated up to her mouth in surprise, half welcoming what she imagined was coming but also full of apprehension, too. "It is far too early to announce my intentions to the world at large but I want you to be assured as to my intentions, old girl, as well as our family here to clearly know my feelings."

He opened the box, revealing a brilliant shiny diamond ring. He pulled it free of its velvet mounting and as he lifted it, Gertie could see it was attached to a fine gold chain.

"Gertrude Elizabeth Thornton, will you please consent to be my bride?" Johnnie asked as he offered her the ring, with its delicate filigree chain hanging down from the bottom of the ring. "I promise to look after you, to be honest with you at all times, to be loyal to you, to protect, respect and honour you for all the rest of my days."

Gertrude looked back and forth from one of Johnnie's eyes to the other for a few moments after he stopped talking. She could see nothing but honesty and earnestness in those soft brown eyes. Then she made up her mind.

"Yes, my dearest Johnnie, I will be your bride and willingly spend the rest of my days loving you completely and making sure you never regret a single moment of our time together."

She let her left hand drop from her mouth and opened up her fingers to him, whilst she slipped the curled index finger of her right hand into her mouth and bit lightly on it. However, she couldn't keep the excitement or happiness from the look in her eye or the smile on her parted lips.

Johnnie let out the breath he had been holding and gently, carefully slipped the ring over the distal, and intermediate phalanges to the proximal phalange on the ring finger of Gertie's left hand and stood up, cupped her face in both his hands and, while she removed her hand from her mouth and gripped both the lapels of his red riding coat with both hands, he lowered his lips to hers and kissed her long and hard and with passion, their tongues touching and toying with each other for the first time. Both were breathless, their hearts beating fast when they broke the first kiss they had shared as a now totally committed to each other couple. There was no turning back from this point for either of them.

"Thank you my love,"Johnnie gasped, perhaps a little surprised at her easy acceptance of his proposal. "Oh my, I was so worried that you would be so terrified of a future with me that you would say, 'no'."

"I could never say no to you, Johnnie," she said, looking into his eyes with a sense of wonder how so much change had come over her in such a short time. "You are everything any girl could want and more. You are the man that any girl would dream about and I am a girl just like that. You are the answer to my wildest dreams, and yet you are much more than a dream, you are real and you are perfect, so perfect for me anyway." She smiled, while a single tear slipped from her left eye, which she felt and quickly wiped away with the back of her hand, her eye catching sight of the ring and adjusted the involuntary action so that only the index finger swiped away that tiny pearl of moisture which betrayed her emotions.

"Sad, my love?" he asked gently.

"No, not at all sad, I'm simply overflowing with joy," she replied, focussing upon the loveliness of the yellow gold and the brilliant clarity of the stone, which was ten times the size of the diamond chip in her mother's engagement ring, which was all her father, a newly-qualified boilermaker at the time, had been able to afford. "It is a lovely ring. Please sit on the bed next to me, Johnnie, so we can talk."

"Of course. Shall I tell you what I know of the history of the ring? As you can tell from the box, it is not new, but someone who was loved wore it before you but I hoped you would grow to love it as much as she did."

"I love it already, it is beautiful and, well, it is a little big, I'm afraid I might lose it, is that why the chain is attached?"

"No, there is a little clasp to release the chain and keep it in the box while you wear the ring on your finger. The chain is so that you can wear hang the ring around your neck, on the outside of your clothing while it is still loose here or at either of our homes so all the family and staff here know you are spoken for, but worn under your clothes and next to your heart everywhere else, but only until we can officially announce our engagement to the world, perhaps as soon as this Christmas. Unfortunately, convention will tell us that to become officially engaged after five weeks is much too soon, no matter what my heart and your heart says. I will have the ring resized Gertie to fit you, it is also worn very thin in places, it was my great grandmother's ring and she wore it constantly for 52 years from 1858 to 1910. So I will have it repaired by our family jewellers and have more gold added to the ring to strengthen it--"

"To last at least another 50 plus years I hope?"

"I hope," he smiled as they sat side by side on the bed and together they held up her left hand to admire the setting. "My great grandmother was Nelly Standhope, the middle of the three daughters of Lord Standhope that Maisie told you part of her story. Nelly was short for Ellen. I believe Maisie probably doesn't know Nelly's story all that well. There were three, not two, daughters but only Nelly had a son, who by right of birth, descended from a lord, he thus became a lord. Nelly's father, Lord Standhope did not approve of Nelly's marriage to Jacob Weinstein, which is the original name of the family, it was only changed to Winter in 1915 by deed poll after a lot of anti-German feeling, even though my family had lived here in England for three or four generations, were British born and were clearly very English.

"When my family left Germany, in about 1792, the first Jacob Weinstein changed all his savings into diamonds, all approximately half-carat size for convenience, so that he could hide sufficient capital whilst travelling to set up in business somewhere safer than the part of Germany he grew up, the Palatinate, which France and Prussia had then fought over. It took him about five or six years of moving from one temporary home to another, before he came to London and set up a similar sort of bank to the one that his father ran in Mainz, a bank that had mostly worked with dairy farmers and wine producers.

"Here in London, he dealt with buying and selling wool, wheat, barley, hop pockets, cotton bales, sugar, tea and coffee and invested in transport to move these commodities around. Three generations later the bank had grown into a thriving business and the original Jacob's grandson, also called Jacob, had become thoroughly English and wanted to marry the girl he met and fell in love with in London's middle and upperclass society. The Honourable Ellen Standhope was the daughter of a lord and, when the Lord Standhope objected to his middle daughter marrying Jacob, Jacob's father remembered the bag of small diamonds, there being about half a dozen of them left and handed them to his son to consider trading them in for a bigger ring to impress the Lord, but when Jacob looked at them closely he loved the brilliant clarity of this particular one, had it set into a gold ring and presented it to his fiancée, who loved it immediately. The Lord was still not impressed, so, the lovely girl, being in love and also being independent of mind and character, eloped with Jacob to St Bride's Church, which had a long history of marrying those couples in love without their parents' consent. They lived a long life and were very happy together. It has never been used since. My grandmother and mother still wear their engagement rings all the time but Mama sensed that you, Gertie, would love the sense of history and the brilliance of this little stone."

"I do, I really do love it. Thank you Johnnie, to me it is perfect."

She wrapped her arms around him and they kissed and kissed until the gong was banged for lunch and Maisie knocked gently on the door and informed them lunch was ready. Johnnie dashed to his room to change in record time and Maisie helped Gertie get changed, while the pair of girls giggled over what had happened and finally embraced in happiness and both were certain they had cemented a friendship between them that would last a lifetime.

"Mama was right," the thought unconsciously manifested into barely audible words as Gertie completed her dress and glanced at the ring around her neck in the mirror.

"What, Miss Gertie?" Maisie asked, unable to make out if this was an instruction or not.

"Sorry, Maisie, it was just a thought that escaped me. When Johnnie was observing me from afar at the theatre, not sure if you know but I worked in the cloakroom dealing with coats and hats."

Maisie nodded, somehow Gertie knew that this information had been collected and shared among the servants.

"Well, she looked into who I was, a nobody really, but didn't see any harm in me to the character of the family, so she actually urged Johnnie to talk to me, to see if there really was any potential for any romance between us."

"Ah, I told you that everyone here, from family upstairs to staff downstairs, is rooting for you."

"Will you be reporting that you found us snogging, Maise?"

"No, Miss G," she smiled, quickly catching the affectionate shortening of her nickname, "what you say to me in confidence, what I inadvertently see of you or your man in private, stays private between us. If I see or hear anything said about you in your absence, I will tell you of it if I feels you needs to know and in timely fashion. I am your lady's maid, Miss Gertie, if you are accepting me as such, and anything that concerns you concerns me only, and is not to be shared Willy Nilly with anyone. And the staff know that here and they will not hold my secrets against me, it is expected that I be close-mouthed in this respect and your privacy is expected to be respected absolutely. If I was to tittle tattle Miss, I can assure you that Mrs Bridger would have me out of that kitchen door and back to the obscurity of the village and scorned by all, the very first time she heard me."

Gertie smiled at her indignant eyes and she embraced the young girl warmly. "You are indeed my lady's maid, Maise. I'm pleased to have you and, one day soon, when I have my own household, I will want you to come with me. Will you leave your home when I ask?"

"My home is with you, Miss G, always. Where you go, I go, and you will never have to worry about packing or unpacking yourself ever again, I only need to know what is on your itinerary and I will pack accordingly. I haven't been trained as your maid for very long, only three months, but--"

"Three months?" Gertie was astounded. "I have only known Mr John for five weeks, five weeks exactly only yesterday. How is it possible?"

"Mrs Bridger called me into her sitting room at the end of July, three months ago. I had only been here since mid June, the school broke up at the end of June but my teacher said 'the Palace' had summoned us to come in early to learn 'my trade', they said. And the local school always does what the Lord and her Ladyship request. Mrs Bridger set me to learn the basics, cleaning grates, building and lighting fires, filling the coal scuttles, dusting, sweeping, polishing, cleaning silver, washing and ironing, folding and stitching buttons'n minor repairs, all the things what us Under House Maids learns. Then, as I say, I was called to Mrs Bridger and she told me I was to be the lady's maid of a very important person in a few months' time and to learn everything I needed to learn before you showed up."

"And Mrs Bridger referred to me?"

"Not by name, Miss G, but I was told you was close to my age, that you knew little of our ways and warned that I would have to watch you closely and correct you but in a way that you would not know and I was certainly never to offend you."

"Her Ladyship sounds a rather scheming madam."

"Yes, Miss G," Maisie smiled, "She is indeed. She is very grand, a beautiful person, but very sharp, nothing escapes her attention and she can be very strict about what standards she expects from her staff. She wants only the best and she expects the best, but she can be very kind, too, so kind. When I lost my father, she actually came herself to my grandfather's little house in the village as soon as she heard the sad news from the postmistress and she spoke to me and even cuddled me when I couldn't help myself and cried. I was only 9, Miss G, and there was a fabulously-dressed Lady holding my wet cheeks and snotty nose to her lovely woollen coat and patting my back and kissing us forehead and telling me to just let it all out and I would feel much the better for it." Maisie looked up at Gertie, with tears in her eyes. "She's a real Lady, Miss G and you will be too, one day, you mark us words."

to be continued