Chapter Two: The Uniform
Wednesday morning arrived with the sort of grey drizzle that makes you question your life choices before you’ve even had tea. I reported to the service entrance of Fortescue Manor at eight sharp.
Mrs. Hardrind was waiting for me. She stood in the doorway, a monolith in black bombazine, checking a pocket watch that ticked loud enough to be a threat.
"You’re on time," she observed, sounding disappointed. "Don't let it go to your head. Punctuality is the virtue of the bored. Follow me."
She led me down a corridor that smelled of beeswax and damp spaniel, eventually pushing open a door to a small linen room. It was floor-to-ceiling white fabric.
"Now then, Plumb. The Master has specific requirements for his staff. We do not do 'casual' here. We do not do 'comfortable'. We do aesthetic."
She reached onto a high shelf and pulled down a bundle of black and white fabric. She thrust it at me.
"Put this on. I’ll wait."
I unfolded the garment. It was less a dress and more a cry for help. It was the classic French Maid cliché—black, short, with white frills—but it seemed to have shrunk in the wash. Or perhaps it was made for a malnutritioned teenager, not a woman who considers a pork pie a light snack.
"Mrs. Hardrind," I said, holding it up by a single spaghetti strap. "I think there’s been a mistake. This wouldn't fit one of my legs, let alone the rest of me."
"Nonsense," she barked. "It’s high-tensile polyester. It stretches. Lord Arthur insists on the 'Traditional Silhouette'. Get in it."
I went behind a screen. Getting into the dress was like trying to stuff a duvet into a pillowcase.
There was jumping involved. There was exhaling. There was a moment where I feared I would have to dislocate a shoulder. But finally, with a sound like a zipper screaming for mercy, I was in.
I stepped out. The skirt hovered dangerously high above my knees. The bodice was doing things to my chest that defied gravity and possibly the Geneva Convention.
Mrs. Hardrind circled me slowly. She poked my arm with a bony finger. "Solid," she muttered. "Good density. You won't bruise easily when the cheese is applied."
"When the what is applied?"
She ignored me. "The apron," she commanded, handing me a scrap of white lace.
I tied it around my waist. It was a postage stamp with ambition.
"Acceptable," Hardrind decided. "You look... structural. Lord Arthur prefers his staff to have architectural integrity. Now, come along. We have to meet the Chef before the training begins. And Plumb?"
"Yes, Mrs. Hardrind?"
"Try not to breathe too deeply. We don't have the budget to replace that zipper."
I waddled after her, feeling a breeze in places a housekeeper should never feel a breeze, wondering exactly what kind of "structural integrity" required a maid who looked like she’d escaped from a decadent pantomime.