A Countess Below Stairs Read Online Free PDF Page B

Strickland’s views on a maid sitting down in the presence of her employers. But the music held her and, caught in its toll, she compromised and slipped to her knees beside the sofa, her elbows resting on the arm.
    When it was over she sighed deeply and turned to him, her face mirroring the drowned look of someone returning from another world. ‘It is kind of you to let me listen,’
    she said. ‘It is hard to live without music.’
    ‘There is no need at all for you to do so,’ said Mr Sebastien. ‘I have a good collection of records. I would be delighted to play you anything you choose.’
    Anna shook her head. ‘Were you a professional musician?’ she asked.
    ‘I wanted to be,’ said Mr Sebastien. ‘I played the piano and the cello and composed a bit. I think young Rupert gets his love of music from me. But they wouldn’t let me. In those days, the aristocracy wouldn’t let their sons do anything sensible and I was too feeble to rebel.’
    ‘Oh, I know, it is monstrous!’ said Anna. ‘I also have suffered in this way. I wanted so much to be a ballet dancer and they would not let me. Although,’ she went on, anxious to be fair, ‘it would not have been possible in any case because my toes were not of equal length.’
    ‘I have some ballet music also,’ said Mr Sebastien craftily. ‘Casse Noisette … The Sleeping Beauty …’
    ‘And Stravinsky, do you have? Is it recorded already? The Rite of Spring?’
    ‘No, I do not,’ said Mr Sebastien. ‘In my opinion The Rite of Spring is a work totally lacking in melody or sense.’
    ‘But no! Anna’s cry rent the air. For a moment it looked as though, Selina Strickland notwithstanding, she would stamp her foot. ‘It is not true. One must be modern!’
    ‘If to be modern is to be cacophonous, discordant and obscure,‘began Mr Sebastien…
    Battle, most enjoyable, was joined.
    Anna, coming down half an hour later, fearful of a reprimand, was greeted by an interested cluster of faces. The Russian girl was flushed and she was muttering beneath her breath.
    ‘He grabbed you, then,’ said Peggy. ‘Well, I warned you.’
    ‘No, no, he did not touch me,’ said Anna absently. Then the full impact of what she had just said hit her. ‘It is because I am not pretty!’ she said tragically.
    And Mrs Park, who had taken less than twenty-four hours to forget that Anna was a foreigner and a lady, said, ‘Now don’t be foolish, dear. Just drink your tea.’
    - - - -*
    For the Dowager Countess of Westerholme, Proom, who had stood behind her chair as second footman when she came to Mersham as a bride, would probably have laid down his life. Nevertheless, when about ten days after Anna’s arrival he was told by Alice, the dowager’s maid, that someone was to go to the village and inform Mr Firkin, the sexton, that his deceased wife did not want him to give away his top hat, he was not pleased.
    The dowager was a small, vague woman in her fifties with silver hair, wide grey eyes and a penchant for the kind of tea gowns and flowing chiffon scarves which so often seem to go with a belief in spiritualism. Though somewhat lacking in intellect, she was a deeply kind and compassionate person who bore with fortitude the fact that none of the dauntingly trivial messages which she faithfully took down in automatic writing, came either from her revered husband or adored eldest son. Of late, instead, her boudoir had turned into a kind of clearing house in which the Deceased, unable to bypass so willing a recipient, made their wishes clear to her. And as often ‘ as not, these involved posting off to the vicar or the grocer or the undertaker with letters marked URGENT in the dowager’s sprawling hand.
    ‘I can’t spare any of the men today,’ Proom told Alice. ‘We’ve got all the pictures in the long gallery to re-hang and the music room’s not started yet.’
    ‘Well, someone’s got to go,’ said Alice.
    ‘Why don’t you send the tweeny,’ said Louise, who was