Maid for Friendship

Lucy was shaking me awake.

“Up you get now. It’s our turn to buy the eggs and bread.” She said.
I slowly forced open my eyes and sat up, my eyes slowly adjusting to the change in light. I looked around the small bedroom. It was the size of Misters bathroom. We each had a bed to the side walls and squeezed in between them was a small wooden dressing table with six small drawers. Lucy and I had three drawers full of clothes to us each. Above the doorway was a small clock. It read five in the morning.

I hurried out of bed and changed into my cotton plain white dress, identical to Lucy’s and all the other maids in the household. Lucy helped to pin my hair up and out of my eyes. I gazed at my reflection in the mirror. My tired puppy dog brown eyes didn’t seem to match my small pointy nose and dry shrunken red lips. I looked pale white, like mistresses who wear too much cheek powder. My long straight brown hair was being wrapped up into a tight secure bun. I allowed my gaze to fix on Lucy. Her long blonde curly hair was already up. Lucy struggled with it and threatened to cut it all off. But as soon as I had tried to do it up I had the knack of it. Her thin eyebrows were peeled back to let her sea blue eyes shine. Her cheeks had a natural rosy red glow that matched her cute pointy nose. I secretly envied her beauty and the fact that she had secretly had a suitor before Mister found out. She’d had a fine beating. We maids aren’t permitted to having suitors.

When Lucy finished with my hair we went to the front door and collected our baskets and the money. We passed Janice on the way. She’s African and the only black maid of us left. She has short black hair that reaches just about her ears. She had a beating for that too. We aren’t allowed to cut our hair. Even though it was a small amount of hair, she still had to pin it up and brush it like us. If a maid belongs to a Mister they have to pin up their hair and brush it every day. But if they belong to a Mistress they can wear it loose and must brush it daily.

Lucy and I strolled through the market. We picked out the best loaf of bread and the cheapest eggs with some butter. Mary was making breakfast today. She told me to hurry outside and to get the newspaper when we got back. I love getting the newspaper because unlike other maids I can read a little, unlike the other maids, they can’t read. I taught myself a little bit ever since I started to be trusted going outside and taking up the newspaper.

I read, ‘The titanic is the largest passenger ship in the world. She’s travelling from Southampton to New York on 10th April. Hurry and get your tickets, rooms are running out! Around 2,227 people are estimated to be travelling by the Titanic although she can carry 3, 547 people.’ I stopped because Mary was yelling at me for the newspaper.

I hastened myself and handed over the paper. I sighed. It had always been my dream to go on the Titanic. But Mister would never let me and I wouldn’t ever be able to save up, even if I saved all my wages for years. Quietly I slipped into my room to have some time to myself daydreaming what the titanic would have been like before I had to eat breakfast and scrub the floors.