I will then sit in a chair at my dressing table as she brushes my hair in the morning and the following dialogue will unfold:
Nina: “Lady’s Maid, I’m thinking of trying that new style in my hair that I saw on our holiday in France. Please do it. And have the children had their breakfast yet?”
LM: “Yes, they have and are now playing quietly in the Nursery with the new non-scary and class discriminating Nanny.”
Nina: “Wonderful. Oh Lady’s Maid! I do not know if I can go on with all my duties today!! What with the dining and napping and my subconscious angst over this stagnate social system!”
LM: “But you are very strong and brave, Miss, and if I must say so this new style looks wonderful on you.”
Nina: “You are right on all counts. Now hand me my fabulous flapper clothes and beads, and I will take my breakfast here in my room”
—-
Leila gave me a black eye on Friday. She was bouncing on my lap and nailed me with her head. I’m learning about black eyes. They are not really black for one, as Olivia pointed out after noticing it four days later, but black, purple, and yellow. I could really have used a Lady’s Maid this week to run up to London for just the right concealer.
I also could have used one to dress me in the snow clothes that I don’t even own. Or she could have just helped me pull the thumbs of the children into the right place in their snow mittens, and pull them off. You mid-western/northern/arctic parents? New respect.
I watch TV to escape, not to confront. I read to confront, grow, be challenged, inspired, moved, and escape. But TV – just escape. (Which is why all I currently watch is Downton Abbey , Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, and occasionally, !Nina Has to Go!, the new mini show on Disney Jr. dedicated to reminding preschoolers to use the bathroom. I wait my whole life for a show with my name and that’s what I got…)
So I had a bit of a moment with Julian Fellowes two weeks ago – in my head. Did he not know, that this was my hour to escape into a world of Maggie Smith one-liners? Did he really need to make his point so demonstratively, that the realities of violence and the unprotected, shame and secrecy cross class lines as well as historical eras? And, that evil is occurring while the rest of us are hanging out listening to opera? Or at the least, remember Julian, you get to make this stuff up so why wasn’t that slimy yet so endearing Barrow downstairs at just the wrong time, which would have been the right time, this time, – like he is every other time?
Bleh.
I’m not thinking about any of that.
I just want a Lady’s Maid.