Below Stairs at Langholme, by Edith Lauder

An original novel extract set in the twentieth century.

It was Minnie Brierley’s first night waiting at table, and Mrs Hales had pinned her cap so tightly that her scalp still stung. She was fifteen. Her new black dress smelled of the box it had come in, and the white apron was so stiff with starch that it crackled when she breathed. In the passage outside the dining room she had looked at herself in the dark glass of the gun cabinet and thought, with a shy, secret pleasure, that she looked almost like a real parlourmaid.

The soup was clear and very hot. She carried the tureen in both hands, counting her steps the way Mrs Hales had taught her, and served the Colonel, and the Colonel’s wife, and the young man with the moustache, and had reached the lady in the green silk when the young man laughed suddenly at something and pushed back his chair.

The ladle jerked. A long brown tongue of soup slid down the green silk sleeve and dripped onto the tablecloth.

For a second there was no sound at all except the dripping. Then the lady in green gave a little scream, and the young man began to laugh in earnest, and Lady Ferrand said, not loudly, in the voice she used for the dogs, ‘Brierley. You may go. Mrs Hales will speak to you.’

Minnie went. She did not remember the door or the passage. She remembered only the laughter following her, light and silvery and pleased with itself, and the hot ache of the tureen still printed on her palms. Her face felt as if it had been held to the range.

In the scullery she put her hands in the cold water and stood quite still. It was not my fault, she thought. He pushed his chair. He pushed it. The thought went round and round, sharp as a skewer, and had nowhere to go, because there was nobody in the whole of Langholme who would ever ask her.

When Mrs Hales came down, Minnie was scrubbing the soup pan as if she meant to wear a hole in it. She did not turn round. She had made up her mind, somewhere between the dining room and the sink, that whatever happened, she would not cry where any of them could see.

How does the writer show Minnie’s thoughts and feelings about her first night waiting at table?

You should consider:

• what the writer says about Minnie
• the writer’s use of language to show her thoughts and feelings

You must refer to the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.