The route Neville takes me is familiar, more or less the way back to the school. I’ve kind of guessed that he runs a middle-class shop. Well, he said he runs a café that the ladies from my school attend, so it’s not exactly a guess. A waitress, he said.

It’s… exciting? I’m not fussed about waitressing, but standing in front of ladies who know me, dressed in only a bit of a disguise, it should scare me and yet it doesn’t. There’s a voice in the back of my head asking, “Really, what’s the worst that can happen?” and that’s enough to settle the worry.

Maybe I’m a bit of an exhibitionist. Wait, that word’s not only used for people who go out naked in public, right?

Anyway, we’ve made it to the main road that goes along the edge of the river. It’s where you end up after a little walk and then turning left when coming down from the school. He stops us outside a shop.

I look up and see on the sign, in an elegant script, “CAFÉ AU LAIT”.

Wasn’t this a tea shop?

“My apologies,” he says. “While you are certainly suited to walk through this door, I would ask you to use the staff entrance at the back.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” I say.

He walks us a bit along the road to an alley. Um, I guess it was nice of him to say that, because being taken down here would have been worrying otherwise. That said, I do still put a few more steps between us.

Sure enough, there’s a plain-looking door with another sign (albeit small and the font simple) with the café’s name on it.

Through there is a short hallway. He makes sure to scrape his feet clean on the mat, not that it was muddy outside. From what I see as we shuffle past, the room on the right is a kitchen and the first room on the left is a lounge, the second room shut. At the end, a fabric door (heavy, but with a split down the middle that lets me slide through easily) leads to the café itself.

It’s just gorgeous. The walls are a gentle lavender, while the tables are covered in alternating pink and white (with upholstered dining chairs to match) which softly blend in with the room. Though the floor is simple hardwood, it’s the same colour as the chairs. Each table is octagonal and comfortably sits four, six at a push, a vase in the centre and a single pink tulip or white rose to go with it.

Just, gosh, it’s wonderfully elegant and tastefully decorated, neither too busy nor too sparse.

Neville is giving me quite the smile when I catch his eye, perhaps my thoughts showing on my face. Rather than be embarrassed, I smile back and say, “It’s lovely.”

“I know,” he says. I would say it’s an arrogant reply, but, well, I suppose he does know. It is his job, after all.

There’s a young woman here as well, whom I completely ignored, too busy looking. She’s setting one of the tables, fiddling with the rose.

“Iris, would you show our guest to the changing room?” he says.

She carefully finishes the last adjustment and then straightens up, graceful. When she looks over, our eyes meet and I think that “Iris” certainly suits her, the colour to her eyes a beautiful pink-purple that seems to glitter. It reminds me of amethyst but lighter. As is often the case in this world, that colour is reflected in her neatly done up hair, yet it’s more impactful seeing it in her eyes.

“Yes, papa,” she says, lightly bowing.

Oh, this is his daughter.

In a few strides, she crosses the room and stands a little in front of me and to the side. “If you would follow me,” she says.

Without waiting for a reply, she slips through to the hallway. It takes me a second, but I join her there, the door which was shut earlier now open as she holds it.

“Through here, please.”

Well, since she said please.

It’s a dark room lit by an enchanted “bulb”, a glass sphere about the size of a golf ball hung in a harness from the ceiling which gives off a warm light like sunshine. Just, not much warm light. I can see well enough to move around and everything, but reading would be troublesome, or looking for something small on the floor.

Otherwise, the room is a line of slim wardrobes (half-size with only one door) that I suppose are like lockers. I look closer and, yes, there are even keyholes. There’s a plain wooden bench as well, and a couple of rails that look sturdy. I mean, he did say “changing room”, so it’s that.

Iris moves over to one of the wardrobes while I was looking around, and she opens it.

“Do you require any assistance changing?” she asks.

There’s an outfit in the wardrobe and I’m suddenly catching up with what’s going on, my common sense turning on. “Ah, that’s, um, I can change myself, but, really, I don’t think I can just….”

“Very well. If mistress needs any help, please summon me.”

Eh? Before she leaves, I raise my hand as if to stop her, not actually touching her. She still stops.

“Is there something else?”

“Well, it’s that… I know your father said I’m a guest, but I am here to work?” I say, losing my confidence by the end.

“You are?” she replies. I nod my head. She lets out a relieved sigh, her posture slumping. “Sorry. When I saw you, and when papa said that, I thought you’re another of those rich girls pretending to be a commoner.”

I try to keep my face from twitching, heart hammering away inside my chest. “That… happens?”

“Oh yes,” she says, nodding. “They come ‘work’ here for a day or two, standing around giggling, and then move on to something else.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Is that so?”

She hums an affirmative, falling onto the bench in a bit of a careless way. “I know it’s good money looking after a rich girl, but it’s pretty tiring, you know? I don’t mind serving those kinds of girls, it’s the pretending to be friendly and all that.”

Then, earlier, that was her being friendly? No, I suppose that was her being friendly to a “rich girl”. Even if that girl is pretending to be a commoner, she wouldn’t actually want to be treated like one, I guess.

Anyway, this all does give me a bit of a handle on Neville. He has a commonfolk surname, so he’s probably made his money through business rather than renting out land, coming up into the middle-class rather than dropping down to it. The idea of selling, um, “the commoner experience” is certainly quite novel, and he obviously runs the shop and has his daughter to help, so it’s not like he’s lazy or indulgent. Probably.

“Well, if you get dressed, I’ll show you about a bit. Don’t worry, papa won’t expect you to get it all down at once.”

“Okay,” I say, her words reassuring. I mean, I haven’t actually accepted the job, but it sounds like I don’t have to worry about being shouted at.

While I take out the uniform—noticing that it’s in nearly the right size for me—she doesn’t move. I guess it is a changing room, not changing rooms. It’s not that I’m uncomfortable… no, I am really uncomfortable. I might have changed in front of maids before, but I was young and that was how it always was and that was years ago by now. Ellie, she… didn’t have good experiences with changing rooms. For P.E., getting into her sports kit, there was always that worry in the back of her head, asking, “What’s going to go missing this time?”

With my back to her, I just focus on the clothes in front of me as I undress. They’re nice. Cute, even. It’s not quite like the school uniform or like a normal maid outfit, but closer to the latter. A knee-length dress in a lavender to match the walls, long sleeves, a fabric belt sewn in—it ties at the back, pulling the dress in at the waist. For over the top is an apron in white, not frilled but decorated by a few embroidered tulips and roses in that same purple colour. Then there’s white stockings and black shoes. A maid’s cap and a few hair ties sit in a box—the kind of cap that’s like a tiara rather than covering the top of the head.

“Oh my, you are hiding quite the figure under that frumpy dress.”

Though I try not to react to her words, I can feel the flush climbing up my neck, unbearably hot.

It’s not hard to put the uniform on, and she ties the belt for me (I didn’t notice until she did it, but the apron has loops at the side, the belt holding it in place). On the back of the door to the hallway is a full-length mirror. I see how I look and, well, I’m pretty pretty.

“Even if you can’t work, we’ll just stick you out front to draw in customers,” she says. “No, that won’t do at all. We’d draw in entirely the wrong crowd.”

Well, um, I appreciate her flattery, but it’s a lot more embarrassing than I thought hearing it from someone else.

“Ah, that blush goes so well with your hair! Do you use makeup? A bit of colour in your cheeks, and a touch on your lips.”

I’m really starting to see the family resemblance. “Yes, um, I can?”

“I’ll have to see what mama has. It is a work expense, after all.”

“Okay?”

I have a few seconds while she thinks to herself, and then she shakes away those thoughts, stepping to my side. “Let’s show you around.”

We start with the kitchen. It’s fairly split between food and drink, one side with a glass cabinet for a huge set of tea cups and saucers—she tells me not to worry about it falling over, secured to wall—and a special set of enchanted “hobs” that heat up to the perfect temperature for most of the teas. The cupboards have more blends of tea than my family does, some coffees as well, and a lot of “sugars”. (There’s no actual sugar in this world, only syrups and such.) Rather than prepared milk, there’s a crushing machine (an actual machine, not an enchantment) which turns the nuts to fresh milk.

In the middle of the two halves is a chest of drawers full of cutlery. I know it all by glance, but the various sections are also labelled. By guessing based on what cutlery they do have, I also have a general idea of the menu, mostly desserts and soup and probably bread to go with it.

The cooking side is pretty much for what I guessed, and not important for me to know. There’s a couple of women here already—the cooks, Iris calls them, but I would say chefs—and they’ll handle preparing the food and plating it. Iris also tells me a third woman will be here later who does the drinks, so I won’t have to brew the tea (or coffee), just set the cups and serve it.

She points out the lounge as we pass through to the café, saying I can relax there before my shift and in my lunch break to save having to change. Given I’m only on a half-shift, I don’t know if I’ll get a break.

Back where we started, she lists off all the requirements for tables: tablecloth without stains, perfectly centred; four chairs tucked in; vase in the middle, with a flower to match the chairs’ upholstery; and so on. It’s a rather long but straightforward list and I think I can remember most of it under “common sense”, but I’ll have to write it down at some point so I can memorise the bits that aren’t.

Then she walks me through the greetings. Her father stands at the door to announce the customers (clients, I should say), which tells me whether to use miss, ma’am, or lady. If the clients are assigned to me, he will ask me to attend to them, at which point I will greet them by saying, “Welcome, mistress(es). May I show you to your seat?”

She then spouts a bunch of etiquette things that I’m familiar with, albeit from the other side.

A couple more “maids” have joined us in this time, and it doesn’t escape my notice that they’re watching with quite the smirks, giggling to each other. Neville did say waitress. I guess this is a café, so we’re not actually servants even if we look and sound the part.

In the distance, I hear the church bells rings. Ten o’clock, then, when mass finishes and opening time.

Iris hesitates a moment, and then pushes me into a corner and tells me to just watch for today. Meanwhile, Neville flips the sign around and props up a blackboard outside. The other waitresses look over each other, a last minute fiddle with the hair or sleeve, and then stand along the wall by the entrance, hands politely folded at their waist. Once Iris has checked over the last table, she joins them.

I stay in my corner.

Soon enough, the clients trickle in. A couple of middle-aged ladies are first, likely back from church given their understated clothes. Five ladies from my school are next, Millie borrowing a matching chair from another table to fit the extra person.

Slow, but never empty.

Tea and snacks, and then sandwiches and soup around lunchtime. These light meals take longer to prepare, longer to eat, the café filling up halfway before emptying to the earlier quarter full. Half the waitresses switch off at that point, Iris pulling me to the back to sit in the lounge and eat a buttered roll with a cup of tea. About ten minutes for that, then we’re back in the café while the other waitresses have their break. Iris takes the place by the door for her father.

That was at one, I guess, another couple of hours passing quietly. Neville flips the sign at some time, but nothing is said to the clients still here. Only when they leave does everyone relax, and the waitresses help clean and tidy. It’s still bright outside, but the afternoon is getting on, maybe four o’clock.

Neville takes me aside while they’re busy.

“For your time,” he says, grasping my hand like he’s going to shake it, but all he does is make sure I’m holding the coin before letting go himself.

I check it: a shilling. “No, I can’t—I didn’t even do anything,” I say. Though I try to give it back to him, he’s already taken a step back.

“Ah, it’s good that I can guilt you with money. You will be certain to come back next week and work twice as hard to make up for it, yes?” he says, a smile on his face.

Well, it did seem like Pete already fired me…. I have a chat with Neville about pay and hours and such, agreeing to the job for now. Then I get changed into my own clothes and, wouldn’t you know it, I find Lottie and Gwen waiting for me on the street out front (having walked around from the staff entrance).

Lottie is making quite the complicated expression.

After she checks I’m okay, she mildly tells me off. However, already being so close to the school, it doesn’t last long. Then she leaves me with a troubled smile that I saw all too often as a child. Back then, it was a smile which said: Your mother will hear of this.

That surely can’t be the case now, can it?