Summary
A wartime pastoral curdles into masquerade when copper-haired heiress Betty Hallowell, stung by the tepid receipts of her patriotic bazaar, leases her ancestral Berkshire manor to a velvet-gloved matron whose shell-shocked son drags the trenches home in his lungs. With maids vanished to munitions factories, Betty slips into lamp-black tresses and a Gallic accent, becoming “Bettina,” candle-shadow servant to the convalescent Tom Wentworth. In the honeyed dusk between dressing gong and blackout curtains, the heir and the maid trade quinine for kisses, Keats for caresses, until the lady of the house reclaims her name and the same heart that adored a figment must learn to love the flesh. The uncle’s arrival snaps the illusion like a war-rationed sugar crust, leaving Tom to argue that affection can be polyphonic—one woman, two masks, a single immutable ardor—and Betty, weary of her own sleight-of-hand, decides the verdict is sufficient.
Synopsis
When heiress Betty Hallowell organizes a Red Cross bazaar to raise money for the American effort in The Great War, she is disappointed that the event is not a success, so she decides to lease her beautiful country house to Mrs. Wentworth, a wealthy widow whose son Tom is recuperating from injuries received overseas. When Mrs. Wentworth suddenly demands the services of a maid for the summer, Betty, unable to secure a servant on such short notice, dons a dark wig and poses as "French maid Bettina." Much to his mother's embarrassment, Tom and "Bettina" fall madly in love, but necessity forces Betty to temporarily drop her disguise and reappear as the mistress of the house. Confused, Tom falls just as madly in love with Betty. Finally, he decides that he prefers Bettina to Betty, but Betty's uncle arrives and her deception is revealed. Tom explains his infidelity by stating that Betty's sweetness caused him to love her in both of her identities, and she is satisfied.
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