proper theatre. All red and gold, with balconies and plaster cherubs. That’d be smashing.’
‘Well, I suppose you will one day,’ said Edie, trying to steer the conversation back to her preferred subject. ‘But Ruby Redford won’t be treading the boards.’
‘Hush, you’re not to call her that! It’s Your Ladyship and Lady Deverell now. She hates anyone mentioning her past. She’s a bit sensitive about it. Well, more than a bit. You’re best off forgetting it, if you’ve seen her on stage. Not that you’ll get to speak to her much. She don’t have much to say to the servants.’
‘Really? I thought she might be a good mistress to have – since she’s closer to, to our class than most of the gentry.’
‘The opposite. Everyone says the first Lady Deverell was a real smasher, kind and sweet. She gave extra half-holidays when the weather was nice sometimes, and she always asked after your family. This one don’t even acknowledge you. Like I say, she’s funny about her past. She thinks talking to us like we’re people shows her up, I reckon. But we all know that that’s the mark of a someone who ain’t a real lady. But I mustn’t talk like this.’
A flicker of fear had crossed Jenny’s pale face.
‘Not when I don’t know you. You won’t repeat any of this, will you? Do you promise? Not to a soul?’
‘Of course not. What has passed between us is in strict confidence. You may be sure I will observe it.’
‘Gaw, you London girls talk proper, don’t you?’ Jenny’s momentary anxiety had turned to a curious admiration.
‘Oh, not really, I studied my mistress and her daughters at my last place and tried to imitate them. It’s a habit. I expect I shall grow out of it here.’
Jenny stood again, seeing that Edie had tied her apron and pinned on her cap.
‘Well, might be for the best,’ she said. ‘You’ll get teased for it downstairs. Come on. I’m to help you find your feet today. What would you like to see first?’
‘Well, I hardly know. Should we do a wing at a time?’
‘Good idea. Let’s start with the West Wing.’
They sallied forth, black-and-white neatness in duplicate, to the servants’ staircase.
‘The West Wing’s used for visitors and children. We spend less time on it, especially since there aren’t any Deverell children just at the moment. The ground-floor rooms aren’t used at all.’
The West Wing was indeed, though splendid, a little neglected; its carpets threadbare and its wainscots dusty in places. The unused downstairs apartments were empty of furniture – huge, high-ceilinged bunkers with ornate plaster mouldings and pictures behind dust sheets.
Edie found it quite sinister and was glad to cross the courtyard to the East Wing, which contained the family rooms.
On the upper floor, the younger son and daughter of the house kept their suites.
‘This is Sir Thomas’s rooms,’ said Jenny, briefly opening a door into a neat and unusually plain chamber. ‘We needn’t go in.’
‘Who is Sir Thomas?’
‘Lord, you really don’t know nothing, do you? He’s the younger son. He joined the Army and did very well for himself at first, but after getting shot in the war, he wanted out. Lord Deverell had to buy him out, even though he was injured. Walks with a limp now, always will.’
‘Does he have another occupation now?’
‘No, nothing.’ Jenny shook her head. ‘He can’t settle. They say Lord Deverell’s at his wits’ end with him.’
‘What is he like?’
‘Well, I don’t know him, really. He keeps himself to himself. Spends a lot of time at the races, or out with the dogs.’
They reached the next door.
‘Whose rooms are these?’
‘Lady Mary’s, but I wouldn’t be opening them if I didn’t know she’d gone out. She gets wild if anyone disturbs her in her room.’
Jenny opened them with a furtive, mysterious air then stepped a little way into the light, airy chamber. Everything seemed to sparkle in there. Edie thought, with a sickening pang, of her room at home in London. She had the same cut-glass scent bottle on her dresser. The silver-backed hairbrush looked familiar too, even if Edie’s was not monogrammed like Lady Mary’s. Fresh cut flowers stood on the bedside table and the chest of drawers, and a tangle of stockings and scarves were strewn all over the bed.
‘I suppose she was trying to decide what to wear tonight,’ said Jenny with a laugh. ‘She’s fearful fussy. Ask Louise, her maid. She leads her a merry dance, she does.’
‘A hard taskmistress?’
Jenny whispered, ‘A spoiled little madam,’ and then put a hand to her mouth, giggling guiltily.
‘What is happening tonight?’
‘Didn’t Mrs Munn say? A big dinner, some visitors from London. I don’t know who they are but I think they’re supposed to be important.’
Another surge of panic rose through Edie’s stomach.
‘Will I have to serve them?’
‘I shouldn’t think so, not your first day.’
She exhaled gratefully.
‘I wonder if Lady Mary will announce an engagement soon,’ Jenny prattled on. ‘They say she’s got ever so many admirers in London. But, like I said, she’s fussy.’
‘Neither of the sons are married?’
Jenny sighed. ‘No, and it don’t look likely neither. One’s a womaniser and the other’s a recluse. Come on, shall we go downstairs?’
The windows were bigger on the floor below and the fittings notably more elaborate.
‘Sir Charles’s rooms,’ whispered Jenny, her hand on an antique gold door handle.
‘Should we?’ Edie was suddenly nervous. ‘What if he’s in there?’
‘He went to town,’ she said. ‘With Lady Mary. Come on.’
‘There could be a woman in there.’
Jenny let out a peal of merry laughter. ‘You ain’t met him yet and you’ve got the measure of him already. Come on.’
She opened the door.
No woman was hidden behind it. The rooms were magnificent, crimson and gold, but the style was decidedly masculine and his valet had not yet cleared away his shaving things from the basin in the little bathroom. Edie felt possessed by a sense of the man who used these rooms; the scent of his cologne, mixed with a faint aroma of smoke, crept into her and took up residence in the corners
