respected his accomplishments and recognized his generosity. He was a man of extremes. A man who worked hard, who indulged himself, yet who gave help freely, with kindness, if he approved of the recipient.
Could he be the killer? She remembered the dexterity with which he wielded his array of butcher’s knives. Did he have a motive? If he did, then did it explain Charlotte’s flight?
What did she really know of Charlotte, except that she was not at peace? Her father’s view of her was biased. If
Maisie started the MG. It was time to return to her rooms at Ebury Place. She had much to consider, to plan. Tomorrow would be a long day, a day that had to begin with a difficult encounter. She must confront Billy regarding his behavior.
The front door of the Belgravia mansion was opened even before she reached the bottom step.
“We heard your motor car turn in to the mews, M’um.”
“Oh, lovely. It’s a cold evening isn’t it, Sandra, and a foggy one.”
“It is, M’um, and that old green stuff out there going down into your lungs doesn’t help, either. Never mind, soon be summer.”
Sandra closed the door behind Maisie, and took her coat, hat, and gloves.
“Will you have supper in the dining room tonight, M’um, or on a tray upstairs?”
Maisie stopped for a moment, then turned to Sandra. “I think I’d like a nice bowl of vegetable soup on a tray. Not too soon—about half past eight.”
“Right you are, M’um. Teresa went upstairs the minute she heard your car and she’s running you a good hot bath, what with you driving up from Chelstone today.”
Maisie went immediately to her rooms, placed her now-full document case on the writing table, and undressed, quickly replacing her day clothes with a dressing gown and slippers. Was it only on Friday night that she had left for Chelstone? She had departed again early this morning, indeed, she had arisen as soon as she heard her father’s footfall on the stairs at four o’clock; washed, dressed and quickly joined him for a strong mug of tea before he went to attend to the mare.
“I’ve added some lavender salts to the bath for you, M’um. Helps you relax before bedtime, does lavender.” Teresa had set two large fluffy white towels on the rail by the bathtub, now full of steaming aromatic water.
“Thank you, Teresa.”
“Right you are M’um. Will you be needing anything else, M’um?”
“No, thank you.”
Teresa bobbed a curtsey and left the bathroom.
Maisie steeped her body, reaching forward with her foot to twist the hot tap whenever it seemed that the water was cooling. How strange to be living in the upstairs part of the Ebury Place mansion, to be addressed as ‘M’um’ by girls doing the same job that had brought her to this house, and this life. She leaned back to allow the scented steam to rise up into her hair, and remembered the once-a-week bath that was all she had been allowed when she herself had been a tweeny maid. Enid would bang on the door as soon as she thought that Maisie had been in too long. Maisie could hear her now.
And she remembered France, the cold mud that seeped into her bones, a cold that she could feel to this day. “You’re a chilly mortal, my girl.” Maisie smiled as she saw Mrs. Crawford in her mind’s eye, and almost felt the old woman’s arms around her, comforting her, as she enveloped Maisie with her warmth when she returned, injured, from France. “Let’s be having you, my girl. There, there, you’re home now, you’re home.” And she had held Maisie to her with one hand, and rubbed her back with the other, just as a mother would soothe a baby.
There was a knock on the bathroom door.
“Goodness!” Maisie gasped when she realized how long she had soaked in the bath. “Coming! I’ll be in right away!”
She quickly stepped out of the bath, toweled off, and pulled the dressing gown around her. She set her hair free, shook her head, and rushed into her sitting room. A supper tray had been placed on a small table set in front of her chair by the fire, which was glowing as flames curled around fresh coals being heaped on by Sandra.
“Better stoke it up a bit for you, M’um. We don’t want you catching cold, do we?”
“Thank you, Sandra. A cold is the last thing I want!”
Sandra replaced the tongs into a brass coal scuttle, stood up, and smiled at Maisie. “Looks like Mr. Carter will be returning next week, to get everything in its place for Her Ladyship coming back.”
“Ah, then we’ll know all about it, eh, Sandra?” Maisie smiled at the maid, taking her table napkin and setting it on her lap. “Mmm, this soup smells delicious!”
Sandra bobbed and nodded her head. “Thank you M’um .” But instead of leaving, she seemed to waver. “Not as many staff as there used to be, are there?”
“Certainly not as many as before the war, Sandra.” Instead of taking up her soup spoon, Maisie leaned back in the chair and looked into the fire. “No, definitely not. And if you asked Mrs. Crawford, she’d tell you that there were even more before His Lordship bought the motor cars, when there were horses in the mews, and grooms.”
Sandra pursed her lips and looked at her feet. “S’all changing, isn’t it, M’um? I mean, you know, we wonder why they keep this place up, now that they spend more time down at Chelstone.”
Maisie thought for a while and replied. “Oh, I think they’ll keep Ebury Place for a few years yet, at least until Master James comes back to England. After all, it is part of his inheritance. Are you worried about your job, Sandra?”
“Well, we all are, M’um. I mean, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, and all, but things are changing. Not so many girls are going into service these days. But, you know, it’s funny, like, when you can see change right before your eyes.”
