‘Quite how I’m supposed to make bread withso little flour, is anyone’s guess. Maybe if you’d got here sooner, Icould have gone to the shop to get some more,’ Caroline said without lookingup.
‘I’ll go now if you like,’ Mary said,quickly latching on to a reason to get out of the house.
Caroline grunted. ‘No, thankyou. I wouldn’t be able to trust you to buy the right thing. Justput the money down there.’
Mary obeyed and emptied her wages onto thetable, then turned to leave the room. She made her way down the hallway,destined for the front door. She had done what she came to do, now shecould just leave. But, as she neared the front room door, she couldn’tquite resist at least saying hello to her father. She hadn’t actuallyseen him for weeks now. Cautiously and slowly, Mary pushed open the frontroom door. What she saw shocked her and made her gasp. A frail oldman, shrivelled in his chair sat before her. Like Caroline, life hadsuddenly aged him. Mary knew little about melancholia, had no idea thatit could do this to a person. The man sitting here, staring at thefloor, looked old enough to be her grandfather.
‘Hello,’ she said quietly. Whenthere was no response, she repeated herself, only louder. ‘Hello!’
He blinked at the sound and his headtwitched slightly, but he made no attempt to look at her or reply.
A laugh came from the kitchen. ‘You’ll be lucky, Mary!’ Caroline called.
This house is falling apart around myears! I can’t stand it! Marywas on the verge of screaming something aloud then dashing dramatically fromthe house, when she heard her twin sister’s voice.
‘Mary? Is that you?’ Edie calledfrom upstairs. ‘Come up.’
Although Mary was glad to leave the frontroom, she was reluctant to see Edie. She couldn’t take much more of thishouse. She stood by the front door and placed her hand on thelatch. Something, possibly the extra special connection she had withEdie, stopped her from running from the madness which had descended here. Instead, she turned and made her way to her former bedroom. As shereached the top of the stairs, Mary wondered what the past weeks had done toEdie. Had she too aged beyond all recognition? Was she still beingeaten alive with jealousy of Mary’s role at Blackfriars? For thefirst time in her life, Mary was nervous about seeing her own twinsister. How has it come to this? She rebuked herself andstepped in their shared bedroom.
‘Mary!’ Edie greeted, standing andunexpectedly throwing her arms around her. Mercifully, Edie hadn’t agedor turned into a haggard monster—she was exactly the same as when she had lastseen her. Except now her face was glowing; she wore a big smile.
Mary held her sister tightly. Shewas back. They were back.
‘Guess who’s got a job?’ Edie said,standing up and swishing her hair back theatrically.
‘Have you?’ Mary said, delighted. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘It’s second housemaid at DurrantHouse! Can you believe it?’ Edie exclaimed.
Mary knew that she was forgiven. Notonly had Edie got a higher-status job than her now, it was in Durrant House—amuch bigger and more widely known establishment than Blackfriars. ThatEdie had trumped her was totally fine with Mary, so long as they were no longerfighting. ‘Congratulations! Well done. What’s it like there?’
‘Amazing! I haven't officiallystarted yet, but I adore the job and they all adore me. I’m sograteful not to have got the job at Blackfriars. How are you liking itthere? Come and sit down and tell me.’
The twins sat side by side, while Maryplucked snippets of truth from the last three months. She selectedstories and anecdotes judiciously: she made no mention of her time with Edwardand excluded stories which might lead Edie to become jealous or stories whichpainted a true picture of her unhappiness as a third housemaid, which mighthave given Edie an opportunity to gloat.
‘Sounds okay,’ Edie said, notconvinced. ‘Are you actually enjoying being a housemaid?’
‘Yeah,’ Mary said feebly. Even shedidn’t believe what had just come out of her mouth.
‘What about Edward? Has he mentionedme? Is he getting my letters okay?’ Edie asked.
Mary shrugged. She knew the timewould come when she would have to tell Edie about her engagement to Edward, butnow was definitely not that time. ‘I’m not sure. It’s funny, but Idon’t actually see him that much. You know what it’s like about femaleand male servants mixing. It just doesn’t happen.’
‘True,’ Edie said. ‘They must beworking him jolly hard, he hardly ever writes back to me.’
‘Mum will be pleased about your new job,’Mary said, changing the subject. ‘Does she know yet?’
Edie shook her head. ‘No, but guesswhat? She can come out—next Wednesday. Do you fancy coming with meon your afternoon off and fetching her home?’
Mary’s eyes suddenly lit up. ‘Ofcourse, that would be great.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Hopefully then Caroline will push off.’
Edie laughed. ‘Oh God, I hopeso. You’ve no idea how unbearable it’s been here. I even resortedto staying with Lucy in Eastbourne just so I could get away from here.’
‘So that’s settled, then, we’ll meet backhere next week and go and collect Mum.’
Contraryto how she had expected to feel, Mary had enjoyed her afternoon off. Shehad stayed with Edie for the remainder of the afternoon and evening, the pairof them chatting just like they had used to. Mary felt like at least oneof the weights had been lifted from her shoulders. When she had returnedto Blackfriars that night, she found the place eerily empty. Evidentlythe trip to Scotland had gone off as planned, for the only staff she found inthe servants’ hall for that evening’s supper were the first footman, JohnWiseman, who was temporarily in charge of the remaining domestic staff, Bastion,Charles Philips, the head gardener and the scullery maid, Joan Leigh. Assoon as she set foot into the servants’ hall, Mary wished that she hadn’tbothered.
‘For the sake of keeping things runningsmoothly,’ John Wiseman had said,
