Death at Dawn - Caro Peacock [50]
‘You’re a lucky girl.’
‘A red leather pair, a green leather pair, pink satin with bows, pink satin without bows, white brocade …’
She was still reciting her wardrobe when Betty came back carrying a tray with tea things and half a seed cake.
‘I feel sick,’ James said. ‘I want some cake.’
Unperturbed, Betty cut thick slices for herself and me, thin ones for the children. When they’d finished them, she said they should go to their bedrooms and be quiet. She’d come along in five minutes and help them change.
‘Change for bed?’ I asked her, when they’d filed out of the room. It wasn’t yet six o’clock.
‘No, changed in case their mother and father want them downstairs before dinner. They usually do, but they might not this evening because of Sir Herbert only just getting back.’
‘Getting back from where?’
It felt mean, commencing my career as a spy on a person who’d been kind to me, but I had to begin somewhere.
‘London, I expect. He’s always up and down from London. Sir Herbert’s an important man in the government.’
She said it with simple confidence, but if Blackstone and Miss Bodenham were right, any importance he might have had was in the past.
‘So he has a lot of business to attend to?’ I said, finishing my second cup of tea.
‘Yes.’ But her attention was on something else. She was staring at the draggled and dusty hem of my dress.
‘If the children are sent for, their governess and I usually take them down together – when there is a governess, that is.’
She was hinting gently that I wasn’t fit for company. My heart lurched at the thought that I might soon be standing in the same room as Sir Herbert Mandeville.
‘But you do look tired out, Miss Lock. If you like, I could make your excuses for you …’
She sounded worried about that.
‘Thank you, but of course I must come down with you. I’ll go and change at once, only …’
‘Did Mrs Quivering say you were to share with me?’
She was obviously relieved when I said I’d opted for the little room two floors up.
‘I hope they’ve got it ready for you. It’s through the door at the end and up past the maids’ dormitory. Shall I ring for a boy to take your bag?’
I refused out of pity for the over-worked boys, so my bag and I made the final stage of our journey together, up two steep and narrow staircases. The room was small, no more than eight steps in either direction, with a tiny square of window at shoulder height looking on to the back courtyard. It was clean and simply furnished with a chair, a table, a wash-stand with a large white china bowl, and a bed made up with clean sheets. I had to go down to the maids’ floor to find a cubicle with a privy and water to wash myself. Water pails stood in a line, but most of them were empty. I found one quarter-full, carried that upstairs, stripped off my dress and stockings and sponged myself as well as I could. The green cotton dress I’d bought in London would have to do, along with my lace-trimmed fichu pelerine for a modest touch of style, and the stockings and black shoes. There was no looking glass in the room, so I couldn’t judge the effect, but it was good to feel clean again.
I went down to find the children changed into their best clothes – boys in breeches, waistcoats and short blue jackets with brass buttons, Henrietta in white-and-pink striped silk with frills and a ribbon in her ringlets. She’d reclaimed her chair and was whispering in her doll’s ear, the boys looking at a book. Betty Sims was on the window-seat, eyes on the little bell on its spring over the door. She seemed nervous.
‘They usually ring about now if we’re wanted.’
‘Do the children always have to dress up, even if they’re not wanted downstairs?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘So if they’re not, they just have to get undressed again?’
‘They’re wanted more often than not.’
‘When did the last governess leave?’
‘Three weeks ago. I’ve been trying to teach them a bit on my own since then, but I can’t keep all the tables in my head, and if I make a mistake Master James goes running to Mrs Beedle.’
‘Mrs Beedle