Royal Blood

by Rhys Bowen

  “Whatcher want?” a gravelly voice demanded.

  “Granddad, it’s me, Georgie.”

  The door was flung open wide and there was my grandfather’s cheerful Cockney face beaming at me. “Well, I’m blowed. Talk about a sight for sore eyes. Come on in, ducks. Come in.”

  I stepped into his narrow front hall and he hugged me in spite of my wet overcoat.

  “Blimey, you look like a drowned rat,” he said, holding me at arm’s length and grinning at me, his head to one side like a cheerful sparrow. “What on earth are you doing here, out on such a miserable night? ’Ere. You’re not in some kind of trouble again, are you?”

  “Not really in trouble,” I said, “but I do need your help.”

  “Let me take your coat, love. Come into the kitchen and take a load off your plates of meat.”

  “My what?”

  “Yer feet, love. Ain’t I taught you no Cockney rhyming slang yet?”

  He hung up my coat then ushered me down the hall to his tiny square of kitchen, which was already occupied by one person. “Look what the cat brought in, ’ettie,” he said. It was his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Hettie Huggins, who had been setting her cap at him for ages and finally seemed to have succeeded.

  “Pleased to see you again, yer ladyship,” Mrs. Huggins said, dropping me a curtsy, although there wasn’t really room for her ample hips to bend. “I’ve been taking care of your granddad, since he had a nasty bout of bronchitis.”

  “Oh, no. Are you all right now?” I turned to look at him.

  “Me? Yeah. I’m right as rain, ducks. Couldn’t be better, thanks to ’ettie ’ere. She fed me up like I was a prize chicken. In fact, we were just going to have some of her stew, weren’t we, Hettie? Want to join us?”

  “Her ladyship won’t want stew, Albert. It ain’t what posh people are used to.”

  “I’d love some, please,” I said. Then added, “Just a little,” in case they didn’t have much. But Mrs. Huggins ladled out a big bowl with barley and beans and lamb shank and they nodded with satisfaction as I wolfed it down.

  “Anyone would think you hadn’t seen a decent meal in a month of Sundays,” Granddad said. “You’re not still growing, are you?”

  “I hope not. I’m taller than some of my dancing partners,” I said. “But I do love a good stew.”

  They exchanged a look of satisfaction.

  “So what are things like up in the Smoke?” Granddad asked.

  “Smoky. We’ve had horrible fogs. I’ve hardly been out.”

  “Same down here. That’s what done in Albert’s chest,” Mrs. Huggins said.

  “So what can we do for you, love?” Granddad asked, looking at me fondly.

  I took a deep breath. “I’m looking for a maid, in rather a hurry, I’m afraid.”

  Granddad burst out laughing. “I didn’t mind pretending to be yer butler, love, but I ain’t wearing a cap and apron and being a maid for you.”

  I laughed. “I wasn’t expecting you to. I was wondering if you knew anyone who had experience in service and who was out of work.”

  “I reckon we can come up with half a dozen girls who’d jump at the job, don’t you, ’ettie?” Granddad turned to her and she nodded.

  “A maid for you, yer ladyship? Your own personal maid, like?”

  “Precisely.”

  “I shouldn’t think the position would be hard to fill. You’d have girls lining up to work for a toff like you. Why don’t you just put an advertisement in the newspapers?”

  “There are some complications,” I said, realizing as he said it that an advertisement might be a jolly good idea. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? “Firstly, it’s only a temporary position. I want a girl to accompany me to a royal wedding in Europe.”

  “In Europe?”

  “Romania, to be exact.”

  “Blimey” was all Granddad could find to say to that.

  “And I can’t pay her much. I’m hoping I’ll be able to pay her something when I return.”

  Granddad shook his head, making tut-tutting sounds. “You are in a bit of a pickle, aren’t you? What about your brother and his snooty wife, can’t they spare you a servant?”

  “Nobody at Castle Rannoch wants to travel to London, let alone abroad. I’m looking for an adventurous girl, but I can’t afford to pay her much.”

  “Seems to me,” Granddad said slowly, “that a girl might want to take up this position so that she could use you as a reference. Former maid to royalty. That might be worth a darned sight more than money.”

  “You know, you’re right, Granddad. You’re brilliant.”

  He beamed.

  “My niece Doreen’s girl is looking for work, as it happens,” Mrs. Huggins said quickly. It was clear that her brain had been ticking as he made that suggestion. “Nice quiet little thing. Not the brightest, but it might help her land a good position if she had a reference from a toff like you. Why don’t I speak to her about it and send her up to you if she’s willing to give it a try.”

  “Brilliant,” I said. “I knew I was doing the right thing coming to you two. You always have an answer for me.”

  “So you’re going to a royal wedding, are you, your ladyship?” Mrs. Huggins asked.

  “Yes. I’m going to be in the bridal party, but I have to leave next week, so that doesn’t give me much time to hire a maid to travel with me. This girl you mentioned—she has had some domestic service training, has she?”

  “Oh, yes. She’s had several jobs. Not anything like as grand as your house, of course. This will be a step up in the world for her. But like I said, she’s a quiet, willing little thing. And you wouldn’t have to worry about her having an eye for the boys. She don’t have an ounce of what they refer to these days as sex appeal. Face like the back end of a bus, poor little thing. But you’d find her keen enough to learn.”

  My grandfather chuckled. “If she was in the theater, I wouldn’t hire you as her manager, ’ettie.”

  “Well, I have to tell it straight for her ladyship, don’t I?”

  “I won’t be judging her on her looks, and at the moment I feel it really is a case of beggars not being choosers.”

  “So I’ll tell her she can call on you at yer house, shall I?”

  “By all means. I look forward to meeting her.” I finished my stew and started to stand up. “I really should be getting back to London, although I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. I have my brother and sister-in-law at the house.”

  “You’re welcome to the spare bedroom,” Granddad said. “It’s a nasty night out there.”

  I was tempted. The safety and security of Granddad’s little house versus the doubly frigid atmosphere of Rannoch House occupied by Fig. But I had a wedding to plan for, and I didn’t want Fig suspecting that I’d spent the night with Darcy.

  “No, I really should get back, I’m afraid,” I said. “It was so good to see you.”

  “We’ll want to hear all about it when you come back from wherever it was,” Granddad said. “You take care of yourself, traveling in foreign parts.”

  “I wish I were a man, then I could take you as my valet,” I said wistfully, thinking how much nicer it would be traveling across a continent with him at my side.

  “You wouldn’t catch me going to heathen parts like that,” Granddad said. “I’ve been to Scotland now, and that was quite foreign enough to last my lifetime, thank you kindly.”

  I laughed as I walked up the front path.

  Chapter 8

  I arrived home, cold and wet, to be told by an almost gloating Fig that Mr. O’Mara had called and been told that Lady Georgiana would be attending a royal wedding in Europe, at the request of Their Majesties, and should be left in peace to make her preparations. She also hinted that she’d admonished him for preying on innocent girls and suggested that he should not stand in the way of my making a suitable match.

  This made me furious, of course, but it was too late. The damage had been done. All I could do was
console myself with the thought that Darcy would probably have found Fig’s lecture highly amusing.

  The next morning they left, abandoning me for the warmth and luxury of Claridge’s for their last night in London. I breathed a long sigh of relief. Now all I had to do was to pack for my trip to Europe and hope that the promised maid materialized. A telephone call from the palace informed me that my chaperon had had to put forward her traveling date, so it was hoped that I could be ready by Tuesday next. Tickets and passports would be delivered to me and, yes, tiaras would be worn. I had to telephone Binky at Claridges and I imagined Fig was gnashing her teeth at the expense of sending a servant down from Scotland with my tiara. But one couldn’t exactly have put it in the post, even if we had the time. Then I realized that I would now not have time to place an advertisement in the Morning Post or the Times. It would have to be Mrs. Huggins’s relative or nothing.

  For a while it looked as if it was going to be nothing and I was just about to rush to Belinda and confess that I had changed my mind when there was a timid tap at my tradesman’s entrance. Luckily I was in the kitchen at the time or I would never have heard it. I opened the door and standing outside in the dim and damp November twilight was an apparition that looked like a giant Beatrix Potter hedgehog, but not as adorable. It then revealed itself to be wearing an old, moth-eaten and rather spiky fur coat, topped with a bright red pudding basin hat. Underneath was a round, red face with cheeks almost matching the color of the hat. When she saw me a big smile spread ear to ear.

  “Whatcher, love. I’m ’ere to see the toff what lives here about the maid’s position, so ’ere I am. So nip off and tell her, all right?”

  I tried not to let her know that I found this amusing. I said in my most superior voice, “I happen to be the toff that lives here. I am Lady Georgiana Rannoch.”

  “Blimey, strike me down with a feather,” she said. “Begging your pardon, then, but you don’t expect to find a lady like you opening the back door, do you?”

  “No, you don’t,” I agreed. “You’d better come in.”

  “Awful sorry, miss,” she said. “No hard feelings, I hope? I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot. My mum’s aunt ’ettie knows your granddad and she told me you was looking for a personal maid and she said why didn’t I give it a try.”

  “I am looking for a personal maid, that’s correct,” I said. “Why don’t you take off your coat and I’ll interview you here. It’s the warmest place in the house at the moment.”

  “Right you are, miss,” she said and took off the fur coat, which was now steaming and smelling rather like wet sheep. Underneath the coat she was wearing a rather too tight mustard yellow home-knitted jumper and a purple skirt. Color coordination was not her strong point, clearly. I indicated a chair at the kitchen table and she sat. She was a large, big-boned cart horse of a girl with a perpetually surprised and vacant expression. The thought passed through my mind that she’d be expensive to feed.

  “Now, I’ve told you my name. What is yours?”

  “It’s Queenie, miss,” she said. “Queenie ’epplewhite.”

  Why did the lower classes seem to have all these surnames starting with H when it was a letter they simply ignored or couldn’t pronounce? And as for her Christian name . . .

  “Queenie?” I said cautiously. “That’s your Christian name? Not a nickname?”

  “No, miss. It’s the only name I got.”

  I could see that a maid called Queenie might present problems for one about to attend a royal wedding, where there would be several real queens, but I told myself that most of them wouldn’t speak English and would probably never run into my maid.

  “So tell me, Queenie,” I said, taking a seat opposite her, “you have been in domestic service, I understand?”

  “Oh, yes, miss. I’ve already been employed in three households so far, but nothing like as grand as this one, of course.”

  “And did you serve in the capacity of a lady’s maid?”

  “Not exactly, miss. Sort of general dogsbody, more like it.”

  “So how long were you with your former employers?”

  “About three weeks,” she said.

  “Three weeks? Which employer were you only with for three weeks?”

  “All of ’em, miss,” she said.

  “Why such a short time, may I ask?”

  “Well, the last one was her at the butcher’s, and she only wanted help during her confinement, so as soon as the baby came she told me to push off.”

  “And the other two?”

  She chewed on her lip before saying, “Well, the first one got pretty upset when I knocked over her bottle of perfume when I was dusting. It went all over the mahogany dressing table and took the surface off, but that wasn’t what really upset her. It was a really expensive bottle of perfume, apparently. She’d brought it back from Paris. Oh, miss, you should have heard the words she used. You don’t hear words like that from a fishmonger down the Old Kent Road.”

  “And the third employer?” I hardly dared to ask.

  “Well, I couldn’t very well stay there,” she said. “Not after I set her evening dress on fire.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “I dropped a match on the skirt by accident when I was lighting the candles,” she said. “It wouldn’t have been too bad, but she was wearing it at the time. She made a terrible fuss too, although she was hardly burned at all.”

  I swallowed hard and wondered what to say next. “Queenie, it appears that you are an absolute disaster,” I said. “But it so happens that I’m desperate at the moment. I expect your aunt told you that I am due to go abroad to a very important wedding and I leave next Tuesday. It is essential that I take a maid with me to look after my clothes, help me dress and do my hair. Do you think you could do that?”

  “I could give it a bloody good try, miss,” she said.

  “Then let us get a couple of things straight—one, there will be no swearing or any kind of bad language, and two, I am Lady Georgiana so you are expected to call me ‘my lady’ and not ‘miss.’ Do you understand?”

  “Right you are, miss. I mean, my lady.”

  “And you do understand that this job means going abroad with me, to a foreign country?”

  “Oh, yes, miss. I mean, my lady. I’m game for anything. It will be a bit of a lark, and wait till I see Nellie ’uxtable down the Three Bells, her what’s always boasting that she took a day trip to Boulogne.”

  At least one had to admire her pluck, or maybe she was just completely clueless.

  “And as to money—I do not intend to pay you any money at first. You will travel with me and receive your uniform and of course all your meals. If you prove satisfactory I will pay you what you are worth on our return and what’s more I shall write you a letter of reference that will guarantee you a good job anywhere. So it’s up to you, Queenie. This is your chance to make something of yourself. What do you say? Will you accept my terms?”

  “Bob’s yer uncle, miss,” she said and thrust a big meaty hand in my direction.

  I arranged for her to come to Rannoch House on Monday. She plonked the shapeless hat on her head and turned back to me at the door. “You won’t regret this, miss,” she said. “I’ll be the best ruddy chambermaid you’ve ever had.”

  So I was due to undertake a journey fraught with avalanches, brigands and wolves with possibly the world’s worst chambermaid who was likely to set fire to my dress. It would be interesting to see if I came out of it alive.

  Chapter 9

  Rannoch House

  Monday, November 14

  Due to leave for Continent tomorrow. Still no maid. Still

  haven’t heard from Darcy. Still raining.

  How tiresome life can be.

  By Monday morning I had still not heard from Darcy. Now I would be going abroad without letting him know. Really he was a most infuriating man. I simply didn’t know what to make of him. Sometimes I thought he was really keen on me, and t
hen other times he’d disappear for ages. Anyway, there was nothing I could do about him now. If he hadn’t chosen to give me his address or even come to see that I had survived the visit from Binky and Fig, then too bad.

  Queenie turned up a little after nine. It took some time rummaging through the housekeeper’s closet to find a uniform that fitted and looked suitable, because she was a hefty girl, but eventually we poured her into a black dress, white cap and apron. She looked very pleased with herself as she stared in the mirror.

  “Stone me. I look just like a real maid now, don’t I, miss, I mean, me lady?”

  “Let’s hope you learn to act like one, Queenie,” I said. “I take it you have brought your case with you with the items you’ll need to travel. You can now come up to my room and pack the clothes I shall need. Bring that tissue paper with you so that they don’t become creased.”

  We spent a rather fraught morning as I stopped her from wrapping my boots with my velvet dinner gown, but eventually all was ready. Tickets, passports and letters of introduction were delivered from the palace. My tiara arrived by courier from Castle Rannoch and Binky had generously slipped a few sovereigns into the package with a note saying I expect you’ll need some expenses for the journey. Sorry it can’t be more.

  He was a sweet man, useless but sweet.

  The money at least allowed us to take a taxi to Victoria Station on the morning of Tuesday, November 15. As I followed a porter to the platform where the boat train departed, I felt a sudden surge of excitement. I was really going abroad. I was going to be part of a royal wedding, even if it was Moony Matty’s. My compartment was found and the porter set off for the baggage car with my trunks, leaving me with my personal luggage. I knew that in normal circumstances I would have entrusted my jewel case to my maid but I thought that Queenie might try dressing up in my tiara or let the rubies slip down the sink in the lavatory.