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  As she spoke she realised that her stepmother was not listening.

  It was so unlike her when clothes were being discussed that she said quickly,

  “What is it? There is something you have not told me.”

  Lady Rothley looked uncomfortable, then said,

  “The Duke expects me to bring a lady’s maid.”

  Tempera was still for a moment. Then she sat down in a chair.

  “Did he actually say so?”

  “Of course! He said, ‘If you and your maid will be at Victoria Station at 10 o’clock on Friday morning, Colonel Anstruther will be there to look after you.’”

  “Is that his Comptroller?” Tempera asked.

  “Yes – a charming man. I have met him several times at Chevingham House. He is a gentleman, of course, and the Duke seems to rely on him in every way.”

  They were evading the main issue and they both knew it. After a pregnant silence Tempera said,

  “Is it absolutely – essential for you to take a lady’s maid?”

  “How can I go without one?” Lady Rothley asked. “You know I cannot manage by myself, and all the other women guests will have one as a matter of course.”

  “It is not going to be easy,” Tempera replied. “Apart from the expense I shall have to instruct her, and there is very little time.”

  “I am sure you will be able to find someone good from the Domestic Agency in Mount Street,” Lady Rothley said confidently.

  “You could not say that your maid was ill, or too old, like poor Agnes?” Tempera suggested. “Then perhaps Colonel Anstruther would find you a French maid, or one of the housemaids could look after you.”

  “Not a French maid!” Lady Rothley gave a little scream. “You know how bad my French is. I would never be able to make her understand and besides I should feel so embarrassed arriving with a pile of luggage and no-one to look after it.”

  “Very well,” Tempera said, “but it means one gown less, you realise that?”

  Lady Rothley pouted.

  “I cannot do with less than I have ordered already. I am sure Dottie Barnard will be in the parry, and I have told you how smart she is with a new gown to wear every night, and jewels which eclipse the chandeliers.”

  “But Sir William is one of the richest men in England,” Tempera replied in a cold voice.

  “Which is why he is so friendly with the King and all those Rothschilds.” Lady Rothley said. “Oh, Tempera, if only we had some money!”

  “If you marry the Duke you will have all you require and a great deal more besides,” Tempera answered.

  “Then I refuse – absolutely refuse – to go to the South of France looking like a beggar-maid, although Heaven knows, Tempera, I do not want some stuffy, supercilious maid complaining she has to darn my clothes because they are falling into rags.”

  Lady Rothley threw herself back against the cushions on the sofa with a little sound of exasperation.

  “The trouble is, Tempera, I want so many new things, and it is only because of you that I have managed to hold together those I have.”

  “I know, but we must try to find an understanding maid who is skilful with her needle.”

  “She is certain to grumble and complain,” Lady Rothley groaned. “Like that poisonous woman just before your father died. ‘Really, my Lady, your underclothes look like a jig-saw puzzle!’ she used to say. How I disliked her!”

  Tempera laughed.

  “She did not stay long, and it was only when she had gone that we found all your things that she refused to mend bundled into the back of a drawer.”

  “For goodness sake, do not get me anyone like her!” Lady Rothley pleaded. “And there was that other horror – what was her name?”

  “I think you must mean Arnold,” Tempera replied.

  “That is right – Arnold! She was always having her tea whenever I wanted her and refused to appear until the ‘sacred cup’ was finished.”

  Tempera laughed again,

  “I see I shall have to find a maid with no partiality for tea.”

  “They all have that,” Lady Rothley said. “It is the ‘drug of the Servants’ Hall’, but when I said so to your father he replied it was preferable to gin! I did not think it was much of an answer.”

  “I expect Papa was thinking of how much gin was consumed by servants in the 18th century,” Tempera replied, “and of course in all the big houses they still drink an enormous amount of beer.”

  “The servants can drink champagne for all I care, as long as they are there to wait on me, but I am dreading the thought of this lady’s maid.”

  Tempera did not answer.

  She was taking off the plain hat which she had worn to go to the National Gallery and smoothing down the waves of her dark auburn hair.

  She was very slim and graceful, but she looked very different from the fashionable women with whom her stepmother associated.

  As if to accentuate the difference, instead of her hair being swept up in waves across the front, she drew it back from her forehead into a bun at the back of her head.

  Only when she was busy did small tendrils curl round her face to soften the severity of the style which was reminiscent of the Madonna’s painted by the Early Italian Masters.

  Tempera, hardly seeing her reflection in the mirror, pushed aside a few curls, thinking of her stepmother and the problem of finding a lady’s maid who would suit her.

  Only Tempera realised in what bad repair were so many of her stepmother’s underclothes and she had to darn and darn her stockings, rather than throw them away as any other Lady of Fashion would have done.

  The same thoughts must have been running through Lady Rothley’s head because suddenly with a little groan she said from the sofa,

  “Oh, Tempera, if only you could come with me.”

  “I wish I could,” Tempera answered. “I would give anything to see the South of France. Papa often described it to me and once he actually stayed at Lord Salisbury’s Villa at Beaulieu and visited the Villa Victoria, which belongs to Miss Alice Rothschild. He said it was packed – absolutely packed – with treasures. You must go there, Belle-mère.”

  “I am not interested in treasures,” Lady Rothley replied, “only in the Duke, and I hope I shall know the right things to say to him.”

  “He is very interested in paintings,” Tempera said. “He has a magnificent collection at Chevingham House, as you must have seen, and some fabulous Old Masters in the country. Papa often spoke of the Chevingham Collection.”

  “If the Duke talks about them, what am I to answer?” Lady Rothley asked crossly. “You know I can never remember the names of all those tiresome painters. I get muddled between Raphael and Rubens. What is more, they all look the same to me.”

  “Then say nothing,” Tempera begged. “When Papa lectured to students he told them that all he wanted them to do was ‘to look and listen.’ That is what you have to do, Belle-mère, just look and listen.”

  She smilled and her voice softened as she added, “You will look so beautiful doing it that there will really be no need for you to say anything.”

  “It is sometimes impossible not to,” Lady Rothley replied, “and when they say to me, ‘I know, of course, you like the style of Petronella, or Pepiana, or Popakatapettle’, or some such outlandish name, you will not be there to tell me who he really is.”

  She paused, and there was an alert look in her eyes.

  “Tempera! Why not come with me?”

  “What do you – mean?” Tempera enquired.

  “I mean who is to know – who would ever know? No one has ever seen you. You have never been anywhere and it would be everything to have you with me, to look after me and help me.”

  Tempera was very still. Then she said,

  “Are you suggesting, Belle-mère, that I come with you as your lady’s maid?”

  “Why not?” Lady Rothley asked. “I am sure the lady’s maids are well looked after. I know Arnold would have had plenty to
say if she were not!”

  Tempera did not reply and after a moment Lady Rothley said,

  “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Tempera, you must see it is the only solution! You can look after my clothes, you can prime me as to which pictures are the best, although why anyone wants all those pictures on the walls I cannot imagine!”

  “Supposing the Duke should discover that I was Papa’s daughter?” Tempera said slowly. “Would he not think it very – strange?”

  “How is he likely to discover it?” Lady Rothley asked. “You obviously will not travel in your own name, and I do not suppose for one moment that he has any idea that your father had a daughter – he has certainly never mentioned you.”

  Tempera rose to walk to the window.

  She looked out at the grey sky and the drab, dirty little courtyards at the back of the house.

  It had been a very cold, blustery March with north winds and showers of sleet and hail, and she was still shivering after driving back in the omnibus from Trafalgar Square.

  Only the brisk walk down Curzon Street had swept away some of the cold, but her small nose felt as if it did not belong to her and her fingers were still icy.

  She had a sudden vision of blue sea, of the flowers that her father had described to her, white villas, and the waves breaking against the rocks.

  She turned round.

  “I will come with you, Belle-mère! It will be an exciting adventure, only we must be careful – very careful – that we are not found out!”

  As the Hackney-carriage neared Victoria Station Tempera moved from the seat beside her Stepmother to the narrow one opposite with her back to the horses.

  Looking at Lady Rothley she thought she had done a good job on the travelling gown her Stepmother had worn for some years, but which had now been altered out of all recognition.

  The deep blue of the skirt had been ornamented with ruchings of silk in the same colour, and Tempera had edged the jacket which her stepmother wore under her fur-lined cape with the same material.

  The fur lining was an old one and had in fact originally graced Sir Francis’s winter overcoat.

  But it had been attached by Tempera’s clever fingers to her stepmother’s heavy plush travelling cloak and the least worn parts made a wide collar which framed her lovely face.

  Tempera had turned herself out, on the other hand, in what she thought was an exemplary manner for a respectable maid-servant.

  She wore a bonnet tied under her chin with ribbons, but which otherwise was a nondescript black. The mourning she had been unable to discard since her father’s death now came in useful.

  Her black gown was very severe, relieved of its trimmings, and the cape which covered it was almost funereal in appearance.

  She was not aware that it made her skin look almost dazzlingly white and brought out the red lights in her hair. In fact she had been too busy to give herself more than a transitory thought in the last three days.

  She had hardly slept as she shopped and sewed, pressed and ironed and packed for her stepmother.

  She only remonstrated with her once or twice when the bills arrived for the gowns Lady Rothley had bought totalled more than the fifty pounds which they had set aside for the excursion.

  “We must have some cash with us,” Lady Rothley had said the night before.

  “I know,” Tempera replied, “but you must be very careful, Belle-mère, very careful indeed to spend as little as possible. We have already dipped into our nest egg so that it is almost non-existent.”

  “If I marry the Duke the nest egg will be of no importance whatever,” Lady Rothley replied.

  “And if you do not?” Tempera asked quietly.

  Lady Rothley’s beautiful face puckered like a child’s.

  “Do not be unkind to me, Tempera,” she begged. “This gamble has to come off! I have to win – I have to!”

  “Yes, I know, dearest,” Tempera agreed, “but we must be sensible.”

  “How I hate being sensible!” Lady Rothley complained. “But I am sure the Duke will propose to me, and from that moment everything will be wonderful!”

  She made a little sound of delight and went on,

  “I will give a Ball for you at Chevingham House and we will invite all the most eligible young men in England. They will be all yours once I am out of the way!”

  She was lost in one of her flights of fancy which Tempera knew only too well usually had no substance in fact. She could not help feeling apprehensively that perhaps the Duke had not intended anything more by his invitation than to ornament his party with a very beautiful woman. From all Tempera had heard of the Duke of Chevingham, he was a very elusive young man who had evaded the matchmaking mamas since he was nineteen.

  At thirty, which Debrett told her he was now, there was no reason why he should wish to marry a widow, however beautiful, who was not his equal by blood or birth.

  Tempera had the uncomfortable feeling that when it came to marriage the great aristocrats, as they had done since the beginning of time, chose a suitable wife from amongst their equals.

  It was therefore far more likely that the Duke of Chevingham would marry a daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, Devonshire or Richmond rather than Alaine Rothley.

  But she knew it would only depress her stepmother if she expressed such thoughts, so Tempera kept them to herself. The Hackney-carriage, never very swift at the best of times, was now slowly moving through the traffic round Victoria Station.

  “Do not forget, Belle-mère, that from now on, even when we are alone, in case we are overheard, you must call me Riley.”

  “Of course I will try to remember,” Lady Rothley said. “At least it begins with the same letter as your own surname.”

  Tempera smiled because her stepmother was only repeating her own words.

  It was always a mistake, she thought, to try to disguise oneself in too complicated a manner.

  Riley was not too far removed from Rothley. She had in fact chosen it because, as she had passed through the National Gallery to sell the drawing, she had noticed one of the magnificent portraits painted by Riley in the 11th century and remembered that there were no less than fifteen to be seen there.

  The Hackney-carriage drew up outside the station.

  “I’ll fetch a porter, my Lady,” Tempera said.

  She stepped out first to beckon a porter and superintend the trunks which were to be taken down from the roof of the cab.

  Lady Rothley alighted to stand looking helpless and very beautiful. Almost immediately a footman wearing the Chevingham livery came hurrying towards her.

  He raised his cockaded top hat from his head, bowed and asked,

  “Excuse me, Madam, but would you be with His Grace the Duke of Chevingham’s party?”

  “I am Lady Rothley!”

  “Please follow me, my Lady,” the footman requested. “Your luggage will be attended to.”

  Another footman came to Tempera’s side.

  “Don’t you worry,” he said. “I’ll see to this.”

  “Then be careful to leave nothing behind,” Tempera admonished.

  “Trust me,” he said. “Here, give me that valise. There’s no call for you to be lugging it about when we’ve got a porter.”

  He spoke in the familiar, easy manner of one servant to another, and when the luggage was finally piled upon the truck Tempera walked beside him following the porter into the station.

  “Have you been South before?” the footman asked conversationally.

  “No,” Tempera answered. “I am looking forward to it.”

  “Nice to get away from the cold. I envies you.”

  “You are not coming?” Tempera asked.

  “No such luck,” he answered. “There’s mostly Froggies in His Grace’s Chateau. Permanent staff, so to speak. But of course Mr. Bates the Butler goes. He travelled with His Grace last night – and ’is valets. I wish I was one o’ them!”

  “Are you saying that His Grace has left already?”


  “That’s right,” the footman replied. “He don’t like a lot of chatter and noise when he’s travelling, and who can blame him?”

  He grinned at Tempera and said,

  “Mind as ’ow you takes care of yourself with all them amorous ‘Froggies’ around. From all I ’ears, they’re not to be trusted with a pretty woman.”

  “I assure you I can take care of myself,” Tempera said primly.

  “I hopes so,” the footman replied, “but keep yer eyes skinned, and don’t go walking alone in the moonlight.”

  “I will take your advice,” Tempera answered demurely.

  “The only exception being ‘yours truly’,” the footman added. “I’ll be a looking out for you on your return. We might have a bit o’ fun if your Lady comes to stay with us in the country.”

  “I shall have to consider that very carefully,” Tempera said, trying to keep from laughing.

  She knew it was only because she was so young that a footman should dare to be so impudent to a superior servant.

  She could not help being amused by what had happened so far, and when she reached the train she found that everything had been organised in a most efficient manner.

  The Duke, she learnt, had two private coaches attached to the usual boat-train.

  One of them accommodated his guests like Lady Rothley, and the other was occupied by the personal servants, a Courier, and footmen who only travelled as far as Dover.

  There was an inordinate amount of personal baggage, besides two other lady’s maids.

  Immediately Tempera entered the coach she realised that these would be her companions not only on the journey but also at the Chateau.

  In the hierarchy, etiquette and protocol that existed below-stairs, she knew that lady’s maids considered themselves a race apart from the ordinary servants and were on equal terms only with the heads of the different departments.

  She had learnt many years ago that when her mother stayed with her father in the great houses, the senior lady’s maid who took her employer’s precedence sat on the right of the Butler in the Servants’ Hall and the Chief Valet on the right of the Housekeeper.