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