Page 49 of The Maid's Secret

For the first time in ages, I soon found myself in the manor’s subterranean lair—a labyrinth of low-ceilinged rooms filled with antique furniture, banker’s boxes, filing cabinets, and all manner of sundry goods for the running of the household.

“The silver pantry,” Mrs.Mead announced as she switched on the bare bulb in a room that looked very much like a dragon’s hoard, filled floor to ceiling with cobwebs and filthy, tarnished silver.

Mrs.Mead pulled out a basin, a jug, rubber gloves, and some rags from a cupboard. She set Penelope to work in an adjoining room. Then in the room filled with silver, she passed identical cleaning supplies to me.

“What’s all this for?” I asked.

“If you’re seeking my counsel, you might as well lend a hand,” she replied.

Though it was far below my station, I needed Mrs.Mead’s guidance, so I donned rubber gloves and polished an ornate silver spoon with a rag doused in some sort of lye solution, something I would never have deigned to do for anyone except Mrs.Mead. I wasn’t happy about it, not at first, but before long, something about the task became almost enjoyable. With a bit of elbow grease, the tarnish was eradicated. Real life is never that easy—the filth is much harder to wipe away.

“You see?” said Mrs.Mead as she held up a gleaming silver platter. “Silver teaches you things. Never judge by appearances. A tarnished piece might be a hidden treasure. Now what was it you wanted to talk about?”

It had been a week since the Braun Summit, and I still didn’t know exactly what would happen when I met Magnus Braun’s son, Algernon, at the Workers’ Ball. Papa refused to discuss the matter, and Mama would broach the subjects of my jewelry and makeup but little else besides. I tried to ask Uncle Willy about it, but he muttered something about this being Mrs.Mead’s territory, not his. And so here Iwas with my nursemaid, in the dungeon-like basement, trying to get some clarity on why a man like Magnus was so set on me meeting his son.

“What it means, child, is that Mr.Braun Senior is considering a match between you and his boy.”

I stopped polishing, caught my reflection upside down in the bowl of the silver spoon. “What kind of match?” I asked. Fool that I was, I refused to see what was entirely obvious.

“Marriage. Did you not even understand that much? How can you be so clever at school and so daft at real life?”

I had no answer to her question, but I did know one thing. “I’m far too young to wed.”

“Men like Magnus Braun browse early to buy later,” Mrs.Mead said as she rubbed a round charger, bringing out a high and mighty shine.

“I want to go to university. I have no interest in boys,” I said.

“Is that right?” said Mrs.Mead. “Not even my nephew?”

I could not believe my ears. Her nephew? Though mildly handsome and passably intelligent for a servant’s boy, his righteous arrogance grated on my every nerve. Still, I refused to acknowledge the truth that Mrs.Mead had spotted beneath my thin patina of disdain. “Your nephew thinks himself a gentleman because he’s wearing his father’s shiny shoes. But a pig wearing lipstick is still a pig,” I said petulantly.

Mrs.Mead was adding lye to her cloth, and when a drop landed on her arm, she winced.

“Did that sting?” I asked.

“Not as much as your comment,” she replied as she wiped away the drop.

I know now that Mrs.Mead expected more of me, that by keeping me close all those years, she believed I would one day wake up and see my parents’ entitlement for what it was—privilege and prejudice that kept others in a state of perpetual servitude. But at the time, in myfoolish, young mind, I believed Mrs.Mead and Uncle Willy were rare exceptions, the only blue-collar specimens of real worth. It pains me to write this down, but it is the truth.

In that moment, by attacking Mrs.Mead’s nephew, I knew I’d insulted her terribly, and I tried to make things right. “This isn’t about your nephew,” I said. “It’s about me. I’m just not interested in boys.”

My nursemaid huffed dramatically. “That will change,” she said as she fixed her blue-eyed-green-eyed gaze on me. “In my estimation, the changes have already begun. There’s a lot riding on this meeting with Algernon. But you never know. Maybe you’ll fall for the young prince.”

“Impossible,” I said emphatically.

“Is it?” she said.

As I’ve come to learn, Molly, when you’re young, you can be very certain of something, but too often, that doesn’t mean you’re right.

—

As the fateful day of the Workers’ Ball approached, preparations at the manor ramped up even more. The entire household vibrated with nervous energy.

The day before the ball, my mother ordered the staff to fill the house with daffodils, which were in full bloom in the fields by Mrs.Mead’s cottage. Vases of the yellow flowers decorated every horizontal surface. Meanwhile, my father, having learned of Magnus’s love of whiskey, set out to procure the finest bottles money could buy, displaying them on the bar in the banquet room.

At school, the headmaster returned our papers on Aesop’s fables, calling me to the front of the class.

“Flora, you took top grade this time around,” he announced. “I very much applaud your creative application of the lion and mouse fable to the business world. Well done.”

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