Page 5 of Prince of Masks
I never ask.
And I don’t ask anything now, I just keep my dull, dead stare on Mrs Younge.
The clattering sound grows louder as she nears. It comes from the tray in her grip, a spread of tureens and plates with cloche-lids and cutlery and mugs and a steaming teapot.
The rattling irks me.
But underneath, there’s a rapid thumping sound, growing louder and louder, until I lift my gaze over Mrs Younge’s stiff, slender shoulder—and see a familiar face, flustered.
Abigail, fastening her waistcoat, strands of auburn hair wild around her face, and she’s doing that sort of blend of a run and a walk, where she’s scuffing down the corridor so fast that she might as well just break out into a run.
Abigail is my lady’s maid, if one is feeling old-fashioned, like Grandmother Ethel always is. I prefer to call her my dresser, because I’m a little less formal.
Either way, Abigail should be a relief to my eyes.
But I have no smile for her. No acknowledgement. Only a slight, weary breath that begs for sleep.
Abigail is the one who will help me apply the balm.
And, if she didn’t know before seeing me in the corridor, brown streaks and scrapes all over my cheeks, chin, neck, hands, that she was to help me wash, then she figures it out now—one look at me, in this dusky light, and she knows I’ll need an extra set of hands toreallyscrub my back. I feel better knowing I have her. Can’t stand the thought of a mere speck of manure on me before I climb into bed.
I imagine I won’t feel clean if I have less than an hour of a scalding, soapy shower.
I’m ready to get that over with, lest I pass out now in the corridor, in my underwear.
If either Mrs Younge or Abigail are offended—or even taken off guard—by my standing here in just underwear, shit-smeared clothes piled around my feet, they don’t show it.
Abigail spears around Mrs Younge for my door and fists her grip around the handle. She’s quick to push the door open and let me pass.
Mrs Younge follows behind me, then Abigail.
I don’t loiter.
I make straight for the grooved door across the lounge of my bedroom, and out the corner of my eye I see Mrs Younge setting down the tray to prepare my meal at the coffee table.
“I’ll eat in bed,” I grumble, and it’s a wonder she even understands the gravelly croak of my voice.
But she does, and she’s quick to sweep the tray back into her grip.
Abigail rushes to reach the bathroom door before me. Her laces are undone, I notice. A whirl of unfastened buttons and unkempt hair.
Must have been off-duty when she was summoned. Maybe not even on the grounds when it was first decided I would be returning to Elcott, and so she has rushed her way through veils from her hometown in Wales to get back in time for me.
Mute, I follow her to the shower encased with tiled and sheeted glass walls. Once in, I hand over the phials and the jar I’ve been cradling to my midsection.
I don’t watch her set down the phials or unscrew the lid of the jar or gather a loofa and soap. Turning my back on her, I peel off the last of my layers.
Plain white underwear falls to the tiles.
The water comes down like rainfall from the ceiling fixture, a column of warmth that’s maybe slightly too hot. Just how I like it.
I shut my eyes on the wall of mint-green tiles, letting the water rinse over my whole body.
Abigail takes a few moments to wrap herself in the raincoat that she fishes out from the cupboard, then swap her leather shoes for rubber slides.
By the time she’s ready and in the shower with me, kicking aside my underwear, most of the manure has been rinsed off.
I don’t wash myself.
