Page 12 of The Missing Maid
Harry’s first call of the morning had been to the employment bureau, seeking an appointment. She had been brusquely advised that no appointment system was in place – would-be domestics should attend the offices and wait to be seen. Realising she might very well wait all day, Harry had reluctantly accepted a sacrifice would have to be made at the bank. Her only consolation was that hardly anyone would notice her absence.
Mrs Haverford’s Bureau of Excellence occupied the first floor of a smart terraced town house midway along Great Portland Street. A cluster of brass plaques beside the black front door revealed the property was shared with several other businesses: the ground floor belonged to a Dr Birch, General Physician; the third was split between Randall and Sons, Accountants; and the enigmatically titled Obelisk Inc. Harry pressed the buzzer for the employment agency and, after a short wait, the door was opened by a sour-faced woman of around forty. Her demeanour did not improve as she surveyed Harry. ‘Here for work, are you? Follow me.’
She wheeled around without waiting for a response. Blinking at her rudeness, Harry almost snapped an outraged, ‘I beg your pardon?’ at her retreating back. But then she remembered who she was that morning – not Harriet White, granddaughter of Baron Abinger, but Sarah Smith, lately of Lambeth and now in search of a maid’s position. Perhaps this was how all young women seeking domestic work in London were treated. It was a thought that caused Harry to grind her teeth with indignation, even as she experienced a tiny flicker of guilt that by some happyaccident of birth, she had never been treated that way herself. Swallowing her unexpectedly complicated feelings, she followed the woman into the wood-panelled hallway and up the stairs.
On the first floor, she was led into a room lined with benches. These were filled by an assortment of men and women of varying ages, whey-faced but presentable, some flicking through newspapers or magazines but most exuding an air of hushed resignation. Those who looked up eyed Harry without interest, which eased some of her sudden jitters. So far, at least, her disguise seemed to fit.
‘Name?’ the dour woman demanded.
Harry cleared her throat. It was time to put the amateur dramatics skills of her youth to good use. ‘Sarah Smith, if you please,’ she said and almost winced. The Cockney accent that had sounded so convincing before leaving Mayfair sounded ludicrously false now but the woman didn’t seem to notice. She looked Harry up and down, as though assessing her worth. Her gaze lingered on her face for a moment, which caused Harry’s heart to stutter; surely she couldn’t have been rumbled already? But the woman merely nodded once. ‘Wait here.’
Without a glance at the others, she crossed the room to pass through a door in the opposite wall. Nerves settling, Harry watched her go. The woman hadn’t offered her name so Harry decided to dub her Lemon Drop, because it looked as though that was what she was sucking. She turned her attention to the already full benches, where no one met her gaze except for an older man at the far end, who grinned lasciviously. ‘Plenty of room here for a pretty thing like you,’ he said, rubbing his hands along his thighs in awful invitation. ‘Come on, don’t be shy.’
There was an outburst of vicious tutting and muttering from the assembled women. One of them – a black-haired girl Harry guessed to be in her early twenties – scowled and rolled her eyes. ‘That’s enough of that, George Newlyn,’ she called loudly, andshuffled along the bench to make room for Harry. ‘You can sit here, if you like.’
‘Thanks,’ Harry said, subsiding gratefully into the space.
The girl stuck out a hand. ‘Beth Chamberlain – pleased to meet you.’
Her accent was perfectly Cockney, exactly the kind Harry had been aiming for. She took a moment to observe the differences in vowels and consonants, then did her best to mimic them as she shook Beth’s hand. ‘Sarah Smith. Charmed, I’m sure.’
She held her breath for a moment but Beth’s expression didn’t alter. ‘Don’t mind old George,’ she said, glancing dismissively along the bench to where the old man was now whistling tunelessly. ‘He tries that with all the new girls.’
‘Does he?’ Harry asked, then frowned. ‘Here often, is he?’
Beth shrugged. ‘Most days, same as the rest of us. Unless Mrs H finds him a bit of work and then he disappears for a few weeks. But he always comes back eventually.’
The thought of spending more than one day in the cramped waiting room made Harry feel slightly faint. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘Just today, this time round,’ Beth replied. ‘Things didn’t work out at my last place – slight difference of opinion with the butcher’s boy, you might say – so I’m back on the merry-go-round again.’ She studied Harry with sudden interest. ‘How about you?’
‘First time,’ Harry confessed. ‘My old man up and died, leaving me without a penny.’
It was a story she’d rehearsed, planning to roll it out in her interview, but it didn’t hurt to test it a little now. Except just like her accent, it had sounded better in the privacy of her apartment. Beth raised both eyebrows. ‘Your old man – you mean your husband?’
Harry hesitated. She hadn’t realised the slang might have more than one meaning. Which was more plausible, husband or father? ‘Cor blimey, no,’ she said, covering her indecision with what she hoped was amused dismay. ‘I mean my old dad, God rest his soul.’ Crossing her fingers, she begged silent forgiveness from her own father, who was very much alive and well and probably enjoying his pipe in the library even as she spoke. ‘He went so sudden, I didn’t have time to put by any savings.’
Beth eyed her doubtfully. ‘You won’t get far without experience,’ she said. ‘But you’ve got a pretty face – that goes a long way sometimes. How did you find this place?’
Harry opened her mouth to say the newspaper, then changed her mind. ‘A friend recommended it. She came here when she first arrived in London. Mildred Longstaff, do you know her?’
She watched Beth carefully for a flicker of recognition. ‘No. But that’s no surprise, if she’s working. It’s only them as needs a job in here.’
Harry lowered her voice. ‘That’s the thing – she had a job and lost it. Through no fault of her own, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Beth repeated, her gaze suddenly knowing. ‘Master with wandering hands, was it?’
‘An accusation of theft,’ Harry confided. She cast her mind back to Lady Finchem’s flinty expression. ‘She didn’t do it, of course, but that didn’t stop them from throwing her out on her ear. I thought she might have come back here to find another job.’
‘I haven’t seen her if she did,’ Beth said, shifting on the bench to gaze thoughtfully up at the ceiling. ‘This place she worked – it wasn’t in Mayfair, was it?’
The question was innocent enough – many of the properties in Mayfair employed domestic staff – but there was something in her tone that made Harry wary. ‘Could have been,’ she said vaguely. ‘I don’t know where exactly.’
Beth gave her a brooding look. ‘Only you got to be careful round them parts,’ she said quietly. ‘Things ain’t always what they seem, ’specially not in the really fancy gaffs. I heard about a girl who?—’
But what Beth had heard was interrupted by the reappearance of Lemon Drop in the doorway. She glanced around the room until her eyes came to rest upon Harry. ‘Sarah Smith. Mrs Haverford will see you now.’
Loud grumbling broke out, with an accompaniment of scowls and dirty looks that caused Harry’s cheeks to flood with embarrassment. She glanced apologetically at Beth. ‘Sorry.’
