Abby Grahame - Wentworth Hall

“Were you in service as a child?” Nora probed. “I’ve been in service since I was a child because my mother was employed here. When she died, the Darlingtons kept me on. I’d have been an orphan if they hadn’t been kind to me in that way.”

“It must have been lonely for you,” Therese sympathized.

Nora shrugged. “I missed my mother, of course, but the rest of the staff were a kind of family. Maggie and Lila are like family to me.”

Therese looked away and Nora couldn’t read the expression that washed over her face. “What is it?” Nora asked.

“How can you have family who live such a completely different life from you? Didn’t you resent that you were their servant? It’s as though you were Cinderella and they were your wicked stepsisters.”

Nora considered this for a moment before speaking. Did she resent Lila and Maggie? She didn’t think it was fair, being born into privilege or poverty. But she didn’t blame the girls for that. “It’s just how it’s always been,” Nora explained.

“And that’s all right with you?” Therese challenged.

“I have my plans for bettering myself,” Nora insisted. “But it’s not the Darlingtons’ fault that my mother was a maid and my father was also a servant who died young. What were they supposed to do, share their wealth with us? That was not about to happen. And besides, if they hadn’t given my parents jobs we’d have been poorer still.”

Therese fell silent, pensive. Nora thought the line of conversation was odd, but perhaps this was also down to Therese’s “Frenchness.” The French were a philosophical bunch, after all.

When the kitchen was cleared and the table cleaned, Nora took out some of Lady Darlington’s dresses that she’d laid aside to mend. Taking her sewing kit from a cabinet, she sat down at the table to attend to it before retiring for the night.

“I can help you with that,” Therese offered. “Give me that one with the ripped lace collar. I’m good with lace. My mother taught me to tat.”

Nora shifted the lace-collared dress over to Therese. “Tatting is lace making?”

Therese nodded. “My mother was also a maid but she saved enough to open a flower shop eventually.”

“That’s very inspiring,” Nora said sincerely. She loved stories of servants who had gotten out of the service and done well. It was what she wanted for herself.

“She was a maid for Lord Darlington’s sister in France.”

“The aunt they stayed with in Paris,” Nora recalled.

“Yes. After my mother died and the shop closed I went back there to see if I could find some work to support myself. That’s when I met Lady Maggie and her mother and they hired me to take care of the baby.”

“That worked out well, then,” Nora remarked as she began to stitch a dropped hem on a green taffeta gown.

“I’m not so sure,” Therese commented.

“What do you mean? Don’t you like it here?”

Therese shirked her slim shoulders in a gesture of ambivalence. “I mean no offense, but I find the English to be cold.”

The right side of Nora’s lip kicked up in a bemused grin. “You have to get to know us.”

“Most of the staff has been kind but I find the Darlingtons to be snobbish, especially Lord Darlington, and his daughter Lady Maggie is also.”

“Maggie didn’t used to be,” Nora said. “Something changed her while she was away. She used to be a wild spitfire, always full of fun. I remember once when her family hosted a fox hunt. She felt so sorry for the fox that she led Michael, me, and Lila out to catch the fox before it had gone very far. We hid it and ourselves in the old abandoned caretaker’s cottage. We were turning red from trying not to laugh when all the hounds were outside barking and no one could figure out why.” Nora put down her work and laughed at the childhood memory. “Even though we helped, it was all Maggie’s idea.”

Therese smiled, amused by the story. “Good for you. I think fox hunting is barbaric.”

Nora shook her head, still laughing. “What fun we had! Maggie was always the one coming up with the mischief and we were all for it.”

Therese lifted her chin and listened attentively to some sound that had caught her attention. One of the many call bells that lined the wall near the doorway was jingling. “It’s coming from the nursery,” Therese realized, rising from her chair. “Little James must have awakened. I have to go.”

“Good luck.”

Therese crossed to the icebox and extracted one of the frozen bagels Rose had prepared for the teething baby. “I’ll return if he falls back to sleep quickly,” she promised.

“Thanks,” Nora said as Therese left.

Resuming her sewing, Nora assessed her new opinion of Therese. She’d changed since she first arrived, had become more friendly, more like one of the staff. Maybe she was simply starting to relax. Or had something happened to sour her on the Darlingtons? “Hmm,” Nora hummed pensively. If Therese was having trouble with her position in the Darlington household, Nora would just have to get to the bottom of it.

The Sussex Courier
MISFORTUNE MANOR!

The most coveted houseguests have arrived at Faded Glory Manor, and not a moment too soon!

The moneyed Sterling twins are in a bit of a pickle: Their mounds of cash are tied up due to their deceased father’s strict rules on their inheritance. With three months until their eighteenth birthday, and no relatives to speak of, Richard and Richina Sterling have no choice but to hole up in Faded Glory Manor, home of their late father’s wartime comrade, Lord Worthless.

But Faded Glory Manor is not quite the lap of luxury the Sterling twins have come to expect. The drafty old home once knew greatness, but can barely afford a maid for each lady of the house these days! Fallen on hard times, indeed.

The twins were in for a rude awakening the moment they arrive.

The entire staff was assembled inside to greet them, watching as Richie leapt over the side of the car, heels clicking together, and gold coins dropping from his pocket. He saw them but couldn’t be bothered to pick them up as he hurried to open Richina’s door. “It’s definitely the right address. This is Faded Glory Manor, Sister dear,” he said. “It certainly has seen better days, but we’ve been invited to stay and it would be poor form not to, so let’s make the best of it, shall we?”

Richina extended a hand dripping in diamond rings and bracelets. “If you insist.”

“Don’t worry,” Richie assured her. “I’ll have a tennis court installed over the weekend.”

At the twenty-foot-high front door, Richie banged on the enormous brass knocker and the twins were instantly engulfed in a swirling dust storm. “It seems no one has been here for a while,” Richie observed while Richina coughed spasmodically against the door. She was nearly toppled as, with a deafening creak, the door opened.

A skeleton in filthy butler attire greeted them. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Exchanging a dubious and wary look, the twins followed him into the rotted and decaying hall, a spectacle of past glory in desperate need of upkeep. A sad-looking maid and seemingly senile valet stood in the hall. “This can’t be the entire staff!” stage-whispered Richina to her equally horrified brother. Richina wiped the grime from her forehead, setting off another deafening clatter of jewelry.

A woman’s voice trilled from the dayroom. “Diamonds? Do I hear diamonds?” The lady of the estate, Lady Worthless, stumbled out, intoxicated by the sound. “I once had diamonds. Where is that beautiful music coming from?”

“Do you mean these?” Richina asked and shimmied with arms outstretched, her many diamonds, bracelets, necklaces, and brooches creating such a commotion that a large chunk of plaster falls from the ceiling.

Alerted by the sound of the rattling diamonds, Lord Worthless walked in. Stepping over the hunk of fallen plaster, he shook Richie Sterling’s hand. “How do you do?” he asked.

“We’re not quite sure,” Richie admitted, eyeing the plaster under the Lord’s feet. “Do things like this often happen here?”

“Things like what?” Lord Worthless inquired.

“That plaster on the floor,” Richie said, pointing.

“I say, I don’t have the foggiest idea what you mean,” Lord Worthless said, his expression vague. “Have you met my daughters yet?”

“I’m here, father.” The twins heard the voice but saw no one.

“Stop fooling, Doodles, and show yourself,” Lord Worthless demanded.

“But I’m right here,” Doodles Worthless insisted.

Lord Worthless turned to his wife for help but she had become completely bedazzled by Richina’s jewelry and could only stare at it, her eyes two saucers of yearning. He clapped his hands sharply. “Come off it!” he demanded. “Why can’t we see Doodles?”

Lady Worthless roused from her dazed state. “Doodles? Oh, she must have blended in with the wallpaper again.” She smiled apologetically at Richie and Richina as she walked over to the floral-patterned wall and reached in. Doodles Worthless suddenly emerged. “What have I told you about standing so close to the wall?” her mother scolded.

“Don’t you have another daughter?” Richie recalled.

Lord Worthless turned to his wife. “Do we?”

Lady Worthless tittered with laugher. “Why, of course we do, you old fool. Our eldest daughter Snobby is around here somewhere.” Lady Worthless suddenly eyed Richie with a new alertness as if an idea occurred to her. “You might like Snobby. She’s going to make some lucky man a fine wife someday. She never lets her enthusiasms run wild, as some young women do. In fact, she has no enthusiasm for anything.”

“Hmm,” Richie demurred. “I don’t know.”

“Unless you’d prefer Doodles here,” Lady Worthless suggested, searching around for her youngest daughter who has dropped out of sight once more. “Doodles?”

“Yes, Mother,” Doodles’s voice wafted in from the wallpapered wall.

“Oh, not again,” Lady Worthless muttered. She headed over to retrieve her daughter but Richie stopped her.

“Never mind,” he said. “I’m too young to marry just yet.”

“Never too young when a fortune is at stake,” Lady Worthless disagreed. “A good wife can help you spend—I mean manage—it. Yes, manage is what I meant to say… not spend… manage. Snobby will be a very sensible manager.”

Snobby glided into the room. “Did someone mention my name?” she asked in her low, husky voice.

Lady Worthless smiled charmingly at Richie. “Why, yes, dear, I was just telling—”

“Never mind,” Snobby cut her mother off. “I’ve lost interest. My mind has drifted back to my days on the Continent where things were interesting, not like they are here in England. I’m never quite here because I’m always there.”

“Hopefully my sister and I will liven things up around here,” Richie suggested.

“I doubt it,” Snobby replied with a yawn.

“You look familiar. Perhaps you run in the same circles as my sister here,” Richie said.