“What were ya about in there?”
“Just helping out. Since Betty’s not able.”
“I was just going in. Is she angry?”
She thought of Helen’s suspicious face. “Not angry, no.”
“Did ya tell her Betty was...?”
“I only said we were a bit behind after yesterday and I was filling in this morning. That’s all.”
“A bit behind? Sure and that’s a fine way of sayin’ foxed and sick as a dog. Castin’ up her accounts was she?”
“Well...” Margaret gestured helplessly.
“Are ya sayin’youhelped the mistress dress?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps I should go in and check...”
Margaret touched Fiona’s arm. “The mistress is fine. Washed, clothed, hair dressed.”
Fiona breathed a sigh of relief, then murmured, “Which is more’n I can say for Betty.”
“Have you seen her?”
Fiona nodded. “I was just up lookin’ for her and found her sleepin’. Y’ought to have told me.”
“You had your own work.” Margaret’s stomach growled, and she turned away. It was time for morning prayers.
Fortunately for Betty, no one seemed to notice her absence. Afterward, Margaret and Fiona went back upstairs to clean the family bedchambers. When Fiona later rejoined her to help remake the beds, there had still been no sign of Betty.
“Poor lamb,” Fiona said, shaking out the aired bedclothes. “She was low indeed last night. Worried about her ma.”
“Her ma? I thought she had passed on.”
Fiona frowned. “What put that notion into yar head?”
Margaret inhaled. “She showed me her mother’s chatelaine. I assumed...” Margaret let her words drift away on a shrug.
“She isn’t dead, only retired. Ailing.” Fiona went to the other side of the bed and helped her spread the sheets. “Mrs. Tidy was a fine housekeeper, until her health failed and she could work no more. Had an apoplexy, poor soul, and needs constant care now. She lives with a widow in Maidstone, and Betty’s wages support them both.”
“Is that why she sold her chatelaine...” Margaret breathed, stricken at the thought.
Fiona’s head snapped toward her. “Did she now? And how might you be knowing that?”
“I saw it in the chandler’s window.”
“Is that where she went off to? Never said a word to me. I wondered where she come by all that money for drink. Must have fetched enough for her ma with plenty left over to drown her sorrows.”
“But surely she might have explained...”
“Tell her mother, the sainted housekeeper, what never made a mistake in her life, to hear her tell it. Let on her wages was being garnished? Not Betty. She has her pride, hasn’t she?”
Margaret winced. “But not her prized possession.”
“And whose fault is that? All yar fine words won’t get it back neither, so don’t be lookin’ down yar nose at her.”
