“You better come in then.” The beautiful woman pushed the door open wider and beckoned them inside to follow her. “He hasn’t been for some time. Do you know when he will next come?”
“He didn’t say.” Diana found the words tumbling from her mouth, followed by a gasp as she followed the woman into the sitting room. Jessie stepped in beside her, practically stumbling into her shoulder. “Oh my.”
The room had a handful of children, with two girls playing together by the fireplace, arguing over a set of dolls, and three boys sat at a table nearby, playing some game with marbles. Two women watched over the group, chatting to one another, neither with smiles on their faces.
“I know her,” Jessie whispered to Diana, pointing to one of the women across the room.
“Who is she?” Diana asked.
“She was a scullery maid at the house when I first started.” Jessie’s voice hitched. Diana found herself reaching into her reticule and pulling out her handkerchief, offering it to Jessie to take. “I do not need that,” Jessie said, pushing it away, though one glance at her face proved to Diana that she did, for the tears were running down her cheeks.
“It’s not about swallowing your pride, Jessie. It’s about drying your tears. Here.” She pushed the handkerchief into the maid’s hands again before turning to the dark-haired woman, who was placing the baby into a nearby bassinet. “Did you all work at the house?”
The woman turned back around, bearing the smallest of smiles.
“He hasn’t told you?” she asked. “Hardly surprising, he didn’t tell any of us either. Not until the housekeeper brought us here.” She walked away and gestured to the other two women, who promptly broke off from talking and stared at Diana and Jessie. “Did he send you with money?”
“Money?” Diana repeated, stepping more into the room. She gazed around the children, wondering how she would feel if she had to raise a child of hers in this house. It was clearly furnished with some goods, but not enough for a house with this number of children.
“He keeps promising to send more.”
“He promised many things,” another of the young women said with a strong west-country accent. “He doesn’t keep too many of them.” She looked abruptly at Jessie, jerking her chin high. “I know you. You started working at the house.” Jessie nodded slowly, trying to dry her tears as she looked around the room. “Ah, I understand.” The young woman paused and sat forward in her seat. “Have you come to look at your future?”
Jessie emitted a whimper, a sort of strangled cry. Diana wasn’t sure why a possessiveness lurched inside of her, but she turned and took Jessie’s arm, steering her towards the door.
“I have seen enough. Have you?” she whispered, but Jessie didn’t answer, she was too busy crying.
“If you see him, tell him to come again,” the dark-haired woman called to them as they moved back to the door. “His children ask to see him.”
“How often does he come? If these are his children, surely he should come to see them often.” Diana half wondered if this was why he spent so long away from the house, but the three women all exchanged grimaces.
“Not often enough is the simple answer to that.”
Diana took Jessie’s arm and steered her out again. There was nothing else either of them needed to know.
***
“Jessie? What is it?” Owen asked as Jessie stumbled into his office. She was crying with so much vigour that words couldn’t escape her, and she flung a handkerchief over her face, trying to hide her tears.
Owen stood from his place at the desk where he had been talking at length with Tommie over preparations for their dinners for the next week, looking at the handkerchief. It bore Diana’s initials in the corner.
“Tommie, could you fetch something to cheer Jessie up, please?”
“I know just the thing.” Tommie stood to his feet and clasped his hands together. “A little trifle, Jessie. Don’t you worry, it’s bound to make anyone smile.” As Tommie hurried out of the door and Jessie lowered the handkerchief from her face, Owen knew no amount of trifle would be able to cheer the maid’s spirits.
“What has happened, Jessie?” Owen asked, encouraging her down into the chair Tommie had vacated, struggling to take his eyes off Diana’s handkerchief clutched in her hands.
“We went to the house,” she said, gasping through her tears. “The duchess went with me. It’s … all t-true,” she stammered. “How could he do it, Mr Arnold?” she asked, looking up to him. “I recognized one of the maids. They were all there, gathered in one room, like some odd house filled with lovers. Six children. Six! The baby no older than a few months, I am sure of it.”
Her words were coming out in a rush, the syllables barely clear enough to understand thanks to the speed. “She was right. What kind of man is he? To treat all his maids that way. Is that what he would have done to me too?”
Owen didn’t answer, fearing he could not deny her. She understood his meaning without words, crying all the more.
“I feel my heart is broken in two.”
“I’m so sorry, Jessie.” He patted her softly on her shoulder.
“He is not the man I thought he was,” she said, sniffing and tipping her head back, trying to stop her tears.
