A soft voice came today, calling my name like a fantasy-mother I’d made up in my mind. The voice I would have liked to hear when I was little, instead of the voice I had been given.
“Grace, dear – it’s Maggie, from housekeeping. Can I come in?”
I sat up, blinking into the darkness. A shard of light broke through the drapes. My heart surged to see that I wasn’t in Heather House, and I hadn’t dreamed it all.
A slight panic soon followed. I covered my bare chest with my bedsheets, and remembered the tree that had fallen through the window of our home. I’d been so frightened, so adamant on running...and the tree branch had smashed it right through.
How could I have left Heather House in that state, and fled from all my responsibilities? The window, and the rest. The animals. Tom. Oh god, Tom. He’d hate me.
The door came open after I didn’t reply, and in stepped an older woman with soft hazel eyes and wildly curled hair which bounced around her ears as she moved. She was dressed all in black, with tights and a skirt to her knees, and an official-looking ID clipped to her breast pocket to denote her as staff. She looked professional, while I looked...small, pale. Half naked.
“Oh, there you are!” she said, sounding startled. Her voice was cockney-sounding, like people from the soap operas they watched in the pub back home. I softened to her instantly. “I thought you must be in the bathroom. Would you like a dressing gown?”
Blushing, I inched the bedclothes up higher over my chest, though there wasn’t much to hide.
“Yes please,” I said, the heat throbbing in my cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said, walking briskly to the en-suite and returning with a thick, towelling robe with stripes that matched the colour scheme of the room. I wondered, immediately, if I would be the first woman to wear that robe, or if it had warmed someone else’s skin before.
I was surprised as Maggie held up the bath robe and looked away toward the long window drapes, waiting for me to tuck my arms into it. It was so like something I’d do for mother that it unnerved me, but I looped my arms in and drew it around myself all the same.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Another foggy day out there,” she said, clucking her tongue. “The pavements are wet. Nick says you arrived very late last night. You must have been chilled down to your bones with this cold-snap.”
“I was,” I said, feeling awkward as I sat there in my bed, while Maggie was fully dressed. But she smiled kindly down at me, like I was a child in her care, and I felt safe, even if I couldn’t quite relax.
“I’ll run you a lovely deep bath, how’s that?” she asked. “Do you like bubbles?”
I could hardly believe the question. My eyes moistened, and a lump came to my throat. To think anyone would bother to ask me how I likedmy bath. It was so, so unusual. Even though it made me feel like an infant, I felt stirred-up inside, excited...I said yes, please. Eagerly.
“Right then,” she said. “I’ll start running that while youeat your breakfast by the window. Or would you prefer it in bed?”
She returned to the bathroom and I heard the thundering sound of the tub filling. When she came back, she hummed a soft tune as she fetched a gold trolley from the hallway and wheeled it in. There was a cloche on top! An actual silver dome, like something from Downton Abbey; they watched that in the pub, too, and I enjoyed it. There was a fancy tea pot with a cup, saucer, and a little jug of milk. They were a set, with a floral design and a gold rim around the edge of each piece.
“Come on, sleepy-head – make your mind up,” she said. Her expression dissolved behind the blur of my tears as I hunched over and cried, sobbing into the beautiful duvet cover. Her arms were around me before I could even catch my breath.
“There, there,” she said softly, hushing me as she held me over her shoulder. “Nick told me you’d lost your mother. I’m so very sorry.”
But it wasn’t that. It was everything else, only I couldn’t express it properly. I blurted it all out in one go, sobbing between confessions, and now I really did resemble a child. A stupid, lost child who was in a whole heap of trouble.
“Oh dear, that does sound like a pickle,” said Maggie. “Let’s hope nobody has managed to break in, if the window was smashed through.”
“There’d be nothing to take,” I said, still spluttering. “Only I...I just left it there, to rot. I ran away.”
Maggie handed me a soft white napkin to dab my face with, which I took gratefully.
“Then there’s no real harm done. It doesn’t sound like it was habitable. You did the right thing to come here,” said Maggie. She stood and took the cloche off the breakfast plate, before setting the tray up on my lap.
It was a simple but delicious breakfast of two steaming crumpets, with two silver pots; one filled with butter, and one filled with jam. There was another napkin, and an expensive-looking silver knife and spoon, and another small bowl filled with chopped seasonal fruits and winter berries. The berries glistened in shades of crimson, with a light dusting of icing sugar on top.
“Why are you doing this for me?” I asked, helplessly.
Maggie poured my tea and made it milky, offering up the sugar pot, too. I nodded and she scooped in one spoonful, then two, and I nodded to indicate that was enough. She even stirred it for me.
“I like spoiling people,” she said. “Ask young master Nicholas – though he isn’t quite so young any more, I suppose. He’s still a baby to me. Anyway, it’s him you should be asking. This is his kindness, really.”
“Oh, I know,” I said, taking a tentative sip of my sweet, hot tea. It was liquid gold on my tongue, soothing me from the inside out with its nourishing warmth. I was beginning to feel right at home.
