Just as Alkmene was halfway there, a man came walking up to her, fast. The smug smile on his face, the air of utter self-confidence, struck her as extremely unpleasant. He gave a mock half-bow in her direction as he breezed past. His clothing suggested he wasn’t one of the guests, but one of the servants.
It was very odd. Alkmene frowned a moment, her footfalls slowing. She hardly considered herself an expert in domestic affairs in a large country manor household, but she couldn’t see what a male servant would be doing up here, near the guest bedrooms. Getting those ready would be the task of the housekeeper and the maids under her charge. Perhaps the butler might have some errand here, but this man seemed too young and impudent to serve in such a responsible capacity.
What was his function anyway? Still frowning, Alkmene entered her room.
At the dressing table, the maid, Megan, stood. She gasped as Alkmene entered, throwing her hands up in a defensive gesture. On the floor in front of her feet was a broken perfume bottle. The contents soaked the expensive carpet while the scent filled the room with a headache-inducing intensity.
Alkmene inched back from the strong scent. ‘What happened?’
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you. I’m so sorry. I’ll clean it up.’ Megan leaned down, her face tomato-red.
Alkmene waved a hand in front of her face to diffuse the sharp perfume smell.
Megan kept excusing herself, saying she was so sorry and she’d clean it up. With her trembling hands, she gathered the broken pieces of glass.
‘Be careful with that,’ Alkmene admonished her. ‘You could cut yourself. I’d better call for...’
‘Oh no, please. Don’t tell anybody about this. Please.’ The girl sounded desperate, on the verge of tears. ‘If you tell, I’ll be dismissed, and I need this work.’
Alkmene suspected she had little experience and that a night full of pressure to perform at her best would prove even more disastrous. But she didn’t want to harm the girl’s prospects here. ‘Very well. I won’t call for anyone and I won’t talk about it. But you must be careful with all that broken glass. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.’
The girl swallowed hard. ‘Your precious bottle, my lady.’
‘Oh, it’s not important. It was a gift for my birthday. I never took to the scent much, so…’ Alkmene went to the windows and threw them open wide. ‘There. That’s much better.’
On the lawn the three men were still busy attaching Chinese lanterns to the trees. The gardens had to look like a midsummer night’s dream later on.
Turning back into the room, Alkmene found the girl rubbing at the stained carpet. ‘Don’t do that. You’ll only make it worse.’
‘But if the housekeeper finds out...’
Alkmene shook her head. ‘I have a much better idea. You come over here. Come over here to me. Come on.’
The girl rose to her feet and came over, her eyes wide, her breathing shallow. She looked as if she was afraid of being slapped across the cheeks.
Alkmene said, ‘You were here putting out my clothes. I came into the room to fetch a present for my hostess. I pulled it out of the luggage so wildly the perfume bottle fell out and broke. I broke it. You understand?’
The girl gaped at her. ‘Why would you say that, my lady?’
‘Because I want to call someone up to clean away the glass and get the stain out of the carpet. You don’t know how to do it, and I certainly don’t. We need someone else in here, and as we’re not going to tell anyone it was you who broke the bottle, I’ll just have to say I did. Nobody is going to blame me for it. I can break all of my perfume bottles all over Mrs Hargrove’s precious rugs.’
Alkmene sounded a little more cheerful than she actually felt, as she suspected Mrs Hargrove would hate damage to any of her things and would blame her for it, even if she’d never say it to her face. And Denise might laugh at her that she was so clumsy, which would be awkward.
But anything was better than letting this poor girl run the risk of getting dismissed even before she had had a chance to prove herself able. Megan probably had a family somewhere depending on the money she brought in.
Alkmene said, ‘Are we agreed on this?’
‘I don’t understand.’ The girl’s eyes were huge and frightened. ‘Why would you lie for me?’
‘Because I’m in a much better position to deal with Mrs Hargrove’s wrath than you.’ Alkmene smiled widely. ‘Now, let me look you over. There’s no telltale stain of perfume that can betray you. No, that looks fine...’
She did see an odd reddish patch on the girl’s neck, under her left ear. It looked like a rash or something. Maybe she was allergic to perfume and had touched herself with her wet hands?
‘You go and take care of my clothes. I’ll ring now.’ Alkmene did, inwardly praising herself for her foresight in bringing a present for her hostess. It was an illustrated book on rose gardens. She pulled the parcel from her case just as there was a knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ Alkmene called, holding the parcel in front of her where it could be clearly seen.
A woman of around fifty in a simple dark-blue gown looked at her with a tight expression on her face. There were lines beside her mouth suggesting she usually disapproved of life.
Or was in some kind of pain perhaps? Alkmene remembered those facial lines from a friend of her father who suffered from gout.
The housekeeper looked even darker as she spotted the mess on the floor.
Alkmene waved a hand. ‘So clumsy of me. I was in a hurry to present Mrs Hargrove with this gift I bought for her in London. I knocked the bottle over and, of course, it just had to shatter into a thousand pieces. I have no idea what to do about such a stain, but I trust you know. Thank you, Mrs…?’
‘Carruthers, my lady.’ The woman bobbed and dutifully bent down over the stain. Her slow movements suggested a stiff back. So perhaps she did indeed live with constant pain.
As Alkmene had pretended she wanted to rush out to her hostess with the present, she should really have left right away. But it didn’t seem wise to leave Megan, in her upset state of mind, with Mrs Carruthers, who might ask more questions and see through the ruse.
Therefore Alkmene gestured at Megan to go on unpacking her luggage. She positioned herself at the open window, partially because the perfume scent was unbearable, partially because she had heard a car arriving and wanted to see who got out.
But the car didn’t halt in front of the house. It breezed past and disappeared around the corner of the stable building. Almost as if the new arrivals didn’t want to be seen by anybody in the house.
Alkmene tapped a finger to her lips. Interesting. There seemed to be quite a few mysterious things going on.
After a rather tense wait for Mrs Carruthers to finish with the stain without discovering the nervous Megan had anything to do with it, Alkmene was left alone to change for dinner with the house guests. The perfume scent had thinned on the fresh air let in by the open window, and the stain on the carpet was much less visible. Of course, it was still wet, and Alkmene realized she wouldn’t be able to ascertain how lasting the damage would be until it was all dry. Well, she had taken the blame, so there was nothing more to be done about it.
Humming to herself, she changed into her attire for the pre-ball dinner: a deep-green evening dress she had rarely worn before. It was important to remember who had seen you in what, so you could avoid walking around in the same thing too often. One might think the Callenders had fallen on hard times financially and that would never do.