GAINSBOROUGH GARDENS WAS almost a miniature park in itself, large and railed, lawned and well-stocked with flowers, shrubs and trees to our right. To our left, the road was bordered by some rather splendid houses, all individually and magnificently constructed. I doubted that you would have much change from a thousand guineas for any of those properties in such a location.
We trotted gently around the perimeter.
‘There it is,’ Friendless announced pulling on his reins. ‘Whoa girl.’ We came to a halt. ‘Haglin House.’
He pulled up the catch for me to clamber out.
A romp in a haystack – and I had a few of those in my youth – does little more to disarray one’s clothing than a short ride in a hansom. The vertical magenta stripes of my cinnabar dress, straight when I set off, were wavy now and the shoe fairy had undone one of my laces.
‘Int a bad gaff,’ Friendless commented.
All cabbies are keen critics of other people’s residences, often annoying me by contemptuously dismissing properties that they could never dream of possessing. This time, however, I found myself in agreement. It was not a bad gaff at all.
Haglin House was a good-sized red brick building, three storeys over a semi-sunken basement, substantial without being imposing. It was double-fronted, the two bays with iron balconies on the first floor and rising to peaked red-tiled roofs. There were none of the showy towers and spires beloved of the previous generation. This, I decided, was modern architecture at its tasteful best.
There were spiked railings separating the property from the pavement, but they were little more than three feet tall and the gate was unlocked when I tried it. A red-tiled bridge led over the basement moat to matching steps straight ahead, nine of them I counted for I was trying to train myself to be observant.
You need a better teacher, Ruby scoffed, though I did not need to remind her that I had seen the giant bird-eating spider two pages before she had.
A wide path ran alongside the house in either direction.
Unusually the front door was to the left of the open porch rather than straight ahead, which struck me as eminently sensible. The usual design allows a wind to sweep whatever weather is available straight into most hallways.
The doorbell was a brass disc cast in a paisley pattern, with a white porcelain button printed with the word ‘Press’ for anyone tempted to try to extract it. I followed the instruction and heard a pleasant chime.
If a man with a cutlass appears, run, Ruby advised, though she had stayed to fight when one had confronted her.
Through the stained glass a figure appeared and a maid answered my summons.
‘Good morning, miss.’ She was a pretty girl aged about eighteen, I estimated, her auburn hair tucked neatly under a starched white hat. Agnust used to wear one of those, against my wishes, until Gerrund told her that she looked like a white-crested duck and she abandoned it that very day. This maid looked very smart in hers.
‘Milady,’ I corrected her because a title is often more effective than a jemmy for gaining access to a building.
‘Milady.’ She eyed me dubiously, for I had left my tiara on the mantlepiece. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I am calling on Mrs Poynder,’ I announced.
‘I’m afraid my mistress is not at home, miss-milady.’
‘Oh but she assured me that she would be,’ I lied, resisting a childish urge to cross my fingers behind my back. ‘And I have come such a long way.’
‘I’m afraid my mistress is not at home,’ she repeated slowly enough for the words to percolate through my sluggish mind.
‘If you could tell her who I am…’
‘To anyone,’ she told me firmly.
‘When do you expect her?’ I enquired, aware that I was breaking one of the cardinal rules of etiquette and she raised her chin, also aware that I was breaking one of the cardinal rules of etiquette.
‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ she replied quite correctly, for she could not know whether her mistress would ever be at home to me.
I tried to peer past, but she had only opened the door a little and filled most of the gap and, seeing what I was doing, she pushed it to a little more. It was then I did something unpardonable.
Call her.
I cannot do that.
Call her, Ruby insisted.
‘Dolores,’ I called. ‘Dolly.’
I did not really expect a response from Mrs Poynder and I was not sure even that it was worth a try, but I did anyway and found that it was not.
‘Well really, miss!’ the maid exclaimed, my splendid title cast contemptuously away with what little respect in which she had held me. ‘Anyone would think you are an American.’
And with that damning assessment she shut the door.
I went down the steps and back onto the pavement.
Thank you so much for embarrassing me, I fumed.
At least I never made you pretend to faint in the Sistine Chapel.
You had to do something.
So did you.
‘You do be right ’bout not being long,’ Friendless conceded. ‘Old Queeny int hardly got her breaths.’
His mare was contentedly munching on a bag of oats he had attached to her harness.
‘I am happy to wait,’ I assured him. ‘In fact there is a water pump on that corner and it is shadier. Why do you not go there and I shall take a walk in the gardens?’
He gave my suggestion some thought.
‘Why do you say I dint goo there?’ he enquired. ‘When that is where I goo presently?’
Without waiting for an answer – which was just as well because I did not have one – Friendless clicked his tongue and flicked his reins and, nose still in canvas, Old Queeny plodded on.
My father often told me never to give up, but I did not subscribe to that dictum. As Sledgehammer Smith could testify but probably would not, there are times when the best thing to do is to throw in the towel. I was not quite beaten yet, however, for I had noticed that the maid, smartly attired as she was, was wearing her outdoor boots.
‘You are not as clever as you think,’ I muttered defiantly for, many decades from a peaceful death – she hoped – Violet Thorn, Lady Novelist, still had one more trick up her sleeve.