“My lady?” she asked. Then she went on before I had a chance to say anything. “Oh dear. You’ll want your fire, of course. I’ll send someone up to lay it for you. And your bed needs to be made up again.” She gave me a bright smile. “Don’t worry. It will all be done by the time you come back.”

I deposited my suitcase on the floor and turned to leave again. There was no point in lingering. It was too depressing for words. To have gone from the high excitement of a royal wedding followed by an elopement to Gretna Green to this cold and lonely room almost brought me to tears. Just as I opened my door I heard the sound of feet approaching. Not the gentle tap of feet but full-blown gallumphing. I think the pictures on the walls shook a little as Queenie appeared at the top of the stairs, panting as she attempted to run. She was a big girl and not what one would describe as light on her feet.

“What the blooming heck are you doing back here?” she demanded. “That Mr. O’Mara told me you’d be gone and I should go back to your brother’s place to wait for you.”

“I had to return unexpectedly,” I said.

She put her hands on her broad hips and sighed. “Now I suppose you’ll want your bags unpacked again?”

“It is your job, Queenie,” I pointed out. “Where were you when I rang for you?”

“Down in the kitchen having a late cup of tea,” she said, “and finishing the seedy cake.”

“It’s a good thing we are leaving,” I commented. “Your uniform is about to burst at the seams.”

“I needed to eat to keep up me strength,” she said defiantly. “All these ruddy stairs to go up and down. But what are you doing back here? I thought from what Mr. O’Mara said that you’d be in a nice hotel somewhere having a bit of the old how’s yer father.” And she accompanied these last words with a knowing wink.

“Certainly not,” I replied haughtily, although I think I might have blushed. “Besides, what I do is none of your business, Queenie. I told you many times a good lady’s maid never questions her mistress or her mistress’s behavior.” I looked at her, standing there with her blouse buttons bursting, hair frizzing out from under her cap, traces of past meals streaked liberally down her front and her usual vacant and cowlike expression on her face, and I sighed. “I had hoped you might have learned a thing or two from the other maids here.”