“Queenie. You are a lady’s maid. You simply can’t swim in the pool with your betters,” I said.

“Why not?” She glared at me defiantly. “This is America. We’re all equal. I do my job when you need me and when you don’t need me I can do what I like in my own free time. That’s what they told me on the train.”

I think I gasped. “Queenie, do you think the queen would let her maid go roller-skating up and down the halls of Buckingham Palace?”

“We ain’t at Buckingham Palace, are we? We’re in a different country with different rules and I don’t see why I can’t take a dip in a pool during my free time.”

I couldn’t think of a good answer to that. It was quite possible that American maids did swim in pools with Charlie Chaplin. “I’m sorry, Queenie, but this is something we need to talk about,” I said. “At the moment it is not appropriate. Please go back to the bungalow.”

“A right old spoilsport you’ve turned out to be,” she said and stomped ahead of me toward the bungalow.

Chapter 13

AT THE BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL

MONDAY, JULY 30, 1934

Talk about the lap of luxury! I’m feeling a bit like a film star myself. I wonder what Belinda would say if she knew that Charlie Chaplin had been flirting with me. I wonder what Darcy would say. . . .

I was completely shocked. I remembered having the same feeling when I adopted an adorable kitten from the stables as a child and one day it scratched me. Not that Queenie was adorable. I followed her back into the bungalow to hear an imperious voice saying, “My sister? She is not my sister. She is the spawn of a whore, a nobody.”

Mummy looked up in annoyance as we came in. “You’re not back already? I was just getting the feel of the character. Quite a challenge to make her appealing when she really is such a bitch. In fact I . . .” She looked up and those large eyes opened even wider. “My God. What is that?”

“What is what?” I asked.

She pointed at Queenie. “That. Your maid.”

“It’s my swimming costume, madam,” Queenie said. “I was going to go swimming but your daughter won’t let me.”

“Queenie, in the first place I suspect that maids don’t swim in the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel and in the second I’ve never seen anything more hideous in my life. Where on earth did you find it?”

“I bought it a while ago. Just in case I ever got the chance to go swimming,” Queenie said defiantly.