Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade by Nancy Springer

Author:Nancy Springer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Chapter the Eleventh

And I listened well.

And parted from Lady Vienna with thanks.

After a late luncheon and a quick change of clothing for the sake of becoming inconspicuous (taupe walking suit, standard attire for genteel women on London’s streets), I spent the rest of the day out and about, taking a tram to an East End district of used clothing shops and eventually returning with all the disparate piebald parts of a lady’s maid’s uniform: black dress; white, ruffled apron and collar and cuffs; coarse black stockings; and clumsy black shoes with huge grosgrain bows. It would have been far easier to buy a new costume entire at a department store, but, in brand-new clothing, I would be spotted as an impostor before I got through the kitchen, whereas I hoped at least to reach the back stairs of the stately Alistair residence. For more than one reason, I needed to pay Lady Theodora a visit.

A maid’s uniform renders one piebald, to my way of thinking, because it is all black and white. Or perhaps, I thought as I struggled to get my white apron tied around my black middle with a respectable bow, perhaps I more closely resembled a magpie. Once I had gotten my white collar and cuffs fastened properly onto my black dress, I strove to pin my white cap straight on hair done up meekly in a bun. Piebald, magpie, same root word: pie.

Hmm.

With a simple basket of the sort one carries via its handle over one’s arm, I went downstairs to the kitchen, where I filched a pie pan, placed it in my basket, and covered it with a pristine white dish towel from the linen press.

I took a deep breath, called my mother’s face to mind, told myself, You will do quite well on your own, Enola, and sallied forth.

Maids do not take cabs; I could have trusted only Harold, my favourite and very discreet cabbie, and my messenger boy had not been able to obtain him. So I was forced to rely on shank’s mare. Already it was dark, and while evening zephyrs may have been wafting elsewhere in England, London simply became windy and cold so that I presently became quite chilled walking all the way to the Alistairs’ Mayfair neighbourhood. But, as planned, I arrived before bedtime, during the drowsy evening hour when masters and servants alike begin to yawn and look at the clock. When no one is terribly alert or thinking very clearly. I hoped.

I, myself, felt rather too alert for comfort. Surveying the side of the manse, I saw light behind the organza curtains in Lady Theodora’s windows—I knew which rooms were hers, having previously visited her boudoir in disguise as “Mrs. Ragostin.” While a storey less lofty than Cecily’s, Lady Theodora’s chambers nevertheless loomed far above me, with neither ivy-clad walls nor drainpipes to make them accessible by climbing.

Moving figures cast vague shadows on the curtains, causing unease in both my mind and my abdominal region because Lady Theodora was not alone.

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