Page 25 of Trouble

Chapter Ten

Emily ended up paired with Akia a few times during the course of preparations for the dinner party. She learned that Akia’s last position as a proper lady’s maid had been somewhat of a living nightmare – screaming tantrums, hairbrushes thrown at her, a memorable occasion during which her mistress had locked her out of the house during a snowstorm – and that in comparison, the extra workload at Fairmont was no more than a mild irritation. From the sisterly way she spoke about the other maids in this previous house, Emily suspected that she had developed her habit of telling outrageous stories to keep up general morale.

Emily learned that Joe had been a ship’s cook in the navy, and was used to the somewhat trying atmosphere in a galley, cooking for a hundred while all the knives in the room kept throwing themselves at you during dramatic swells. This mostly accounted for his odd demeanour.

‘He doesn’t know how to do his job without the threat of cannon fire,’ Akia said knowingly as they folded tablecloths, ‘so I think he sort of .?.?. creates the cannon fire, in his head.’

Oliver had been dismissed by his previous master for some apparently minimal crime that Akia did not expand upon; that master had been a friend of the captain’s, and apparently Captain Edwards had quietly taken him on afterwards, despite the black mark of dismissal against him. This made no sense at all to Emily, who found Oliver far too loud and unreasonably enamoured with horses, and could not see why anybody would go out of their way to hire him.

Meera was only a few years older than Captain Edwards, and had started at his father’s house as a scullery maid when he was barely more than a child. That they had known each other for so long made sense of a few things – the fact that the captain had trusted Meera entirely with the hiring of a new governess, for one.

She learned all of this without having to ask. Akia was fond of speaking but, unlike Grace, she was a very accomplished storyteller. When she was funny, it was because she wanted to be, and as time went on Emily did find herself holding back laughter on more than one occasion. She thought she was doing a relatively good job of staying detached and stand-offish, rarely speaking unless she was asked something directly, but she noticed that Akia had started darting glances at her when she told jokes, watching for Emily’s reaction. She was starting to look far too pleased with herself; as if she had seen something on Emily’s face that Emily had not been quick enough to hide.

The afternoon of the party, Emily walked into the kitchen and found that Oliver was ‘helping with the vegetables’, which apparently entailed cutting the tops off and then throwing them at Akia, who was serenely weighing large quantities of fruit for the dessert.

‘Meera told me you might need help,’ Emily said uncertainly, watching as the latest piece of carrot went sailing past Akia’s head and landed somewhere near the fire.

‘We’re having an asparagus emergency,’ Oliver said, not looking particularly concerned. Emily glanced over at Joe, and saw that his neck was a furious, purplish red. ‘Do you happen to have any asparagus in your pockets?’

‘No.’

‘Pity.’

‘Nothing ever weighs what I think it will weigh,’ said Akia, frowning. ‘But then I think maybe I am just a poor judge of weights. And heights. Oliver, how tall are you?’

‘One and a quarter Graces,’ said Oliver. ‘Or seven cats.’

‘You see? I’d have said six cats.’

Oliver shrugged, winding back his arm. ‘You do tend to underestimate me.’

‘Oliver,’ said Akia, ‘if you throw another piece of carrot at me, I will ram this pear so far down your throat you’ll be pissing juice for a week.’

‘Jar,’ Oliver said, throwing another piece of carrot.

‘Meera isn’t here,’ said Akia, at the exact moment Meera came blustering into the room.

‘Well, I did send a note, but I suppose they might not have seen it in time – oh, Amy, you look very nice today – so if it can’t be asparagus, Joe, what should it be instead?’

‘Asparagus,’ Joe said dangerously, not turning around.

‘I cannot simplymagicasparagus from thin air. I’m very sorry, I’m so sure I put it in the order, I can’t believe I would have missed it.’

Somebody knocked on the back door, and Akia went to answer it.

A handsome, middle-aged Indian man with a ready smile and a soft swell of a belly was standing there, looking hopeful, and in his hand was an entire basket of .?.?.

‘Asparagus,’ Meera breathed. ‘Oh,thankyou, Mr Khan – you’ve saved the day, you have no idea!’

Mr Khan seemed to have been angling for such a glowing reception, and grinned shyly from underneath his large, luxurious moustache as he handed over his wares.

‘It was in the order, Miss Bhandari, but I’m afraid one of my boys missed it. It won’t happen again, and I shall make it up to you. Perhaps I could call on you at some point this week, and I could bring you some—?’

‘Oh, I’ll be ever so busy this week,’ Meera said, putting the asparagus down next to Oliver and removing the knife from his hand so that he could not create any more tiny missiles.

Mr Khan looked somewhat crestfallen. ‘Next week, then? Or perhaps I shall see you in the village?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Meera. ‘Akia, there’s a bit of carrot in your hair. When you are finished here, can you and Amy go and dress the girls?’