Page 25 of The Twelve Days of Christmas

Esther tossed the offending plant into the basket, and closed her eyes briefly in an effort to calm herself before crossing the entrance hall to the ballroom, where she placed the first golden goose egg and riddle on the windowsill, then concealed it behind its red velvet curtain.

The next she hid in the library, where she found Miss Charlotte seated within her favourite reading nook immersed in a book …

until the lumbering curly-haired Busgrove boy emerged from the east wing to sidle forth and disturb her.

‘My dear Miss Pépin,’ Esther heard him simper. ‘I wondered if—’ upon which she promptly closed the door.

Private conversations were not for the ears of housekeepers.

Esther adjusted the eggs in the basket. Whoever found a golden egg could only keep it if they solved the accompanying riddle.

The player who solved the most riddles was rewarded with a crown made from fir and bay leaves collected from the garden and announced King or Queen for the evening.

It was a game that Miss Maria often won – each year her gloating could be heard down in the servants’ hall – except for last year, of course, and Esther hoped for everybody’s sakes that Mr Marmery’s writing had improved, else they would never hear the end of it.

The housekeeper crossed the entrance hall again, her heels clipping on the polished chequerboard-tiles.

The third egg and riddle she was to place in the billiard room, but it was with much chagrin that Esther found it inhabited by Miss Juliette’s new husband Nicolas Toussaint, and more particularly (the housekeeper pursed her lips in displeasure) the Duke of Morley.

‘Forgive me for disturbing, seigneur.’ She paused, pointed. ‘Your grace.’

‘Not at all, Mrs Wilson,’ smiled Mr Toussaint, rising from his inspection of the ivories, assessing, so it must be assumed, his next shot. ‘Can I be of assistance?’

‘Not at all, sir,’ replied Esther. She clasped her hands tightly about the handle of her basket. ‘I am simply come to distribute an egg.’

The seigneur blinked. ‘An egg?’

‘For this evening.’

‘Ah,’ exclaimed the Duke of Morley then, who turned his cue to hold it like a staff. ‘Is this the treasure hunt Miss Maria has been wittering on about for days? How droll.’

Esther regarded the man. He appeared everything that was charming – smiling, jovial – but the housekeeper knew far better. How distressed Viscountess Pépin had been when she spoke with Esther that morning!

A scoundrel! A blackguard! He has no regard for any female. Be on your guard, Mrs Wilson – mind your girls, as I shall mind mine.

But of course, it was not Esther’s place to speak her true thoughts, and so she merely said:

‘Yes, your grace.’

Sir Robert leant on his cue, his gaze roving over Esther’s face. She knew perfectly well what the man stared at so brazenly, and it took all of her effort not to press her hand against the dents embedded in her face.

‘Would you wish us to vacate the room, Mrs Wilson?’ he asked, as if he was not being monstrously rude. ‘For but a moment or two, while you conceal your precious cargo? I give you my honour we shall not look for it afterwards.’

The duke licked his lower lip and then – very deliberately – winked at her. Esther’s stomach tightened. Honour, indeed. Men like him deserved to be horsewhipped and set to the dogs. She pinned on him an insincere smile.

‘That would be most kind.’

‘Splendid,’ Sir Robert said. ‘Come, Toussaint. I’m certain a reprieve would help you in any case. You have hardly potted a ball this half-hour.’

The gentlemen departed, and it was with relief that Esther released her breath as the heavy oak door shut behind them.

Her ladyship was quite correct in her estimations. Scoundrel! Blackguard! He must surely know that Viscountess Pépin had informed the housekeeper of his attempted liaison with one of her maids. The duke had mocked her just then, that was clear.

In a state of ill-temper Esther secreted the egg and riddle beneath the billiard table. As she relinquished the room once more to the gentlemen, she pointedly ignored the Duke of Morley’s conceited bow, and left the vicinity of the lower rooms as fast as her feet might carry her.

Upstairs was where she decided to hide the final eggs – three up, three down (the neat order of the distribution pleased the housekeeper exceedingly) – but the hiding places must not compromise any of the family or guest bedrooms. Esther, then, was required to be a little more inventive in her choices, and at the top of the grand staircase she paused to consider them.

The portrait gallery would do for one egg; there was a hidden alcove near the old schoolroom which would be suitable for another; and as for the last …

Esther frowned for a long moment before the answer revealed itself.

Yes, indeed! On the second-floor landing there was a figurine of a cherub set in gold.

If she were to conceal the egg in the crook of the angel’s arm which held the harp …

Quite satisfied with this solution, the housekeeper set forth towards the portrait gallery.

There was a pleasing picture of the Pépin family, painted when the girls still gambolled about Wakely Hall in their pretty lace-capped shifts, and presently Esther found herself beneath the portrait, concealed the egg and riddle behind the vase of white and red cyclamen displayed on a mahogany pedestal in front of it, then turned into the corridor that led on to the schoolroom.

‘Oh! Oh! ’ cried Esther, holding tight to her basket, for what should be waiting for her around the corner but a brown-feathered hen. ‘Oh,’ cried the housekeeper once more, as the bird pecked at her skirts. ‘Begone, foul fowl. Begone!’

Such a commotion did she so make, that the door to the schoolroom – already partially open – opened further, and out stepped Miss Juliette, as was.

‘Mrs Wilson! I am awfully sorry,’ apologised the new Seigneuresse Toussaint, taking the hen into her arms, which flapped its wings and uttered a loud and almighty cluck . ‘Forgive me. We were so invested in our game of chess we did not notice Foi had escaped. Is that not so, dear?’

Juliette Toussaint half-turned, and Esther observed the small child who lingered on the schoolroom’s threshold with wide and startled eyes.

She was a thin little thing but at least, the housekeeper noted, now clean.

Esther had been disturbed to discover that the Pépins had taken in such a filthy wraith, for heaven knew where the child had come from and what diseases she might bring into the house.

It had been very wrong of Monsieur de Fortgibu to bring the girl back to Wakely (even if she did have a sprained ankle), and Esther was most profuse in her objections to Viscountess Pépin, but once again her sage advice was ignored.

‘ Madame ,’ said Esther, in as respectful a tone as she could muster.

‘It would be of great assistance to us belowstairs if the monsieur restricted his birds. ’Tis unclean to have chickens run amok.

Only yesterday one of my maids was prevailed upon to clean their droppings from the rug outside the viscount’s study. ’

Juliette Toussaint inclined her fair head. ‘Of course, Mrs Wilson. I shall make sure Monsieur Beno?t is aware, and in the meantime keep little Foi here confined. It shall not happen again.’

But it would happen again Esther wished to declare, looking down at the brown hen in the young woman’s arms with deep disapproval, for the monsieur refused to leave his feathered pets outside where they belonged, and they could not be relied upon to defecate in the tray of dirt which had been placed in the Frenchman’s quarters for such a purpose.

She dreaded to think what state the Persian rug there would look like by Twelfth Day, and a little meanly Esther hoped Mr Palamedes might make a meal of them.

During this exchange the little girl had been staring at her, and Esther met her rather too-direct gaze.

For one brief moment she felt a spark of recognition (why did the child’s expression look so familiar?), but then the brown hen clucked once more, the housekeeper blinked, and the notion was gone the instant it appeared.

‘Thank you, seigneuresse. My maids and I would be very grateful.’

Esther dipped her knees, and with a sweetly apologetic smile the eldest Pépin daughter retreated to the schoolroom, where the child took the hen in her arms, and the door gently shut behind them.

The housekeeper sighed. It was a truth that could not be in any measure denied, that members of the aristocratic class had no notion of the realities which allowed them to live such blesséd lives.

Miss Juliette need not clean chicken excrement from the rugs on which they trod, nor empty the chamber pots they used to relieve themselves.

Her mother, the viscountess, need not feel shame and defeat when her orders were undermined, nor suffer the gloating that came thereafter as a consequence.

No indeed, the family Pépin and those of their ilk had not one idea of the realities of running a household.

What, mused Esther, would any of them do without a capable housekeeper to take care of their every need and whim?

Oh, Esther thought, as she deposited the fifth egg and riddle within the shadowed alcove next to the schoolroom door, what would she give to witness any one of the Pépins experience a single ounce of the problems she had contended with over the years! What satisfaction would she thus have!