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to a party, let alone given one, never run any house but the one in Rainbow Street. There was no tradition of service in her family and no one she knew had ever had a servant, not even a charwoman. It was on the cards that she would fail abysmally.
    She succeeded beyond her own stolid hopes and Jacqueline’s dreams.
    Of course, Jacqueline didn’t really want a housekeeper at all. She didn’t want an organiser and manager but an obedient maid of all work. And Eunice was accustomed to obedience and hard work. She was what the Coverdales required, apparently without personality or awareness of her rights or that curiosity that leads an employee to pry, quiet and respectable, not paranoid except in one particular, lacking any desire to put herself on the same social level as they. Aesthetic appreciation for her was directed to only one end—domestic objects. To Eunice a refrigerator was beautiful while a flower was just a flower, the fabric of a curtain lovely whereas a bird or a wild animal at best “pretty.” She was unable to differentiate, as far as its aesthetic value was concerned, between a
famille rose
vase and a Teflon-lined frying pan. Both were “nice” and each would receive from her the same care and attention.
    These were the reasons for her success. From the first shemade a good impression. Having eaten the last of the Bounty bar she had bought herself at Liverpool Street, she alighted from the train, no longer nervous now that there was nothing to be deciphered. She could read Way Out, that wasn’t a problem. Jacqueline hadn’t told her how she would know George, but George knew her from his wife’s not very kind description. Melinda was with him, which had floored Eunice, who was looking for a man on his own.
    “Pleased to meet you,” she said, shaking hands, not smiling or studying them, but observing the big white car.
    George gave her the front seat. “You’ll get a better view of our beautiful countryside that way, Miss Parchman.”
    The girl chattered nineteen to the dozen all the way, occasionally shooting questions at Eunice. D’you like the country, Miss Parchman? Have you ever been up in the Fens? Aren’t you too hot in that coat? I hope you like stuffed vine leaves. My stepmother’s doing them for tonight. Eunice answered bemusedly with a plain yes or no. She didn’t know whether you ate stuffed vine leaves or looked at them or sat on them. But she responded with quiet politeness, sometimes giving her small tight smile.
    George liked this respectful discretion. He liked the way she sat with her knees together and her hands folded in her lap. He even liked her clothes which, to a more detached observer, would have looked like standard issue to prison wardresses. Neither he nor Melinda was aware of anything chilly or repulsive about her.
    “Go the long way round through Greeving, Daddy, so that Miss Parchman can see the village.”
    It was thus that Eunice was given a view of her future accomplice’s home before she saw that of her victims. Greeving Post Office and Village Store, Prop. N. Smith. She didn’t, however, see Joan Smith, who was out delivering Epiphany People literature.
    But she wouldn’t have taken much notice of her if she had been there. People didn’t interest her. Nor did the countryside and one of the prettiest villages in Suffolk. Greeving was just old buildings to her, thatch and plaster and a lot of trees that mustkeep out the light. But she did wonder how you managed when you wanted a nice bit of fish or suddenly had a fancy, as she often did, for a pound box of chocolates.
    Lowfield Hall. To Eunice it might have been Buckingham Palace. She didn’t know ordinary people lived in houses like this, which were for the Queen or some film star. In the hall, for the first time, all five of them were together. Jacqueline, who dressed up for any occasion, who got into emerald velvet trousers and red silk shirt and Gucci scarf to greet her new servant, was there