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me.”
    “I agree with you,” Hettie replied.
    She had hair that was so golden it was almost blinding and her eye-lashes were mascara-ed until they stuck out round her blue eyes like little matchsticks.
    As they reached the landing Pandora saw that waiting for them was a Housekeeper whom she had never seen before.
    She was surprised at not seeing dear old Mrs. Meadowfield, who had been at Chart Hall ever since Pandora could remember.
    The new Housekeeper was younger and had the same supercilious, rather insolent manner, that Pandora had noticed in the new Butler.
    “Good-evening, ladies!” the Housekeeper said, and somehow she made the last word sound like a question. “Let me show you to your rooms.”
    As the others waited, Kitty said,
    “You’ll be all right with Mrs. Jenkins. And don’t be late! It annoys His Lordship if the soufflés are flat – and that’s more than any of us’ll be this evening!”
    She turned away as she spoke and walked down the corridor to a room that Pandora realised was next to the Master Bedroom, where her grandfather had always slept.
    Mrs. Jenkins showed the other ladies to bedrooms which, Pandora saw, were each one away from the next, with another room in between.
    She wondered at this arrangement, remembering that, when her mother had acted as hostess at Chart Hall after her grandmother’s death, she had always accommodated the single men and women in separate wings.
    She was the last to receive the Housekeeper’s attention.
    “Now for you, Miss Stratton,” she said in a somewhat familiar tone, “I’ve put you in the Rose Room.”
    “Oh, I am glad!” Pandora cried. “It was always one of my favourite rooms and I love the view over the garden!”
    Mrs. Jenkins looked at her and said,
    “Is it really true you’re His Lordship’s cousin?”
    “Yes, indeed,” Pandora answered. “My mother was Lady Eveline Chart before she married, and the old Earl was my grandfather.”
    “You’ll find things a bit different now,” Mrs. Jenkins said.
    Pandora did not know how to answer this. Instead, she went eagerly into the Rose Room to find that her trunk was being unpacked by a maid whom she recognised.
    “Good-evening, Mary!” she said. “How nice to find you here! I did not know you were working at the Hall.”
    “She’s new,” Mrs. Jenkins said before Mary could speak. “I hope, Miss, if she’s not up in her duties you’ll tell me, and I’ll find someone else.”
    “I am sure Mary will look after me admirably,” Pandora replied.
    “These country girls seem very ignorant to me,” Mrs. Jenkins said with a sniff.
    Mary did not speak until the Housekeeper had left the room. Then she said to Pandora,
    “I’m ever so glad to see you, Miss Pandora, that I am! Things be very different here now t’ what they was when I used t’ come t’ give Mother a hand when His Lordship entertained.”
    “Have you been engaged permanently?” Pandora enquired.
    “I hopes so, Miss,” Mary replied, ‘but there’s been so many o’ the old staff sacked and new ones brought in. None of us in the village seem to know where we are.”
    “What is your mother doing?” Pandora asked.
    “She be helping in the kitchen, Miss. She says as how the Chef gets into such tempers that she be real terrified of him.”
    “I hear he is French, so tell your mother not to worry,” Pandora said with a smile. “I expect you are both glad of the money.”
    “We are indeed, Miss!”
    Pandora thought that Mary might get into trouble if she stood talking for too long when she had another lady to attend to.
    “Come back a little later to do up my gown,” she said. “I can manage, as you well know.”
    “When they told me as you was here, Miss, you could’ve knocked me down with a feather!” Mary said. “I never thinks I’ll see you at Chart Hall, not after the things we’ve heard of the goings-on and suchlike.”
    Pandora felt it would be extremely disloyal to the Earl if she encouraged Mary