The indiscretions of a lady's maid

January 15th

Tonnerre de Dieu! One’s life as femme-de-chambre is surely full of quaint variety.

It was a strange experience I had with the Hennikers.

In consequence of a letter received through a registry-office I went down to the quiet old-fashioned town of Stamford, in Lincolnshire—a dead-alive place which the main line of railway has left severely alone—and called at a large, very prim house in the main road, close to the ancient “George” so well known to motorists on the North Road.

The sitting-room, which I was shown into, was of that ugly era which you in England call Early-Victorian, and smelt of potpourri. On the table was a large bowl of yellow roses, and flies were buzzing upon the window-pane.

I pictured to myself Madame wearing ringlets and a cap with violet ribbons, but instead there entered a young, fair-haired, extremely well-dressed little lady of not more than twenty-six, who introduced herself as Mrs. Henniker.

She seated herself in the old-fashioned arm-chair and addressed me in French, which she spoke quite well. I saw at once that she was both chic and distinctly superior, for she treated me with some slight disdain, and sniffed as she read the testimonials I had brought with me.

Eh bien! she engaged me.

Her previous maid had been a middle-aged Englishwoman—one of those glorified house-maids, I suppose—one of those “maids” who wear black cotton gloves and use camphorated chalk. What taste in dress can be expected of such estimable persons? And yet the average English madame delights in them. A lady’s maid who is an artist in hair-dressing and the arrangement of gowns must be born as such. She cannot rise from the kitchen.

Three days later found me duly installed in the Henniker household. Parbleu! In order to know how the world really lives you should take up the duties of femme-de-chambre. The household consisted of Madame, whom I quickly discovered was a very clever, but distinctly giddy little person; Monsieur, who was rather stout, slightly bald, about forty, and who possessed the air of a bon vivant; Mr. Gray, the man-servant, and three maids, rather raw local girls.

The house and its mistress were certainly not in keeping, for while the rooms bore no note of modernity, yet my mistress was nothing if not entirely up to date. They kept no company, I gathered, and though Monsieur was often away, Madame seldom went out save for an occasional afternoon’s run in a hired motor-car.

Though outwardly Madame was smart and wore gowns of the latest mode her linge intime would have disgraced a shop-girl. Ugh!—longcloth and Swiss embroidery, I wore better myself. I always judge a mistress by her lingerie, and find the test infallible.

She suffered from nerves. But there, what mistress does not? She was exacting and snappish towards the other servants, yet somehow she treated me with far greater consideration. Nevertheless, I had not been in that house forty-eight hours before I scented mystery.

Long experience and intimate knowledge of various households have led me to quickly form conclusions. And the conclusion I formed regarding the Hennikers was the reverse of reassuring.

One evening, after I had been there a week, I was dressing Madame’s hair as she sat before the old-fashioned mirror when she suddenly turned to me, and inquired in English—

“Mariette, have you a sweetheart?”

“Ah! non, Madame,” I replied, with a laugh, though I fear the colour mounted slightly to my cheeks.

“Well, I should have thought you would have experienced no difficulty in finding one—a girl so smart and good-looking as yourself.”

I shrugged my shoulders, declaring that Madame flattered me, adding—

“The luxury of a sweetheart is not permitted to menials, Madame. Besides, when I marry I shall marry a compatriot.”

“Quite right,” she laughed; “you are very philosophical, Mariette. But, after all, money means happiness, and if you haven’t the means then it is better to steel one’s heart against love.”

She seemed to be hinting at something, but I did not quite follow her. Monsieur was away, and though she dined alone every night she made quite an elaborate toilet. It seemed silly to take so much trouble over her appearance when the butler Gray was the only person who saw her.

On the following day, while I was hooking up her dress, she asked—

“What do you think of Stamford, Mariette? Rather dull after the cosmopolitan life which you have led, eh?”

“It is very quiet,” I answered, smiling. “Some of the streets are quite deserted, and grass grows between the pebbles.”

“You are right. I’m perfectly sick of it—yet we’re compelled for certain reasons to live here. The people are so proud and stiff-backed that I haven’t a single friend. My husband bought this place furnished just as it stood a couple of years ago. It belonged to two old ladies. The doctor ordered me into the country for quiet. Mr. Henniker is a man of sudden impulse, and happening to pass this house he called and coolly asked the old ladies how much they wanted for it. Next day a bargain was concluded, and three days later I installed myself.”

Now her husband had never struck me as a man of impulse. Indeed, he seemed the reverse—a quiet, thoughtful man, who seemed for ever pre-possessed. Was there some reason behind that sudden purchase of a house in that silent, obscure town?

Within a week I became acquainted with Jean, the French waiter at the “George,” and one day when he met me in the High Street, whither I had gone on an errand for Madame, he looked at me curiously, and said—

“That family of yours is a bit of a mystery, mademoiselle. Keep your eyes open and you’ll learn something.”

“A mystery—why?” I asked quickly. I rather liked the young man, and I tried to use my blandishments to induce him to be more explicit. But he only smiled, saying—

“You’ll find out something if you are shrewd.”

“What’s the matter with them?” I asked. “Anything wrong?”

But he only elevated his shoulders, and, wishing me bon jour, left me in anxiety.

Diable! I myself had suspicions, but of exactly what I knew not. I watched Madame narrowly; I listened at their door when Monsieur returned, merry, even exuberant, and I also tried to learn something from the three girls. But all in vain.

Several weeks went on. Madame went up to London with Monsieur, but I was not required. Therefore I spent idle days with nothing to do, save to go out for strolls in the afternoon, wandering about the decayed old town with its many churches and its market-square—which only showed signs of life one day a week—or else wandering across the meadows through which the river Welland flowed so sluggishly.

More than once Jean Valensi was my companion. I felt lonely, and was glad to have some one with me to whom I could speak French.

One evening, as we walked together on the London Road, he asked me—

“Did a gentleman named Barrington call upon your mistress last Friday?”

“No; why?” I asked halting.

“Oh, nothing,” he responded mysteriously. “Only I believed that he would.”

“Why?”

“Well, he stayed at the hotel,” was my companion’s reply; “and I understood that he intended to call upon Monsieur and Madame on business.”

“Ecoutez!” I exclaimed. “You know something, M’sieur Jean; what is it?”

“Nothing that I can tell mademoiselle,” he responded, with an expression of regret.

“But surely you can tell me something!” I cried. “You can put me on my guard.”

“Have I not already done that?”

“What do you know of them?”

“Nothing personally. Only what I hear.”

“And that is something bad—eh? They are not what they pretend to be?”

He nodded in the affirmative, but would make no further explanation.

Later, when I returned to the house, the man Gray, clean-shaven, with high cheek-bones and grey hair, met me in the servants’ hall, and in a sharp tone of annoyance, said—

“Mariette, it is disgraceful that when the master and mistress are away you should go out flirting with that foreign waiter fellow. I shall inform them when they return.”

“My dear monsieur,” I replied, “you are perfectly at liberty to inform whom you like. I am my own mistress when Madame is not here,” I added in angry protest, for I had, from the first, taken an instinctive dislike to him.

“The fellow has only been here a few months. Nobody knows him,” Mr. Gray said. “Besides, it isn’t respectable.”

“Respectable!” I echoed, and the tone in which I uttered it must have struck him as curious, for the manner in which he regarded me I shall never forget.

It was upon the point of my tongue to query the respectability of my master and mistress, but fortunately I did not. I simply brushed past him and went up to my room.

The man must have been out that evening watching me! What objection could he have to my acquaintance with Jean Valensi? Pourquoi? Was he in the secret of the Hennikers and did he suspect that something was known?

Très curieux!

At half-past three o’clock next morning I was awakened by the stopping of a big open motor-car before the door, and looking from my window saw Madame, closely wrapped in furs, descend. She had returned without warning. Strange that she should arrive by car at that hour.

Hastily dressing I went down and found that she was in a magnificent décolleté gown of pale blue, and wore some splendid jewels. The car had already turned and gone ere I entered the room.

She seemed pale, anxious and exhausted.

“I’ve driven from London—a hundred miles, Mariette!” she gasped. “I—I feel so very faint—get me something—salts and—some brandy, quick!”

I handed her the big silver-topped bottle of smelling-salts, and dashing down to the dining-room got the brandy, of which she drank a stiff glass at one gulp.

“My husband has not been here, I suppose?” she asked suddenly, a strange haunted look in her eyes, to which I replied in the negative.

“Well, look here, Mariette,” she said, pushing-to the door and facing me, “I want you to do something for me. You’re a good girl and I appreciate you very highly.”

“Oui, madame.”

“You may be asked at what hour I returned home. You may—I don’t know. If you are, you will reply that I was back at ten—that you dressed my hair for the night at a quarter-past ten. Do you follow?”

“Parfaitement, madame,” I replied, without betraying the least surprise.

“It means to me far more than you can imagine, Mariette,” she went on, a trifle wild in her manner. “I trust in you implicitly, remember.”

“Madame need not doubt my fidelity,” I replied in the same mechanical voice, nevertheless filled with wonder at what had occurred. “But,” I added, “has Madame thought of the chauffeur?”

“He will say nothing. He is well paid.”

“And Mr. Gray and the maids?”

“The maids sleep at the back and are unaware of my return. Mr. Gray will tell them that I came back at ten almost as soon as they went up to bed.”

Then she took a little cocaine to still her nerves, as was her secret habit, and I proceeded to undress her.

In doing so I made a strange discovery. Her right sleeve of pale blue chiffon and lace was torn from the gathers, while on the edge of the lace was a small dark stain. I made no remark, for I was far too excited and puzzled. The mark had escaped her notice, but when I made a furtive examination of it I recognised most distinctly that it was the stain of blood.

I took the dress out of the room in pretence of shaking it out and hanging it up. But when I had bound her hair with pink ribbons I left her and made a careful examination of the gown. It was the first time I had seen it, and it was, without doubt, one of the latest creations of the Place Vendôme. Upon the sleeve lace was a stain of blood the size of a sixpence, while upon the edge of the silk under-skirt showed another large stain, as though the gown had dragged through blood that lay upon the floor!

Mystère, I remarked to myself. What could have happened? Why was she so anxious that the time of her return home should not be known? Why was she in such anxiety regarding Monsieur?

I reascended to my room on tip-toe, but I sat at the window watching the dawn and thinking. Sleep came no more to my eyes that night. I recollected Jean’s mysterious words. What could he know?

Next day Madame rose early, and was as bright and full of life as ever. At ten she received a telegram—from Monsieur no doubt. It seemed to reassure her, and she sat down at the old-fashioned piano and amused herself by playing. But Gray, I noted, had become unaccountably anxious and grave. Why?

It was nearly eleven o’clock when I had opportunity to attend to Madame’s gown, but to my surprise I saw that the piece of lace stained with blood had been cut out and the sleeve rearranged so neatly that the excision would never be detected, while the hem of the under-skirt had been treated in the same way. She must have been up early and busy with her needle in order to efface those tell-tale marks.

Hence she believed that they had escaped my notice.

Vraiment, I was puzzled.

That afternoon, while Madame sat idling over a book in the small drawing-room, the room that smelt so strongly of pot pourri, she received two telegrams. Ah! How I longed to learn their contents.

I happened to be in the room, having brought her down her shawl, when she took one of them from the salver upon which Gray brought it. I watched her face as she read it. She smiled. Then she very carefully tore it into small fragments and placed it upon the little table beside her. There being no fire, she intended to destroy it elsewhere. For two hours I kept my eye upon her until at last she went out into the long old-fashioned garden at the back of the house. My opportunity came.

I crept into the room and quickly pieced the torn fragments of paper together until I could read the message.

It was from Monsieur and had been handed in at Abbeville, the stopping-place of the express between Calais and Paris, and read—

“All well. Bring Mariette to Hôtel Continental, Paris. Start to-night.—Ralph.”

My heart beat quickly. Paris again! Yet Madame had taken no notice of her husband’s injunctions. She had made no mention to me of impending departure. Truth to tell, I longed to get away from that drowsy town.

All well! Was that a reassurance that nothing had been discovered as yet? I confess I had eagerly looked at that day’s newspaper, but had discovered nothing to arouse my suspicions. Yet I felt convinced that the tell-tale marks upon Madame’s gown were those of a tragedy.

Women of Mrs. Henniker’s stamp—fair fluffy-haired and giddy—are seized by strange fancies, and often form queer friendships. To me she had become more and more an enigma. That they lived in the seclusion of Stamford was for some distinct purpose: to efface their identity, I had long ago been convinced. Jean had spoken the truth when he had alleged them to be “queer people.”

Madame’s movements and Monsieur’s unexpected flight across the Channel were, in themselves, sufficient proof that something strange had happened. If that stain of blood upon her dress had been by accident, then why had she so carefully removed it, fearing lest I should discover it?

Sacristi! I was burning with desire to know the actual truth. But still I could discover nothing. De jour en jour, Madame remained in her room eager each day for the newspapers, pleading violent headaches, and resorting to her cocaine. Her manner had changed, for she was highly strung and started violently at the least sound.

And so five days went by.

One evening about six o’clock I was passing the door of the small drawing-room when I heard her in low conversation with Gray.

Chose extraordinaire!

I halted and, bending to the key-hole, listened.

“No,” I heard Madame say distinctly, “I know I can trust her, never fear.”

Were they speaking of myself?

“I wouldn’t,” he declared. “She suspects something. Better take my advice. Give her a present and discharge her. Send her back to her home in France. They’ll never find her there.”

“Both Ralph and yourself entertain foolish fears,” she declared. “He actually wired to me to take her to Paris—to run into danger in that way.”

“It would be the most judicious plan,” declared the butler, who seemed to be on such strangely intimate terms with his mistress. “You might so easily get rid of her there.”

“But the girls?”

“They know nothing, and they suspect nothing. To them, as to everybody here, you are plain Mrs. Henniker.”

“I wonder what Stamford would say if it knew—eh, Gray?” asked Madame in a low strange voice.

“It never will know, if you act as Ralph suggests,” he said. “You will quarrel with me and I shall leave your service and go to London by the last train. I shall leave for the Continent to-morrow morning, and you—well, you will no doubt take Ralph’s advice or——”

“Or what?”

“Or it will be the worse for you, that’s quite clear,” he answered in a threatening voice.

“But I—I can’t—I really can’t.”

“Nonsense. You’re not a woman if you can’t allay her suspicions,” he laughed, and as I heard him moving about the room I was malheureusement compelled to slip away.

An hour later Madame had called the butler, found serious fault with him, and discharged him at a moment’s notice. He came to me grumbling at his hard luck, and abusing her roundly. Ah me! it was all very fine acting. Indeed, I would have believed his discharge to have been a reality had I not overheard that remarkable conversation.

Gray left about seven, declaring his intention of going up to London. And he slammed the door angrily after him.

I managed to make excuse to go out for Madame just before the shops closed, and in passing the “George” asked the boots to take a message to Jean.

To my surprise the man replied—

“Jean had a quarrel with the manager this morning and he left about four o’clock to go back to London. He told me to tell you that he wouldn’t lose sight of you, and he will probably write to-morrow.”

I stood dumfounded. Assuredly strange things were happening in Stamford.

When I returned I found Madame highly nervous. She had, I saw, been crying, for her eyes were red, her hair dishevelled, and upon her face was a haunted, haggard look.

The evening post brought her a letter. I took it to her, and from the handwriting and stamps saw that it was from Monsieur. After she had read it she sat for a few moments staring straight before her. Then, turning to me, she said in a low, strained voice—

“We are going to Paris to-morrow, Mariette. So go and get out my two small green trunks and we will pack. You must pack your own things, too, we may be away a long time. The master is in Paris, and we must join him.”

Full of wonder and in no way averse to returning to my beloved city, I set about packing with a will, and by two o’clock next day we were on the platform at Charing Cross entering the boat-train.

I recollected every word which had passed between her and the man Gray, and though sorely puzzled, yet I remained watchful and wary.

Try how I would, I could not rid myself of the recollection of those marks of blood and of Madame’s intense anxiety.

We duly arrived at the Gare du Nord that night, but as I passed the barrier a most extraordinary thing happened. In the crowd of faces, which are always there awaiting the arrival of the London express, I saw one which strangely resembled that of Jean Valensi. I looked again, but it had disappeared.

Therefore I dismissed it as a mere chimera of my imagination. He was, no doubt, in London awaiting another situation. He had previously told me that he was heartily sick of life in a country hotel.

In a fiacre I drove with Madame, not to the Continental, as I had expected, but to a small flat over a gentleman’s hat-shop in the Rue Lafayette. The door, bolted and barred it seemed, was opened to us by a stout bonne, who welcomed Madame warmly, and looked askance at myself. The place was rather cheaply furnished, with one sitting-room, a kitchen and several small bedrooms, very different to the style of the house at Stamford.

Indeed, I stood so amazed at the poorness of the place that Madame explained—

“My husband has taken this temporarily, in preference to life in hotels.” It was surely a lame excuse, especially when, after a wash and changing her dress, she went out alone to meet Monsieur and did not return till nearly two o’clock.

She came back alone, and, dismissing me abruptly, sent me to my room. This surprised me; therefore, when all was quiet, I crept forth into the corridor, and finding a light still in her room, I bent and peered through the key-hole.

I saw her in her Japanese dressing-gown seated on the bed counting something. It was a large packet of folded papers, such as I had sometimes seen in the window of a bureau de change—foreign bonds I took them to be.

The stout Breton maid-of-all-work had retired, so I had no fear of being disturbed.

I watched her place the papers between the mattresses of her bed, and then in a frenzy of despair she raised her hands to Heaven and paced the room, her face bearing an unutterable look of fear.

Some wild hoarse words escaped her, but I could not distinguish them. For an hour I watched and listened, then, tired out, I went to bed.

Next day, though anxious once more to stroll along the Boulevards, she would not allow me out. She went out in a taxi for about an hour, but on returning complained of migraine, and remained stretched in a chaise longue while I had to content myself by sitting at the window and watching the busy traffic in the Rue Lafayette below.

The bonne had been sent out on some message, when about nine o’clock there came a ring at the bell, and on opening the door I was confronted by Monsieur, but so changed that I scarcely knew him. His moustache had been shaved off, and he was unwashed and ill-dressed.

“Why, Mariette!” he exclaimed; “you hardly knew me! I suppose I’ve changed. I’ve been very ill.”

And he went into the room where Madame awaited him, and closed the door.

Vraiment! he had changed, but the alteration in his appearance was, no doubt, intentional.

I tried to listen at the door, but the window being open to the street the noise of the traffic prevented me overhearing anything. High words arose between them, I knew, but upon what subject I failed to ascertain.

I went to the window of the next room and there waited until Madame should call me. But on looking down into the street I distinctly saw the dark figure of a man standing in a door-way opposite—a man whom I recognised as Mr. Gray!

Why was he secretly watching Monsieur?

The latter left half-an-hour later.

I heard the outer door close, and, watching behind the curtain, saw Monsieur walk in the direction of the Opéra, when the man Gray crossed the road and strolled after him.

Then I went in to Madame.

About ten o’clock, the bonne being still absent, I made some black coffee for us both before retiring, and she bade me bring my cup into her room.

The coffee was very strong, but scarcely had I swallowed it when a strange, unaccountable feeling crept over me. A dizziness seized me and my head felt light, as though I were sailing in air.

“I—I’m not well, Madame!” I managed to gasp.

“Not well!” she cried, her face suddenly aflame with hatred. “No, and you will never recover. You have been watching us—and this is your reward for your inquisitiveness!”

I struggled to rise from my chair, but could not.

“Dieu!” I shrieked. “What have you done?”

“I’ve given you your deserts!” she cried, as, hurrying on her coat and hat, she switched off the electric light and left the room.

A moment later I heard her close the outer door of the apartment and turn the key in the lock.

I tried to shout, but the poisonous drug was coursing through my veins, and my tongue refused to utter sound.

I was alone. I felt the coldness of death upon me, and again I struggled to rise, but in doing so fell heavily upon the floor.

Next second I lost consciousness.

When I came to myself I found that I was in bed in a hospital, with three men and a nurse watching me. One of the men, grey-bearded and middle-aged, was, I saw, a doctor, the second was about forty, and evidently an Englishman, while the third was none other than the waiter Jean Valensi!

“Bon Dieu, Mariette!” he cried. “You’ve had a narrow escape. They discovered that I was an agent of the Sûreté, and that we were friends. They suspected you of an intention of betraying them and they meant to get rid of you.”

“An agent of police—you—Jean?” I echoed, rising from my pillow and staring at him.

“Yes,” he said; “and this gentleman is Inspector Allen of the Metropolitan Police, who came over here to secure the arrest of your master and mistress for the Norfolk Square Murder.”

“What was that?” I asked.

“Well, miss,” exclaimed the English detective, “perhaps you’ve not seen the papers lately. Mr. George Bicknell, an elderly gentleman living in Norfolk Square, Hyde Park, was discovered one morning by his butler lying dead in his library with a knife-wound in his chest. Robbery was evidently the object of the crime, for a narcotic had been administered previous to death, and his safe was open, a large sum in bank-notes, bonds and other negotiable securities having been abstracted. The affair puzzled us greatly until we discovered that the old gentleman was acquainted with a certain young lady whom he believed to be a single woman, and to whom he had proposed marriage. We discovered from a taxi-cab driver who happened to be passing that a mysterious lady had called after every one had retired, and had been let into the house by Mr. Bicknell himself. The surmise was that the woman had entered there and had succeeded in administering some narcotic. After that, she had opened the door to admit a male accomplice. They found the key of the safe upon the unfortunate old gentleman, whom they afterwards killed in order to close his lips.”

“And I fortunately succeeded in establishing their identity,” said Jean. “Ralph and Lucy Henniker, alias Farmer, alias Mortimer and a dozen other names, were a pair of well-known thieves who generally operated in big things. They were wanted for the great safe robbery last March at a jeweller’s in the Rue de la Paix, and being suspected I was sent over to follow them and to watch. I traced them to Stamford, where I took a situation as waiter, and where, as you will recollect, mademoiselle, I warned you to be wary,” he laughed. “Well, after the affair in Norfolk Square I lent Inspector Allen your mistress’s photograph, and it was identified as that of the dead man’s mysterious lady friend—while the taxi-driver also swore that it was she whom he had seen entering the house. Inquiries were pressed forward, but by some means Madame Henniker discovered that I was an agent of the French police—perhaps Gray, an accomplice, and a man with many convictions, recognised me. At any rate she escaped here, and I, of course, followed. The pair, however, were a little too clever for us, and though we saw the woman emerge from the house in the Rue Lafayette, not till last night did we ascertain her hiding-place. We watched her, and on going to her apartment found it locked. So we broke it open, and to our surprise found you lying unconscious. An hour later we went to a private hotel behind the Madeleine to arrest Madame’s husband, but he had barred the door, and before we could enter he had raised a revolver to his head and ended his guilty career.”

“And the stolen bonds?” I asked, amazed at the startling revelations.

“Ah! Unfortunately, miss, they were not upon the female prisoner,” replied the English inspector. “They have, I suppose, been placed in security, somewhere or other.”

I told them how I had watched her place them under the mattress of her bed, and an hour later they returned to tell me that the precious documents had been recovered. She had, in her wild frenzy of hatred towards me, gone out and forgotten them!

Madame was extradited to London and subsequently sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude, while I have since heard, through Jean, that Mr. Gray is in prison in Marseilles on a charge of blackmail.

What queer mistresses we sometimes serve!

Ah! là, là!