The Aquila Project Read online

  Vanessa Drake, clad in her long black dress, starched white apron and matching cap, tried to look suitably demure and expressionless in her guise of Susan Moore, one of the two housemaids. Mr Quiller, she thought, was a rather faded kind of man, as though a life in service had quenched his spirits, but he had a kindly, agreeable face, and an honest London voice that held an ever-present edge of wit. Somewhere in his mid-fifties, he had lanky grey hair, which tended to fall across his forehead. Listen! What was he saying?

  ‘First,’ said Mr Quiller, ‘a little word about the master and mistress, Baron and Baroness Augustyniak. Let me hear you say it, so that you’ll always get it right: Augustyniak. Good. They are both Polish nobility, and you’ll hear them speaking to each other both in Polish and French, though you’ll be relieved to hear that they are both fluent in English.’

  ‘How do we address them, Mr Quiller?’ asked a rather haughty young woman wearing the cap and ribbons of a house parlour-maid.

  ‘A good question, Partridge,’ Quiller replied. ‘“Sir” and “Madam” will do, as they’re not English nobility. The baron seems to be a very amiable and friendly gentleman. The baroness, I’m told, is a mite temperamental – fond of the occasional scene. So keep a wary eye out in that direction. They’re both great entertainers, and hold frequent dinner parties and receptions, so there’ll be plenty of work for all of us.

  ‘Now, I want everyone to tell everyone else who they are, and where they’ve been in service.’ Vanessa saw the butler smile to himself as he added, ‘Madam, as you know, has her own personal maid, Jeanne, a young French person. She came from Poland with the baroness, and is not part of the household.

  ‘Now, I’ll start with myself. I’m Mr Quiller, butler and wine steward, as one or two of you know already, having worked with me before. I’ve served in some of the best houses, both in Town and out in the sticks, for more than thirty years. Now, let’s hear your names, and a bit about you, starting with the lady on my right.’

  ‘Mrs Stafford, cook general,’ volunteered a rather forbidding woman in a black dress. ‘I was formerly with Sir James and Lady Standish in Eaton Square. And this,’ she added, pointing to a shy girl of fourteen or so standing beside her, ‘is my kitchen maid, Victoria, late of the Langham Hotel, but now trying her hand at private service.’

  One by one, the remaining seven staff introduced themselves. Mary Partridge, house parlour-maid, formerly with Lord and Lady St Pancras. Gladys Jones, chambermaid, various posts in gentlemen’s houses. Ellen Saunders, housemaid, formerly with the late Miss Pepper of Pont Street, Chelsea.

  ‘Susan Moore, housemaid, formerly with Colonel Macdonald of the Indian Cavalry.’

  Vanessa listened to her own nervous, piping voice. Surely they were all looking at her? Didn’t she fit? Could all these genuine servants see that she was an impostor? Who was that gloomy, bewhiskered man standing by the kitchen door? Why was he looking so fixedly at her? Did he—

  Albert Smith, footman, formerly with Mr Seaton Hughes of Putney. Alexander Scott, footman, formerly with Mr Adams of Salisbury.

  The sour-faced bewhiskered man, his cold eye still fixed on Vanessa Drake, was the last to introduce himself.

  ‘Joseph Doyle, coachman, last employed by Captain Wainwright of India Lodge, Hammersmith. Can I get back to the mews, Mr Quiller? There’s a lot to be done since the baron’s last coachman suddenly got a fit of the sulks and left without working out his notice.’

  Without waiting for a reply, Joseph Doyle slipped out of the kitchen door, muttering to himself. Quiller looked after him with a wry smile, and gave his staff permission to begin the morning’s work.

  Vanessa had arrived at White Eagle Lodge, a fine, detached three-storey villa standing in its own well-tended gardens, on the previous day. She had found the house in turmoil, as a number of builders and decorators were still putting the finishing touches to various alterations demanded by Baron Augustyniak when he had moved into the house a month previously. It was only now, on the morning of the 7 July, that Mr Quiller had been able to assemble the new household for his little talk. The other servants had arrived during the earlier part of that week.

  Vanessa had quickly made friends with her fellow housemaid, Ellen Saunders, whose tiny bedroom was next to hers in the attic storey of the house. Ellen was a pretty, unaffected girl of sixteen, who had worked with Mr Quiller before. She had been in domestic service from the age of thirteen.

  ‘Mr Quiller’s had ever such a romantic life, Susan,’ Ellen confided, as they left the kitchen to go about their work. ‘A couple of years ago he was butler to a gentleman in Warwickshire who turned out to be a murderer! He’s not accepted work in the country since then. “London will do me fine, Saunders”, he said to me when we were both working for Mr Leopold Grace in Chiswick.’

  ‘Why did he call you Saunders?’ asked Vanessa. ‘It’s not very friendly, is it?’

  Ellen looked at her new friend in puzzlement. What a funny question to ask!

  ‘Well, I’m a housemaid, aren’t I? What else should he call me? And you’re a housemaid too, which means that you’ll be called Moore, just as I’m called Saunders. Didn’t you know that?’

  Vanessa bit her lip in vexation. Her one day’s intensive training as a housemaid, under the expert tuition of Mrs Prout at Bagot’s Hotel, had taught her a lot, but evidently not enough. She would have to be careful. How rotten it was, to tell lies to this nice, friendly girl!

  ‘Colonel Macdonald always called me Susan,’ said Vanessa. ‘I believe that was the custom in the Indian Cavalry. What do you think of this Baron Augustyniak?’ she asked, hastily changing the subject. ‘Have you seen him yet?’

  Ellen Saunders giggled. ‘The master? Yes, I’ve see him,’ she said. ‘I came here on Tuesday, you see. He’s ever so handsome, and I’m almost certain he winked at me yesterday when I met him on the upstairs landing. A roving eye, that’s what he’s got.’

  ‘What did you do when he winked at you?’

  ‘I did what all maids should do when that kind of thing happens: blush and curtsy, then make yourself scarce! My Miss Pepper taught me that. Madam’s jealous of him, I think. She’s one of those smouldering foreign ladies. But come on, Susan, we’ve got those grates to do in the reception rooms, and the flowers to change.’

  That same evening there were guests to dinner. The dining room at White Eagle Lodge was lofty and well lighted by three long windows looking out on to the rear gardens of the villa. It had been newly furnished, and everything gleamed and glittered in the light of two gas chandeliers, heavy with crystal.

  Vanessa and Ellen Saunders took up their positions against the wall opposite the sideboard, waiting to hand round the dishes. Mr Quiller supervised them, while attending to the pouring of the various wines served with the different courses. It was a nerve-racking experience. Vanessa watched everything that Ellen did, and tried to do the same. There were no accidents, though she saw the butler glance at her quizzically from time to time. Serve from the left, remove from the right…. Or was it the other way round? Mrs Prout, Colonel Kershaw’s secret colleague at Bagot’s Hotel, had taught her all about the different kinds of service: French, Russian, standard silver – but now they all mingled together in her mind in a confusion of panic. Watch Ellen, do as she does, and you’ll be all right….

  Between courses the two girls stood against the wall, staring neutrally into space. Vanessa contrived to examine the company closely through veiled eyelids.

  Baron Augustyniak sat at one end of the long table, dominating the room by the sheer power of his personality. His evening clothes sat easily on his massive frame, their sober black contrasting with his mane of blond hair and his bushy golden beard. The light from the chandeliers glinted off the gold-rimmed monocle that he wore in his right eye. He was inclined to his right, talking in low tones to a little balding man who nodded vigorously at everything that he said. They appeared to be speaking in Polish.

  A raised finger from Quiller sign
alled that it was time to change the plates and serve the next course. Mercifully there were only eight guests that evening, and Vanessa was quick to learn from Ellen’s deft and experienced service. Only once did she catch the baron’s eye fixed on her, but with a little thrill of pleasure she realized that he was merely admiring her, not suspecting her. Ellen had said that the master had a roving eye. Back to the wall.

  At the far end of the table sat Baroness Augustyniak, an impressive woman, with dark hair and flashing eyes. Her extreme haughtiness contrasted with her husband’s natural affability, and she scarcely deigned to speak to the guests sitting to her right and left. She wore a black satin dress, its soberness relieved by the brilliance of her magnificent diamond necklace and bracelet. When Vanessa resumed her place by the wall, she saw the baroness glance briefly at her. There were tears standing in her eyes.

  The eight guests were all earnest, worthy men of middle age, learned experts in the various branches of Polish culture. They spoke English at the table for most of the time, and their conversation was about the endowment and running costs of the projected Polish Institute. It was a dull, worthy evening. The gentlemen did not linger over their port, and the party broke up soon after coffee had been served in the drawing-room.

  Was Colonel Kershaw right in suspecting that Baron Augustyniak was more than he claimed to be? It was early days yet.

  After they had carried all the dishes and cutlery into the kitchen for Victoria to wash, Vanessa and Ellen returned to the dining-room, where they busied themselves in polishing the table and the massive sideboard.

  ‘You don’t know much about service, do you, Susan?’ asked Ellen. ‘When you offered the asparagus dish to that little baldy gentleman sitting on the master’s right, he almost had to stand up to see what you were giving him!’ There was indulgent humour in the girl’s voice, but her remark gave Vanessa an unpleasant jolt. How much longer would she be able to keep up the pretence that she was a trained servant?

  ‘Poor Colonel Macdonald was an invalid, you see,’ said Vanessa. ‘He never entertained at all. That’s why I’m a bit clumsy now.’

  Ellen Saunders chuckled to herself. She continued to polish the dining table with evident devotion to the task, but she glanced mischievously at Vanessa.

  ‘Colonel Fiddlesticks!’ she laughed. ‘You made him up, didn’t you? Where did you really come from, Susan? Did you run away from some man?’

  It was an immediate way out of Vanessa’s dilemma.

  ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone,’ she said.

  On Sunday morning, Baron and Baroness Augustyniak, accompanied by the French maid, attended Mass at the local Roman Catholic church. Mr Quiller told Ellen and Vanessa to blacklead the grate in the drawing-room, and to lay and light a small fire there.

  ‘This man,’ said Vanessa, as she polished the steel fender, ‘was ever so charming at first, and said that he wanted to marry me. His mother and father kept a pawn shop in the Mile End Road, so he had expectations. But then he showed himself to be a fiend in human form.’

  ‘What did he do?’ asked Ellen, pausing with the blacklead brush in her hand. Her eyes sparkled, and her pretty face was animated by curiosity. Vanessa felt quite encouraged. It wasn’t often that she told elaborate lies, and she found that she was quite enjoying it.

  ‘He took me to the Alhambra one night,’ Vanessa continued, ‘and afterwards we went to five different public houses. First he got tipsy, and then he got drunk, and started to hit me. A man who was passing by saw what he was doing, and knocked him down in the street. And then the brute swore something dreadful – words I’d never heard before in my life – and said that he’d have revenge on both of us. He said he had a razor at home, and that he’d come and find me and cut my throat in the night.’

  ‘Coo…’ whispered Ellen, in ecstasy.

  ‘And that’s why I fled,’ Vanessa concluded. ‘I was a seamstress, you know, but a friend managed to get me on the books of Thompson’s Agency. A military friend,’ she added, thinking of Colonel Kershaw. ‘So promise you won’t tell on me?’

  ‘’Course I won’t tell on you,’ said Ellen. ‘All you have to do is watch what I do, and take pattern from me. What was he like, this brute? What was his name?’

  ‘Albert,’ Vanessa replied. ‘He was a giant of a man, with yellow hair, and a long white scar across his face. I don’t know why I fell for him, Ellen. Maybe it was because he was so well-spoken, quite like a gentleman. But there was a demon bottled up inside him, like that Mr Hyde in the story.’

  ‘Coo…’ whispered Ellen, as they left the room together. Her friend Cecil never thumped her, or anyone else, for that matter. And he had no long white scar across his face, only spots, which wasn’t quite the same.

  After lunch, which passed without incident, Quiller told Vanessa to dust and tidy the baron’s study, as he wished to work there on his private papers that afternoon.

  The study was a spacious room at the back of the house, across the entrance passage from the dining-room. It was panelled entirely in white-painted oak, and a number of family portraits hung on the walls. A large desk stood on a Turkey carpet in the centre of the room, and a tall, very ornate set of shelves held a collection of leather-bound books.

  Directly opposite the door there was a finely carved and gilded fireplace, above which had been fixed an heraldic shield showing a crowned white eagle with gold claws and beak, its wings outstretched. The eagle was displayed on a field of bright scarlet. There was a small scroll affixed to the panelling below the shield, and Vanessa stood carefully on the raised fender, steadying herself by her fingertips on the mantelpiece in order to read the single word written on it in black and red: GNIEZNO.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  The baron’s voice, sharp and imperious, almost made Vanessa stumble as she jumped in shock. She hastily turned to face Baron Augustyniak, who had silently entered the study. She remembered Ellen’s advice, dropped her eyes, and curtsied. When she looked up, she saw that the baron was smiling, but she sensed a dangerous gleam in his eyes, as though he had trained himself to remain always on the alert.

  Baron Augustyniak did not wait for her to answer his question. He sat down at his desk, and looked first at her and then at the heraldic shield above the mantelpiece. She had noticed his appreciation of her youthful charms in that brief glance, but was sensible enough to realize that this foreign aristocrat would not let her get beyond his guard.

  ‘It is a dangerous practice, you know,’ said the baron, ‘to stand tiptoe on a fender. One slip, and you would be in the fire. What is your name? I saw you waiting at dinner last night, but your name has slipped my memory.’

  ‘Moore, sir,’ said Vanessa. She stood with her hands clasped in front of her, and her eyes fixed modestly on the carpet.

  ‘Haven’t you another name, my dear – something less formal? Most people have, you know.’

  ‘Susan, sir.’

  ‘Susan. Well, Susan, let me tell you about that shield that you were standing on the fender to admire. That is the White Eagle of Poland, the symbol of our nation since the earliest ages. I don’t suppose you know the story of the White Eagle?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Once upon a time, a thousand years ago, there lived three brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus. They were all warriors, and set out with their followers to find new lands in which to live. They travelled over empty plains and through dense forests, until they came to a mountain peak, where they agreed to part. Czech turned to the west, and discovered the land which is now Bohemia. He was the father of the Czech people, and some say, of the Slovaks, too.’

  Vanessa listened in fascination to the baron’s tale. He was a natural story-teller, and his English was perfect, well modulated and expressive. For the moment she forgot her role as Susan Moore the housemaid.

  ‘What happened to Rus?’ she asked, and then bit her lip in vexation. ‘Susan Moore’ would never have asked such a direct question. The baron smiled, and the d
angerous light leapt once more into his eyes, to be gone in an instant.

  ‘Rus journeyed to the east, and in the vast and boundless lands that he found there he established the peoples who take their name from him: the Russians, the Byelorussians, and the folk of the Ukraine.’

  Baron Augustyniak rose from his desk, and crossed to the mantelpiece. Vanessa moved aside respectfully. She was fascinated by the man’s dominating personality, reassured by his evident kindness and condescension to servants, but at the same time intimidated by the suggestion of ruthlessness evident in the dangerous gleam of his eyes.

  ‘The third brother, whose name was Lech,’ he continued, looking up at the shield, ‘journeyed straight ahead, and came upon a land of towering mountains and fertile plains. And it was there that he saw one day a great white eagle circling round its nest, high on a craggy outcrop. Rays of light from the red setting sun tipped the white eagle’s wings with gold. It was a sign to Lech that he should settle his people there, and this he did. And there, on that shield, you see the great eagle displayed against the red of that setting sun!’

  ‘And that word, sir, written on the little plaque – what does it mean?’

  ‘GNIEZNO? That is Polish for “the eagle’s nest”, and it was under that name that Lech founded a city, which was the first capital of Poland. So there it is, Susan Moore,’ the baron concluded, gathering up some papers from his desk, and moving to the door. ‘You may not be skilled in service at table, but now you know more about the legend of Poland than your friends below-stairs!’

  He held the door open, and Vanessa knew that it was a veiled order for her to leave the study. As she made to obey him, Baron Augustyniak suddenly barred her way.

  ‘And remember what I told you, Susan Moore: young ladies who stand tiptoe on fenders are in great danger of falling into the fire.’