A puzzle. A young, unrelated, single girl of undeniable attractions could not possibly be here as a guest of the master, and yet she appeared to be at daggers drawn with the mistress. Most unusually, the young woman had turned up unaccompanied by male escort or lady’s maid. When Mrs. Bolton had offered the services of young Rosie to do the necessary, she’d declined them. Oh, politely enough—there was nothing wrong with her manners—but had there been a touch of supercilious indulgence in her tone as she’d added, “I can tie my own shoelaces and brush my own hair, thank you”? She’d shaken her overly short London haircut and laughed. Mrs. Bolton marked her down as something of a renegade. One of those Bright Young Things. Even the Bloomsbury set when they visited—and they were odd enough—at least brought their maids with them. Maids! Their girls were not required to wear cap and apron, and expected to be called by their Christian names. And those would be borrowed from some Greek goddess, like as not. All that nonsense set a bad enough example, but this latest guest, trailing an atmosphere of unease and defiance in her wake, looked even more disruptive, Mrs. Bolton calculated. A Modern Miss Independent. Might even be a Socialist. She’d bear watching.

Enid Bolton sighed. Three French maids, two warring women and one bemused housekeeper to keep the peace. Tin hats on, she reckoned, should be the order of the day.

“DID YOU GET it? You did? Good girl! Let me see.” The voice was bubbling with eagerness and laughter. Grace’s mistress, sitting in silken pyjamas at her dressing table, put down her hairbrush and examined the contents of the supper tray. She tilted her nose in exaggerated scorn at the square of brown, spongey cake. “So that’s gingerbread. Are you supposed to eat it or bathe with it? I’ll take the cocoa, thank you, but this offering you can put over there on the table by the window. That shall be our laboratory, our home pharmacy. I want you to do the mixing—I can’t be doing with the stinks. Spices always make me sneeze. Now, let’s check we have all the ingredients.”

Grace unlocked a drawer of the bureau and took out four small blue packets bearing the label of the local pharmacy. Her mistress took a crumpled scrap of paper from her jewel box, smoothed it flat and, putting on a country accent, read out the four items scrawled on it. The affected voice was meant to convey the roughness of the handwriting done in indelible pencil: “Rose Mary, Finnigrig, Sinnimun, Oil of Cummin.” She handed it to Grace for inspection.

“All present and correct, ma’am, though the chemist spelled some of them differently,” Grace commented and put it away in her pocket.

“Right-oh. Now you have to mix them all into a paste and spread it over the piece of cake.”

“But they’re mostly powders, ma’am,” Grace said, peering into the packets. “How’m I supposed to make a paste?”

“Oh, don’t be such a weed! Think of something!”

Grace looked about her. “Your cocoa, ma’am? If there’s a drop left in the bottom of the cup … It’ll add to the flavour.”

“Of course! Here, take it. Why don’t you combine all the ingredients in the cup? There, that’s the way. Urgh! How simply ghastly!” Her ladyship held a handkerchief to her nose. “What was that you just put in?”

“That’ll be the cumin. Smells worse than a pigman’s old socks. This fenugreek isn’t much better. Took me ages to get it out of the chemist. Old Morrison pretended not to know what I was on about when I asked for ‘finnigrig’ as it says on your list. ‘It’s a mite special,’ he says, ‘and not for putting about the place.’ And what did I need it for anyway, he wanted to know. He’s a suspicious old cove! I told him cook had requested it to make a curry. Indian gentleman expected at the house next week. That shut him up.”

“You think of everything, Grace. Now mix it all up.”

“Yes, ma’am. Anything else you’d like me to slip in there while I’m at it? ‘Eye of newt? Toe of bat? Adder’s fork?’… How does it go?”

This was greeted with a shriek of laughter. “That’s ‘toe of frog,’ I think you’ll find. And, no, I shan’t be needing any of that rubbish. Not when I’m in possession of bone of toad! That’s the real stuff! Here, Grace, I want you to stir the mixture with this. Careful now! It’s precious! I’m not sure how strong it is. It looks a bit ancient to me. And I’ve sworn to give it back to its owner again in one piece.” She took from amongst the silver toiletry implements on her dressing table tray a three-inch-long piece of bone, the colour of old ivory and forked like a chicken’s wishbone. She handed it to her maid, who took it with a shudder of distaste and stirred the mixture gently with it.

“Now, set the bone to one side to dry out and check in the morning that I’ve got it safely hidden away in my left pocket. It has to be the left because that’s the side the Devil favours or some such rot. The bone’s the important bit of the magic. Absolutely crucial! Nothing works without it.”

Grace dropped it onto the supper tray, turned her back on her mistress and made the sign of the cross over her chest. “Didn’t much care for the feel of that old toad bone in my hand, madam. Cold and soapy. It fair gave me the creeps.” Her voice was pitched unnaturally high with the strain of daring to disagree with her mistress. “Not sure we ought to be fiddling about with magic. It could all turn nasty.”

“Nonsense! Untested magic I would have no truck with, but I’ve seen this work with my own eyes. Magic? It’s practically science! I have my information and instruction from the very best practitioner. Neither of us must breathe a word, though, or we’ll have the clod-hopping peasantry of this whole benighted county vowing vengeance. Mum’s the word, Grace!”

Grace bit her lip and bobbed to show her understanding. Her city-bred mistress forgot—or didn’t care—that her maid was of Suffolk stock herself. She tinkered about for a few minutes more, the homely activity of spreading and slicing the gingerbread calming her. She began rather to enjoy herself, like a child at a dollies’ tea party. “There, that’s all done. It’s neat and in a hand-sized lump, but it’s a bit sticky. I’ll put it into one of these empty chemist’s bags so it won’t spoil the inside of your pocket.”

“Thank you, my dear. Put it away in the closet for the night, will you, and spray my pillows with rosewater. Then you may retire. It’s almost midnight! Leave the door unlocked so that you can come straight in without knocking in the morning. We don’t want to wake the whole house. Just be sure to wake me well before dawn.”

NIGHTTIME SHOWERS HAD left the ground sodden, and Grace was glad she’d had the forethought to search out a pair of gumboots in her mistress’s size in view of her destination. It was quite a hike down to the Home Farm, and at crack of dawn on a misty April morning, the stables were likely to be a bit nasty underfoot. The wind had turned at last, sending rainclouds racing away in tatters, and a slash of pink on the eastern horizon promised a fine fresh morning. In the darkness, Grace could only just make out her ladyship, but she could hear her clearly enough and cringed as she heard her hailing the two stable-boy escorts in her hunting-field voice. She was wearing a sensible riding outfit over which she’d flung a baggy waterproof cape with two large pockets.

The lads, blinking and bleary, answered up shyly, assuring her that all was ready. She turned with a triumphant smile, patted each pocket in a pantomime of exaggerated care for Grace’s benefit and gave a playful farewell flourish of her riding crop.

Grace, from the back doorstep, watched her mistress march off into the morning mist to perform her magic. The maid’s body twitched as training did battle with instinct; dutiful obedience helped her to fight back an almost uncontrollable urge to chase after her and somehow find the words that would persuade her to give up her mad scheme. Resentment and anger flared, and thoughts beginning with “Serve her right if …” had to be quickly censored. The woman had no idea what she was dealing with, the danger she was running into. Grace had done her best. She’d always had her doubts but, this time, she’d taken advice from one who would know and acted on it. It wouldn’t be the first time the maid had deflected harm and criticism from the mistress and always without acknowledgement, let alone thanks.