"M'lady, the butcher called personally today about his bill."
"Tell him he will be paid at Lady Whitehaven's convenience, not his own."
"Very good, m'lady. And both the footmen left today."
"You mean they gave notice?"
"No, they just went."
"Wretched people."
"My lady, the rest of the staff are asking when they will get their wages."
"Anything else?"
He looked bewildered. "But what shall I tell them?"
"Tell them I did not answer your question."
"Very good." He hesitated, then said: "I beg to give notice that I shall be leaving at the end of the week."
"Why?"
"All the rest of the Pilasters have dismissed their staff. Mr. Hugh told us we would be paid up to last Friday, but no more, regardless of how long we stay on."
"Get out of my sight, you traitor."
"Very good, my lady."
Augusta told herself she would be glad to see the back of Hastead. She was well rid of the lot of them, rats leaving the sinking ship.
She sipped her milk but the pain in her stomach did not ease.
She looked around the room. Joseph had never let her redecorate it, so it was still done out in the style she had chosen back in 1873, with leather-paper on the walls and heavy brocade curtains, and Joseph's collection of jeweled snuffboxes in a lacquered display cabinet. The room seemed dead, as he was. She wished she could bring him back. None of this would have happened if he were still alive. She had a momentary vision of him standing by the bay window, holding one of his favorite snuffboxes, turning it this way and that to see the play of light on the precious stones. She felt an unfamiliar choking sensation in her throat; and she shook her head to make the vision go away.
Soon Mr. de Graaf or someone like him would move into this bedroom. No doubt he would tear down the curtains and the wallpaper and redecorate, probably in the currently fashionable arts-and-crafts style, with oak paneling and hard rustic chairs.
She would have to move out. She had accepted this, although she pretended otherwise. But she was not going to move to a cramped modern house in St. John's Wood or Clapham, as Madeleine and Clementine had. She could not bear to live in reduced circumstances in London, where she could be seen by people she had once looked down upon.
She was going to leave the country.
