She hugged her grandmother tighter than ever when she said goodbye. And then, the next morning, she received another phone call from Albion Tutors.
‘You were a big hit with Sir Gilbert and his family,’ Mr Campion told her, to her surprise. ‘Lady Gunn wants to see you tomorrow. You may be looking at a more permanent post.’
So, once again, Rachel took the train down from Leeds to London. She took the Piccadilly Line to South Kensington and then, after a few minutes’ walk, found herself entering a part of the city where the houses were tall and wide, with polished steps leading up to porticoed entrances, and full-length sash windows looked out over streets which once, she imagined, would have been hushed and cloistered.
Not any more, however. The Gunns’ house was located in a broad avenue called Turngreet Road, and when Rachel walked into it she was confronted by a scene more reminiscent of a building site than a residential backwater. At least half of the houses in the street seemed to be undergoing major reconstruction. There were high, solid, impenetrable hoardings around their front gardens, all emblazoned with the logos of building firms with names like Talisman Construction, Prestige Basements and Vanguard Redesign. Instead of artisans chipping away at brickwork or giving doorframes a delicate lick of paint, there were gigantic cement mixers grinding away deafeningly, huge skips full of bricks and aggregate being transported on industrial hoists, fifty-foot cranes blocking the carriageway while they hauled their massive loads of girders and breezeblocks from one place to another. Yellow signs along the side of the road indicated a series of parking suspensions whereby residents’ bays had been blocked out for months at a time. Gingerly, Rachel picked her way through all this activity, nodding hello to the groups of men standing around at each of the sites, wearing hard hats and high-visibility jackets and holding low-voiced conversations in Eastern European languages. They returned her greetings with impassive stares.
Finally she arrived at what seemed to be the Gunns’ house: Number 13. Like the others, it had a tall hoarding around it. This one was green, and bore the logo of Grierson Basements plc. In the centre of the hoarding was a temporary front door complete with letterbox and alarm system. Rachel had been given a phone number to dial when she reached the house. While she was waiting for the call to be answered she read the warning sign on the hoarding: ‘Under the Health and Safety Act 1974 all persons entering this site must comply with all regulations under this act. All visitors must report to the site office and obtain permission to proceed on to the site or any work area. Safety signs and procedures must be observed and personal protection and safety equipment must be used at all times.’ Another sign simply said: ‘No unauthorized entry’. She began to feel that putting on her smartest work clothes may have been a mistake.
A voice at the other end of the line, with a slight foreign — perhaps Far Eastern? — accent, said: ‘Miss Wells?’, at which precise moment a pneumatic drill started up behind one of the nearby hoardings, making conversation all but impossible. ‘Yes?’ Rachel shouted into the phone, and then the voice said something indistinct and the call ended. While she was wondering what to do, and whether she was expected to dial again, the temporary green door was pulled open and the welcoming face of a housemaid appeared. Her skin was dark brown, her hair thick, black and wiry, but Rachel could not be sure of her ethnic origin.
‘Miss Wells? Please, come in. She is waiting for you.’
Following the maid, Rachel weaved her way past a toilet cubicle and a temporary site office, towards the front stairs of the house. She could not help noticing that the site was deserted and appeared to have been abandoned some time ago. Then they were up the stairs and had gained the sanctuary of the hallway, where calm, for the moment, seemed to reign.
Rachel was shown into a sitting room — or, as she supposed one should call it, a drawing room — which ran the length of the house. Bookshelves lined the walls and by the window at the far end stood a grand piano with an album of Chopin mazurkas standing open on the music stand. Everything looked pristine; almost untouched.
Madiana entered the room accompanied by a large and beautiful golden retriever, who proceeded to sniff at Rachel’s legs curiously and lick her on the hand. Madiana grabbed the dog by the collar and gave him a reproving slap.
‘All right, Mortimer, that’s enough,’ she said. The dog sat down beside her, panting but clearly chastened. Madiana greeted Rachel courteously but without warmth, and then proceeded to explain her business: she had decided to take on a live-in tutor for the twins, who were in Year 4 at the local prep school. She wanted them to do extra reading, extra maths, and to start learning French, Latin, Russian and Mandarin.
‘You will live in this house,’ she said. ‘Faustina brings the girls back from school at three thirty. They will rest and have a snack and then you will teach them from four o’clock until seven o’clock. The rest of the time is your own.’
‘What about Lucas?’
The subject of Lucas, clearly, did not interest Madiana as much as her own daughters did. ‘He’s back at school,’ she said. ‘Some weekends he will come home. When he does, you must carry on with whatever you were doing with him before. You know what you will be paid, yes? I mean, it’s all agreed with the agency.’
‘Yes,’ said Rachel.
‘So, you agree?’
It seemed that an instant decision was expected. In fact, it wasn’t a difficult one to make.
‘Yes. Of course. Thank you very much.’
‘Come with me. I’ll show you where you will live.’
Cautioning the dog to stay where he was, Madiana led Rachel into the hallway and up the main staircase. (It was one of the very few times she would ever use it.) The two girls, Grace and Sophia, lived mainly on the second floor of the house. They had a bedroom each, a shared bathroom, a study room and a large playroom equipped with everything from a table-tennis table to two PlayStation controllers and a monitor which took up most of the largest wall.
‘What a lovely room for them to play in,’ said Rachel.
‘It is not big enough,’ said Madiana, dismissively. ‘We are making them a bigger one downstairs, once these ridiculous arguments are resolved.’
She did not specify what these arguments were about or who they were with, and Rachel did not feel bold enough to ask. Doubtless all would become clear.
‘This is the door,’ said Madiana, indicating a white-panelled door in the wall of the landing, ‘that leads to your part of the house.’
Rachel was only half listening. Passing the girls’ bathroom, she noticed that the walls and ceiling were painted with gold leaf, and standing at the centre was an extraordinary item of furniture: a small roll-top bath, but not just any bath — it appeared to be a diamanté bath — studded all over with fake diamonds. At least she assumed (or rather hoped) that they were fake. In any case, she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.
‘You are listening?’ said Madiana.
‘Yes, of course.’
Her new employer ushered her through the door. It led to another small landing, with narrow stairs leading both up and down. Madiana closed the door behind them and Rachel noticed that, on this side, the door was completely concealed by a full-length, gilt-framed mirror, and was also equipped with a keypad.