The Girl from Heavytree Farm

Chapter Four: The Factory of Death

CHAPTER FOUR 

Miss Alma Goddard was not known as an excitable woman. Her idea of a happy evening's entertainment was to put together a collection of press cuttings. Her calm determination during the defence of Heavytree Farm against Dr Oberzohn's 'Old Guard' had won her the wholehearted admiration of Leon and Raymond Poiccart (no one was ever sure what George wholeheartedly admired). 

However, this even-headed lady was currently flustered. Her newspaper cuttings were out of order, her lace collar was creased, her hair was untidy. The reason for this aberrant behaviour was not hard to find. 

Alma had recently acquired a new maid and cook at her flat in Doughty Court, Bloomsbury. They came to the flat in the morning, stayed to make lunch and wash up, and left early in the afternoon. They had been recommended to Alma by her niece Mirabelle Leicester, and she had been very happy to give them a trial. She discovered that Mrs Wallis, the cook, was a very experienced and capable woman, and a very steady pair of hands in the kitchen. The maid, Miss Lucy Baines, was hard working, careful and intelligent. She could trust her with the care of the flat and know that nothing would be broken and nothing valuable would go missing. 

Miss Baines was a friend of Mirabelle's. She called her 'Mary Brown,' because she had first met Mirabelle when she was working under that alias alongside her husband, the crime fighter and 'Just Man', Leon Gonsalez. The two young women always had a lot to talk about whenever Mirabelle came round to the flat. They had even been out socially together, which Alma did not approve of. Lucy Baines was respectable enough - her father was a grocer, an honest tradesman with a shop in north London - but she was not Mirabelle's social equal. 

However, Alma was prepared to put up with the friendship, as (she said), since the Great War many of the old social barriers had been broken down. What had really upset her was that her nephew Mark had come up to London for a visit. 

Mark was now the manager of Heavytree Farm. He had been training as a barrister, but without family money to support him had been unable to complete his training. Now that Mirabelle was rich (with a gold mine in Angola), she could pay Mark to run the farm, but from time to time Mark came up to London to visit his cousin and aunt. He usually stayed at the family flat in Doughty Court, and he and Alma would go out in the evenings to see a play, or even to visit the cinema. 

On this current visit, however, Mark had arrived just as Mirabelle and Lucy were preparing to go out to see a new film, and Mirabelle had invited him to go along with them. By the time they returned that evening, Mark was talking to Lucy as if she was an old friend; he insisted on showing her home, and when he got back to the flat he told his aunt that Lucy was a charming girl of taste and breeding and he was seriously considering asking her to take a walk in the park with him the following afternoon. 

'Mark!' exclaimed his aunt. 'You can't seriously propose courting one of the servants. Miss Baines is not suitable company for you. She's intelligent and a careful worker, but her father is a grocer!' 

'She's much cleverer than I am,' came the response, 'and she has a real head for figures. She'd be a real help on the farm.' 

'I don't want to hear any more about it,' his aunt retorted. 'Don't even speak about it!' 

So Mark said no more to his aunt, but the following morning he spoke to Miss Baines as she served breakfast, and after breakfast his aunt found him chatting to her in the kitchen of the flat, and helping with the drying up. She told him briskly to let Miss Baines get on with her work and chased him out of the kitchen, but later found him helping her with the polishing. She told him to go out for a walk, only to see him later in the Court outside the flats, walking alongside Miss Baines, who had gone out on an errand.