Page 41 of Once More, My Darling Rogue
“I didn’t miss them; the wind blew them back, just as I predicted it would.”
Marla glanced around, up and down the street where people were going about their day. “I don’t feel any wind.”
“Well, it’s not blowing now, but it was a moment ago.”
Marla’s smile, with her crooked teeth, made her look so young, too young to be doing all this. “You don’t like being told things, but if I don’t tell you how will you remember?”
“I said the same thing to Drake—” Marla’s eyes bugged out, which Phee took to be a reprimand. She supposed there were worse punishments. “—Mr. Darling, that he needed to tell me things but he said I needed to figure it out.”
Marla shrugged her shoulders. “He has his way, I have mine. I’ll scrub down the front step there while you polish the door. I’ve got what we need in my bucket.”
Looking at the dusty door, Phee could only think of one thing to say. “I’m not a very good housekeeper, am I?”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. There’s only you taking care of things.” She handed Phee a cloth, then opened a tin. “We can only do so much in a day. Here now, use the wax to polish the door.”
Marla went down to her knees, took what looked like a brick from her bucket, and began scraping the front step.
“You can just tell me what to do,” Phee told her. “You don’t have to actually do it.”
“I’m not a fancy lady to stand around doin’ nothing all day. Besides, friends help each other, don’t they?”
“I haven’t known you long enough to be your friend.”
Squinting up at her, Marla grinned her crooked toothed grin. “Friendship isn’t measured by time. It can happen in the blink of an eye when you meet someone you like.”
Phee felt an uncomfortable and unfamiliar tightening in the center of her chest. “You like me?”
“Course I do. Wouldn’t be here otherwise. Haven’t you ever met someone and straightaway you knew you’d be friends?”
Had she? Did she have friends? Before she could answer, Marla carried on. “Then sometimes you meet someone and you immediately think, ‘Cor, blimey! Not if she was the last person on earth.’ And don’t you be worrying. I’m going to tell you plenty of things you can do after I leave.”
“Thank you, Marla. I truly appreciate your help. You’re very kind.”
“Doesn’t take any more effort to be kind.”
But it did. The girl was taking time from her own schedule to assist Phee, someone she hardly knew at all. Would Phee be as generous with her time and knowledge? She liked to think she would, but she didn’t know.
Marla nodded toward the door. “Start polishing.”
Turning back to the chore at hand, Phee thought about how surprised and pleased Darling—Mr. Darling—would be the next time he used this door. She did wish that she’d polished it up all nice and glistening for him this morning before he’d returned with the packages. As she ran the cloth repeatedly over the wood, she decided it wasn’t a completely unpleasant task and she liked watching the way her actions transformed the wood from something murky to something clean and pretty. She wished life could be cleaned so easily, but it was far too complicated. Even with no memories, she knew that.
“I’m assuming your Mr. Darling has a laundress,” Marla said.
“Why would you think that?”
“Your hands.” Marla held up her own. “Mine are all rough-looking.”
They were red, chapped. Phee thought they looked years older than the housemaid’s face. While her own were so white and soft.
“You might ask him about the laundress,” Marla said. “To get clothes really clean the water’s got to be hot. When I was first being trained for service, they made me stick my hands in near boiling water.”
Horrified, Phee stopped polishing and simply stared at Marla. Surely she hadn’t heard correctly. She couldn’t think of any response, except “No.”
Marla nodded. “Yeah. You gotta get used to working with the hot water.”
“That’s barbaric. How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
