All guests will eat dinner together at least four times per week.
All guests must gather in the drawing room after dinner for at least an hour at least four times per week. We feel it fosters a sense of friendship and the warm, familial, congenial atmosphere we strive to create here at The Grand Palace on the Thames.
All guests should be quietly respectful and courteous of other guests at all times, though spirited discourse is welcome.
Guests may entertain other guests in the drawing room.
Curfew is at 11:00 p.m. The front door will be securely locked then. You will need to wait until morning to be admitted if you miss curfew.
If the proprietresses collectively decide that a transgression or series of transgressions warrants your eviction from The Grand Palace on the Thames, you will find your belongings neatly packed and placed near the front door. You will not be refunded the balance of your rent.
A new one had been recently added:
Gentlemen may smoke in the Smoking Room only.
Mr. Delacorte had made this mistake only once, but they could imagine it being made again, and thought it wisest to get ahead of the problem.
“They really are so exquisitely well considered, your rules,” he said.
“We’re pleased that you think so. And oh, what a marvelous idea, Mr. Tweedy. We can hang them in each room, perhaps, stitched on a sampler,” Angelique added dreamily. “We do, in fact, always welcome suggestions from our staff.”
“I so long to be listened to,” he said wistfully.
“It’s all anybody ever wants, truly,” Delilah said warmly. She did not go so far as to place a companionable hand on his arm, but the moment seemed to call for it.
Mr. Tweedy had informed them that he was obliged to meet with two other potential employers—and one was a marquess, he added, with becoming modesty—but he had agreed to return a week hence for a tourof the premises and to meet the entire staff. They lied and told him they needed to speak to their other candidates, too, because they might be in love, but they were also women of business.
Today was the day he’d be returning for the second interview. And unless he arrived drunk or pinched a bottom or a spoon, they were going to offer him the job.
Not only that, but in a week’s time they were expecting Mr. Bellingham, a vicar who had learned of The Grand Palace on the Thames from his parishioners, Mr. and Mrs. Farraday, who were among the boardinghouse’s very first guests. They’d extolled the charms of the place to him. Mr. Bellingham’s two letters of inquiry to them brimmed with such wit and charming little bits of vicarish philosophy and anecdotes about an intelligent chicken named Eleanor that Delilah and Angelique had actually read them aloud to the other guests in the sitting room at night. Everyone who lived at the boardinghouse felt they were already fond of Mr. Bellingham. They quite looked forward to his arrival.
Mr. Delacorte was prepared to stoically tolerate a vicar. After all, he’d tolerated a duke and an earl, and this had been no mean feat. He liked to think that these sorts of guests were opportunities to further refine his character, a task roughly akin to tumbling a lump of coal into a diamond, and the sort of task which under different circumstances would take epochs to complete. He maintained the ladies at The Grand Palace on the Thames were knocking the rough edges from him.
“The Duke of Valkirk turned out to be a good sort, after all,” Mr. Delacorte allowed. “And his wedding was great fun! I still sing the song Miss Wylde wroteabout the chap with the stick up ’is bum when I shave. I miss them.”
Mr. Delacorte was a sentimental soul. He missed everyone after they left. He was not only fond of Captain Hardy and Lord Bolt—he was now their business partner. He was soon to be godfather to Mr. Hugh Cassidy’s child. But no one yet had been able to replace American Mr. Cassidy in his affections. Like Mr. Delacorte, Mr. Cassidy was thrifty and not a debaucher, and was game for an evening of singing bawdy songs in a pub, donkey races, or cheering on men who gleefully pursued greased pigs.
On the whole, as a result, the present atmosphere at The Grand Palace on the Thames was as ebullient and hopeful as the first day of spring.
“Good morning,” Delilah whispered to Angelique, when they had met in the little sitting room at the top of the stairs. Here was where they began and ended each day—with a little conversation and a review of the day’s business. “Happy New Footman Day, hopefully. You look smashing.”
Delilah and Angelique had felt so flush with success that they’d ordered a new day dress each, their first new dresses in a very long time. Delilah in silk the color of bronze, Angelique in deep goldish green.
“Thank you. As do you,” Angelique said. “Surely puffed sleeves are the thing that will convince Mr. Tweedy that there’s no place he’d rather work in London.”
Delilah stifled a laugh. She reached for her apron to cover the fine new dress.
“Mrs. Hardy! Mrs. Durand!”
They both gave a start and whirled to find Dot thundering up the stairs, her face alight with portent.“We’ve a lady in the reception room. And by lady I do mean a lady. As in I’ll eat my cap if she hasn’t a title.But... shesaysshe’s a missus. A Mrs. Gallagher.”
“I imagine Helga could do something to make your cap palatable, if it comes to that, Dot.” Angelique reached out and with one finger righted Dot’s, which was listing. “Palatable means edible,” she clarified for Dot.
“Pal-a-ta-bull,” Dot repeated. She was many things: a collector of words, the former worst lady’s maid in the world, a dweller in the clouds, a lover of horrid novels, a dropper of tea trays, unswervingly good and loyal, and a continual source of bemusement, amusement, and exasperation. They could not do without her.
And she most definitely knew the distinction between ladies and... not ladies.
“Hmm. As you know, I was once married to an earl, Dot,” Delilah said. “Perhaps it’s like that?”