The next few months were constant activity, arranging the house, both the private household and the House proper, but Manon thought gradually things seemed to be coming together.
The twins were kept busy, initially because they shouldered a lot of the work keeping the household running, supervising temporary staff and keeping an eye on them, and then as that got more organised with new staff, they were running what had rapidly becoming their own little intelligence network for me.
More than a few of Manon's shadier contacts from the time she and Belle had spent mixing with some of London's less reputable citizens proved to be a useful source of people for the twins. These were sent out when enquiries had to made by someone in person, because the twins had to very careful what use they made of the Wardrobe's official resources.
Tracking Miss Tolley had proved to be a dead end, at least for now. After a lot work had they found she had travelled by ship from London to Hamburg in Germany, but after that her trail went cold. Manon, Belle and the twins all found the way she had quickly become so hard to track, and then vanished, peculiar if not outright suspicious.
Nicola, the girl who had attacked Manon and been enslaved and sold, had been sergeant in Miss Tolley's Caroline House, and they had been to say the least very close, given that Nicola was often to be found naked in Miss Tolley's rooms, serving her.
This also made Manon and her girls even more sure that Belle's suggestion that Nicola's sister, Sephanie, was the same Stephanie as had penned the note to Manon, but so far hard evidence to support that or refute it was lacking.
Work on identifying the Wardrobe's leak was continuous but for now at least had not led anywhere either. The twins were going through the records of every case in the Wardrobe's files for the last three years, tracking which staff had access to the information about the case and when, and looking at what had happened.
Domestically, Mrs Birch had been retained as Manon's housekeeper, and soon turned out to be invaluable. She had a small but remarkably efficient staff running surprisingly quickly, and Manon had, with public grace and private impatience, resumed a social round, accepting invitations to tea or morning coffee and giving out her own, now that the house was running smoothly.
Manon hadn't made any progress on working out how to make the private household, her inner core of slaves and lovers work in the longer run, but reluctantly she and Belle had agreed it wasn't a priority, but hopefully that was about to change, if the visits went well.
Manon, while musing on all this, is sitting in a coach that she has hired, with Christy and her younger sister Fliss on their way to the senior school from Woodbridge, where Fliss is due to spend 2 days, staying overnight. Melissa is driving the coach, and Belle has opted to keep her company, sitting with her on the driver's seat.
Fliss is very quiet, and equal parts nerves and excitement, gripping her sister's hand tightly. Looking at Christy, Manon thought she was if anything more nervous than Fliss. The school had sent a uniform for Fliss, so that she didn't feel out of place when she was there, and Belle had got all nostalgic as she had once been to the same school, and worn that uniform.
Manon had needed to visit the school anyway, in search of information on the mysterious Stephanie who had been a pupil at the school and been expelled when her sister caused so much trouble at College, and both Christy and Fliss had been eager to have company on the visit.
Manon was going on to the College after delivering Fliss, after investigating what the School records had to say, if anything about Stephanie. There was perhaps more information to be found on Nicola's fate at the College, or so Manon hoped.
Also the College headmistress, Miss Minniver, once her and Belle's housemistress, had arranged for Manon to see Katie, in effect to interview her, to see if she would come to London to work for Manon and run the inner household.
Miss Minniver had been oddly keen that the offer should be put to Katie, which puzzled Manon a little. Manon knew that Katie was important to the running of the College, so to be willing to sell a valued slave so easily seemed odd.
Back at the house Janine would be hard at work, training with the recruits for the house guard, who with a lot of help from Sir James had proved easier to come by than Manon had feared. 2 women, 4 men, a mix of ex-police and army, they had been an easy pick for Manon. They had all been recommended by Janine who done the hard work of getting to a short list from a much longer list of candidates, more than vindicating Manon's faith in her.
Janine was now almost totally recovered from her burns, the only sign of them being the black leather protective glove that she wore on her left hand at all times. Mrs Chapman had excelled herself, spending an hour with Christy discussing in detail what the Doctor wanted for her patient and meticulously measuring Janine's hand to ensure the right fit. All this after Melissa and Janine had already undergone a somewhat invasive process of being measured, while naked in the playroom.
Manon had ordered them an outfit each, which they had of course guessed, but she had point blank refused to tell them what it was, so as not to spoil the surprise. The outfits were due to be delivered any day now, and Manon grinned to herself, looking forward to that.
On arrival at the School, they were greeted by Miss Franklin, who had charge of the year 13s who led Fliss, Christy and Manon into her office, while Belle stayed with Melissa. The horses needed to be fed and watered and Belle went with her so that she could guide her back, as she knew her way around, having once been a pupil here herself.
"Well Fliss," Miss Franklin said as she sat at her desk. Fliss was standing nervously next to her sister, who was sat on one of the two chairs in front of the desk, Manon on the other. Manon hadn't wanted to be here, feeling that she would be intruding, but both Christy and Fliss had asked her to stay.
A girl of about Fliss's age had been waiting in the corridor, and Miss Franklin ushered her in with them, and she stood quietly at the back of the room, but had given Fliss a quick smile as they passed each other. Neatly turned out in the same uniform of course, and the sort of perfectly innocent look that Manon associated with young people who were in practice anything but.
"I am very pleased to meet you," Miss Franklin said. "Now I think you know what we have planned for you? You spend today and tomorrow with the class you would join if you attend school here, and stay overnight in their dormitory tonight?"
"Yes miss," Fliss said, looking very nervous still and being quite atypically subdued.
"Well, I know that may seem scary, since I gather you haven't stayed away from your sister before, but a lot of girls that join us have never stayed away from home before, so we will help you with that," Miss Franklin said. "Mary, come here please?" she said, and the girl came and stood next to Fliss.
"Fliss this is Mary Nolan, and you will be spending the next two days in her class and so she will be looking out for you during that time. When a new girl joins us like you are, I'd probably ask an older girl to look out for her for a few days, but since you are just visiting, and the purpose of that is so that you can see if you want to join us, I thought it better that a classmate takes the role."
"Oh, thank you miss," Fliss said. "May I ask a question please?"
"Of course you may," Miss Franklin said. "We are a school dear, our whole job is about getting our girls to ask questions and helping them find answers."
"Oh, well. I thought I was visiting so that you could decide if you wanted me here?" Fliss asked.
Miss Franklin laughed a little, "Oh no dear, well not quite. I suppose it is possible that you might be so horrible we wouldn't want you to attend, but even in this short time I can tell you aren't like that, not that I expected you to be."
