After arriving in London, Kitty was picked up by Lady Dona's carriage where she sat up top with the driver to take in the sights with a map open on her lap. Lady Dona's house was close to the center of the city, very posh and they arrived quite soon passing by a sign on one side saying "Hysteria Treatment - By Appointment" before turning the corner to stop outside the front entrance.
There was a wall around the garden backed by a tall hedge but through the open gateway, Kitty could see a woman waiting for her on the front steps. The driver said he'd take Kitty's luggage and pointed at the woman on the steps saying, "Rose is here to greet you."
Kitty entered the large garden expecting a grand lawn but was surprised to see it was laid out more like some kind of maze with a collection of hedges. Kitty followed the path to meet the woman on the steps who introduced herself as Rose, Dona's secretary and let herself be led inside.
The woman pointed the way up the main staircase as she explained. "Lady Dona is currently indisposed but will greet you at dinner. She asked me to show you to your room and explain a few things. As you can see the house is very large and the internal design was greatly modified by the master of the house. The front half is the family quarters and the rear half is the servant's. Your room was the governess'. It's right at the top I'm afraid but the Mistress thought you might want privacy."
By the time they'd gone up the third flight of stairs, Kitty was puffing. "Here we are," said Rose as she unlocked and then pushed open the door and handed Kitty the keys. The room was large and very pretty with windows looking out over the city.
"Oh this is lovely," she gushed. Then asked what the other door was for.
"It leads to the servant's stairs at the back of the house Miss. The house is like two half houses stuck together so the servants can get to the bedrooms without using the main stairs. It's lockable though."
Kitty nodded, half-listening as she explored the room.
"Also," Rose began then hesitated briefly, "milady likes to entertain... parties and such and she wanted you to be able to avoid them if you wanted to."
"Why would I want to avoid them?" Kitty asked innocently.
Rose opened her mouth then closed it again. "Another thing um ... the house has a lot of hidden passages so the umm servants can get about out of sight so probably best to avoid those and stick to the stairs."
"Okay," said Kitty cheerily not really paying attention.
Just then, Alfred, the driver appeared at the door to the servant's stairs carrying her luggage and Rose finished her talk with, "Right, I'll leave you to get unpacked my dear," and headed off.
After they left Kitty spun around happy at her new home for the year until she got her dowry back and then started to unpack.
*
After an hour or so of unpacking and looking out the windows, Kitty decided to explore and peeked out through the door to the back of the house. There was a short landing followed by an Escher-like cascade of stairways going in various directions. Exploring one she saw a section of wall with a crack along the edge and what looked like a handle. It opened into a small room with what looked like spy holes in the wall which when she stood on a little ledge she could see through to one of the guest bedrooms. Shocked she rapidly left the room wondering if this was part of Dona's husband's blackmail scheme.