Chapter 3 - Eleven Maids
Maya eventually learned why the other maids left.
It wasn't the room.
Not exactly.
It was Arthur.
After Eleanor and Isabelle died, the mansion became a museum.
Arthur wanted everything preserved.
Then became furious whenever preservation reminded him of what he'd lost.
A maid dusted Isabelle's photograph.
Fired.
Another moved Eleanor's vase.
Fired.
One accidentally entered the locked room after a contractor left it open.
Arthur screamed until she quit.
Another broke a teacup Eleanor had purchased in France.
Arthur deducted nothing from her salary.
He simply stopped speaking to her.
She lasted two weeks.
The tests came later.
Money.
Jewelry.
Private documents.
Arthur didn't trust anyone.
Then punished them for feeling distrusted.
Maya confronted him.
“Eleven people didn't fail you.”
Arthur looked up from his newspaper.
“Excuse me?”
“You failed eleven employees.”
His expression hardened.
“Mrs. Gordon talks too much.”
“She didn't tell me everything.”
“Then how?”
“People talk.”
“Maya.”
“You want everyone to behave like this house isn't full of land mines.”
His eyes flashed.
“Careful.”
“No.”
That word.
Again.
Arthur hated it.
And needed it.
“You hire people to clean, then punish them for touching things.”
“They're given instructions.”
“You leave money around to see whether they're thieves.”
“That stopped.”
“Because I caught you.”
“Yes.”
She stopped.
He'd admitted it.
Progress.
Then Arthur asked:
“Why do you care?”
“Because I work here.”
“You could leave.”
Maya's jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Arthur immediately regretted it.
She saw.
“That's what rich people say when they know leaving costs the other person more.”
He put down the paper.
“I didn't mean it that way.”
“But you can always mean it that way.”
Arthur stared.
Maya continued.
“If you want people to stay, stop making them prove they deserve to.”
Then she walked away.
That evening Arthur asked Mrs. Gordon for the personnel files of all eleven former maids.
He contacted each.
Eight answered.
Arthur apologized.
Not perfectly.
One laughed in his face.
One hung up.
Three accepted.
One told him:
“You terrified me.”
Arthur didn't defend himself.
Another said:
“Your grief wasn't my fault.”
He wrote that sentence down.
Then stared at it for a long time.
Maya never knew.
May you like
Not then.
But something inside Arthur had begun moving again.
