Free Finding Margo by Susanne O'Leary Page A

back and make me some really strong coffee.”
    Margo took the cup back to the kitchen. “It’s too weak,” she said.
    Justine, who was sitting by the table enjoying her own breakfast while she read the morning paper, didn’t lift her eyes from the front page.
    “Give it a minute, then take it back again,” she muttered through a mouthful of bread and jam.
    “What? But shouldn’t I—” Margo gestured towards the coffee pot.
    “She won’t notice. She only complains because she wants to be difficult. She thinks it makes her important.”
    Margo walked back with the coffee which, as Justine had predicted, the Comtesse accepted without question.
    “No good, that woman,” she muttered, cutting her bread roll in half. “Getting too old and confused. I should get rid of her, but she has nowhere to go. Been in the family for generations.”
    “I see,” Margo mumbled. She turned to leave.
    “Where are you going?”
    “I thought I’d go and—until you’ve finished your breakfast.
    “The newspaper. Give it to me.”
    “Oh, right. Where—”
    “It should be on my tray. That woman has forgotten it again. Go and get it, and come back here at once.”
    “Right away.” As Margo walked out of the room yet again, she had the peculiar sensation of playing the part of some kind of a go-between in an elaborate minuet.
    “I would leave, but she can’t manage without me,” Justine said in the kitchen, handing Margo the newspaper. “I should go and live with my cousin in Tours. She has been asking me for years.” Justine shook her head. “But I can’t leave the family. They need me badly.”
    Back in the bedroom, the Comtesse was waiting impatiently. “My eyes are a little dry this morning. I would like you to read the paper to me. Start with the first page. The headlines. Then the main stories, the theatre, and book reviews, and the social pages. Then the weather. In that order.”
    “In French?”
    “Of course,” the Comtesse barked. “What else? You might as well practice.”
    Margo read the newspaper, having her pronunciation corrected at nearly every word. When the Comtesse was satisfied she was au fait with what was going on in the world, she announced she was getting up.
    “Draw me a bath,” she ordered, “and lay out my clothes. The blue linen Chanel today, I think. Cream shoes and handbag. Fresh underwear. You’ll find it all in the dressing room.”
    It took Margo some time to find, first the dressing room, then the required items in one of the huge oak wardrobes that lined the walls of the dark and gloomy room. The wardrobes were full to bursting with beautiful clothes squashed together in no particular order. When she finally spotted a pale blue linen ensemble and had rummaged around on the floor of the wardrobe for the shoes, she went back to the bedroom, where the Comtesse was pacing up and down on the carpet, talking rapidly into a mobile phone. Margo blinked and stared. The Comtesse was fully dressed in a blue linen dress, beige Chanel sling-back shoes, and her hair and make-up were immaculate. She switched off her phone and stared at Margo. “Where have you been?”
    Margo held up the clothes. “I went to get—” she stammered. “You said the dressing room.”
    “ Mon dieu,” the Comtesse exclaimed, throwing her hands up. “Not that room! You must have gone in the wrong direction. That is my vintage collection you have been going through. Did I not tell you to go to the dressing room?”
    “Yes, but I thought that was ...” Margo’s voice trailed away.
    “No, no!’ The Comtesse walked across the room and threw a door open. “In here. This is where my current wardrobe is kept. What you have there is the pre-nineteen-eighties clothes.”
    “Oh. I see.”
    “Yes.” The Comtesse sighed with the exasperation of someone forced to be kind to a very small and very slow child. “Hang those clothes back, please. Exactly where you found them.”
    “All right, Milady.”
    “Good. I