The Housekeepers(11)

Her first impression was not of the person standing before her. It was of the person hidden within that person. It was just about possible, if you concentrated, to see the girl who’d once worked in the kitchen at Park Lane twenty years ago. A common house sparrow concealed inside a splendid bird of paradise. Her teeth were bared in a smile, pearls choking her neck, hair gleaming and soaring into the air. But the eyes were the same. Cornflower blue, and wide open.

“Hullo, Hephzibah,” said Winnie. She took care to use the new name. It seemed the least she could do.

Hephzibah Grandcourt’s eyes didn’t move. She was an actress, after all. She had the most extraordinary control of her face. She’d possessed that skill even when she worked at Park Lane, back in the days when her hands were yellow from the laundry soap and she always smelled of ammonia. She’d had presence then, and she had presence now, and her expression radiated anger.

“Who told you I was working down here?” she asked.

Winnie straightened. “Nobody. I guessed.”

Hephzibah gave off a powerful scent of sugared fruits and almonds, sickly sweet. “I spotted you from behind the stage, of course.” She flexed her fingers. “I simply couldn’t. Believe. My. Eyes.” She skewered Winnie with her gaze. “Did you come for my autograph?”

Winnie reminded herself to tread carefully. She had known Hephzibah half her life. And when Hephzibah left Park Lane, eighteen years before, Winnie had stayed in touch, with dogged persistence—sending humdrum letters; buying tickets to the Christmas pantomime; being entirely, perfectly, unimpeachably good to Hephzibah. It made Winnie redden with shame now, to think of her own pomposity, her own complete lack of comprehension.

In normal circumstances she and Hephzibah met at tearooms or by the river—on safe and neutral ground. But coming here, onto Hephzibah’s own territory, was a bold move. It threatened the hard-won equilibrium between them. “I wanted to talk to you,” Winnie said.

The usher brought her brandy and a glass of sherry for Hephzibah. It came on a tray with a bowl of cherries that looked as if they’d been dipped in sugar water, obscenely shiny.

“Well, here I am,” said Hephzibah.

“You’re not on the program,” Winnie said. “Aren’t you performing?”

Hephzibah skinned one of the cherries with her teeth. “I’m the understudy,” she said, without emotion.

“The what?”

“The stand-in, the spare. They still pay me for that, you know.”

The air had a sour-apple tint to it. Hephzibah’s nails didn’t stop clicking against the beading of her dress, and it pained Winnie to see her anxiety. “Perhaps I can match the fee,” she said eagerly. “I’ve got a commission for you.”

Hephzibah spit a cherry stone into the bowl. “What does that mean?”

“A job.”

“To do what?” Hephzibah’s eyes darkened.

“To—charm someone,” Winnie said, casting about for the right word. She couldn’t afford to be overheard. She wasn’t used to this sort of business at all.

“Charm someone?”

“Yes! The way only you could do it.”

The silence was dreadful. Hephzibah took another cherry, examined it. “Not all actresses are tarts, you know,” she said.

Winnie felt herself grow cold. “That’s not at all what I mean.”

Hephzibah’s eyes flashed upward. “I don’t need money that badly. I’ve got money.”

“Hephzibah…”

“I’ve got any number of jobs coming.”

Winnie sat forward in her chair. “Let me explain myself,” she said.

Hephzibah snatched the program, held it up to the lamplight. “It’s a bad night tonight. Rough acts, top to bottom. You should’ve come on a Saturday. Then you’d see some talent. Not this rubbish.”

“Hephzibah…”

“If I ran this place, it would go like a dream. I’d write the bloody plays myself. I’ve got a great talent.”

“I know.”

“A rare talent. It deserves proper cultivation.” She sent another cherry stone bouncing into the bowl. Perfect aim. “It’s pretty rich, you marching in here, out of the blue. I haven’t heard from you for months.”

Winnie opened her mouth. Closed it again. “I always write,” she said uneasily.

“And I reply!”

“Well,” said Winnie, not able to help herself, “you send me pictures of yourself.”

Hephzibah shot her a look. “Picture postcards.”

Winnie wilted. “Yes.”

“Very fetching ones.”

Sometimes the moment was presented to you, the window opened just a crack. Winnie forced herself not to be a coward. “Hephzibah. I’m so—” The words came in a rush. “I’m so enormously—sorry.”

That face! Immaculate, the expression smoothing out, like the tide sweeping the sands. Hephzibah said nothing.

Winnie remembered the day Hephzibah had left. Upped and vanished in the night, they said. Yet another runaway. It had infuriated everybody, Winnie included, who’d been left with the task of clearing out Hephzibah’s rubbish and sad, much-mended uniforms.

Dinah King had laughed. “You know how she is,” she’d said. “She’s got dreams. She wants to be onstage.”