The Housekeepers(13)
“Next week,” she said. “I’ll catch up next week.”
“Of course, miss,” they said, all courtesy. “You take your time.”
It would have been better if they’d got out a lead pipe to beat her, if they’d sent her screaming down the lane. Then she could have gone running for help without feeling any shame. As it was, she had the upside-down feeling of being sucked deeper and deeper into something she couldn’t control, something that presaged disaster—for there was only one way things could go with a bad debt. She told no one.
The collectors gave off a strange smell: powdered chalk mixed with gardenias. The scent stayed in her nostrils late at night. She wasn’t sleeping well. Saying her prayers didn’t soothe her in the least.
Protection was what she needed. And Park Lane was perfect. She couldn’t have hoped for somewhere bigger or more fortified if she tried. She left the department store without even giving notice. She gave the wrong forwarding address to Father. Best to unstitch herself from the neighborhood altogether until she could get her cash in hand.
“What’s the fee?” she’d asked Mrs. King.
Mrs. King told her, and Alice felt her chest expand in disbelief. That was all she needed—it was unimaginably more than she needed. As sewing maid, all she needed to do was keep her hands clean and her mending box tidy and watch Miss de Vries. She was even given a room of her own, a tiny box in the breathless heights of the house. That first night, she went down on her knees and recited her catechism three times under her breath. She felt like a thief claiming sanctuary in a church. Ironic, really.
It wasn’t hard to avoid her sister in public. There was one vast table running down the middle of the servants’ hall, and Alice was always seated at the bottom end, above the lamp-and-errand boy and the scullery maids and the endless parade of kitchen maids. The air smelled permanently of boiled meat and stewing fruit, and the pipes clattered without ceasing. Above Alice sat all the housemaids, and then all the house-parlormaids, and then the men: under-footmen, footmen, Mr. Doggett, the chauffeur, and Mr. de Vries’s valet. That wasn’t even counting the electricians, and the gardeners, the family physician, a nurse, three carpenters, half a dozen groomsmen to muck out Mr. de Vries’s stable of horses, the mechanics, or the French chef who came downstairs twice weekly and fought unceasingly with Cook. It was an army big enough to run a country house, let alone an address on Park Lane. The butler, Mr. Shepherd, sat at the head of the table, lord of all, with Mrs. King on his right hand.
They reconvened in secret, in snatched moments. Brisk conversation, no time for affection. It made Alice feel rather lonely.
“Here,” Mrs. King said, tipping out the contents of a box. “Labels.”
Alice picked them up, doubtful. Microscopic letters had been printed all over them. “Labels for what?”
“Instructions. I want them ironed into these skirts.” She dumped a dozen crisp, machine-made petticoats on the bench. “We’ll have new girls coming soon. And I won’t be drilling them myself. They’ll need the plan printed out.”
Alice stared at her in wonder. “And where will you be?”
Mrs. King was aloof. “Never mind about that. Get ironing.”
She didn’t say goodbye. She didn’t even give a warning that she was going. The news broke that morning as the maids were trickling down the back stairs. Mrs. King had been spotted in the gentlemen’s quarters. Mr. Shepherd was having it out with her in the servants’ hall. William, the head footman, was being detained in Mr. Shepherd’s office for questioning.
William? thought Alice. She supposed Dinah might have held a candle for him. He was handsome, certainly—he had glorious golden eyes. He could keep up a decent conversation. She’d told him about the street on which she’d grown up, the hateful behavior of the neighbors, and he’d listened very hard while she was talking, as if what she was saying was peculiarly interesting.
Cook feasted on the scandal. “Fornicators!” she said. “That’s what they were!”
Alice spotted William sitting in Mr. Shepherd’s armchair, the under-footmen guarding the door, face flushed, eyes defiant. He looked puzzled, wrong-footed entirely. It’s beginning, Alice thought, skin tingling. The petticoats were stashed in her wardrobe, the labels ironed beautifully into the hems.
Things in the household began to fall apart the moment Mrs. King left. The breakfast service ran late, the fresh flowers were abandoned in the front hall, one of the still-room shelves collapsed, the electrolier in the front hall started spitting and blinking, and someone saw a pair of rats entering the cellar. One of the house-parlormaids ran downstairs, out of breath, red in the face. “Didn’t you hear the bell? Madam’s asking for the sewing maid. At once.”
Alice glanced up.
“Me?” she said.
Alice took the electric lift. It was in an iron cage, and the other servants always struggled to close the gate, but she never did. Some people just couldn’t work their way around machines. Alice punched a glass button and the cage jerked violently. She felt its teeth clenching, locking, and then it rose slowly through the house. It hummed as it went, an uneasy sound. The hall expanded and then disappeared beneath her. The air changed, grew sweeter, and Alice glided upward to a different realm altogether, one blanketed in a cream-and-gold hush.
The bedroom floor.