The Housekeepers(25)

Winnie Smith was hidden in the ivy. “I beg your pardon. Did I startle you?” Winnie peered at her, her cabbage-colored dress covered in detritus from the wall.

“Nobody startles me,” said Mrs. Bone, catching her breath. “What d’you want?”

“I come here to collect Alice’s daily report. I thought you might wish to share your first remarks.”

“Oh, it’s remarks you want, is it? Heavens, let me just fetch my magnifying glass and look at my notes.” Mrs. Bone tutted. “I’ve only been here five minutes. Give me a whole day at least.”

Winnie frowned, and Mrs. Bone sighed, lowering her voice. “Look, the way I see it, I’m going to be cooped up in the kitchens, shoved up the back stairs, or locked in the attics. If I’m going to assess this place, then you need to find me a reason to get into the good part of the house.”

Winnie hesitated. “I’m sure you’ll find a way,” she said.

Mrs. Bone gripped Winnie’s wrist. “I’m not going to be boiled like a load of old petticoats in the laundry room. You can find the way.”

Winnie shook her off. “Very well,” she said, voice hardening. She paused to consider it. “They’d allow the daily woman upstairs if there was a cleaning job that the other girls couldn’t manage. Rough work, you know.”

“I’m not doing anything with blood. And nothing in the privy. Don’t even ask.”

“Look in the dining room. It always gets the worst of the grime—the motor cars are parked right outside the front windows. Find something filthy, and then tell them you’ll clean it.”

Mrs. Bone sucked in her cheeks. “Simple as that, is it?”

“It’ll work, Mrs. Bone.”

“Hmm. Now, you can do something else for me. Have you got the local bobby’s name?”

“What do you need that for?” asked Winnie, dubiously.

“Have you got it or not?”

Winnie frowned. “Not his name. But naturally I’ve kept his beat under observation.” She hesitated, then drew out a notebook from her pocket. Flipped the pages. “He comes around at these times, without fail.” She tore out the piece of paper for Mrs. Bone.

“Hmm,” Mrs. Bone said, approving. “You’re on top of the detail, I’ll grant you that.”

Winnie looked pleased, but made her expression grave. “You really oughtn’t to see a policeman by yourself, Mrs. Bone. Something might go seriously awry. Alice can keep an eye on the mews yard, if you like. The second you go and see him, she’ll hurry down and give you some support. Will that suit?”

“Support? I don’t need support from the sewing maid.” Then Mrs. Bone pondered it. “Scrap that, she’ll be very useful. Tell her to bump into us in the yard.” Mrs. Bone waved Winnie away. “Now, clear off before they see you.”

She hurried as fast as she could back across the mews yard. She was preoccupied, and so she didn’t notice a weaselly little face watching her from the staircase that led to the cellars.

“Whatchoo doing?” it said. “You’re not allowed out there.”

A boy peeped up at her. An errand boy or kitchen boy, she couldn’t remember which.

“Ain’t I?” she said. “Well, whatchoo doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Well then, I’m doing nothing, too, and you can go on doing nothing before I come down there and box your ears.”

He muttered something.

“And I’ll knock your teeth out for good measure,” she called after him.

Little runt, she thought, but she knew a rogue element when she saw one. She could hear the patter of his footsteps all the way down the stairs and away through the cellars. She stopped and paid attention to them, the beat and the rhythm and the direction as he traveled through the foundations of the house, and committed them to memory. Rats always had hiding places. Best not to forget about them.

Mrs. Bone never slept soundly at the best of times. And in this place she feared she’d be lying awake for hours. Sue was tiny, but she was still a whole breathing creature taking up space in the bed. Mrs. Bone’s leg throbbed. The routine here was going to be torture. She was the one doing all the rough work through the dinner service. Cook watched her like a hawk, firing orders every moment.

Mrs. Bone’s mind blinked and flickered, and she tried not to pine for her hidey-hole. Where had Danny slept in this house? Growing up, he had a mattress that was laid crossways to hers. She remembered the smell of him at night: stale breath on the air. Rafters, low beams, sackcloth over the windows…

She must have dropped off, for when she opened her eyes the light outside had shifted, darkened—and someone was knocking softly on the door.

Mrs. Bone sat up straight. “Who’s that?” she said, her body alerting.

Sue lay beside her in the bed, motionless, pressed so low she seemed to have sunk into the bedsprings.

The air whistled faintly up there in the attics. If there had been more light, Mrs. Bone would have got up out of bed and gone to the door, poked her eye to the keyhole, hissed, Go away.

But she didn’t. For reasons she couldn’t explain, her body told her to stay where she was, to be still. Sue didn’t move, didn’t snore, didn’t seem to be living at all. She must have been holding her breath.