The Housekeepers(38)

They brought her tea and cake on the dessert trolley, wheeling it in at top speed. The teapot rattled alarmingly.

“Sugar, Mrs. King?”

“Two,” she said. She wanted something sweet, something comforting. It surprised her. Perhaps she was feeling the tiniest bit lonely, kicking her heels out on the docks.

I can live anywhere I like when this is done, she mused. But where would that be? She didn’t allow herself to think too far ahead. It led to complacency. She had no tolerance for that.

Jane-one dragged a pair of ropes across the floorboards. They hissed as they came. “This is our swing,” she said. Mrs. King studied it. Four ropes, four handlebars, two wooden bars. They looked fearfully delicate. “You need a good, solid hook when you’re doing trapeze,” said Jane-one. “Will we have one?”

Mrs. King thought about it. “We can get the chandelier out of the way for you. Use the hook on the dome in the hall.”

“What sort of dome?”

“Glass.”

“Reinforced with?”

“Steel, I suppose.”

“Very well.” The Janes nodded.

Mrs. King felt, not for the first time, that they were schooling her in this job, not the other way around. “Good. Alice can make sure you get a look at it.”

A spark of something crossed Jane-one’s face. Jane-two closed her eyes.

“What?” said Mrs. King.

“Nothing,” said Jane-one.

They folded their arms, inscrutable.

Mrs. King laughed. “Don’t tell me you’ve formed an enmity against my sister.”

“She strikes us as a changeable sort of person,” said Jane-two.

“Moony,” said Jane-one. “A milksop.”

“That’s hardly fair,” said Mrs. King. “You’ve only met the girl once.”

“We have eyes,” said Jane-one. “We have our instincts.”

“We’re using our voices,” added Jane-two, witheringly, “as instructed, to indicate a risk.”

“No use putting a canary in the coal mine when it doesn’t have a nose for gas,” said Jane-one. “Alice Parker’s got eyeballs as big as saucers. You could run rings all around her, easy as pie. I know the sort.”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. King, laughing again. “Alice has a good head on her shoulders. Trust me.” She steered the Janes out of the room. “Back to work.”

But later she pondered it. She remembered carrying her sister in her arms as an infant. Alice used to turn so red, cry so much.

Mrs. Bone had been the first one to clock it, years before. “Is Baby running a fever?” she said once.

“Don’t think so.”

“Then what’s she working herself up about?”

Alice had been beating the air with her little fists, pulsing with energy, lolling and struggling. It went on forever. When she finished, she looked gray and wan and spent.

“Like a weather vane,” said Mrs. Bone. “Doesn’t know which way she’s blowing.”

Mrs. King had hated looking after Alice. It made her long to climb the drainpipe, scale the roof, run and hide. It had felt wicked and marvelous when she didn’t have to do it anymore, when she left Alice and Mother and Mr. Parker behind, and entered Park Lane.

She recalled the day she left home so well. Mother was in her chair by the mantelpiece. There was a fierce buzzing coming from the corner of the room, a wasp trapped in spider threads, trying to escape. The dust on the hearth had congealed, growing sticky. Mother’s expression was worse than usual, frayed around the edges. A man with a shiny coat and silvery hair was sitting in Mr. Parker’s chair. He had his hand pressed on Mother’s wrist. It wasn’t a friendly gesture.

“You should find yourself under no anxiety,” he said.

Mrs. King had been standing in the doorway. She raised her voice. “What are you saying to her?” she asked. She felt afraid, but she put it in a box.

The silver-haired man turned. She remembered the look. Long, frank, disinterested. “Many things, young lady,” he said. “And not for your ears.”

“Dinah…” Mother said.

It wasn’t an instruction, or even a plea—but Mrs. King came in, arms steady, and lifted Alice from Mother’s lap. She averted her eyes. She didn’t want to see the vacant parts of Mother’s expression.

“Your daughter will find herself in an excellent position,” said the gentleman. “A privileged position. She will earn a very comfortable wage. She might be able to send something home.”

Mother faced the grimy window, and she took the daylight with her, sucked it into her skin. “I don’t know,” she said.

Mrs. King remembered the feeling in her gut, an understanding that she was being discussed. That something was being arranged on her behalf.

“Splendid, Mrs. Parker,” said the gentleman. He released her wrist, and examined his nails. “We’ll send a man to fetch young Dinah tonight.”

Mrs. King remembered shifting Alice in her arms. “Why?” she asked.

Nowadays she’d demand an answer. By any means necessary. It would be inconceivable not to get it. But back then, when she was only a girl, it wasn’t inconceivable.

The gentleman looked at her again. “Hold your tongue,” he told her.