The Housekeepers(40)

She went to the window, concentrating hard on the muslins.

“Very well, Madam.” Alice began opening the envelopes. A minute passed.

“Well?” said Miss de Vries.

Alice glanced up. She gave Miss de Vries a furtive look. “I’ve put the declines on this side, Madam.”

“Declines?”

“Acceptances, too, just here.”

“Who has accepted?”

“The general manager of the Quaker Bank. Mrs. Doheny and her son. Charles Fox and Mrs. Fox.”

Bankers. Americans. Industrialists. “And the declines?”

Alice was threshing the envelopes like a machine. “The Marquess of Lansdowne. Lord and Lady Selborne. The Gascoyne-Cecils. Lady Primrose.”

The best neighbors. “Stop,” said Miss de Vries. “I shall go through them myself.”

“But there are dozens, Madam.”

“I said to leave them.”

Alice put the envelopes back on the tray. “Very well,” she said, voice serious again.

Miss de Vries turned to look at her properly. The girl was staring at her and there was something in her eyes that Miss de Vries didn’t exactly like. Not derision, not judgment. A tiny flare of sympathy. “Do you still want to be measured today, Madam?” she said, with care.

It wasn’t a barb. But Miss de Vries took it as one all the same. What use was it to be measured, to be fitted into her gown, if she were only to be seen by fishwives and bankers? Anger fizzled in her skin.

“No,” she said, voice sharp. “Certainly not.”

There was a flash of resignation in Alice’s expression, and she turned to go downstairs. It was as if she knew not to press things. It gave Miss de Vries the sensation of being managed. Of being ever so slightly cared for. It was a peculiar feeling.

“You can go,” she said quickly, to make sure that Alice was leaving because she had ordained it. “I’ll send for you if I need you.”

Afterward, Miss de Vries went to the winter garden and ordered a pot of tea. She drank it in the corner seat, by the window, concealed behind the ferns. She studied Stanhope House, just down the road. Of course they’d come. Soap manufacturers were no trouble at all. Her teacup burned her fingers.

Should she cancel the ball? No, impossible. The ball was like a storm, gathering strength all of its own. She felt its pressure in her skull. It was a bet, and she never feared taking big bets. She’d taken the biggest risk of all already. Of that she had daily proof.

She blew on her tea—cooling it, controlling it, forcing it back into line.

Beneath her, on the pavement, Jane-one and Jane-two were moving in quickstep down Park Lane. They were playing their game. One of them sped up, then the other. You had to be alert; you couldn’t blink. If you did, you’d fall out of step—you’d lose. They ducked and wove their way down the street.

Jane-one rang the tradesmen’s bell. Jane-two slipped a wrench from her pocket to her bag. “Ready?”

She hardly needed to ask. Jane-one nodded. “Ready.”

The butler interviewed them in his office. He smelled of gas lamps, and sweated incessantly. There was a general sense of disorder and confusion in the servants’ hall: the Janes had picked up on it immediately. There were tradesmen waiting at the side door, boxes piling up in the passage outside the kitchen, kitchen maids scurrying around in hectic, directionless circles. This house had lost its circus master. Chaos was creeping in, chuckling all the way.

“We’re presently seeking a housekeeper,” Mr. Shepherd told the girls. “And she would do the interviews. But we’ve yet to find a satisfactory candidate…”

The Janes knew that already. Mrs. King and Hephzibah had paid a call on Mr. Shepherd’s preferred agency. His letters requesting fresh applicants kept going missing. The Janes had snaffled one or two themselves.

Shepherd peered up at them. “You’ve got glowing references. You served a… Mrs. Grandcourt? Correct?”

“Yes,” they said.

“Yes, Mr. Shepherd,” he corrected with a sniff.

“Yes, Mr. Shepherd.”

He scratched his nose. “Hotel trained, are you?” he said.

Jane-one felt him assessing her like a butcher, checking her parts: neck, chest, thighs, waist.

She kept her face blank. “Yes, sir.”

“Thought as much. But you haven’t worked in a big house before?”

“Not as big as this one.”

“Well, that’s quite understandable. Few have, my dear. Are you good Christians?”

They stared at him.

“Well?”

“Yes,” they said in perfect unison. Mrs. King had instructed them in this, too. Mr. Shepherd liked clean, scrubbed-up voices. It indicated a desire for self-improvement.

“Mr. Shepherd is a great advocate of self-improvement,” Winnie Smith had said flatly.

“Show me your hands.”

They shoved their fingers right in his face, making him jump, giving him a whiff of carbolic soap and chemicals.

“Well, very clean. Good nails.” He shuffled his papers again, and Jane-one waggled her fingers. “Yes, that’s fine.” He thought of something. “You know there’s no allowance for sugar or tea in your wages?”

“We don’t drink tea,” said Jane-two.