The Housekeepers(52)

Far in the distance, through the thick chapel walls, Alice could hear a motor making its way around the edge of the park.

“I’m not sure, Madam,” she said. “I’m not sure I have the skills.”

“Well, do you understand hair? Paints and powders?”

“No,” Alice said. She felt a tiny bead of sweat forming on her neck.

“And what of foreign tongues?”

“Tongues?”

“Yes, have you any? French? German?”

Alice shook her head, wordless.

“And no Italian, I suppose. More’s the pity. I’d take you with me on honeymoon of course.” She closed her eyes. “Florence, naturally. It would be expected.” She opened her eyes. “Have you ever seen a picture of the Grand Hotel?”

Miss de Vries flipped open her prayer book, pulled out a picture postcard of a modern, brash-looking building, inscribed Grand Hotel Baglioni. “Charming, isn’t it? The principal suites are supposed to be very fine indeed. And of course I’d have a connecting room for you, next door.” She paused, as if weighing her words. “You’d live in the same style as me,” she said, “in all my residences.”

Alice could feel something shifting underfoot, like quicksand, sucking her in. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasurable sensation. She forced her mind away from it. “But shouldn’t you be sorry,” she said, “to leave this house?”

Miss de Vries gave her a long look. Then she turned her face up to the painted angels, expression dead. “Naturally I shall,” she said. “It will be the most enormous wrench.”

There was something so darkly coiled within her tone that it made Alice shiver.

“I have none of the qualifications you need,” she said weakly.

“I could instruct you, if you wish. Create a pearl from scratch.” The swaying lamplight illuminated Miss de Vries’s pale skin, throwing her veil into sharp relief. “You have a gift, when it comes to dressmaking. You may as well round out your advantages. Make the most of yourself, while you can.”

Alice pictured Mrs. King’s face in her mind, dark-eyed and worried. She knew the safest reply. Very kind of you to suggest it, Madam. Something to think about, Madam. Do allow me to consider your kind invitation, Madam. Tomorrow night this job would be over and done with and Alice would vanish from Park Lane forever. So it had been planned; so it had to be.

“Very kind of you to suggest it, Madam,” she said, and imagined Mrs. King’s expression relaxing in her mind.

Miss de Vries pressed her lips together, face tightening. It made Alice feel a twist of regret—a quick and guilty sensation, something to try to ignore, but there: absolutely there.

21

The night before the ball

1:30 a.m.

Mrs. Bone waited until Sue fell asleep, and then she opened the bedroom door. She didn’t care if someone caught her in the passage. She was going to confront Mrs. King, come hell or high water.

She nearly ran down to the bottom of the garden. The whole place was alive with silent activity, men streaming over the walls. They bent double as they crossed in front of the house, ducking behind pillars and urns. Mrs. Bone saw them crawling up the pale, blank face of the house on rope ladders. In normal circumstances she would have watched with grim satisfaction, praying that the moon stayed behind the clouds. But she had bigger problems now. The air was sticky, clinging to her scalp.

Mrs. King was standing with Winnie by one of the pools at the bottom of the garden, concealed by trellises and vines. They started at the sight of Mrs. Bone.

“You,” Mrs. Bone said. “I want a word.” Her lungs felt too tight. She banged her chest with a fist, trying to knock them into order. “The girls,” she said. “What’s happening to the girls?”

Winnie paled. Her eyes widened.

Mrs. Bone jabbed Mrs. King’s arm with her finger. “I know a bad business when I see it. I can smell it a mile off. I’m not a fool. Someone’s using these girls. Getting ’em out of bed at all hours. I know what that means.” Mrs. Bone jabbed her again, harder. “You brought me in here under false pretenses.”

Winnie sucked in her breath. “No, Mrs. Bone.”

“I’ve been making a fool of myself, crawling around on my hands and knees, wiping everyone’s arses. You should have told me what I was getting into. It’s sick; it’s rotten. I’ve never let myself get anywhere near this sort of business.”

At first Mrs. King looked entirely nonplussed. But then something moved in her eyes, a slow and creeping fear.

It made Mrs. Bone clench her fists. “What sort of house was you running here?” she said.

Winnie raised a hand. “Please don’t,” she said, voice constricted. “Don’t put this on Mrs. King. She doesn’t know.”

“Doesn’t know what?” said Mrs. King, voice taut.

Mrs. Bone let out a short bark of laughter. “What sort of person doesn’t know what’s going on under her own roof?”

“Winnie?” said Mrs. King.

Winnie sagged against the wall, closing her eyes. “I only found out three years ago.”

“Found out what?”

“Girls,” said Mrs. Bone. “They’ve been meddling with the girls.”

Mrs. King’s face went very still. She took this in, assessed it. Clearly, she understood what that word meant, what meddling was: of course she did. Everyone did.