The Housekeepers(53)

“No,” she said, her voice growing cold. “That’s not correct.”

Mrs. Bone snapped her fingers at Winnie. “You. Tell us. What do you know?”

Winnie rubbed her hand over her face. Her voice was low, hoarse. “I was here. I mean…here, in the garden. The mews house has a loft above it. There’s a little staircase that comes down to the stables. They used to keep a carriage there, but it’s empty now. I saw a man, someone I didn’t recognize. He had a beautiful coat on. It was… I don’t know. Seal gray. Sealskin.”

She took a shuddering breath. “It was very smooth, like silk. I thought: Oh, what a lovely coat.” She paused, frowning. “He was walking a girl down the stairs. I mean, he had his hand on her shoulder. He was pressing her down. Pushing her along. Like he was shoving her out. I knew at once it was wrong. I mean, my whole body felt it.”

Mrs. King watched her the whole time she was speaking. Her face changed, grew ashen.

“It was Ida,” said Winnie. “One of the kitchen girls. And I didn’t know the man at all.”

Mrs. Bone knew that mews house. She’d seen it every time she crossed the yard. Pale gray plasterwork, ivy beginning to climb the walls. One small window.

“How old?” she said.

“I don’t know.”

“How old, Winnie?” said Mrs. King, voice hard.

“Not old, not old enough. She looked…” Winnie screwed up her face. “Sick. As if he’d made her sick. She looked like she was going to…to throw up.”

Silence. Mrs. Bone absorbed this, felt the knowledge shifting in her gut.

Mrs. King asked, “Did they see you?”

“No.”

“What happened to that girl?”

Winnie clasped her hands together. Didn’t reply.

Mrs. King took a step closer. “Winnie.”

Winnie squeezed her eyes shut, as if to hide from it. “Shepherd told me one of the housemaids had given notice. That I’d better let the agency know. I must have asked him who it was. Just to…test him. And he must have told me—he must have said it was Ida.” Winnie looked at the ceiling. “He just told me as if it was nothing, as if it meant nothing at all.”

“Shepherd,” said Mrs. Bone. Her mind was working quickly. “Mr. Shepherd. So Danny might not have known, either. He might not have had a thing to do with it.”

Winnie lowered her voice. “Oh, he knew.”

Mrs. Bone pictured her house in Deal. The treasures she’d stockpiled. The banker’s order from her brother, the foundations of her whole fortune. She began chuckling, pain crisscrossing her breast. “What a set of stupid girls,” she said, crooking a finger at Mrs. King. “Here’s one.” Pointed to Winnie. “Here’s another.” Pointed to herself. Dug her nails into her palm. “Here’s a third.”

Mrs. King stared back at her. Then at Winnie. “You never told me.”

Winnie looked agonized. But Mrs. Bone didn’t have any patience for that.

“Who else?” she said. “Who else knew? Mr. Doggett? Cook?”

Winnie shook her head again. “You don’t understand. You can’t understand what it was like in this place. It wasn’t there, not on the surface of things. It was…” She tried to find the words. “It was underneath everything.”

“And what about our fine lady mistress? Did she notice girls coming and going? Or was she as dense as you?”

Mrs. King’s face closed up. “Winnie?” she said.

Winnie ran her hands through her hair. “I don’t know—I’ve never known. It’s… She was…”

“What?”

“She was always friends with them. With the girls in the house.”

“Friends?”

“Yes, friends.” Winnie reached for Mrs. King. “You remember what it was like up there, in the schoolroom, before Madam came out. Just the tutors, and the governesses, and the dance mistress. Mr. de Vries let her make friends below stairs.” She closed her eyes again. “I thought it was such a kindness,” she whispered.

“Friends?” said Mrs. Bone.

Winnie nodded, voice strained. “It seemed…natural. That a girl would want to make friends with other girls. To learn about their lives. Understand where they came from. Share a little schooling.”

“Earn them an afternoon off,” said Mrs. King quietly.

“And those girls took liberties. Grew cheeky. Felt they were favored. I always chalked it up to a lapse in discipline. The master allowing indulgences, just to favor Miss de Vries.”

Mrs. Bone dragged her gaze back from the house. “Clever, really. A neat way to put the girls at ease. I daresay he needed them to be comfortable upstairs.”

Mrs. Bone felt a shudder pass through her. “Does Miss de Vries know?”

Winnie simply shook her head. “It’s like I said. You can’t…you can’t tell. It’s not spoken of.”

“Who was the man, then? The man in the gray coat.”

“I never found out.”

“Never asked, you mean.”

“He would have been a gentleman of means,” said Mrs. King. “He would have paid well for the visit.”