The Housekeepers(62)

The bird women sat on benches in the corner of the park, scattering bits of stale bread on the ground. Mrs. King sat with them, hat tilted over her eyes, throwing her own scraps to the pigeons. She listened to the old women’s chatter, secretive and girlish, and felt the evening thickening with heat. She waited there, keeping the de Vries residence in the corner of her eye, gathering her strength for the night ahead.

Big motors came rolling around the corner of Park Lane. She counted the minutes in her head, then clapped her fingers at the birds. They rose into the air, up and away, flying around in a circle. That’s what she’d wanted. To feel her own power. To be a magician.

The birds returned, settled, and she got up from the bench. She began to advance, feeling her blood pumping, crossing the sultry expanse of the park.

Mrs. King faced the house, reckoning with it. Miss de Vries’s bedroom suite was above the winter garden. It had a big picture window, wreathed in muslins, blurring the figures within. Alice would be there now, doing exactly what was expected of her. Everything was ticking along beautifully. It couldn’t fail.

Motors and carriages clogged the street all the way to Hyde Park Corner in one direction, and up to Oxford Street in the other. Mrs. King could hear the shrill cry of a constable’s whistle. There were people moving, swarming toward the house. Winnie’s golden pyramid remained gleaming, tremendous, abandoned in the middle of the road, a magnificent obstacle to all and sundry.

The tradesmen’s door to the de Vries residence was opening and closing every thirty seconds. Mrs. King joined a troupe of waiters, their voices raised in laughter, jackets pristine. She passed with them through the door, entirely unnoticed.

Alice brought out the dress, carefully folded.

Miss de Vries rose from her couch, hands outstretched. “Marvelous,” she said softly, running a finger down its crusted edges. She looked up at Alice, frowned. “It’s better than I expected.”

Alice felt her heart expanding. She kept her eyes down. “It’s not so hard when you’ve got a pattern,” she said, trying to sound offhand.

“But you didn’t have a pattern,” Miss de Vries said.

Alice blushed. “No.”

Miss de Vries studied her for a moment. Something passed between them through the air, something unspoken, caught just underneath a breath. Then Miss de Vries said, “All right. Help me in.”

The rush and movement of the fabric. Pale flesh. The air was tight here, lamps burning low. Miss de Vries clutched Alice’s shoulder for balance. They were playing drums outside, and the beat matched Alice’s pulse.

“Get this buckle, would you?”

“Yes, Madam.”

She fixed it. Miss de Vries’s breathing had quickened. It must have been the anticipation, the excitement, the promise of the night to come.

“Alice,” she said. There was something tight in her tone, as if she were readying herself to ask something, give an order.

Now was the moment. Alice’s mouth was dry. She spoke before Miss de Vries could.

“Madam,” she said, “there’s something I need to tell you…”

26

Miss de Vries moved fast, chains clinking lightly as she held her headdress in place. Alice hurried after her, watching how the dress moved. It had an armored structure around the waist, and yet it still flowed with a ferocious sort of grace. “I wasn’t sure whether to say anything, Madam. But, knowing how many people will be here tonight, I thought perhaps it was best…” Winnie would have approved of that, she thought, feeling sick. She was following the plan perfectly. But it made her feel as if her rib cage were being squeezed. Her nerves were dancing in her skin.

Miss de Vries’s tone was hard. “I’ll be the judge of that.” She was walking so quickly, faster than Alice could have expected, hurtling out of the room and toward the stairs.

When Alice had told her, Miss de Vries had clenched her hands, digging her nails into her palms, as if to punish herself. As if she expected treachery in her household, as if she’d been waiting for it all along. She’d hastened to her dressing table, yanking open the drawers, rummaging inside, searching, realizing what was missing.

She’d turned to Alice, face pale. “You’re right. It’s gone.”

She was angry, but the anger was operating somewhere deeper than Alice had seen before, something right down at the base of the bone. She could hear it in the roughness of Miss de Vries’s voice. “I cannot stand it,” she said. “Being preyed on like this.”

Alice said, feeling a prickling in her spine, “I should go and fetch Mr. Shepherd, Madam. Really, I should have gone to him first…”

It was the right move to make.

“Shepherd is a fool. He won’t fix a thing. These are my personal possessions.” She waved Alice away. “I’m going down to the servants’ hall myself.”

They’d counted on this. They needed her downstairs, dragging the household with her, holding everyone there while the attic doors were softly opened, and Mrs. Bone’s men began trickling downstairs. They hastened toward the lift, and Alice looked over Miss de Vries’s shoulder. Stifling a gasp, she spotted the Janes on a pair of stepladders in one of the adjoining bedrooms. The door must have swung open. They were right on their tiptoes, lifting the huge, brocade drapes clean from their rails.