The Housekeepers(86)

Miss de Vries took a half step backward. “You should go to your own room, not mine.” Her headdress glittered; her shoulders were pale in the light. “Are you feeling faint?”

Alice didn’t move. “Yes,” she said.

“Then sit down, for heaven’s sake. I’ll send someone to help you.”

“No,” said Alice, voice rising. “Don’t. Please.”

Miss de Vries stared at her. Something was working in her mind, and it was hard to interpret. She raised a hand to her forehead. Her movements seemed fractious, edgy: there was something crackling in the atmosphere around her. “I hope you’re not going to be disagreeable. I’ve had a very long evening.”

She was still close enough that Alice could smell her. A stinging scent, something bitter, something burned. It clung to the silvery white-blond sheen of her hair.

“Madam,” said Alice, taking a breath. “Your costume.”

A pause. Miss de Vries’s eyes darted to meet hers. “What of it?”

Alice made sure her voice didn’t sound weak. “Are you pleased with it?”

Miss de Vries looked startled. She regarded herself in the long looking glass. She was a column of black crepe and jet ornaments, her train pooling behind her like oil.

“Pleased with it?” she said. She shook out her wrists, almost nervous.

Alice gathered her courage. “You said, Madam, that I should be rewarded. For my work. That I should be paid.”

Miss de Vries went still.

“Paid?” she said.

Alice imagined the man in the mews yard in her mind’s eye. Finish this, she told herself. Finish it, get it done, get out. It was not part of the plan. It was entirely in contravention of it. “Yes, Madam.”

Miss de Vries did something strange then. She closed her eyes. “You want to be paid.” She began chuckling, a low and troubling sound. “I see. Of course. How entirely predictable.”

Alice felt her skin growing hot. She wanted to step backward, but she held her ground. “I’m very grateful to you, for giving me the opportunity.”

“Are you? You don’t seem it.” Miss de Vries’s eyes shimmered in the half light. Her voice hardened. “What of my other offer? What of that?”

Alice hesitated. She felt the pull in her gut, the temptation. “I’m not cut out to be a lady’s maid, Madam.”

Miss de Vries’s eyes were bright, fierce. “I’m offering you something far better. You would be my companion. I would show you the world. Florence, New York. You’d have a salary, since that’s so important to you.”

That word companion. It made Alice’s heart flicker. “I’d be no use, Madam,” she said. “I’ve nothing you need.”

“Need has nothing to do with it,” said Miss de Vries, voice rough. “I need nothing. I wish to keep you. You understand?”

The ball might have been taking place a hundred miles away. The roar was distant, contained beneath sediment and rock.

“Keep me?” said Alice, trying to laugh. “You can’t keep me.”

Miss de Vries’s expression changed. “Whyever not?” she said. “Shouldn’t you like it?”

Her voice was strained.

Miss de Vries was very close, then. It was possible to make out the beating of her pulse. There was something heightened, hectic about it. It matched the rhythm of Alice’s own.

Miss de Vries reached for Alice. Her touch wasn’t cool. It transmitted heat. Alice saw Madam’s lips: soft, faintly touched with wine.

Would she like it? Alice wondered. The room held its breath.

Miss de Vries’s eyes widened, as if checking herself. It was an expression Alice had never seen on Madam’s face before. Uncertainty: delicate, shivering in the heat.

Alice reached out to touch the most brittle parts of Madam’s dress, around the shoulders. She alone knew where the joins were, where the clasps could be found. It was her strength that loosened them.

Miss de Vries closed her eyes. But she didn’t move. She inched closer, the tiniest, clearest fraction.

Alice went further. She closed the breach between them. She kissed her mistress, the air wreathed with orchids, lamplight flickering overhead.

Winnie stood back from the smoke machines, her nostrils burning. Her scalp was slick with sweat. Her hands shone with greasepaint.

Now, she thought. Now.

The Janes nodded.

Winnie pulled air into her lungs, opened one of the doors, and let loose a cry. “Fire!” she shouted.

Her voice came out as a croak. “Fire, fire!” Figures appeared at the foot of the stairs and she hauled the doors open fully.

Smoke billowed out around her. Blueish, stinking, sweet—far more than she could have hoped for. She covered her mouth and ran down the stairs, arms aloft.

“Fire!” she cried.

The Janes followed Winnie downstairs. They observed the pleasing majesty of it all. Footmen running. Noses turning upward. Disbelief. The orchestra falling silent, waltz frozen midspin.

“Fire, fire!” yelled a voice.

And then it was real, the fear. It unfurled itself like a ribbon. The guests were like starlings in flight, a drunken, frightened rush of powdered hair and crooked crowns and ermine trains.

Jane-two tested her voice. “Fire!” she bellowed. “Everybody out!”