Mrs. Bone could see an urchin peering at her from the shadows, wide-eyed and holding on to the washbasin for dear life. She looked pale and scaly, wracked by storms. Mrs. Bone felt her skin crawling. She hated sharing a bed.
“All right, Sue?” said Cook.
“All right,” replied the girl, voice husky.
Mrs. Bone disliked the name Sue. It always made her feel edgy, as if there were static in her hair. Her own little girl had been called Susan. She tried to breathe it away.
Cook fiddled with the water jug and the pail, straightening them, then straightening them again. “It’s lights-out at eleven, once you’ve put away the irons. Then we lock up.”
Mrs. Bone frowned. “Lock up?”
Cook was serene, halfway out the door. “We’ll be locking your bedroom doors at night.”
Mrs. Bone banged her bag down on the bed. It managed a sorrowful sort of half bounce. “Nobody’s locking me in anywhere,” she said before she could help it.
Mrs. Bone could hear bodies moving next door, girls coming in and out of their rooms. The light paused at the tiny window, unwilling to cross the threshold. She looked down at the purple-stained boards and saw grooves in the paintwork, nicks and cuts and spoiled varnish, as if someone had been dragging the furniture across the floor, barring the door.
“We’ve had a lot of unpleasantness this month,” said Cook. “And it’s Madam’s orders.”
Mrs. Bone could feel her heart thumping slowly, steadily. Madam. She repeated the name in her head. It made her feel the nearness of her own flesh and blood, the presence of Danny in the walls. She looked at the door and thought, He’s got me in a cage.
“Well,” she said, with a monumental effort, “if them’s the rules.”
Cook wrinkled her nose. “Good. Now put your things away, and report downstairs. Any questions?”
Mrs. Bone imagined her prize, the vast booty glittering and clinking in the house beneath her. She pictured herself standing on top of Aladdin’s cave, filled to the brim with treasures. That was all that mattered: not her own memories, her own feelings.
She sucked in her cheeks and practically curtseyed. “Oh, no, Cook,” she said. “Everything’s lovely.”
9
On the other side of town, Mrs. King and Hephzibah were holding rehearsals. Rather, Hephzibah was holding them. Mrs. King was there to keep the doors locked and a keen eye out for blabbers. She was glad of the distraction. Knowing Mrs. Bone was inside Park Lane, poking holes in the plan, making up her mind whether to invest or not, was putting Mrs. King on edge. She didn’t like loose threads.
“Thank heavens you’re going with Hephzibah,” Winnie had said.
“Why?” said Mrs. King. “You’d have a marvelous time. Hephzibah adores showing off for you.”
Winnie had frowned. “She doesn’t.”
Mrs. King didn’t have the time or inclination to press this. Winnie and Hephzibah had their squabbles now and then: all par for the course, nothing to fret over.
One of Mrs. Bone’s men had obtained the keys for an abandoned church hall, and Hephzibah was already running lines with a motley collection of aged actresses who had once belonged on the curlicued playbills and picture postcards of Mrs. King’s youth. They were being herded around the hall by Hephzibah, who had drenched herself liberally in modern perfume and smelled extraordinarily of lemons and spices.
“Over here, we have the countesses,” she said, pointing at one gaggle of women. “Over here, a set of ministers’ wives. A few ghastly old courtesans, just for the fun of it, you know. Anyone else?”
“I think we’ll need a few Americans.”
“New money, how delicious. You,” barked Hephzibah, pointing at a tremulous-looking grandmother with perfectly preserved curls. “You’re from New England now, all right? All right, everyone, off you go!”
The actresses all took a gigantic lungful of air, and began bellowing their speeches, talking over one another nineteen to the dozen: “How do you do… What a glorious evening… Have you seen my husband…？ Didn’t you go to Cowes?” The din became unbearable almost at once. It struck Mrs. King then that she’d never been in charge of so many people before. Even on Park Lane the final authority lay elsewhere. The proportions of her scheme shimmered in her mind, huge and daunting, beyond the capability of anyone she knew. Not beyond my capability, she reminded herself stoutly. But her expression must have revealed a sliver of doubt.
“Don’t worry,” shouted Hephzibah over the din. “I’ll get everyone shipshape for you.”
She was in a good mood. That was a relief. Hephzibah was one of the most mercurial humans Mrs. King had ever encountered. Secretly it made her edgy, getting too close to other people’s fears and anxieties. They could be catching. She was sure that Hephzibah felt the same. It underpinned the smooth accord between them. She eyed the actresses. “Can we trust them?” she asked.
“Is the sky blue? They’ve taken an oath of utter loyalty to our cause. I’d trust them with my life.”
“I’d rather lock them in with a decent fee, Hephzibah.”
“Well, that too, darling. I’ll send you the bill.”
Mrs. King had to accept this. They needed bodies in that house: roving, corralling, managing the crowds of guests on the night of the ball. “We’d better get on,” she said. “We’ve got at least a dozen appointments to make before lunch.”
She had to acknowledge that Hephzibah was rather good at this part. When Mrs. King left Park Lane, she took a copy of the invitation list for the ball, a long list of smart addresses scattered all across Kensington, Belgravia and the best side of Piccadilly. Hephzibah and Mrs. King went to nobble a footman at each one, faces carefully veiled. “When a certain invitation card arrives,” Hephzibah murmured, stroking them on the arm, “you’re to bring it straight to us, all right?”
One of the footmen studied the slip of paper. “We get a hundred invitations a day,” he said, eyeing Mrs. King and Hephzibah with suspicion. Hephzibah lowered her voice. “Then one little card from the house of de Vries is hardly going to be missed, is it?” She gripped him by the forearm. “Cash please, darling.”
Mrs. King got out her purse and made the necessary payment. Household by household, they managed to control who would—or wouldn’t—attend the ball. Most of the footmen were entirely obliging. Some pushed their luck, of course.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” said one, peering at their bank order. He was a particularly gangly fellow managing a cabinet minister’s house on Curzon Street.
“Cash it,” said Mrs. King coolly.
“I’d need twice that to start interfering with the minister’s post.”
Mrs. King considered this. She had two options in these circumstances. Accede, and spoil the financial margins. Not a very agreeable prospect. Or she could shut it down.
“You’d only need to take half as much,” she said, “for the newspapers to come knocking on your door. I don’t much like the headline, do you? Minister’s Man in Bribery Brouhaha.”
“Bribery bonanza,” added Hephzibah for good measure. “Bribery hullabaloo!”