The footman scowled, but he took his fee.
“I do love men in long tails,” said Hephzibah conspiratorially as they marched arm-in-arm across Berkeley Square. The motor traffic was jammed all the way around the bend in the road, and there were a lot of tradesmen roaring furiously at one another as they tried to fight their way across the junction to Charles Street. This pleased Mrs. King. She hoped the arteries of Mayfair would be entirely clogged on the night of the twenty-sixth. Her drivers would be taking the mews lanes and side streets, the slowest and least predictable routes, sneaking out of the city under cover. “Don’t you?” said Hephzibah, jabbing her on the arm.
“What? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
“Don’t you like footmen in tails, darling? With stockings, and bloody great big strapping garters. That’s what I like on a man. A good bit of calf muscle.”
“I prefer long trousers.”
Hephzibah wriggled with pleasure at this. “Do you? Do tell. Have you a long-trousered beau in mind?”
“A beau?” said Mrs. King, sliding away from this. “I’m not sure I know what one of those would look like. What of you, anyhow? Where did you get your taste for a man in livery? It wasn’t from Park Lane. I can’t remember you mooning over any of the bootboys or footmen there.”
Hephzibah’s face stiffened behind her veil. “I hardly remember. And I expect you were too busy smuggling potted meat, or slipping tinned sardines onto the black market, or whatever little jobs kept you occupied every night.”
So it always went with her women. They grew twitchy if you said something amiss. There were potholes everywhere, threatening to trip you up. It made Mrs. King almost miss dealing with someone straightforward. Someone like Miss de Vries.
The notion startled her. But it was true. Madam had always given swift decisions. She had clear opinions. Planning the ball had been almost—what? Not pleasurable. Satisfying.
Mrs. King remembered the precise moment the plan began to take shape in her mind. It was the day after the master’s funeral, the mausoleum locked, the garden silent. Miss de Vries received Mrs. King in the winter garden, dressed in her fullest mourning, face pale and shining. There was some sort of electricity sparking off her. It sent an answering shudder through Mrs. King’s heart.
Miss de Vries’s voice was low, calm. “I’m minded to hold a ball,” she said.
Her eyes probed Mrs. King’s, searching for a reaction. At first Mrs. King didn’t understand. A ball?
Then a thought flickered, the shapes and lights shifted. Things that had seemed scattered and disconnected now swam together. A ball was perfect. Perfect. Heat, light, crowds, confusion…
“Have you considered a date, Madam?” she asked, keeping her voice as low as Miss de Vries’s own.
Of course, Madam needed the ball for quite different reasons to Mrs. King. To shackle herself, trade herself, hitch her wagon to the best-bidding star. Mrs. King congratulated herself on her own approach: free, clean, entirely uncompromised. They wanted the same things and different things, and this gave her a strange feeling of fellowship, a delicately ridged collusion. Heads and tails flipping over and over, spinning on the gaming table…
Footmen in tails, she thought, idly. Yes, she did like them. She did miss them. One in particular.
She very nearly—nearly—sighed.
“We need to get back,” she said briskly.
10
Mrs. Bone spent her first afternoon on Park Lane rubbing copper pans, keeping her head down, as instructed by Mrs. King. She cleaned that copper with furious energy, and with an eye on the clock, waiting for her first break. She had no intention of waiting around. She needed to disentangle herself from Cook, and the other servants, and make an immediate examination of the house. The lower offices were sufficiently warren-like that she could sneak upstairs without being observed. She entered the front hall first. It felt satisfying to start somewhere forbidden.
There was a cathedral-like hush, light coming down through a glass dome above. Palms and ferns in great vases. A floor made of white marble. Gold on the door panels and crystal in the doorknobs. A lot of very disgusting and expensive things that Mrs. Bone rather liked: paintings of nude ladies, foxes stuffed till their eyes popped, stags screaming silently from their plinths. It wasn’t exactly the size of the place that caught her breath. It was the curve to it, the way it flowed upward, all glass and iron and light. It seemed frosted, iced, a lickable, kissable house.
Her envy made her skin grow hot.
The hall was connected to the gardens by a long, colonnaded passage and several glass-fronted doors. She remembered it from the schematics engraved on the soup tureen. Good, she thought. Easy access. But she wanted to inspect the garden exits properly. Remembering the maps Winnie had drawn up for her, she crept back downstairs. She sidled through the kitchen passage, passed the sculleries, pantries, laundry rooms, larders, still rooms, dry rooms, inched around the edge of the kitchen and into the mews, and scuttled straight for the mews door.
She tested the handle. Not locked. She glanced back at the house. This was a clear run from the gardens. Helpful.
Gently, keeping her eyes peeled for onlookers, she opened the mews door, and backed out into the lane.
“Mrs. Bone.”
Mrs. Bone’s heart jumped. “Christ alive.”
Winnie Smith was hidden in the ivy. “I beg your pardon. Did I startle you?” Winnie peered at her, her cabbage-colored dress covered in detritus from the wall.
“Nobody startles me,” said Mrs. Bone, catching her breath. “What d’you want?”
“I come here to collect Alice’s daily report. I thought you might wish to share your first remarks.”
“Oh, it’s remarks you want, is it? Heavens, let me just fetch my magnifying glass and look at my notes.” Mrs. Bone tutted. “I’ve only been here five minutes. Give me a whole day at least.”
Winnie frowned, and Mrs. Bone sighed, lowering her voice. “Look, the way I see it, I’m going to be cooped up in the kitchens, shoved up the back stairs, or locked in the attics. If I’m going to assess this place, then you need to find me a reason to get into the good part of the house.”
Winnie hesitated. “I’m sure you’ll find a way,” she said.
Mrs. Bone gripped Winnie’s wrist. “I’m not going to be boiled like a load of old petticoats in the laundry room. You can find the way.”
Winnie shook her off. “Very well,” she said, voice hardening. She paused to consider it. “They’d allow the daily woman upstairs if there was a cleaning job that the other girls couldn’t manage. Rough work, you know.”
“I’m not doing anything with blood. And nothing in the privy. Don’t even ask.”
“Look in the dining room. It always gets the worst of the grime—the motor cars are parked right outside the front windows. Find something filthy, and then tell them you’ll clean it.”
Mrs. Bone sucked in her cheeks. “Simple as that, is it?”
“It’ll work, Mrs. Bone.”
“Hmm. Now, you can do something else for me. Have you got the local bobby’s name?”
“What do you need that for?” asked Winnie, dubiously.