“Have you got it or not?”
Winnie frowned. “Not his name. But naturally I’ve kept his beat under observation.” She hesitated, then drew out a notebook from her pocket. Flipped the pages. “He comes around at these times, without fail.” She tore out the piece of paper for Mrs. Bone.
“Hmm,” Mrs. Bone said, approving. “You’re on top of the detail, I’ll grant you that.”
Winnie looked pleased, but made her expression grave. “You really oughtn’t to see a policeman by yourself, Mrs. Bone. Something might go seriously awry. Alice can keep an eye on the mews yard, if you like. The second you go and see him, she’ll hurry down and give you some support. Will that suit?”
“Support? I don’t need support from the sewing maid.” Then Mrs. Bone pondered it. “Scrap that, she’ll be very useful. Tell her to bump into us in the yard.” Mrs. Bone waved Winnie away. “Now, clear off before they see you.”
She hurried as fast as she could back across the mews yard. She was preoccupied, and so she didn’t notice a weaselly little face watching her from the staircase that led to the cellars.
“Whatchoo doing?” it said. “You’re not allowed out there.”
A boy peeped up at her. An errand boy or kitchen boy, she couldn’t remember which.
“Ain’t I?” she said. “Well, whatchoo doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Well then, I’m doing nothing, too, and you can go on doing nothing before I come down there and box your ears.”
He muttered something.
“And I’ll knock your teeth out for good measure,” she called after him.
Little runt, she thought, but she knew a rogue element when she saw one. She could hear the patter of his footsteps all the way down the stairs and away through the cellars. She stopped and paid attention to them, the beat and the rhythm and the direction as he traveled through the foundations of the house, and committed them to memory. Rats always had hiding places. Best not to forget about them.
Mrs. Bone never slept soundly at the best of times. And in this place she feared she’d be lying awake for hours. Sue was tiny, but she was still a whole breathing creature taking up space in the bed. Mrs. Bone’s leg throbbed. The routine here was going to be torture. She was the one doing all the rough work through the dinner service. Cook watched her like a hawk, firing orders every moment.
Mrs. Bone’s mind blinked and flickered, and she tried not to pine for her hidey-hole. Where had Danny slept in this house? Growing up, he had a mattress that was laid crossways to hers. She remembered the smell of him at night: stale breath on the air. Rafters, low beams, sackcloth over the windows…
She must have dropped off, for when she opened her eyes the light outside had shifted, darkened—and someone was knocking softly on the door.
Mrs. Bone sat up straight. “Who’s that?” she said, her body alerting.
Sue lay beside her in the bed, motionless, pressed so low she seemed to have sunk into the bedsprings.
The air whistled faintly up there in the attics. If there had been more light, Mrs. Bone would have got up out of bed and gone to the door, poked her eye to the keyhole, hissed, Go away.
But she didn’t. For reasons she couldn’t explain, her body told her to stay where she was, to be still. Sue didn’t move, didn’t snore, didn’t seem to be living at all. She must have been holding her breath.
Mrs. Bone studied the darkness. What’s this, then? she wondered. A girl from the room next door, after a spare blanket? Someone feeling unwell?
Her skin prickled.
The moment lengthened. There was a tiny noise, the softest footstep, or a breath—and then silence.
In the morning she counted the faces around the table, trying to keep hold of the numbers. Five kitchen maids. Sue. Five under-footmen. The chauffeur, Mr. Doggett. The boy with the face like a rodent had vanished, and the house-parlormaids were on active maneuvers upstairs. There were entirely too many people here. They couldn’t possibly all have enough chores to do. Yet they were in constant motion, coming and going. It made it nigh on impossible to track them.
“Sleep all right, my girl?” she asked Sue.
Sue nodded, eyes down. “Yes, thanks, Mrs. Bone.”
“Here,” said one of the under-footmen, depositing another pile of pans on the table with a clang. “Look sharp.”
My poor hands, she thought gloomily, looking at the polishing rags.
“Hark at you,” said Cook.
“Eh?” Mrs. Bone said.
“Mumbling to yourself.”
Mrs. Bone flushed. Reporting to Cook was going to be a very disagreeable experience. Choose your words carefully.
“Now, Cook,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to ask. I saw a lot of dirty picture frames upstairs. Very greasy. Someone ought to take a look at them.”
The head footman caught her eye. “And what were you doing upstairs?” he asked.
His name was William. Very handsome. Maybe thirty-five, thirty-six. Dark hair. Long nose. Out of his liveries he could’ve been a forester, a woodsman. There was something wild in his gaze, something golden and jaguar-like. She’d heard the others whispering about him and Mrs. King over supper the night before. Good for you, Dinah, she thought, approving and disapproving all at the same time.
Cook spoke before she could reply. “And what are you telling me for? I don’t take care of upstairs chores. I take care of the kitchen, that’s my job, and we’ve more than enough work already. You’re the bleedin’ daily woman, for heaven’s sake…”
Mrs. Bone raised her hands for peace. “I’ll make up some soda.”
Cook snapped her fingers to her girls. “Fetch three ounces of eggs, some chloride of potass, and someone give her ladyship here a mixing bowl.” Her eyes glittered. “Dirty frames. I ask you. I’d like to come and look at those myself!”
Mrs. Bone fetched a bucket. “You rest here, Cook,” she said. “No need to trouble yourself in the least.”
The bucket was full of foaming liquid, and she had to grit her teeth, concentrating, to make sure she didn’t spill any and stain the marble. She slid the dining room door open with her foot.
The room loomed large around her, the mirror big as a church window. The dining table irked her. It was octagonal, and very small—tiny, really. She felt a nasty snag of recognition. Like brother, like sister. She always positioned her desk far away from the door. Made people walk miles to approach her.
Mrs. Bone set the bucket down gingerly on the carpet. She had a good eye for carpets, and an even better one for chairs. She knew Louis Seize when she saw it. The chair legs created a bowlegged shimmer across the room. The walls rippled with tapestries, Gobelins, and they seemed almost flimsy up close. But they’d fetch a good price; that was for sure.
She began to feel better.
Working quickly, she shuffled around the room, opening drawers. She found plenty of silverware, just the third-rate stuff.
“Lovely, lovely,” she murmured to herself, dropping knives and spoons and their accoutrements into the deep pockets of her apron. She was glad to be wearing such a thick, coarse skirt. It muffled the clanking and jangling sound she made when she moved.