The Janes pedaled madly, hurtling around the edge of the boating lake.
“I hope I’m not going to miss my dinner,” said Hephzibah with an enormous sigh.
Winnie felt her patience start to snap. “Of course you won’t.”
“You say that, but it’s past teatime already.”
“Ladies, let’s move on,” said Winnie.
“Move on? I can’t think when I’m this famished.”
“Then go and sing for your supper,” said Winnie, rounding on her. “Or whatever it is you do to pay for your subsistence.”
“I pay for my subsistence with my talent,” said Hephzibah. “A rare talent, as well you know!”
Winnie’s forbearance reached the end of its limits. She couldn’t help herself. “A rare talent? Hardly. We all know how your sort of actress makes her living. Oldest profession in the book.”
The Janes stopped pedaling. The boat slowed, careening toward the bank.
Mrs. Bone’s eyebrows shot up. Alice’s glance flashed sideways, and Mrs. King frowned.
Hephzibah’s expression cracked open, color racing up her neck, exposed.
“Well, now,” said Mrs. Bone. “Fancy that.”
The women studied Hephzibah.
Winnie felt her skin growing suddenly warm. “I…” she began.
As the Janes steered the boat to the riverbank, Mrs. King’s voice cut through the air. “Winnie,” she said. “Get out.”
Shame rose within her. “Hephzibah…”
“Out,” said Mrs. King again. “You know the rules. If you need to make someone feel small, so that you can feel tall…”
Mrs. Bone recited the rest. “Then, my goodness, my dear, you’re no person at all. Quite right. I taught you that myself. You should all listen to that, my girls.”
Winnie rose from the boat. It rocked dangerously beneath her. It would have been better if she had fallen in the water.
20
The night before the ball
10:00 p.m.
Shepherd had left orders for everyone to get to bed early, in anticipation of the ball. Hurry up, hurry up, Mrs. Bone thought, urging the house to go to sleep. Her first tranche of men were coming in tonight, an advance guard, ready for the main action. They’d be winched up to the roof, fully installed in the attics by dawn, their movements padded by Winnie’s Turkish carpets. She glanced at the ceiling and imagined how it would smell, forty men crouched and waiting: sweaty feet, the air thick with whisky, piss warming gently in buckets. She would have gone up there herself, if only they didn’t lock the doors at night. Mrs. Bone liked to inspect her troops before battle. It gave them a good kick.
Sue was at the washbasin, picking dirt out of her nails. She did this in secret, when she assumed Mrs. Bone wasn’t looking, as if a little coal was something of which to be ashamed.
“Hurry along, Sue,” Mrs. Bone said for the third time.
“It’s hot,” whispered Sue. She was wiping her face with a damp flannel, over and over.
“Better than the cold, my girl,” said Mrs. Bone. “Better than your toes falling off. Get into bed.”
Sue was taking an age, and the air was curdling like milk.
When the knock came, it startled her. A hard thump, fist against wood, not friendly.
Sue froze, hands on the basin.
“Who’s that, then?” said Mrs. Bone as she hurried to the door, swung it open.
That boy was there, that weasel-faced little rat.
“Whatchoo doing?” said Mrs. Bone. “Get away with you. Coming up here. These are the ladies’ quarters.”
“You’re wanted, Sue,” he said, not looking at Mrs. Bone.
And in that moment Mrs. Bone understood, and she was revolted. She had lived long enough to understand that look. Whether from an old man or a young one, a rich man or a poor one, there was a certain sort of summons you gave a girl that wasn’t right at all.
Here, in Danny’s house?
It wasn’t disbelief. It was something clicking into place.
Here, same as everywhere.
Mrs. Bone was always a very pragmatic sort of lady. She assessed trades coolly, dispassionately: she weighed them on the scales and picked the most lucrative ones every time. But there was one business she wouldn’t touch.
She pictured Danny, the gleam of his curls. Felt her flesh crawling.
“Sue’s sick,” she said.
The boy frowned. “I was told to fetch her.”
“Tell ’em she’s sick, and tell ’em I told you so, and tell ’em I said it was for the best.”
She stared at him levelly. “Trust me.”
He stared back. Calculating.
“Fine,” he said.
He didn’t waste time. He turned and ran away, back to whoever had sent him, heels echoing as he went. And he didn’t lock their door.
Mrs. Bone closed the door. She leaned against it, hands behind her back, tightly clasped.
“Anyone asked for you before?” Better to ask straight out, not to fudge the question.
There was a silence. Sue shook her head. And then she spoke, in a voice that sounded hard, snapped off at the edges. “But he told me to get ready,” she said, nodding to the door, meaning the boy. “He said someone might ask for me tonight.”
Mrs. Bone made her expression appear unruffled, unbothered. “Stuff and nonsense. What’s anyone going to want with a goose like you?” She went to the bed, fingers shaking, and wrenched down the covers. “You come to me if he speaks to you again.” She snapped her fingers. “Bed, Sue. Get in.”
She looked again at the floorboards, the nicks and scratches and marks, and wondered how many girls had been dragging their bed across the floor to bar the door.
11:00 p.m.
Alice felt an ache right in the middle of her back. It was radiating outward, all her muscles contracting. She was sitting half-stooped at the worktable, all the lights burning overhead, forcing herself to keep going. This was the hardest, fiddliest, most exhausting part of the job: doing the embroidery all along the bodice and the sleeves and the back. She could have finished it in a heartbeat if she didn’t care about the results, if she thought that hardly anyone would notice it. But she cared too much; she cared enormously. Madam had such excellent powers of observation. She’d see any faults at once. She’d see the best bits, too. “You’ll be handsomely rewarded,” she’d said.
That was incentive enough to go on.
She heard a footstep, the heavy sweep of the door as it opened.
“Alice?”
Alice started, dropping the thread. She ran a hasty hand through her hair, trying to smooth herself. She could only imagine how she looked: greasy faced and pinched.
“Madam,” she said, pushing back her chair.
“No, don’t get up.”
Miss de Vries had dressed for compline in plain black satin, buttoned all the way up to the chin, her hair swept up under a coif. She wore a black veil tight to the face, so that the embroidery crawled all over her cheeks. She was holding on tight to her prayer book. She peered at the dress from afar, almost with suspicion.
“Will it be ready in time?” she asked.
That was the worst question, the one Alice feared the most. She considered telling the truth, discarded it. “Of course,” she said, trying to make her voice bright. It sounded more like a caw.