“Go, then,” she said, raising her hand, giving the order.
The men nodded, eyed each other, braced themselves. And in a silent, perfect rush, the crates began descending to the floor of the hall, ready to be ferried to the garden and the mews lane beyond.
Winnie unfolded Mrs. Bone’s list from her pocket. She needed to find Hephzibah, and start putting things right.
Hephzibah had changed costume on Tilney Street, removing her wig and returning to the house in a gigantic veil and a plain cotton dress. She directed her people with skill. “Moving,” she reminded them subtly, “keep everybody moving.” A footman fired up another brazier. The neighbors had sent out supplies: Brook House delivered a dozen trestle tables and Stanhope House provided several crates of wine. The ball had been transposed entirely to the park: the crowd was not disposed to disperse.
“Would you look at those women,” said Lord Ashley, three feet from Hephzibah. Girls from the circus, wearing long tights and ruffs, were dancing between the trees, undulating, wheeling past on giant hoops. “Splendid.”
The guests—both Miss de Vries’s and Mrs. King’s—had begun dancing barefoot on the grass, throwing their hands aloft, rapturous with the sheer pleasure-seeking gaiety of it all. Only at the de Vries house, the most vulgar house in London.
Mr. Lockwood was studying the house, puzzled. “There’s no fire,” he said.
“No fire?” exclaimed Hephzibah, feeling a rush of panic. “I saw it myself!”
Nearby stood the head footman, eyes watchful. He had his hands behind his back. Lord Ashley reached out and shook him by the arm. It startled him: his face wrinkled with displeasure. “Go and look for your mistress,” said Lord Ashley. “Make sure she’s safe.”
No, don’t, thought Hephzibah. But he bowed, and marched toward the house.
37
2:30 a.m.
“Did someone shout fire?” said Miss de Vries, reaching for the bedpost.
“I expect it’s a false alarm,” muttered Alice. Noises were coming from the road or the park, distant and muffled.
Miss de Vries moved. “I’ll go and see. Fetch my dressing gown.”
Alice grabbed Miss de Vries’s hand. “Don’t,” she said. “It might not be safe.” She found Madam’s skin to be dry and cracked around the knuckles. It had ridges and corrugations as if soap had chapped it, burned it. This made her seem more breakable, more delicate.
Madam gazed back at her, eyes dark. She let out a long, shaky breath, but did not reply.
“I’ll go,” Alice said, kissing her hand. “You wait here.”
She slipped between the gap in the drapes, closed them tightly behind her. She could hear Miss de Vries shifting, pulling her rich sheets around her, not following. The carpets sucked at Alice’s feet, silky air wrapping itself around her throat. She looked around the room, hands trembling, taking in all the familiar and wonderful things: the polished walnut table, the gigantic looking glass, the escritoire. The bureau was winking at her, locks sparkling. The whole room was telling her what to do.
Mrs. King approached the bedroom suites just as Alice slipped through Miss de Vries’s door. Mrs. King was at the far end of the passage, and she turned when she heard the roll and click of the sliding doors, saw a figure hurtling away down the stairs.
“Alice,” she breathed. She didn’t dare call out her name, for fear of discovery.
Mrs. King ran silently down the passage. She wouldn’t permit Alice to be alone in this house one moment longer. Lockwood, Shepherd—she could not let them touch her. Corruption started on the surface of the skin. Dirt in the fingernails, nicks and cuts, flesh bubbling, hardening over. It needed to be treated quickly, with carbolic and gauze, before the rot could set in. The thought of Alice being taken, priced up, sold, made Mrs. King’s lungs burn.
Alice was fast. She vanished down the servants’ staircase, and Mrs. King had to double her pace. She felt the riptide of the job in motion, this thing of her own creation: it vibrated in the walls as she descended through the house. The hiss of the pulleys, the whoosh of the crates, the creak and hum of wires. She dodged the crowd of Mrs. Bone’s men wheeling trolleys down the garden, entered the sultry garden and glimpsed Alice in the distance, racing for the mews house, her apron winking in the dark. Mrs. King could see men on the roof, on rope ladders, winching up the drainpipe. They crawled over the house like insects. It was miraculous. But immaterial, if Alice were in danger.
“Dinah.”
A hand reached out, catching her arm.
She saw the gleam of golden eyes.
“No,” cried Mrs. King, staggering to a halt. Her voice carried on the air as Alice disappeared around the corner, into the night. The men around her, dragging crates, stopped dead.
They all stared.
And William, wide-eyed, amazed, held on to her.
Winnie carried the Inventory like a priestess with a prayer book, moving through the public apartments, watching as they were skinned. The house thrummed around her, sweltering, in never-ending motion. Things weren’t going the way she’d planned.
She imagined the house would simply divest itself of its treasures, that it would be glad to give them up. It wasn’t.
Men swarmed the stairs, tripping over ramps and cables. Several boxes nearly went flying. Winnie’s heart was in her throat, checking for nicks and cuts and bruises on the walls. She’d impressed this on everyone: it was essential that the house was left entirely undamaged.
“Careful,” she begged them, and when they ignored her, she raised her voice: “Take care.”
“Yes’m,” they murmured.
It was such a long time since anybody had obeyed Winnie without demur. The pleasure increased every time she tested her power. “Carry on,” she said.
She counted items. Tapestries, peeled from the walls. Cushions, blankets, eiderdowns, tassels, testers, sent off in chutes. Paintings, swinging out through the windows. And then someone let out a frightened roar. Winnie felt a rush of air, massive velocity. A grand piano came plummeting through the air toward them.
“Wire!” she breathed, pointing, cold fear in her throat.
The men scrambled, hurling themselves on the ropes. There was a dreadful crack as the cables tautened, the platform lurching, the piano lid swinging open with a bang.
Awestruck silence, three dozen faces. The piano swung madly, braced to its platform, creaking. It was safe.
The grotesque things came, too: the stag’s head and the stuffed bears. Chairs, footstools, small couches, side tables, urns the size of full-grown men. Mrs. Bone burst out of the saloon, a tiger-skin rug draped over her shoulders.
“Come on, you Janes!” she shouted. “Let’s be having you!”
Don’t close your eyes, Winnie ordered herself. The Janes had fixed a pair of swings under the dome. The greatest art pieces were all up here: the painted panels and triptychs and angels. You could go up on a ladder, take them down one by one, if you had half a day to spare. The men broke off what they were doing to watch. Winnie didn’t scold them. She clasped her fingers together, pressed her hands to her heart.
“Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Bone thinly. “My Janes can do anything.”
Winnie felt her stomach looping as the girls climbed up onto their perches. Slowly they began to swing. The men gazed, transfixed. There was something unutterably lovely about it when Jane-one let go, forming a giant curve, slicing through the air.