“You were right,” William said. “About getting out.”
Mrs. King tilted her hat. “Now you tell me.”
He sighed. “I’ve been pigheaded.”
She remembered the moment he’d offered her that ring. Cut grass, the park, the stink of the house lingering on them as she told him: “No.” It should have happened at night. By the river, in their secret corners of the city.
“So have I,” she said.
A crowd of gentlemen came hurtling past, papers under their arms. Mrs. King lowered the brim of her hat.
He put his hand out to her. She stood there, and looked at him, and then she took it. She squeezed his fingers. Not an answer, but something.
“When?” he said. He meant, When will we see each other again?
There was an enormous motor car behind her, a Daimler. Vast and rumbling gently. She longed to keep hold of his hand, not let go. But she repressed this. Too soon. Not safe. Nothing was settled.
“I’m taking myself out of circulation for a while,” she said stolidly. She withdrew her hand from his, denying herself the comfort of it. “But I’ll let you know.”
Outside the post office, Alice saw the newspapers tied up with string, stacked on the pavement. They were all carrying the same story, the one that grew wilder by the day: the greatest robbery of the age, the biggest search in history…
She glanced over her shoulder. She half expected to glimpse a man waiting for her at the end of the lane. Her nostrils were flared and ready, searching for an unsettling hint of gardenias.
No one there.
She entered the post office.
It cost a lot of money to send a postcard to Florence. It cost even more to wire a large sum to a foreign bank. She chose the one opposite the Grand Hotel.
“No message,” she said. “No need.”
She felt lighter once it was done. She felt free.
Alice met her sister the next morning, at dawn, five minutes from the Mile End Road. The light was creeping up, birds sounding their chorus. The cemetery smelled fresh, clean, not grim at all.
Mrs. King came in a white dress, not black or navy. She looked strangely loose, untethered, hair swept over her shoulders. There was a fierce color in her cheeks. Alice wondered if she’d been out all night, just walking.
“Where is it?” Mrs. King said.
Alice took her to the grave. She adjusted her crucifix. “It’s very peaceful, isn’t it?”
“Don’t be morbid, Alice.”
Alice put her hands in her pockets. “Want a moment by yourself?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. King stood there for a long time, staring down at the tombstone. The breeze pulled on her skirts and from a distance it made her appear almost small, like a little girl. Alice had to turn away.
Afterward they walked together through the graves.
“I’m going abroad,” Alice said.
“Good,” said Mrs. King. There was a calmness about her. “I might need to do the same.”
“I mean, really abroad. To America, if I can manage it. To take in the latest fashions.”
“You can manage it.” Mrs. King looked at her seriously. “You can do anything you like.”
Alice considered very carefully what she wanted to say. “I wish Mother had been able to see the ocean,” she said. “I wish she’d been able to do anything at all.” The thought carried its own pain: dull, right in the center of the chest, immovable. Mrs. King nodded, lips pressed together. Evidently, she felt it, too.
“Shall we write to one another?” Alice said.
Mrs. King stopped. Straightened her cuffs. “Would you like that?”
Alice laughed, feeling her nerves. “I don’t know. We’re family. I suppose we ought to be in touch.”
Mrs. King reached out and touched her on the arm. “Write if you want to,” she said.
Alice kissed Mrs. King gently on the cheek. Her sister didn’t feel like marble anymore. She had warm skin, warm as any other human’s, warm as Alice’s own.
“You’re marvelous,” she said, solemnly, meaning it.
Mrs. King laughed, startled. “Heavens,” she said. “I’m not.” Something shifted in her expression, something dark. “How can I be? Knowing who I come from?”
She meant her father. Alice hesitated. The women were skirting around it, avoiding it. This topic felt too enormous, too dangerous, to discuss. They were both waiting for Mrs. King to set it out for them, explain what it meant, tell them what they were supposed to think. And yet she hadn’t done so. She seemed to have turned inward, growing fretful, as if there were something constantly on her mind.
Alice was still trying to compose the right reply when Mrs. King pulled away. Her eyes were on the gravestones behind Alice. A small temple had been erected there, a flashy memorial.
“What is it?” Alice said.
Mrs. King closed her eyes. “I need to see Mr. Shepherd.”
41
Winnie had to tell the conductor to stop at her station. It was hardly a station at all—it was more like a halt. The train would have steamed right through otherwise.
It took nearly two hours to get there from London. “I want the slow train,” she told them in the ticket office. She wanted to watch the countryside unfolding at its own pace. She wanted to be sure that she’d picked the right spot.
She took a seat in a first-class carriage. Important journeys deserved suitable investment. They also deserved expensive millinery. I can’t make a good hat, she told herself stolidly, but I can buy one. She purchased a slanted-cartwheel hat with magenta tips, a big boxy centerpiece, and rosettes all around the brim. It made her look a little like a banker and a little like a prize pony. It was quite something.
She wondered if they would treat her differently at the station and, of course, they didn’t. She could have stood in the middle of the terminus throwing banknotes up into the air, and people would have ignored her. She was still herself. She wasn’t the queen.
“All right, madam?” said the conductor as she stepped down onto the platform.
“Yes, thank you,” she said, feeling her rosettes flapping, but he was back up on his plate, raising his hand to the guard, and the train was already huffing into motion. When the last carriage had turned the corner the noise suddenly died away, and there was only birdsong left behind.
Winnie unpinned her hat and felt the sun on her neck. “This is the right place,” she said out loud, testing the fact.
She’d copied out the particulars, but she didn’t need to check them: she’d committed them to memory. Take a right at the station, follow the road till it comes to a fork, then head uphill.
I trust myself, she thought, setting off down the lane. I know where I’m going.
A horse chestnut stood sentinel at the gate. The breeze lifted its boughs and the house peeped through, a flash of pale blue and white, a twinkling of diamond panes.
Winnie fetched a key from the neighbor. “No, don’t come with me. I’ll judge the place better myself.”
The neighbor wore a marvelously hefty jersey, and tiny wire-rimmed spectacles. She gave Winnie a shrewd, appraising look—and smiled. She had very large teeth. They seemed to indicate great strength.
“Of course.”