Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz grabbed me on the way in this afternoon and invited me up for a Kraft cheese spread glass of brandy. Which irritated me.
“Why are you still using these?” I demanded. “I gave you seven beautiful cut glass tumblers for Christmas!”
The X-ray vision isn’t so focused at the moment, she has more of a faraway look, so my question didn’t provoke a blaze from her inner lighthouse. “Oh, I couldn’t use ‘em!” she exclaimed. “I’m savin’ ‘em for best, princess.”
“Saving them for best? But I didn’t give them to you to put away!” I said despairingly.
“If I used ‘em, I might break one.”
“But that doesn’t matter, Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz! If one breaks, I’ll replace it.”
“Can’t replace anything what’s broke,” she said. “The aura’s on the originals, princess, them’s the seven—good thinkin’, to make it seven, not six—what you touched and wrapped up so grouse.”
“I’d touch and wrap up the replacement nicely, too,” I said.
“Ain’t the same. Nope, I’m savin’ ‘em for best.”
I gave up, told her instead about my curious exchange with Toby. “I could have sworn he was in love with Pappy!”
“Nah, never has been. She brought ‘im home near five years ago for a quick nooky, then realised I was lookin’ for ‘im—saw ‘im in the cards. The King of Swords. Gotta have a King of Swords in The House, princess, but they’re a lot harder to find than the Queens. Men’re poor fish, ain’t often strong the way women are. But Toby is. Good bloke, Toby,” she said, nodding.
“I am aware of that!” I snapped.
“That youse are, princess, but not aware enough.”
“Not aware enough?” I asked.
But she changed the subject, informed me that every New Year’s Eve she has a party. Quote, a rip-snorter of a bash. It’s become a Cross tradition, and everybody who is anybody at the Cross will be there for at least a part of the festivities. Even Norm, Merv, Madame Fugue, Madame Toccata, Chastity Wiggins and a few others of the “permanent” girls snatch the time to attend Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz’s New Year’s Eve party. I said I’d be there, but that as I have to work on New Year’s Day, I wouldn’t be able to get into the real swing of things.
“There ain’t no work for you on New Year’s Day,” she said, “I can tell youse that for sure.”
“It’s in the cards,” I said in a long-suffering voice.
“Got it in one, princess!”
Turns out she wants culinary help, of course. The blokes are instructed to supply the booze, the girls in The House (plus Klaus) provide the food. Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz herself roasts a turkey—it’ll be dry and rubbery, I thought with a shudder. Klaus is down for roast suckling pig, Jim and Bob are doing the salads, weeny saveloys and weeny sausage rolls, Pappy has to come up with spring rolls and prawn toasts, and I am down for the desserts, all suitable to eat with the fingers. Eclairs, fairy cakes, lamingtons and Neenish tarts are my orders.
“Better add some of them grouse Anzac bikkies you make,” the old horror added. “I ain’t a great one for puddins, but I do like to dip a good crunchy bikky in me cuppa tea.”
I laughed. “Go on, you fraud! Since when have you drunk tea?”
“Two cups of it every New Year’s Eve,” she said solemnly.
“How’s Harold?” I asked.
“Harold’s Harold,” she said, pulling a face. “Lucky thing is that the job he’s gotta do for The House is comin’ up fast, so the cards inform me. The minute it’s done, out he goes.”
“No point in telling you that we’re losing Pappy as well as Toby,” I said, and sighed. “The House is falling apart.”
On came the searchlight in her eyes. “Never say that, Harriet Purcell!” she said sternly. “The House is eternal.”
Flo came in, yawning and rubbing her eyes, saw me and landed in my lap in one bound. “I’ve never seen her sleepy before,” I said.
“She sleeps.”
“Nor have I ever heard her talk.”
“She talks.”
So I wandered off downstairs, Flo with her hand in mine, to spend an evening only bearable because Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz had let me have my angel. When I brought her back shortly before nine o’clock (Flo doesn’t keep ordinary children’s hours, she seems to be up until her mother goes to bed—what would my own mother say about that?), Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz was sitting in the darkness of her room, not out on the balcony as is her habit in summer. The Glass was on the table before her, and it seemed to gather in every last particle of light from the street lamp outside, the bulb in the hall, an occasional headlight as some chauffeured Rolls delivered a client to 17b or 17d. The moment Flo saw her mother, she stopped absolutely still, the pressure of her hand in mine a silent command not to move. So we stood there in the gloom for what seemed like half an hour while that massive shape sat utterly still, its shadowy face a foot from the Glass.
Finally, with a sigh, Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz leaned back in her chair, wiped her face with a tired hand. I led Flo forward softly until we reached the table.
“Ta for minding her, princess. I needed to scry.”
“Would you like me to switch the light on?”
“Ta. Then come back here for a minute.”
When I returned, Flo was sitting on her lap, looking sadly at the buttoned dress.
“It’s a pity you weaned her,” I found myself saying.
“Had to,” she answered curtly. Then she reached out to take both my hands and put them on the Glass, while Flo stared at them raptly, then transferred her gaze to my face in—wonder? I don’t know. But I stood there cupping the Glass, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. The surface is cool and sleek, that’s all.
“Remember,” Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz said, “remember that the fate of The House is in the Glass.” She removed my hands and put them together, palm against palm, fingers conjoined, the way angels’ hands are in paintings. “It’s in the Glass.”