Mrs. Bone spent her first afternoon on Park Lane rubbing copper pans, keeping her head down, as instructed by Mrs. King. She cleaned that copper with furious energy, and with an eye on the clock, waiting for her first break. She had no intention of waiting around. She needed to disentangle herself from Cook, and the other servants, and make an immediate examination of the house. The lower offices were sufficiently warren-like that she could sneak upstairs without being observed. She entered the front hall first. It felt satisfying to start somewhere forbidden.
There was a cathedral-like hush, light coming down through a glass dome above. Palms and ferns in great vases. A floor made of white marble. Gold on the door panels and crystal in the doorknobs. A lot of very disgusting and expensive things that Mrs. Bone rather liked: paintings of nude ladies, foxes stuffed till their eyes popped, stags screaming silently from their plinths. It wasn’t exactly the size of the place that caught her breath. It was the curve to it, the way it flowed upward, all glass and iron and light. It seemed frosted, iced, a lickable, kissable house.
Her envy made her skin grow hot.
The hall was connected to the gardens by a long, colonnaded passage and several glass-fronted doors. She remembered it from the schematics engraved on the soup tureen. Good, she thought. Easy access. But she wanted to inspect the garden exits properly. Remembering the maps Winnie had drawn up for her, she crept back downstairs. She sidled through the kitchen passage, passed the sculleries, pantries, laundry rooms, larders, still rooms, dry rooms, inched around the edge of the kitchen and into the mews, and scuttled straight for the mews door.
She tested the handle. Not locked. She glanced back at the house. This was a clear run from the gardens. Helpful.
Gently, keeping her eyes peeled for onlookers, she opened the mews door, and backed out into the lane.
“Mrs. Bone.”
Mrs. Bone’s heart jumped. “Christ alive.”
Winnie Smith was hidden in the ivy. “I beg your pardon. Did I startle you?” Winnie peered at her, her cabbage-colored dress covered in detritus from the wall.
“Nobody startles me,” said Mrs. Bone, catching her breath. “What d’you want?”
“I come here to collect Alice’s daily report. I thought you might wish to share your first remarks.”
“Oh, it’s remarks you want, is it? Heavens, let me just fetch my magnifying glass and look at my notes.” Mrs. Bone tutted. “I’ve only been here five minutes. Give me a whole day at least.”
Winnie frowned, and Mrs. Bone sighed, lowering her voice. “Look, the way I see it, I’m going to be cooped up in the kitchens, shoved up the back stairs, or locked in the attics. If I’m going to assess this place, then you need to find me a reason to get into the good part of the house.”
Winnie hesitated. “I’m sure you’ll find a way,” she said.
Mrs. Bone gripped Winnie’s wrist. “I’m not going to be boiled like a load of old petticoats in the laundry room. You can find the way.”
Winnie shook her off. “Very well,” she said, voice hardening. She paused to consider it. “They’d allow the daily woman upstairs if there was a cleaning job that the other girls couldn’t manage. Rough work, you know.”
“I’m not doing anything with blood. And nothing in the privy. Don’t even ask.”
“Look in the dining room. It always gets the worst of the grime—the motor cars are parked right outside the front windows. Find something filthy, and then tell them you’ll clean it.”
Mrs. Bone sucked in her cheeks. “Simple as that, is it?”
“It’ll work, Mrs. Bone.”
“Hmm. Now, you can do something else for me. Have you got the local bobby’s name?”
“What do you need that for?” asked Winnie, dubiously.
“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.
“You in there?”
She turned with a start, scurried back to her bucket, whipped a brush from her pocket.
The door slid open.
Cook appeared, arms crossed. Peered at the frames. “These don’t look any cleaner than before. You’ve got some nerve.”
Mrs. Bone abased herself. “I ought to have asked your opinion first, Cook.”
Cook’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, you ought,” she said. But her chest swelled all the same.
This lot, thought Mrs. Bone, rolling her eyes inwardly. They’re easy pickings.
She corrected herself. Presume nothing. Disaster lurked in every corner. Fate was waiting to crush her pride. But she liked the odds. She wouldn’t have admitted it to Mrs. King. But she liked them a lot.
The next day she went to snare the policeman with her stolen goods. Mrs. Bone never took on a job without compromising the constabulary. No use launching a burglary if you didn’t have a bobby up your sleeve. The chauffeur, Mr. Doggett, and two of the under-footmen were sitting in the mews yard, playing cards. Mrs. Bone dropped them both a free cigarette in exchange for their silence. “You’re like a bloody chimney,” the chauffeur said.
“I’ve got bad nerves,” Mrs. Bone replied, and slipped out to the lane.
Oh, there was a lot of waiting around in this place. It was going to make her back ache, standing up for hours and hours, for days on end. She was keeping a list of pros and cons in her head. That went firmly under Con. Mrs. Bone heard the clocks chiming distantly from the house.
At last, the bobby lumbered around the corner of the mews lane, following his beat. He spotted her and frowned. She gave him a wave. “No, you don’t know me,” she called, scrunching her nose, tipping a curtsey. “I’m new.”
“They let you have cigarettes here, do they?” he asked.
Mrs. Bone wagged a finger at him. “Don’t tell.” Extended her hand. “Want a puff?”
The constable laughed. “Nasty habit on a lady.”
Mrs. Bone winked at him. “A lady’s got to pass the time. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me?”
“I thought you might want a bit of business.”
The constable’s face went blank. “I don’t know about that.”
“About what?”
Mrs. Bone knew that the thing to do in situations like this was to stay extremely still, be extremely careful, send out all the right signals.
“Oh?” he said, at last.
“Oh, yes,” she replied.
A long moment passed. And then she saw a grin tweak the edges of his mouth. “Give me a puff of that, then,” he said, beckoning for the cigarette.
Mrs. Bone handed it to him, pinching her fingers so their hands didn’t touch.
“Now, have a look at this.”
She glanced down the lane, checked they weren’t being observed, and planted her legs firmly apart. The constable raised his eyebrow.
“In my apron. Go on, have a look.”
He leaned forward, whistled. “You left them something to eat with, didn’t you?” He cleared his throat, leaned back. “Oh, I see. You’ve brought me the cheap stuff.”
Mrs. Bone cocked her hip. “Don’t be difficult. Which bits d’you fancy?”
The constable may have been crooked, but he knew his business. “I’ll give you a guinea for the lot.”
Mrs. Bone was civil. “I don’t deal in guineas. And we’ll discuss things piece by piece or we’ll not discuss them at all.”
He shrugged. “All right. What’ll you take for the teaspoons?”
“Two pounds three and six.”
He sucked his teeth. “I’ll give you thirty bob. And you know that’s more than they’re worth.”
Mrs. Bone closed her apron. “I see. You want knock-offs. I don’t trade in those, Constable.”
He stepped back. “I didn’t know you was in trade at all.”
Mrs. Bone clicked her tongue in impatience, rummaged in her apron. “Fancy a saltcellar? Egg cup? How about a muffineer?”
A shadow moved in the distance, and the constable stiffened. “Someone’s coming.”
Mrs. Bone held up the saltcellar, gave it a little shake. “Now, thirty bob for this I will countenance.”
The constable put his hand over hers. “Put that away.”
“One pound ten and I’ll throw in a spoon. What d’you say?”
Yes, there was a figure coming through the mews yard. A woman, making for the gate.
“I said put that away,” said the constable, trying to block Mrs. Bone from view.
“And the muffineer?”
He glanced at her, looked over his shoulder, shuffled notes and coins in his pocket. “One pound six. But tie your apron up, for Gawd’s sake—there’s someone coming.”
“One pound six? Oh, you’re a thief, Constable. You’re a regular padfoot.” But she lifted the articles from her own apron, taking his money. “You’re running rings around a poor widow.”
She slipped a silver spoon in his pocket, in full view of the woman approaching them from behind.
The constable lurched. “Morning, miss.”
It was Alice, slightly out of breath. She eyed the constable, and then his pockets, and he reddened.
Mrs. Bone whispered to the constable: “I think she saw you. Naughty rascal. We’d best keep this between the two of us.”
His eyes flashed with worry.
Alice glanced at him, then back to Mrs. Bone. “We haven’t met,” she said stiffly to Mrs. Bone. “I’m the sewing maid.”
Mrs. Bone looped her arm around Alice’s shoulders. “Oh, I’ve ever such a lot of mending for you, my girl.” She sent a brilliant smile over her shoulder. “Good day to you, Constable!”
They sped up the garden. “Got him?” Alice whispered, anxious. “What d’you think?”
This could work, Mrs. Bone thought. She could almost feel Danny watching her, fury sizzling on the surface of his skin. Pro, she decided, marking up her list.
“Don’t be nosy,” she said, not uncheerfully, and linked her arm through Alice’s. She was feeling better and better about this.