Fifteen days to go
3:00 p.m.
Sundays were the dullest day in this place, thought Alice. In the morning the servants went to church, traipsing down to St. George’s in two neat lines like schoolchildren. Madam didn’t accompany them. She said her prayers in her private chapel, a turreted and curlicued box suspended over the garden, or else went to the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Mount Street. Alice asked Mr. Shepherd if she might be allowed to do the same.
“Certainly not,” he answered, as if she were launching a papist plot. She kept her rosary beads out of sight.
After luncheon, the servants were dismissed for their afternoon off. Alice stayed behind, to catch up on Madam’s dress.
A stillness descended upon the house. Sometimes Madam was the only person left in the building, save for the under-footman on rota. She didn’t keep a personal maid, Alice noted. She simply rotated through the senior house-parlormaids, getting them to button her into her dresses and carry out menial tasks. It was as if she preferred to keep herself unconstrained, aloof: when she grew bored of one girl, she simply moved on to another. At present she was attended by Iris, who was hotel trained and impressed Alice immensely. She had blueish lips and curls done with hot irons so that they looked like bedsprings. Alice stayed in the dressing room, per her instructions, eyes peeled to the crack in the door. “You’re our canary, remember,” Mrs. King had said. “If something smells off, start singing.” But working on Madam’s new costume made it difficult for Alice to keep her eyes peeled. It took every spare moment of the day, and she was already sewing long into the night. It was an assignment beyond anything she’d encountered before.
“I was thinking Cleopatra,” Miss de Vries had said. “In mourning colors, naturally. Can you draw something up for me?”
Alice had no idea where to begin. Her sketches had always been her own flights of fancy. “Help,” she said when she crept out to the mews lane to make her report to Winnie Smith. “You’ll need to get me a pattern.”
Winnie looked troubled. “I don’t like it,” she said, standing amid the ivy, concealed from both the road and the house. “Madam shouldn’t be talking to you. We didn’t account for that at all.”
“I shan’t breathe a word,” promised Alice, impatient. “But please. I haven’t the foggiest idea what she’ll care for, and I need to show her a dummy version by Sunday.”
Winnie rummaged in her bag. “Here,” she said reluctantly, drawing out clippings from the Illustrated News. “Pictures from the Devonshires’ ball. They might help.”
“Thank you,” gasped Alice, and hurtled back inside.
She had mountains of fabric to work with, all ordered from Worth of Paris at quite extraordinary expense. Black crepe de Chine, and delicate ostrich feathers, and black-dyed gauze. She pored over the photographs of Mrs. Paget and Countess de Grey in the Illustrated News, and gathered Madam’s ropes of jet jewelry into the best headdress she could muster.
I can do it, she thought. I must.
Now Miss de Vries came through from the bedroom. She was carrying a paper in her hand, a letter, from the look of it. She screwed it into her sleeve.
“Take my measurements again, will you?” she said.
Alice set down her needle. “Things can’t have changed much in a week,” she said. And then, remembering her manners, added, “Madam.” Mrs. King had been very clear about this. Keep her on side. You need to be as meek as a mouse.
“I need everything to fit perfectly.” Miss de Vries studied herself in the looking glass, expression sharp. “Dresses get so baggy.”
“Of course, Madam,” said Alice.
Miss de Vries’s eyes changed in the light, Alice noted. Grayish some days, greenish others. Her gaze swept Alice from top to toe, running right through her. In those moments Alice felt uneasy. She didn’t exactly care to be scrutinized with such intensity. Alice fetched the measuring tape, crouched beside her. “Stay still, Madam.” At length she said, “There. Just as I thought. No change.” She rolled the tape away. “Perfect.”
Miss de Vries thinned her lips at that. “Very well.” She sighed. “Show me how you’re getting on.”
Alice took a breath and fetched the beginnings of the costume. It was littered with pins and pieces of tissue paper, a fragile, half-formed thing. Alice could feel the ridges and sore parts between her fingers where her hands had been pressed to the needle.
Miss de Vries smirked at her. “You carry it as if it’s about to disintegrate.”
“It’s at a delicate stage, Madam.”
“Hmm.” Miss de Vries stepped forward, let a tentative finger touch the black-crusted beading on the bodice, the silk. “Who taught you to sew?”
“My father,” Alice said. “He’s a haberdasher.”
“Haberdashers can’t make gowns like this.”
Alice was pleased, but she tried to hide it with a frown. Pride always came before a fall.
“Have I offended you?” said Miss de Vries.
“No, Madam.” Alice hesitated, holding a pin in her hand. Miss de Vries looked at it, the glint of metal, the sharp edge. Alice threaded it carefully into her apron.
“Are you close to your father?”
That was a courteous enough remark. But Miss de Vries had never shown any special interest in Alice’s circumstances before. Alice shook her head, treading carefully. “Not in the least.” She didn’t wish to think about Father, or their grim front parlor, or his prayer books on the mantelpiece. At home the floorboards were coated with cheap red stain and covered with frayed carpets. Up here in Madam’s rooms things were soft and luxurious, downy and pure. They were immeasurably nicer.
“How sad.”
There: Miss de Vries was looking straight at her. The ironic smile had disappeared. Her gaze was fierce and penetrating, picking Alice right down to the bones. Then she unscrewed the letter tucked into the cuff of her sleeve. “Put everything away. And when you go downstairs, tell Mr. Shepherd to come and see me.” She raised the letter. “I have a visitor coming tomorrow. I need to change the menus.”
Alice was relieved. Standing near Miss de Vries was dangerous: she was altogether too observant. “Yes, Madam,” she said, retreating. And then, to be obliging, “Should I tell him who’s expected?”
Miss de Vries was scanning the paper, mouth moving silently with the words. She spoke offhandedly, but there was something in the ferocity of that gaze that held Alice’s attention. “Lord Ashley, from Fairhurst. Mr. Lockwood will accompany us.”
The names meant nothing to Alice.
“Very good, Madam.”
She began to carry the fabric away.
“Oh, Alice?”
Alice turned. Miss de Vries’s eyes were on her again. The light had changed, grown yellowish. It made Madam look softer, gentler. “You’re doing splendidly,” she said.
It was so unexpected, so entirely unlike Madam’s usual cool, disinterested tone, that Alice felt wrong-footed. She didn’t think anyone had praised her handiwork before. They paid her wages—that was all. Even Mrs. King never said well done. Alice didn’t mind being buttered up a little. She rather felt she deserved it. “Thank you,” she said in reply, and she was startled to hear the catch in her voice, as if Madam’s good opinion mattered to her more than she had realized.