Hyde Park. Winnie was studying her wristwatch, concentrating, her notebook open on her knee.
“How’s the timing?” asked Mrs. King.
Winnie held up a finger, waited. Then took a breath. “By my calculations we’ll get those crates from the dome to the floor in less than a minute.”
“Well, crack a smile, then, Winnie. That’s good news.”
Winnie lifted her head. The sun slanted across her face, drawing out the lines around her eyes. Neither of them had slept properly in days. Their list of tasks seemed to grow longer by the hour. So did their debts. Winnie had just returned from an appointment on Curtain Road, bringing back a bill of sale for three dozen Parenty’s smoking machines. She’d looked flushed, pleased with herself.
“Not a bad price,” Mrs. King had told her encouragingly.
Of course she could have got them a better deal herself, buying on credit as they were. But there was no need to upset Winnie. Mrs. King had spent the night going through the Inventory with two monocled gentlemen brought in—and paid for—by Mrs. Bone. They smelled extraordinarily of fox fur and cheese, and knew everything about art. The prices they quoted made Mrs. King’s heart expand.
She decided she and Winnie deserved a treat.
“I’m buying you an ice,” she said to Winnie.
“I don’t care for ices.”
“I’m paying,” Mrs. King said.
“Fine.”
Now they sat together near the bandstand. Park Lane glistened between the trees, tantalizingly close. Mrs. King licked her ice cream with relish.
“How’s Hephzibah getting on with her stagehands?” she said, rubbing her mouth with her hand.
Winnie rolled her eyes. “You know Hephzibah.”
They’d put Hephzibah to work on Mrs. Bone’s men: training their accents, fixing their manners, straightening their posture. She would be responsible for directing them through the house, on the night of the ball.
“Is she terrifying everybody?”
“She’s terrifying me. She thinks she’s Sarah Bernhardt.”
“Perhaps she’s better.”
Winnie lowered her voice. “This is a robbery, not opening night at the Coliseum.”
“It could be both.”
“I’m serious.”
“And so am I. Hephzibah’s good at her job. And she can get close to the action.”
“I’m good at my job.”
“Sewing, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve got Alice for that.”
“That’s not the point.”
Mrs. King sighed. “Actually, that’s entirely the point. I need you by my side.”
Winnie shuffled in her chair. “D’you think I’m lousy at needlework?”
Mrs. King saw her worried little expression, and felt a burst of affection. “Not lousy, no.”
The crowds were moving in gentle waves across the park. “It’s horribly tiring, all this,” said Winnie.
“Have a nap.”
“I don’t have time to have a nap.”
“Then have another ice.”
Winnie inspected her ice cream sadly as it dripped relentlessly onto the bench. “When did you become such a brute?”
Mrs. King dug her gently in the ribs. “When did you become such a goose?”
There was a long silence, but for the shushing of the trees overhead.
Winnie wiped her hands. “Dinah,” she said. “Is there any more to this?”
Mrs. King licked her fingers. “More to what?”
“All this.” She met Mrs. King’s gaze. “This job.”
“You mean beyond earning a fortune greater than our wildest dreams?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. King finished her ice. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I know you. You’re a proud woman. But you’re not that proud.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You lost your job. Bad luck, poor you. But you’re not struggling. You’ve got your wits about you. You’ll be fine.” Winnie looked contemplative. “One doesn’t tear a house down every time she grows tired of gainful employment.”
Mrs. King laughed. “Oh, doesn’t one?”
“No,” said Winnie stubbornly. “So I’m asking: is there something more going on?”
Sometimes, in the dark of the night, Mrs. King thought about the one thing that frightened her about her plan. Other people. All their strange little fears, their jealousies, their persistent needs. Animals didn’t buck authority this way. Birds didn’t. They flew in perfect formation, a powerful confederacy.
“Oh,” said Mrs. King, “probably.”
Winnie’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me.”
There were times when a titbit, a tiny particle of information, soothed her fine band of women. It was like training dogs, feeding birds. She swiveled position on the bench. “When I first came to Park Lane, Mr. de Vries made me a promise.” She stretched her legs. “Two promises, actually.”
Something darkened in Winnie’s eyes. “Mr. de Vries?”
“Yes. First: that people wouldn’t ask me where I came from. Second: he’d pay my mother’s hospital fees.”
“Hospital?”
“Yes. I don’t know what you’d call it. A workhouse. An asylum.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? I’m not sure I do.”
“I’m sorry,” Winnie said.
Images came into Mrs. King’s mind, the old ones. Gray light. Mother’s stare, growing stranger. “They promised me I wouldn’t have to talk about it. I could put everyone behind me. Mother. Alice, too.”
Winnie said slowly, “We’ve never discussed this, you know. In all our years together, never. I always thought it was a strange thing.”
“What was?”
“You. Coming to Park Lane. Right out of the blue. No family, no papers. You didn’t even know how to tie your apron properly.”
“Well,” said Mrs. King, “I had you to teach me, didn’t I?”
Winnie tilted her head. “We know what sort of girl arrives in a house without a character.”
Mrs. King laughed. “I wasn’t in that sort of trouble, Winnie.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then why did Mr. de Vries hire you?”
Mrs. King had been asked that question before. “Old friend of the family.”
Winnie let out a short laugh. “An old friend. I see.” She shook her head. “Good Lord. When I think about the way we bent over backward for you, made exceptions for you. Changed breakfast time, suppertime, gave you the nice chores, extra candles, extra sugar, more tea. A bed by the window, a room of your own, new caps, free mending...”
“You didn’t do so badly by him yourself.”
“I worked. I worked my fingers to the bone. I’ve never worked so hard in my life.”
Winnie’s face glimmered with something hard to read. Mrs. King had to allow that it was true. Winnie had plodded through that house like a shire horse: inexhaustible, determined. She’d gone from kitchen maid to between-maid to housemaid to house-parlormaid. When she made housekeeper, they gave her a round of riotous applause. Even Cook had been decent about it. Five years and then—she left. No farewells. It took Mrs. King months to even find her, selling tatty ostrich feathers to a milliner in Spitalfields.
Winnie took a breath. “What was he to you?”
“What do you think?”
“What do I think? I think you were on a pedestal the moment you arrived. I think you had protection. I’ve no notion why. That’s what I’m asking.”
Mrs. King concentrated on keeping her face smooth. “Heavens, Inspector.”
Winnie raised a finger. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Manage me.”
Mrs. King felt her patience thinning. She caught it before it snapped. “It’s my job,” she said coldly, “to manage you. I’m managing everyone. That’s what I’m here for.”
Winnie was calm. “Dinah. Tell me.”
They’d come right up to the brink of something.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” Mrs. King said. “Really.”
“What tree? I don’t even know what I’m asking.”
Mrs. King rose. “We’ve got work to do. I need to talk to Sanger about the camels.”
“No.”
Winnie didn’t move. If it had been Hephzibah asking, or Mrs. Bone, or Alice, it never would have come out. They were easy to sidestep, divert, deflect. But Winnie simply sat there and waited for the truth. She expected it of Mrs. King. She deserved it.
Mrs. King felt a queer sensation in her chest, the fear that she couldn’t control her face.
“He was my father,” she said.
Winnie wondered later if she’d looked like a fool. She wondered if she’d paled, gasped, done any of the stupid things. A child came tearing past, balloon in hand, shrieking with laughter. Mrs. King put her hand to her cheek.
At last, Winnie spoke. “Your father?” Confirmation seemed necessary; it seemed absolutely vital.
Mrs. King dragged her gaze up to meet Winnie’s. “I didn’t know at first. They never told me.”
“Then how on earth...?”
She spoke in a strange, flat voice. “I worked it out.”
Winnie said, tentatively, “You mean, he never told you? You just...wondered...”
“No, he told me.” Mrs. King folded her hands. “In the end.”
Winnie suddenly wished very badly that they were not sitting in public. The day felt too hot and too glaring, and there was a weakness in her chest. It was shock, she supposed.
“Did you know for a very long time?”
Mrs. King nodded.
“And you didn’t—say anything?”
Mrs. King’s voice came out low, quiet. “You don’t say, when it’s something like that.”
Winnie’s stomach clenched. “Come,” she said. “Let’s walk.”
She linked arms with Mrs. King, pulled her away from the bench. They moved away from the broad paths, away from Park Lane.
“Do the others know?” she asked.
“They won’t care about this.”
They would care—they would care a great deal. “It might do you some good to tell them. It would help them understand. It must be the most dreadful burden, keeping such a secret.”
“I’m not the one keeping it a secret. Everyone else has been doing that.”
She really believed that, Winnie thought. She was holding on tight to it. “Well. Better to get it out in the open now, then.”
Mrs. King’s arm went rigid. “Mrs. Bone knows,” she said. “She’s known from the start. She’s as much connected to him as I am. She’s his sister.”
Winnie halted. This time the shock felt like pain, not like weakness. She drew her arm away. Mrs. King at least had the grace to look uneasy. “It was best you didn’t know,” she said.
Winnie felt as if she’d like to scream. “For heaven’s sake, Dinah.” She put a hand to her head, feeling an ache starting there. “You should have told me. You should have told me years ago.”
Mrs. King just shook her head.
Winnie sighed. “This discussion has unsettled us both. Let’s go back.”
And so they did, not speaking. Winnie gave full but silent vent to her feelings. It was unpardonable that Dinah should have kept so great a secret from her. But that question nagged at her. Didn’t you guess?
She pictured Mrs. King, that playful, sideways tilt to her expression. It was so entirely like the old master that it made Winnie’s legs feel weak.
She understood quite clearly what must have happened. Mr. de Vries had got himself a bastard. Most gentlemen would have sent the mother a stipend, or at any rate a warning letter, or simply run away. He had gone one better. He had hired the child on as his housemaid. It astonished her, the audacity of it. It was the kind of breathtaking self-assurance that made her burn with envy.
Here, then, were the secret things of which she could never speak. Mr. de Vries was brutal, he steamrollered people, he was unendingly brash, twisted up in his crimson silks and canary-yellow buttons. But he was gentle with Winnie. He treated her with courtesy. “My dear Winnie Smith,” he used to say, grinning at her. “The cleverest person in this house.” For clever she was, clever she dubbed herself, so well educated and reliable and nicely spoken. She spent hours in Mr. de Vries’s company, taking dictation, acting amanuensis. He gave her little gifts, an allowance, he even had her mother over for tea when Father died. His charm was extraordinary. And she thought she’d deserved it. She devoted her soul to that house. She’d admired Mr. de Vries tremendously: of course he was vulgar, but at least he was honest about it.
Her shame hardened in her gut.
She linked arms with Mrs. King. “I’m sorry I never guessed,” she said.
Mrs. King turned, face drawn. She looked almost scared of what Winnie might say to her. It twisted Winnie’s heart, made tears prick in her eyes.
“I didn’t want you to guess,” Mrs. King said. “I wouldn’t have let you.” She squeezed Winnie’s arm. “Don’t mention it to the others,” she added.
Winnie let out a breath. “We oughtn’t to be keeping secrets, Dinah.”
The anxiety left Mrs. King’s expression. It was replaced with something harder, grimmer. “That’s an order, Win,” she said.