Miss de Vries heard William and the under-footmen sorting the post in the front hall. They were fetching extra platters. She knew what this meant. The responses were arriving. It put her on edge.
“Alice?” she said, calling through to the dressing room.
The girl appeared, eager faced but tired, hair scragged back, skin gray. She tucked her needle into her apron pocket, wiped her hands. “Yes, Madam?” Her throat sounded dry.
“I’m running late. Iris has the afternoon off. Bring me some afternoon dresses to look at, will you?”
Alice’s eyes widened, and Miss de Vries understood why. Sewing maids sewed. They didn’t do any more than that. The rules below stairs were rigid, unbending. She always enjoyed this, sending them scrambling. It settled her own nerves.
“Certainly, Madam,” Alice said, and hurried out of the room.
She was keen to impress, and that pleased Miss de Vries, too.
Alice returned with two dresses. “Perhaps these, Madam? The plain crepe or the crepe with jet.”
Miss de Vries opened her arms. “You choose.”
Alice hesitated. “Plain,” she said. And then, with a little flush, as if testing herself, “It suits you better.”
Miss de Vries laughed at that. “You ought to tell me they suit me equally.”
Alice reddened. “Beg pardon, Madam.”
Miss de Vries put out her wrists to be unbuttoned. “I suppose I shall have to give up the jet, then.” She met Alice’s gaze. “You have it.”
Alice dropped her hands. “Me?”
“Certainly. It’ll get moth-eaten otherwise. I can’t possibly wear it now.”
Alice took a step back. “I didn’t mean to speak out of turn,” she said, frowning.
Miss de Vries studied herself in the glass. “You didn’t. You have a good eye, as well you know.” She adjusted the lace around her neck. “Iris could take a lesson from you.”
She didn’t look at Alice. She knew what effect this would have. It happened the same way, every time. A blush, a demurral, a lot of pretty confusion. They were such adorable playthings, the junior maids. Pet them long enough and they gave up all kinds of gossip. The house-parlormaids were machine-made, perfectly trained, more inscrutable. They’d waited on grander ladies in even bigger houses than this one. Sometimes they even unsettled Miss de Vries herself. But Alice was timid, mouselike. She’d gobble up nice treats.
“I oughtn’t to take this, Madam,” said Alice, voice serious. She held the dress at arm’s length, as if she were afraid of it. “It’s too generous.”
Miss de Vries turned, surprised. Evidently, this mouse had more strength of will than she had expected. “Whatever do you mean?”
The girl’s face looked grave. She hesitated, as if searching for the correct response. “You might want to keep it for yourself,” she said.
Miss de Vries considered this unlikely. Black dresses already bored her to tears. Six months to go till half mourning—it was an intolerable wait. “Suit yourself,” she said. “I’ll know not to spoil you next time.”
At that moment William knocked on the distant bedroom door. “Post, Madam,” he called.
“Enter,” she replied.
William left the silver platter by the bedroom door. The male servants never entered her inner sanctum.
“You open them,” she said to Alice, her stomach tight with anticipation, her tone careless. “Tell me who to expect.”
She went to the window, concentrating hard on the muslins.
“Very well, Madam.” Alice began opening the envelopes. A minute passed.
“Well?” said Miss de Vries.
Alice glanced up. She gave Miss de Vries a furtive look. “I’ve put the declines on this side, Madam.”
“Declines?”
“Acceptances, too, just here.”
“Who has accepted?”
“The general manager of the Quaker Bank. Mrs. Doheny and her son. Charles Fox and Mrs. Fox.”
Bankers. Americans. Industrialists. “And the declines?”
Alice was threshing the envelopes like a machine. “The Marquess of Lansdowne. Lord and Lady Selborne. The Gascoyne-Cecils. Lady Primrose.”
The best neighbors. “Stop,” said Miss de Vries. “I shall go through them myself.”
“But there are dozens, Madam.”
“I said to leave them.”
Alice put the envelopes back on the tray. “Very well,” she said, voice serious again.
Miss de Vries turned to look at her properly. The girl was staring at her and there was something in her eyes that Miss de Vries didn’t exactly like. Not derision, not judgment. A tiny flare of sympathy. “Do you still want to be measured today, Madam?” she said, with care.
It wasn’t a barb. But Miss de Vries took it as one all the same. What use was it to be measured, to be fitted into her gown, if she were only to be seen by fishwives and bankers? Anger fizzled in her skin.
“No,” she said, voice sharp. “Certainly not.”
There was a flash of resignation in Alice’s expression, and she turned to go downstairs. It was as if she knew not to press things. It gave Miss de Vries the sensation of being managed. Of being ever so slightly cared for. It was a peculiar feeling.
“You can go,” she said quickly, to make sure that Alice was leaving because she had ordained it. “I’ll send for you if I need you.”
Afterward, Miss de Vries went to the winter garden and ordered a pot of tea. She drank it in the corner seat, by the window, concealed behind the ferns. She studied Stanhope House, just down the road. Of course they’d come. Soap manufacturers were no trouble at all. Her teacup burned her fingers.
Should she cancel the ball? No, impossible. The ball was like a storm, gathering strength all of its own. She felt its pressure in her skull. It was a bet, and she never feared taking big bets. She’d taken the biggest risk of all already. Of that she had daily proof.
She blew on her tea—cooling it, controlling it, forcing it back into line.
Beneath her, on the pavement, Jane-one and Jane-two were moving in quickstep down Park Lane. They were playing their game. One of them sped up, then the other. You had to be alert; you couldn’t blink. If you did, you’d fall out of step—you’d lose. They ducked and wove their way down the street.
Jane-one rang the tradesmen’s bell. Jane-two slipped a wrench from her pocket to her bag. “Ready?”
She hardly needed to ask. Jane-one nodded. “Ready.”
The butler interviewed them in his office. He smelled of gas lamps, and sweated incessantly. There was a general sense of disorder and confusion in the servants’ hall: the Janes had picked up on it immediately. There were tradesmen waiting at the side door, boxes piling up in the passage outside the kitchen, kitchen maids scurrying around in hectic, directionless circles. This house had lost its circus master. Chaos was creeping in, chuckling all the way.
“We’re presently seeking a housekeeper,” Mr. Shepherd told the girls. “And she would do the interviews. But we’ve yet to find a satisfactory candidate...”
The Janes knew that already. Mrs. King and Hephzibah had paid a call on Mr. Shepherd’s preferred agency. His letters requesting fresh applicants kept going missing. The Janes had snaffled one or two themselves.
Shepherd peered up at them. “You’ve got glowing references. You served a... Mrs. Grandcourt? Correct?”
“Yes,” they said.
“Yes, Mr. Shepherd,” he corrected with a sniff.
“Yes, Mr. Shepherd.”
He scratched his nose. “Hotel trained, are you?” he said.
Jane-one felt him assessing her like a butcher, checking her parts: neck, chest, thighs, waist.
She kept her face blank. “Yes, sir.”
“Thought as much. But you haven’t worked in a big house before?”
“Not as big as this one.”
“Well, that’s quite understandable. Few have, my dear. Are you good Christians?”
They stared at him.
“Well?”
“Yes,” they said in perfect unison. Mrs. King had instructed them in this, too. Mr. Shepherd liked clean, scrubbed-up voices. It indicated a desire for self-improvement.
“Mr. Shepherd is a great advocate of self-improvement,” Winnie Smith had said flatly.
“Show me your hands.”
They shoved their fingers right in his face, making him jump, giving him a whiff of carbolic soap and chemicals.
“Well, very clean. Good nails.” He shuffled his papers again, and Jane-one waggled her fingers. “Yes, that’s fine.” He thought of something. “You know there’s no allowance for sugar or tea in your wages?”
“We don’t drink tea,” said Jane-two.
Mr. Shepherd liked that, too. “Very good. Most economical.”
“We are economical.” Jane-one pressed her palms to his desk again. “We’ll split our rations between us.”
“Two for the price of one, ha-ha,” said Mr. Shepherd, plainly ready to have this business over and done with. “Well, consider yourselves on trial.”
They nodded, stepped back. “We’ll meet the mistress now, then,” said the Jane-two.
“Meet the... No, you certainly will not. Madam has delegated all downstairs matters entirely to me.”
“But engaging domestics is one of those duties in which the judgment of the mistress must be keenly exercised.”
“Indeed it is, indeed it is,” Shepherd said. And then, with more strength, he added, “And I am most extremely observant of Madam’s strictures on these matters.” He straightened in his chair. “So there won’t be another word about it, Miss...” Clearly he was struggling to remember their names. “Miss...”
“Jane,” they said, in tandem, with force.
It wasn’t easy, hiding everything. The extendable poles, the rope swing, the breakaway ladder, the nets, the winches, the braces, the platforms, the joists. All those had to be stored in the attics. They were cavernous, and accessible by drainpipe, and you could winch things up from the garden if you were quick about it. Winnie had given them detailed instructions.
“You’ll find porthole windows here, here, and here.” She’d pointed at them on the map. “You can easily get pulleys down to the garden.”
Jane-one had thought there was something fishy about her expression. “You love this place, don’t you?” she’d said.
Winnie had seemed startled by the idea. “No,” she had said, grave faced. “But I know it very well.”
They began operations on that first night. The odious cook informed them that they were to be locked into their bedroom at night, which necessitated an immediate survey of the drainpipe and the guttering. They were pleased with the results. Jane-one loved modern houses. The dimensions were hopelessly vulgar, of course—everybody knew that—but the craftsmanship was tip-top. They waited until the house started to still and settle, and then they inched out of the window.
They had to pause on the way up to the roof. Jane-two dug her foot into Jane-one’s shoulder.
“What is it?”
“Shh.”
“Is it him?”
“I said shh.”
They’d clocked him at once: a gerbil-faced lamp-boy who ran errands all over the house. He was staring out of a window on the fourth floor, nose pressed to the glass, gazing up at the sky. Jane sighed inwardly. This was no time for stargazing.
At last, Jane-two kicked her again. “He’s gone. Come on.”
Jane-one took a breath. It had been a long time since she’d been up this high. That was the trouble, working for Mrs. Bone. It made you soft. Forget your training. She closed her eyes.
“Are you experiencing a crisis?” whispered Jane-two.
“No, I’m just experiencing your great blooming arse in my face,” muttered Jane-one.
Up they went.
Once they got the pulley in place, they had to lay padding to muffle the attic floors. They couldn’t allow anyone in the servants’ quarters to hear any creaking footsteps overhead. Winnie had purchased an enormous number of Turkish carpets, which some of Mrs. Bone’s men delivered at night by vaulting over the walls. The tallest gave Jane-two a wink when he landed at her feet.
“You did that rather well,” she said, appraising him.
“I do lots of things rather well,” he replied, appraising her right back.
“Moira,” gasped Jane-one, staggering under the weight of the carpet rolls. “For pity’s sake.”
They were nearly caught the following night, lifting crates up to the attics, ready to be packed up on the night of the ball. Two of the under-footmen were still awake long after lights out. They’d cracked open their window, smoking contraband cigarettes, talking in hushed tones. Jane-two had to make a low whistle, her best impression of an owl. By then at least two dozen of the hired men were already crawling over the roof of the mews house to gain access to the garden and the eastern side of the house. They froze on their haunches, not moving until the footmen blew their lights out and the window juddered closed.
But otherwise the servants paid the Janes no mind. Cook had a good deal of violent and offensive opinions, but the Janes knew their rights: they’d been hired on as house-parlormaids—they sat outside her jurisdiction. The under-footmen were either too superior or too gauche to talk to girls. The head footman was very beautiful, but the Janes were never swayed by beauty. The other housemaids smoked, monitored their tea rations, took in the illustrated papers and avoided their chores when they could get away with it. A bevy of new servants came in daily, in expectation of the ball. Waiters, clock winders, glass cleaners, mechanics, a man with a splendid toupee who specialized in topiary. In other words, the Janes blurred entirely into the background.
“This is going to be easy,” said Jane-one.
“Too easy,” said Jane-two. “And note that down in the log. An assumption made is a day’s delay.”
Jane-one rolled her eyes, but she complied.
They only encountered Mrs. Bone when they crossed the kitchen. She was always caught in some degrading position, struggling with a mop and bucket, usually on her hands and knees, utterly subjected to the tyranny of Cook. “Cup of tea, girls, I beg you,” she whispered when they found her scrubbing the pantry floor, hands blistering from lime solution, eyes wild and bloodshot. “I’m gasping.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Bone,” they said. “We can’t be seen to be fraternizing with you.”
Alice Parker was permanently ensconced in Madam’s rooms, sewing all day.
“Now, girls,” said Winnie, when she sneaked around for the daily report, “Mrs. King says you have an objection to Alice. Tell me what the matter is. We can’t have discord in our ranks.”
“We do not wish to mistrust Alice Parker,” said Jane-two gravely, “but we do.”
“But it’s illogical. She’s done nothing wrong.”
Jane-one sighed. “She never comes down for dinner. She stays upstairs, mooning over Madam all day.”
“Those are her instructions.”
“We’ve all had our instructions,” said Jane-one witheringly. “But there’s no need to go off the deep end.”
Winnie shook her head, as Mrs. King had. “No complaining, girls,” she said. “You know the rules.”
They shrugged at that. No use banging the gong if nobody wanted their dinner. Miss de Vries, meanwhile, they rarely came across at all. This relieved them. You couldn’t trust a girl who’d clearly spent so much time drilling herself, manipulating her voice, her movements. People in this place talked of her as though she were remarkable: preternaturally calm, wise, serene. But the Janes just thought that Madam was a bully. She liked it when the under-footmen dropped things. She winced when they opened their mouths, as if their breath stank. She isolated people, gave them pointless tasks.
“There’s a piece of paper I need,” she said to Jane-one. “A letter. I’ve no notion where I put it. Find it, will you?”
A single piece of paper, in a house as vast as this, with countless drawers and closets? Jane-two marked it in her logbook of risks that very night. “She’s always inspecting things. She’ll know if we move something. This could cause a grave problem.”
Jane-one was practicing her handstands. It helped her concentrate. She could ponder the house’s tiniest parts, its atoms. She could picture millions of threads, long strings of numbers. Drapes and blinds and bulbs and figurines and carpet grips and candles. “You worry too much,” she said from the floor.