On the other side of town, Mrs. King and Hephzibah were holding rehearsals. Rather, Hephzibah was holding them. Mrs. King was there to keep the doors locked and a keen eye out for blabbers. She was glad of the distraction. Knowing Mrs. Bone was inside Park Lane, poking holes in the plan, making up her mind whether to invest or not, was putting Mrs. King on edge. She didn’t like loose threads.
“Thank heavens you’re going with Hephzibah,” Winnie had said.
“Why?” said Mrs. King. “You’d have a marvelous time. Hephzibah adores showing off for you.”
Winnie had frowned. “She doesn’t.”
Mrs. King didn’t have the time or inclination to press this. Winnie and Hephzibah had their squabbles now and then: all par for the course, nothing to fret over.
One of Mrs. Bone’s men had obtained the keys for an abandoned church hall, and Hephzibah was already running lines with a motley collection of aged actresses who had once belonged on the curlicued playbills and picture postcards of Mrs. King’s youth. They were being herded around the hall by Hephzibah, who had drenched herself liberally in modern perfume and smelled extraordinarily of lemons and spices.
“Over here, we have the countesses,” she said, pointing at one gaggle of women. “Over here, a set of ministers’ wives. A few ghastly old courtesans, just for the fun of it, you know. Anyone else?”
“I think we’ll need a few Americans.”
“New money, how delicious. You,” barked Hephzibah, pointing at a tremulous-looking grandmother with perfectly preserved curls. “You’re from New England now, all right? All right, everyone, off you go!”
The actresses all took a gigantic lungful of air, and began bellowing their speeches, talking over one another nineteen to the dozen: “How do you do... What a glorious evening... Have you seen my husband...? Didn’t you go to Cowes?” The din became unbearable almost at once. It struck Mrs. King then that she’d never been in charge of so many people before. Even on Park Lane the final authority lay elsewhere. The proportions of her scheme shimmered in her mind, huge and daunting, beyond the capability of anyone she knew. Not beyond my capability, she reminded herself stoutly. But her expression must have revealed a sliver of doubt.
“Don’t worry,” shouted Hephzibah over the din. “I’ll get everyone shipshape for you.”
She was in a good mood. That was a relief. Hephzibah was one of the most mercurial humans Mrs. King had ever encountered. Secretly it made her edgy, getting too close to other people’s fears and anxieties. They could be catching. She was sure that Hephzibah felt the same. It underpinned the smooth accord between them. She eyed the actresses. “Can we trust them?” she asked.
“Is the sky blue? They’ve taken an oath of utter loyalty to our cause. I’d trust them with my life.”
“I’d rather lock them in with a decent fee, Hephzibah.”
“Well, that too, darling. I’ll send you the bill.”
Mrs. King had to accept this. They needed bodies in that house: roving, corralling, managing the crowds of guests on the night of the ball. “We’d better get on,” she said. “We’ve got at least a dozen appointments to make before lunch.”
She had to acknowledge that Hephzibah was rather good at this part. When Mrs. King left Park Lane, she took a copy of the invitation list for the ball, a long list of smart addresses scattered all across Kensington, Belgravia and the best side of Piccadilly. Hephzibah and Mrs. King went to nobble a footman at each one, faces carefully veiled. “When a certain invitation card arrives,” Hephzibah murmured, stroking them on the arm, “you’re to bring it straight to us, all right?”
One of the footmen studied the slip of paper. “We get a hundred invitations a day,” he said, eyeing Mrs. King and Hephzibah with suspicion. Hephzibah lowered her voice. “Then one little card from the house of de Vries is hardly going to be missed, is it?” She gripped him by the forearm. “Cash please, darling.”
Mrs. King got out her purse and made the necessary payment. Household by household, they managed to control who would—or wouldn’t—attend the ball. Most of the footmen were entirely obliging. Some pushed their luck, of course.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” said one, peering at their bank order. He was a particularly gangly fellow managing a cabinet minister’s house on Curzon Street.
“Cash it,” said Mrs. King coolly.
“I’d need twice that to start interfering with the minister’s post.”
Mrs. King considered this. She had two options in these circumstances. Accede, and spoil the financial margins. Not a very agreeable prospect. Or she could shut it down.
“You’d only need to take half as much,” she said, “for the newspapers to come knocking on your door. I don’t much like the headline, do you? Minister’s Man in Bribery Brouhaha.”
“Bribery bonanza,” added Hephzibah for good measure. “Bribery hullabaloo!”
The footman scowled, but he took his fee.
“I do love men in long tails,” said Hephzibah conspiratorially as they marched arm-in-arm across Berkeley Square. The motor traffic was jammed all the way around the bend in the road, and there were a lot of tradesmen roaring furiously at one another as they tried to fight their way across the junction to Charles Street. This pleased Mrs. King. She hoped the arteries of Mayfair would be entirely clogged on the night of the twenty-sixth. Her drivers would be taking the mews lanes and side streets, the slowest and least predictable routes, sneaking out of the city under cover. “Don’t you?” said Hephzibah, jabbing her on the arm.
“What? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
“Don’t you like footmen in tails, darling? With stockings, and bloody great big strapping garters. That’s what I like on a man. A good bit of calf muscle.”
“I prefer long trousers.”
Hephzibah wriggled with pleasure at this. “Do you? Do tell. Have you a long-trousered beau in mind?”
“A beau?” said Mrs. King, sliding away from this. “I’m not sure I know what one of those would look like. What of you, anyhow? Where did you get your taste for a man in livery? It wasn’t from Park Lane. I can’t remember you mooning over any of the bootboys or footmen there.”
Hephzibah’s face stiffened behind her veil. “I hardly remember. And I expect you were too busy smuggling potted meat, or slipping tinned sardines onto the black market, or whatever little jobs kept you occupied every night.”
So it always went with her women. They grew twitchy if you said something amiss. There were potholes everywhere, threatening to trip you up. It made Mrs. King almost miss dealing with someone straightforward. Someone like Miss de Vries.
The notion startled her. But it was true. Madam had always given swift decisions. She had clear opinions. Planning the ball had been almost—what? Not pleasurable. Satisfying.
Mrs. King remembered the precise moment the plan began to take shape in her mind. It was the day after the master’s funeral, the mausoleum locked, the garden silent. Miss de Vries received Mrs. King in the winter garden, dressed in her fullest mourning, face pale and shining. There was some sort of electricity sparking off her. It sent an answering shudder through Mrs. King’s heart.
Miss de Vries’s voice was low, calm. “I’m minded to hold a ball,” she said.
Her eyes probed Mrs. King’s, searching for a reaction. At first Mrs. King didn’t understand. A ball?
Then a thought flickered, the shapes and lights shifted. Things that had seemed scattered and disconnected now swam together. A ball was perfect. Perfect. Heat, light, crowds, confusion...
“Have you considered a date, Madam?” she asked, keeping her voice as low as Miss de Vries’s own.
Of course, Madam needed the ball for quite different reasons to Mrs. King. To shackle herself, trade herself, hitch her wagon to the best-bidding star. Mrs. King congratulated herself on her own approach: free, clean, entirely uncompromised. They wanted the same things and different things, and this gave her a strange feeling of fellowship, a delicately ridged collusion. Heads and tails flipping over and over, spinning on the gaming table...
Footmen in tails, she thought, idly. Yes, she did like them. She did miss them. One in particular.
She very nearly—nearly—sighed.
“We need to get back,” she said briskly.