‘Well,’ Nanny said sleepily, ‘maybe just for a little while.’ Her eyes fluttered shut and after a moment her breathing grew deep and regular.
I held my own breath, waiting for one of the children to speak. They were still looking at me, eyes wide. A slow instant passed, during which I envisaged myself being hauled before Myra, or worse, Mr Hamilton; called to explain how I came to be dusting Nanny; the displeasure on Mother’s face as I returned home, released without references…
But they did not scold, or frown, or reprove. They did something far more unexpected. As if on cue, they started to laugh; raucously, easily, collapsing into one another so that they seemed somehow joined.
I stood, watching and waiting; their reaction more disquieting than the silence that preceded it. I could not help my lip from trembling.
Finally, the elder girl managed to speak. ‘I’m Hannah,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘Have we met?’
I exhaled, curtseyed. My voice was tiny. ‘No m’lady. I’m Grace.’
Emmeline giggled. ‘She’s not your lady. She’s just miss.’
I curtseyed again. Avoided her gaze. ‘I’m Grace, miss.’
‘You look familiar,’ Hannah said. ‘Are you sure you weren’t here at Easter?’
‘Yes, miss. I just started. Going on for a month now.’
‘You don’t look old enough to be a maid,’ Emmeline said.
‘I’m fourteen, miss.’
‘Snap,’ Hannah said. ‘So am I. And Emmeline is ten and David is practically ancient-sixteen.’
David spoke then. ‘And do you always clean right over the top of sleeping persons, Grace?’ At this, Emmeline started to laugh again.
‘Oh, no. No, sir. Just this once, sir.’
‘Pity,’ David said. ‘It would be rather convenient never to have to bathe again.’
I was stricken; my cheeks filled with heat. I had never met a real gentleman before. Not one my age, not the sort who made my heart flutter against my rib cage with his talk of bathing. Strange. I am an old woman now, yet as I think of David, I find the echoes of those old feelings creeping back. I am not dead yet then.
‘Don’t mind him,’ Hannah said. ‘He thinks he’s a riot.’
‘Yes, miss.’
She looked at me quizzically, as if about to say something more. But before she could, there came the noise of quick, light footsteps rounding the stairs and beginning down the corridor. Drawing closer. Clip, clip, clip, clip…
Emmeline ran to the door and peered through the keyhole.
‘It’s Miss Prince,’ she said, looking to Hannah. ‘Coming this way.’
‘Quick!’ Hannah said in a determined whisper. ‘Or suffer death by Tennyson.’
There was a scurry of footsteps and a flurry of skirts and before I realised what was happening all three had vanished. The door burst open and a gust of cold, damp air swept through. A prim figure stood across the doorway.
She surveyed the room, her gaze landing finally on me. ‘You,’ she said. ‘Have you seen the children? They’re late for their lessons. I’ve been waiting in the library ten minutes.’
I was not a liar, and I cannot say what made me do it. But in that instant, as Miss Prince stood peering over her glasses at me, I did not think twice.
‘No, Miss Prince,’ I said. ‘Not for a time.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes, miss.’
She held my gaze. ‘I was sure I heard voices in here.’
‘Only my own, miss. I was singing.’
‘Singing?’
‘Yes, miss.’
The silence seemed to stretch forever, broken only when Miss Prince tapped her blackboard pointer three times against her open hand and stepped into the room; began to walk slowly around its perimeter. Clip… Clip… Clip… Clip…
She reached the doll’s house and I noticed the tail of Emmeline’s sash ribbon protruding from its stand. I swallowed. ‘I… I might have seen them earlier, miss, now I think of it. Through the window. In the old boathouse. Down by the lake.’
‘Down by the lake,’ Miss Prince said. She had reached the French windows and stood gazing out into the fog, white light on her pale face. ‘Where willows whiten, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver…’
I was unfamiliar with Tennyson at that time, thought only that she produced a rather pretty description of the lake. ‘Yes, miss,’ I said.
After a moment she turned. ‘I shall have the gardener retrieve them. What’s his name?’
‘Dudley, miss.’
‘I shall have Dudley retrieve them. We must not forget that punctuality is virtue without peer.’
‘No, miss,’ I said, curtseying.
And she clipped coldly across the floor, closing the door behind her.
The children emerged as if by magic from beneath dust cloths, under the doll’s house, behind the curtains.
Hannah smiled at me, but I did not linger. I could not understand what I had done. Why I had done it. I was confused, ashamed, exhilarated.
I curtseyed and hurried past, cheeks burning as I flew along the corridor, anxious to find myself once more in the safety of the servants’ hall, away from these strange, exotic child-adults and the odd feelings they aroused in me.
WAITING FOR THE RECITAL
I could hear Myra calling my name as I raced down the stairs into the shadowy servants’ hall. I paused at the bottom, letting my eyes adapt to the dimness, then hurried into the kitchen. A copper pot simmered on the huge stove and the air was salty with the sweat of boiled ham. Katie, the scullery maid, stood by the sink scrubbing pans, staring blindly at the steamy hint of a window. Mrs Townsend, I guessed, was having her afternoon lie-down before the Mistress rang for tea. I found Myra at the table in the servants’ dining room, surrounded by vases, candelabras, platters and goblets.
‘There you are, then,’ she said, frowning so that her eyes became two dark slits. ‘I was beginning to think I’d have to come looking for you.’ She indicated the seat opposite. ‘Well, don’t just stand there, girl. Get yourself a cloth and help me polish.’
I sat down and selected a plump milk jug that hadn’t seen light of day since the previous summer. I rubbed at the flecked spots, but my mind lingered in the nursery upstairs. I could imagine them laughing together, teasing, playing. I felt as though I had opened the cover of a beautiful, glossy book and become lost in the magic of its story, only to be forced too soon to put the book aside. You see? Already I had attached some strange glamour to the Hartford children.
‘Steady on,’ Myra said, wresting the cloth from my hand. ‘That’s His Lordship’s best silver. You’d better hope Mr Hamilton don’t see you scratching it like that.’ She held aloft the vase she was cleaning and began to rub it in deliberate circular motions. ‘There now. See as how I’m doing it? Gentle like? All in the one direction?’
I nodded and set about the jug again. I had so many questions about the Hartfords: questions I felt sure Myra could answer. And yet I was reluctant to ask. It was in her power, I knew, and her nature, I suspected, to ensure my future duties took me far from the nursery if she supposed I was gaining pleasure beyond the satisfaction of a job well done.
Yet just as a new lover imbues ordinary objects with special meaning, I was greedy for the least information concerning them. I thought about my books, tucked away in their attic hideaway; the way Sherlock Holmes could make people say the last thing they expected through artful questioning. I took a deep breath. ‘Myra…?’
‘Mmm?’