Chapter 7
I recall it in my mind and can relive it as though it were yesterday. It’s the night after the first day I spent working beside Gran at the Grimthorpe mansion. I’m back at our apartment. Gran has tucked me in and given me her usual caution about bedbugs and sleeping tight. I close my eyes and fall into the deepest, most exquisite sleep of my life.
For the first time in a long time, I’m not plagued by nightmares about the tortures that await me in the schoolyard the next day. Instead, my dreams sparkle and flash, visions of silver and Fabergé eggs dancing in my head. I wake up in the morning refreshed and excited about spending another day at the Grimthorpe mansion.
Gran and I set out at quarter to eight. No expensive taxi today. Instead, we are powered by our own feet, and then a city bus and then another bus. On the long commute, I tell Gran the big revelation I had before falling asleep the night before. “I’ve made up my mind. I know what I want to be when I grow up.”
“What’s that?” Gran asks.
“A maid, just like you.”
“Oh, I don’t recommend it,” Gran says. “The job has many hidden perils. And I think you can aim higher, what with that sharp mind of yours.”
“What do you mean ‘aim higher’? I want to be a maid,” I say.
Gran sighs and pats my hand. “Very well. For now, you can be my Maid-in-Training at the mansion. How does that sound?”
“Like heaven,” I reply.
An hour later, we arrive at the mansion gate. Gran buzzes the hidden intercom to announce our arrival, and the invisible gatekeeper in the tower opens sesame. We’re walking up the cobblestone path flanked by fragrant roses. At the entrance to the mansion, a contorted face I did not notice yesterday stares down at us from above the door.
“Gran, is that Mr. Grimthorpe?” I ask.
“No,” she says with a little laugh. “That’s a stone gargoyle, though I admit the resemblance is uncanny.”
I step up to the door, grab the heavy lion mandible, and knock hard three times. The knob turns, and Mrs. Grimthorpe appears in a beige blouse and a gray skirt, her mouth a tight pucker.
“Good morning, Mrs. Grimthorpe,” I say. “I’m ready to polish and shine,” I say, proud of my new distinction as Gran’s official Maid-in-Training.
Mrs. Grimthorpe does not reply but steps aside to allow us to enter. She crosses her arms and stares at us as we stand in the foyer. Gran removes a cloth from the front vestibule and instructs me to take off my shoes. She vigorously wipes the bottoms of both of our pairs before placing them inside the closet separate from all the other fancy shoes.
Mrs. Grimthorpe sniffs, then leads us down the main corridor, past the bourgeois blobs, and into the house. We arrive in the glorious, sun-filled kitchen, which smells like lemons and spring-fresh air.
“I have shopping to do and errands to run in town today,” Mrs. Grimthorpe announces. “The gatekeeper will drive us to town. Flora, you’ll accompany me and carry my bags. The girl will stay behind and work.”
“Madam, I can’t leave Molly,” Gran says. “Who will look after her?”
“Surely she can look after herself. Also, Mr. Grimthorpe is upstairs in his study and Jenkins is right there in the garden.”
I look out the floor-to-ceiling windows and spot a ruddy-faced man with bulbous eyes and a back as straight as an exclamation point. He’s staring at us as he slices through the hedges with razor-sharp clippers.
Mrs. Grimthorpe checks her watch, then says, “Chop, chop, Flora. Set the girl up in the silver pantry while I gather my things.” Then she click-clacks down a corridor and out of sight.
The minute she’s gone, I feel Gran’s hands come down on my small shoulders.
“Molly, I don’t want to leave you here by yourself.”
“I don’t mind,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”
“Will you? Sometimes I just don’t know what to do,” Gran says, her eyes crinkling up in that way that makes my stomach hurt. This happens sometimes between Gran and me. I feel what she feels; her emotion passes through my skin and burrows right into my being. I make a mental note to look this up in the anatomy book at the library, because even if the Skeleton Song doesn’t say it, there must be an explanation for how Gran’s eyes connect to my stomach.
“When in doubt, clean inside and out,” I tell Gran. It’s a jingle that, like so many others, we sing together when tackling cleaning chores at home.
Gran hugs me to her, then holds me at arm’s length. “If you need anything while I’m gone, you go to Jenkins the gardener, okay? I know he looks a fright, but he’s soft as a jiggly pudding. I’ll tell him to watch over you. You’re not to disturb Mr. Grimthorpe upstairs for any reason, do you understand?”
Before I can answer, I notice a woman marching up the path toward the side door of the mansion. She’s wearing a blue kerchief tied around her head and matching blue gloves. She waves at us through the window and nods at Jenkins before continuing on her way.
“Gran, who is she?” I ask.
“Oh, that’s Mr. Grimthorpe’s personal secretary. Mrs. Grimthorpe forbids her from mixing with the rest of us—says it’s to preserve the privacy of Mr. Grimthorpe’s work. Come,” Gran says. “To the silver pantry.”
I trot beside Gran to the room I dreamt about all night long. It’s exactly as I left it, filled to the rafters with silver heirlooms, all in need of attention. On the large table, the pieces I cleaned yesterday twinkle like bright stars.
Gran rummages through a cupboard, removes two pairs of rubber gloves, a large jug, and a wide-mouthed basin. She turns to me, hands on her hips. “I can’t have you polish all of this silver using elbow grease alone. At some point, your arm will fall off.”
Yesterday’s exertions used all the grease from both of my elbows, so they do feel a tad stiff, but as of yet I don’t think I’m in danger of dismemberment.
Gran dons gloves and carefully pours liquid from the jug into the basin.
“This is silver polish, Molly. It contains minute amounts of lye, which is corrosive to the skin. In the olden days, when I was a Maid-in-Training, we mixed the solution ourselves. Once, a maid I worked with quadrupled the lye in the recipe and left the basin by the back entrance of the estate. His Lordship walked in with dirty hands after a hunt. He saw the basin and plunked his fingers right in. Had I not doused his flesh in water immediately, the acid would have eaten clean through his bones.”
“What a terrible accident,” I say.
“Terrible, yes. An accident? I’ve never been quite sure.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Fate, Molly,” Gran says. “It works in mysterious ways. That’s why it’s important to treat others with respect at all times,” she says as she passes me a pair of gloves. I put them on.
“This modern polish is not like the rough stuff we used years ago. It’s very gentle, but you are still to wear rubber gloves when you work.”
Gran picks up a tarnished silver candlestick, dips it in the solution, and wipes it with a cloth. After a bit of buffing, the silver is polished to a high shine.
“It’s magic!” I say, clapping my gloved hands.
“Flora!” we hear from somewhere deep in the house. “Chop! Chop!”
Gran peels off her gloves and places them neatly beside the basin. She plants a kiss on my forehead. “I’ll be back faster than you can spell ‘serendipitous,’ ” she says and then rushes out of the room.
I listen to Mrs. Grimthorpe ordering Gran about at the entrance. Then the door shuts with a hollow thud, and I know they are gone.
This is it, I think to myself. I’m on my own in the mansion—no Gran. Rather than frightening me, the prospect fills me with pride at my newfound responsibility. I spell out “serendipitous” five times, then come to the conclusion that Gran meant what she said figuratively (meaning: not really) rather than literally (meaning: precisely and exactly).