“Would it be all right if I read in the parlor?” I ask. “Just for today?”
Mrs. Grimthorpe’s forehead scrunches up, then she says, “I suppose, provided you sit in one chair only and touch a grand total of nothing. Do not clean or polish anything, you understand? Keep your paws off Mr. Grimthorpe’s treasures.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
“Off you go, then.”
Gran gives my arm a squeeze, then follows Mrs. Grimthorpe through the main corridor toward the back of the mansion. I hold on to the banister for a moment, steadying myself before I head up the main staircase to retrieve my book.
The creaks and groans of the floorboards sound different today, like a warning. Don’t do it. Don’t go upstairs. I make my way to the first landing and look out the window. There she is, Mr. Grimthorpe’s personal secretary, wearing her blue kerchief and blue gloves, entering through the side door of the mansion as usual. It makes me wonder: has she had to fend off the monster, too?
I start up the next flight of stairs, then turn down the damask corridor, forcing my feet forward to the library. I pause at the threshold, looking in. Light is shining through the crack under the hidden bookcase door. It’s spilling onto the floor. I hear the shuffle of Mr. Grimthorpe’s slippers on the other side.
I tiptoe into the library, grab Great Expectations, and leave as quietly as I came.
I head down the main stairs and through the French doors of the parlor, taking a seat on a royal-blue high-back chair, where I begin to read quietly.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat.
The sound starts up just as I finish a chapter, the familiar rhythm, the background drone of Mr. Grimthorpe’s secretary typing in her secret lair somewhere deep inside the mansion’s walls.
I wait, pretending to read my book until I see Gran walk by the open French doors. She smiles at me, then continues on her way. I listen as she climbs the creaky main staircase. A few minutes later, she comes back down with two large bags of laundry on her back. She stops for a moment in the doorway.
“All’s well?” she asks.
“All’s well,” I reply. “And you?”
“Perfectly fine,” she answers. “Today’s a brand-new day.”
She lugs her heavy burden down the hallway toward the kitchen. I listen as Mrs. Grimthorpe barks out orders at Gran, cutting her down with her razor-sharp tongue.
I hear the cellar door open, and the thump, thump, thump as Gran pushes the heavy laundry bags down the stairs.
“For the love of God, can you not do a single thing the proper way?” Mrs. Grimthorpe scolds. “Why wouldn’t you carry the bags down?” Her rebuke reverberates through the entire house. Gran’s response is the same as always: “Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”
A few moments later, Mrs. Grimthorpe clicks down the corridor toward the parlor. She appears between the open French doors, eyeing me with her familiar look of disdain.
“I’m going out front to instruct Jenkins on the proper disposal of dead roses. When they have blight and you mix them into the compost, the disease infects the entire garden, not that he’d know that. The help these days don’t seem to know anything at all.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
“I won’t be gone long. And remember,” she says, pointing a bony finger at me, “you are not to touch a thing.”
I nod. She turns on her kitten heels and makes her way to the front door.
I stay put until I hear the front door close behind her. Then I snap my book shut and place it on the side table.
It’s time.
I walk to the mantel and stand in front of it, taking in the glowing Fabergé. It’s just as beautiful as the first day I laid eyes on it, delicate and enchanting, encrusted with rows of precious, sparkling jewels and resting on an ornate pedestal of the finest, purest gold.
I know that after I do this, there will be a new rift in time, a new Before and After. But that doesn’t stop me. Nothing will.
I reach out and grab the Fabergé. The weight of it is satisfying and substantive in my hands. I rush back to my seat and open Great Expectations, concealing the treasure on my lap behind my book just as I hear Mrs. Grimthorpe coming back through the front door.
“Flora!” Mrs. Grimthorpe shrieks in that ear-piercing way of hers.
It’s now been hours since I executed the first step of the plan. I’m in the cellar of the Grimthorpe mansion. I have gone downstairs to use the washroom because for once Gran is there, and I don’t have to brave the spiders alone.
“Flora!” Mrs. Grimthorpe shrieks again, more shrilly the second time.
This can mean only one thing: she found it.
I dry my hands quickly, then exit the scary washroom.
Gran is folding one of Mr. Grimthorpe’s crisp white shirts. She freezes the moment she hears the second shriek from the banshee upstairs.
“Flora Gray! Do you hear me? Come up to the kitchen this minute! And bring that wretched grandchild of yours as well!”
Gran looks at me and shrugs.
I shrug back, not saying a word.
Gran leads the way up the damp cellar stairs. I follow behind her, exiting into the kitchen, where Mrs. Grimthorpe stands, huffing and puffing, her face raging red, her pupils two pinholes of fury.
“Come,” she says, not an invitation but an order as she marches us to the silver pantry. We follow her in.
I’ve left all the polished wares from the day before neatly organized on the table. It’s filled with silver, ready for an elegant banquet that will never happen. I’ve worked days and days now so that every shelf behind Mrs. Grimthorpe glimmers and shines, each silver platter, cutlery set, and tray polished to a high sheen. There’s only one shelf of tarnished silver left for me to clean. It’s a pity I won’t be able to see the job through to completion. But so be it. It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.
“Flora,” Mrs. Grimthorpe says. “I was in the parlor just now checking that this little varmint of yours didn’t touch anything. Everything looked just fine, until I noticed a bare spot on the mantel. That’s when I realized the Fabergé egg was gone. I searched for it everywhere. Then it occurred to me to check the silver pantry. And guess what I found.”
Mrs. Grimthorpe lurches forward and opens the cupboard where I store my rubber gloves, my cleaning basin, my tattered apron, and the jug of lye solution.
“Look!” Mrs. Grimthorpe says. “Just look at what’s wrapped up in her apron.”
Gran picks up my apron and pulls the Fabergé egg out of the threadbare front pocket. She turns to me, her eyes wide, her mouth open, puzzlement and shock writ large in every line on her face.
“She was going to steal it, Flora! She was about to sneak it out of the mansion, the greedy little devil,” says Mrs. Grimthorpe. “You can’t trust anyone in your home these days. No loyalty. No boundaries. No morals.”
“But, ma’am, she’s just a child,” Gran says. “I’m sure there’s an explanation.”
“She’s just a thief is what she is. You should be instructing her, showing her right from wrong. If I’ve learned anything in my years, it’s that the apple never falls far from the tree. If she’s a thief, guess what that tells me about you.”
“No. You’re wrong about that last part,” I say, facing Mrs. Grimthorpe squarely. “But you’re right about the rest. I meant to steal the Fabergé. I took it and was going to bring it home with me. But it was all my idea. Gran had nothing to do with it. She would never do such a thing.”
“Molly, how could you?” Gran says. “You know better.”
“I do know better,” I say. “But I did it anyway.”