Chapter 2
“You don’t look like a maid, Miss Huxley.”
Caroline swallowed. She sat now at a wide wood table in the cellar kitchen, the woman—who had introduced herself as one Mrs. Easton—perched on the stool across from her.
The man with the curls had lugged her valise and steamer trunk up the stairs, and Caroline imagined them sitting in the middle of that strange parlor, surrounded by those strange men.
“And you don’t speak like a maid.”
“I was a lady’s maid. In Birmingham. For Miss Eloise Barton.”
The story had come together quickly as she followed Mrs. Easton down the boardinghouse’s front steps, through the smelly alley and back garden gate.
She was used to lying. She had hidden Charlie’s existence from the rest of the world for ten long years.
But it was an odd feeling to erase herself instead of him.
It was the look that passed between Mrs. Easton and the man—Rab, she’d called him—that had made Caroline swap her own surname for that of an acquaintance and her home county for the first Midlands city she could think of.
In that moment, she had been certain something sinister was afoot here. Something to do with Charlie.
But now, seated in the warm, pleasant kitchen, Caroline felt foolish.
There was surely a simple explanation for why he had vacated the place in June; God, the neighborhood alone was reason enough!
Perhaps his subsequent letters to her had been lost. Perhaps now, at this very moment, Charlie was standing in the wood-paneled foyer of Audley House, being told by a member of the new owner’s staff that the estate was no longer the property of the Foster family.
That Miss Caroline Foster had left word that she was going to stay with family in London.
Perhaps he was already on a southbound train, watching the countryside pass as she had—good Lord, was it only this morning?
—and praying that she would be right where she now was, waiting for him.
Or perhaps the instinct that had raised her hackles on the boardinghouse’s threshold had been right.
Don’t come here, her brother had written in his last letter, in June.
Something has changed. I can’t say more, but it’s not safe.
She thought of the faces she had seen in that strange but elegant parlor.
The man with the scars. If something had happened to Charlie, the men upstairs had something to do with it.
“Were you dismissed?” asked Mrs. Easton, arching one steely brow.
Caroline regained her foothold in the conversation. “I was let go. But not unfavorably. Miss Barton married and moved into her new husband’s home. His staff quarters were full.”
This, too, was borrowed from truth. Eloise’s new husband, rich though he was, controlled his money with the tight fist of a Dickensian villain.
“And? Are there no positions for a lady’s maid in the whole of the Midlands? I find that hard to believe.” Mrs. Easton stared at Caroline long and hard. “How do you know Charlie?”
Caroline inhaled. This would be the trickiest part.
For Charlie had told her next to nothing about his life in London.
“I met Charlie when I first came here, a few months ago.” She looked down at her lap, hoping the effect was meekness, not avoidance.
“We met by chance, just once, but he was so kind. He knew I was frightened. He said I could find him here if I ever found myself in trouble.”
“And are you? In trouble?” Mrs. Easton’s eyes narrowed on Caroline’s waist. “Are you expecting?”
Caroline blinked. “Expecting what?”
Mrs. Easton barked out a laugh, and Caroline, belatedly, caught her meaning. A flush crawled up her throat, but she rested her hands on the table and met the older woman’s gaze.
“Mrs. Easton. I understand your hesitation in trusting me. So allow me to tell you the truth. My family was once one of means, and my father chose to educate me, hence my manner of speaking. My mother died shortly after I was born. My father gambled away everything we had, and when he died, I had to find a way to make a living. After Miss Barton let me go, I came to London to live with a distant member of my family. He was…”
Vague, she warned herself. Keep it vague.
“…not good to me.” She glanced down again, as though the memory was painful. “So I came here, hoping the man I met once might help me.”
For a beat, neither woman spoke.
It was a risk, but she went on, “I need work, Mrs. Easton. The sign in your window says you need a maid. I can tell by the way you look at me that you think I’m too soft for it. But I’m a hard worker and a fast learner. And I’m stronger than you think.”
The words hung in the air between them, and Caroline was surprised by their ring of conviction.
It was true. She had always thought of herself as fragile.
Weak of constitution. But in the last few months, she had found the well of her strength was deeper than she’d ever imagined.
Had she not pored over hundreds of bank statements to discover exactly how much her father owed?
Had she not sold off every stick of furniture, every horse and hound and string of pearls, to settle his debts?
Carys had been certain that every one of Charlie’s letters had been postmarked from this address. It was clearly not a normal boardinghouse—the strange collection of artifacts and men proved that. If Charlie was not here, perhaps she could find some clue as to his whereabouts.
Mrs. Easton’s dark eyes roved over her face. Caroline could tell she was making up her mind and kept her own expression carefully earnest.
“Very well,” the older woman said. “It just so happens that my last maid”—she paused, pressed her lips together as though searching for the word—“departed. Suddenly. And no one’s yet applied.
We have a reputation in the borough. Undeserved,” she added quickly, “but still. I need help. The house is too much to keep up on my own.”
Caroline exhaled. “Thank you, Mrs. Easton—”
The older woman held up a hand. “If you’re to stay, you will help me run the Full Moon. Clean the guests’ rooms. Wash dishes. Cook and serve dinner. It’s heavy work, I shan’t lie to you.”
Caroline nodded eagerly. Never mind that she had never changed a bed or scrubbed a pot. How hard could it be?
“In exchange, you may sleep in the empty garret room and eat three meals a day. You will have a small salary: two shillings threepence per week. But there are rules. Rules to protect you. And rules to protect the privacy of our guests.” Mrs. Easton’s pleasant face hardened.
“If you disobey any of them, I will have no choice but to set you out on the street. Is that clear?”
Caroline suppressed a shiver, remembering the Whitechapel she had glimpsed through the carriage window.
“I understand.”
“First, you are not to ask the guests any questions. Nothing more personal than how they like their tea. You are to blend in with the furniture.”
“I can be…unobtrusive.”
How much of her life had been spent in silence, barely daring to raise her eyes to her father’s for fear of his bad humor?
How often had she searched his jacket pockets and his armoire, without notice?
She had hunted in vain for any words written in her mother’s hand, or the negotiations of her dowry to some liver-spotted member of her father’s club.
Anything that made her feel real, feel tethered to the world.
What she had found, when he was dead and buried and she finally had the key to his locked desk drawer in hand, were stacks upon stacks of overdue bills.
“There are parts of this house that are off-limits,” Mrs. Easton continued.
“You may be here in the cellar kitchen or in your room. When serving the guests, you may be in the dining room and parlor. We clean the guests’ rooms in the late mornings, and only if there is a Please Tidy sign hanging from the doorknob.
We do not enter otherwise. And you are never, under any circumstances, to enter the east wing of the second floor. ”
The heat of a warning limned Mrs. Easton’s words. What could be on the second floor? Something to do with Charlie, the reason for his disappearance?
“I will be here, or in the kitchen, unless cleaning rooms or attending the guests, and I shall never enter the east wing on the second floor,” Caroline repeated.
The landlady nodded. “Lastly. And most importantly. One night per month we host a…a supper party. You will help me serve dinner, then immediately retire to your room. You will lock your door and not open it until the following morning after the sun has risen.”
Caroline fought a mad urge to laugh, despite the chill that coursed down her spine like a cold finger. But Mrs. Easton’s face was unsmiling as she asked, “Do we have a deal, Miss Huxley?”
Caroline ignored the sudden hollowness in her belly. She nodded.
“Good.” The older woman stood. “I’ll warm up some supper for you. You look like you haven’t eaten in weeks. And I’ll send Rab in to show you your room. Your work will begin tomorrow morning. Tonight, you may rest.”
As her new hostess walked toward the staircase, Caroline remembered her manners.
“Mrs. Easton,” she called. “Thank you.”
The landlady paused with her hand on the banister. “Don’t thank me yet, Miss Huxley.”
Alone in the cellar kitchen, Caroline looked about greedily.
Windows ran along the top of one wall. Tomorrow they would look out on the ground-level garden, but now they stared down on her like black eyes.
An oven and fireplace took up most of the wall across from her, shelves of porcelain and wineglasses another, the long worktable at which she sat the third.