A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies (16 page)

“We could get her next door, before Lily gets here, and tell the woman she’s not here, which is going to be the truth,” said Arthur.

“That’s what Harry said. I just talked to him. But next door is not going to be happy,” said Mrs. Petty.

“I’ll go too,” said Arthur.

“I could give Mrs. Gerson more cream cakes, and Harry can spring for a hansom so she doesn’t go back with the milk cans.”

“Give me the
soap,
” said Charlotte.

She reached out a wet hand and grabbed it from Arthur and lathered up her head and sank down so she was underwater, just barely. She liked the way her hair floated out around her. She imagined that the dory she and Arthur were rowing was swamped by a wave—a huge gray wall of a wave—and they were capsized.

Down she went, seaweed everywhere, fishes, salt. She wasn’t panicking. Calmly, because Arthur was drowning, she grabbed hold of him and shot to the surface, saving him, a heroine.

She shook out her head so her ears could unblock and she hoped that they were both splashed hugely, which they weren’t.

“What’s Miss Fannie Farmer like, anyway?” Arthur was saying.

“You’ll never see her in here, and that’s a thing for sure,” said Mrs. Petty.

“I meant in general.”

“She’s like…” Mrs. Petty thought about it. This seemed to be a subject she took seriously. “She’s like a lady who put out a cookbook that could only have been made by a lady with the character of a general in the army, in wartime, and that is complimentary.”

“I heard she’d been ill,” said Arthur, and Charlotte paused in the act of massaging her scalp, which she very much wished he was doing, instead of herself. She had developed the habit of listening carefully when people talked about a sickness, especially when the sufferer recovered; it was like belonging to a secret society.

“It was a stroke, they say,” said Mrs. Petty, “when Miss Farmer was only fifteen. She’s all right, but she drags one leg something terrible, and must sometimes be aided.”

“I should like to meet her.”

“We haven’t got time to stand here chattering about Miss Farmer, Arthur, but I assure you, you never will meet her, unless you ever finish your degrees and become her doctor.”

It was Mrs. Petty who brought over some of the water from the side of the stove. First she thrust Charlotte’s clothes and purse and the hairbrush at Arthur, then she seized a pot and heaved it up; but, like Arthur, she didn’t pour it roughly or too fast, as much as she must have wanted to.

“There, you’re rinsed,” she said.

The water had cooled considerably, and Charlotte gasped and shivered and thought how unfair it was that she was at the disadvantage of being naked, but at least this wasn’t the first time; Mrs. Petty had sometimes filled in at the household when there weren’t any nurses or maids available to wash and change an invalid.

She gave her the towels as Charlotte climbed out of the tub. Charlotte knew that Arthur was looking at her but she didn’t dare meet his gaze in front of Mrs. Petty.

“You’re so thin,” said Mrs. Petty.

“I was sick.”

“I know, Charlotte.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Next door,” said Arthur. “Why don’t you, Mrs. Petty, tell Moaxley or one of the maids to go over and sound the warning about there’s going to be some company.”

“I’ll stay right here with the two of you until she’s dressed, thank you very much. And I would put my money on Moaxley being over there ahead of you already, as I happen to know he’s been right outside the door hearing everything.”

“I’ll want my coat,” said Charlotte, and Arthur said quickly—making a very pointed effort to not look at her—“you won’t need it. We’re not going outdoors, and it’s warm inside there, quite warm.”

“Where is my coat, and my other things?”

“Moaxley put everything else of yours in a closet, his own,” said Mrs. Petty.

“Is Lily’s room being cleaned?” said Arthur, and Mrs. Petty glared at him.

“It is, and everything changed, which wasn’t going to be done today, but they’re doing it, and if you think I’m saying another word about Lily’s room, I am not. I said everything I wanted to, and it’s not my business. I’m not the housekeeper.”

If Charlotte hadn’t been accustomed to being dressed by other people—from her illness, not from real life, as she had vowed to herself she’d never have maids to put her clothes on, like her mother-in-law and Hays’s sisters, who anyway needed the help for their corsets—she would have minded being so quickly, efficiently clothed. Maybe they’d thought if she did it herself she’d take an hour, which she would have tried to do, even though the friendly woman with the horse face was waiting.

“What did you come into this room wearing?” said Mrs. Petty, and Charlotte said, “I’m not telling you.”

It didn’t matter. Mrs. Petty had already found the shirt. “Put your shirt on, Arthur, for the love of God.”

Obediently he did, and then buttoned up all the buttons of his jacket on top of it.

When Charlotte’s dress was put over her head and pulled down, she had a question for Mrs. Petty. “Which horse of mine was the one to go home to my window?”

“How should I know? They look exactly the same.”

“They do not,” said Charlotte.

“Well, Mrs. Gerson didn’t say which one.”

That was a disappointment. Charlotte sat on the edge of the tub for the putting on of her stockings, and Mrs. Petty was the one who did that, too. “What about your cut-up with your tutor somewhere?” she said to Arthur.

“It was postponed.”

“You must come straight back here after you’ve brought her.”

“What for?” cried Charlotte.

“He has to go to the lecture he was going to miss if he went out for a day-long ride to see the cut-up,” said Mrs. Petty. “Harry said to tell you, Arthur, go to school.”

Then Charlotte’s shoes were on; everything was on. Her hair was soaking wet and no one cared. Mrs. Petty handed her the hairbrush and Charlotte said, “I would prefer a comb,” so Mrs. Petty gave her one, off the table. At least they were letting her do that.

“What happened with your husband, Charlotte?”

“I won’t speak of it.”

“Has he hurt you?”

“In what way?”

“In any way.”

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Do you want to go home?”

“I do not.”

“All right then. We’ll hide you, for now. Where’re your hair pins?” said Mrs. Petty.

“In the pocket of my other dress.”

“Well, never mind, I’ll braid it.”

She was quick about it, and knotted up the braid and took a few pins out of her own hair and got it secured. “Came as a surprise to me, Charlotte,” she said, “to see how great you’d got with the bakers, back in the town, in terms of a personal friendship.”

“I’m free to have whatever friends I want.”

“And, you know, I’d never forgotten about that unpleasant business of the food poisonings.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“I’m sure.”

“Did your friend poison someone?” said Arthur.

“Half the town,” said Mrs. Petty.

“Not half! It wasn’t on purpose!”

“We have to go.”

Mrs. Petty gave Charlotte a nudge out the door. The hall was empty. The hotel seemed silent. Arthur was sticking closely to Charlotte, like last evening on the way down from Miss Singleton’s. “Don’t worry,” he whispered.

“I won’t unless you tell me to start doing so.”

Mrs. Petty went with them to the top of the stairs, peering down cautiously, and a voice said, in a whisper, from who knew where, “All clear.”

“Thank you, Moaxley,” whispered Mrs. Petty.

Charlotte said, “I am not going another step until you tell me where you’re bringing me.”

“To Mrs. Alcorn,” said Arthur.

“Mrs. Alcorn! I’d said I wanted to call on her! I was told she didn’t receive!”

“Keep your voice down,” said Mrs. Petty, and Arthur whispered, “She doesn’t, ordinarily. But she knows what to do when someone needs to be over there.”

“Needs to be over there for what?” whispered Charlotte.

“You’re not the first person to be hidden,” said Mrs. Petty.

“Was my aunt ever hidden?”

“Oh, no, she wouldn’t have the need, not with your uncle never going out of Brookline except to the courts, and then, he hasn’t got anything on his mind but the courts, him being a judge now. Also, your aunt doesn’t need to know
everything
.”

Charlotte was hurried down the stairs. At the end of the hall—this was the second floor—there was a panel of a slightly darker wood than the rest of the wall. There were no fewer rooms on this floor than the others, but this was the only such panel Charlotte had seen. There was no handle to it. Arthur pressed against it, and it swung open like a door, which it was.

“This is where I’m going?”

“It is, don’t be worried. It’s a way into the next house.”

“A way because of what reason, Arthur?”

“Harry thinks the first owners of the two buildings shared servants, but everyone else thinks it was probably something less innocent.”

“Such as what?”

“Charlotte, I don’t know, but it’s really just a hallway and it’s perfectly safe. Harry keeps it in top shape, because the maids are always using it and they wouldn’t if they were frightened.”

“I am not,” said Charlotte, “frightened.”

“I’m going downstairs to my kitchen, God help me,” said Mrs. Petty, and a moment later Charlotte found herself being led by Arthur—a different-mooded Arthur, intent on his task, quite serious—down a dim passageway with whitewashed walls, and with many turns and slopes; it seemed to go on forever, mazelike. But having made the decision to submit to being led, which she did because she had no choice, she hardly took notice of where she was, except to see that it was not as dark as one would have expected; there weren’t any lamps. There weren’t any windows. It should have been as black as the bottom of a cave.

“Arthur, why isn’t it pitch-dark in here?”

After they’d gone a few more yards he pointed up at a shaft, which went up in a boxy hole through the building, ending in a flat glassed window, obviously on the roof; daylight was coming in.

“What about nights?” said Charlotte.

“Candles.”

“Can people get out through that window?”

“It doesn’t open,” said Arthur. “And the glass is as thick as you can get.”

“It could be smashed, still.”

“But you couldn’t get up there from here unless you turned yourself into a bird and flew up it.”

“Or a bat,” said Charlotte.

“But you’d be trapped. You’d flap your wings until they gave out, and then you’d drop down hard to the floor, and the maid would trip over you, while carrying Mrs. Alcorn’s dinner tray, say, and it will drop and be ruined, and if the fall didn’t kill you, the teapot landing on top of you would, and the maid will have to scream.”

“We said no subject of
die,
Arthur.”

“I was being hypothetical.”

She sniffed at that, but felt a little relieved. She’d thought he was going to say something about, when he’d said no subject of “die,” it was last night, and it covered last night only, like a wholly separate thing,
last night,
sealed and intact on its own, and completely lacking the possibility of ever taking place again.

Which was not what he was saying. She knew that there were ladies who stayed in the hotel who did not turn up just one time, and Miss Singleton
lived
here; but still, she did not appreciate this mood.

“Tell me about Mrs. Alcorn.”

“Did you see the portrait of her upstairs at Berry’s?”

“Berry’s?”

“Miss Singleton. Berenice.”

“Oh. I did not. Everything that wasn’t the ice garden was turned to the wall and I thought you were horrid to me.”

“I was not horrid. Did you see the photograph of her and Harry at their wedding?”

“I did. She’s all gauzy.”

“She’s said to be not gauzy now, but except that she’s older, she’s the same.”

“You’re not telling me anything useful.”

“Actually, I’ve never seen her myself.”

“Lucy.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t want to call her by that.”

“I know what to do, Arthur. Do you think my aunt will stay the night in her room?”

“She wants some sleep today, so that means she’ll be at the hospital all night.”

Charlotte said, “But if she wants her room for the night, what will my options be?”

“Harry will arrange something. He always does.”

“How long am I to be hidden?”

“I don’t know. Someone will come to fetch you.”

“Do you think you could turn around and look at me when you speak to me?”

“I’ve got to get back to Cambridge. The roads here to there are open, but it will take me an age with all the snow. I wish I didn’t have to, but I do.”

“For a lecture on what?”

“Greeks. Statues and things.”

“But that’s not medical.”

“I am trying,” he said, “to be well rounded.”

“Then how far am I to keep going, just following you, with wet hair?”

A low beam emerged down the hall—it wasn’t actually a hall, it was more like a tunnel—and just after it was a proper door. Low, but proper.

“There, Charlotte, it’s just ahead.” But at least he forgot for a moment about delivering her like a package, to who knew what sort of place, and rushing off. He stopped and turned around. “I want to kiss you,” he said.

“Is it allowed, or must it only happen in private rooms?”

“Oh, it’s absolutely forbidden, anywhere but in the rooms,” he said.

“Then that’s why you didn’t before, when I was bathing.”

“Mrs. Petty was there.”

“Before she came in.”

“I had to tell you about the woman from your town.”

“I shouldn’t like you to break rules.”

“Charlotte, there aren’t rules like that. I was teasing. You looked so very grim.”

“I’m not grim,” she said. In what position exactly had Hays been, at the edge of the square, behind the tree?

She pictured it all over again, as if it were a painting she’d looked at a hundred times. The snow, the tree, the shuttered-up houses, the nearby uncle laid out for his wake, the silence, her horses in front of her, with their heads up high, snorting and glowing and happy. The gray winter light. The heaped-up banks of the square.