Page 50 of The English Wife

Mrs. Gerritt turned, waiting impassively. Her dress was of a dark, heavy fabric, plainly cut, enlivened only by the ring of keys at her waist.

“Has a man inquired here after the children? An Englishman?” Feeling foolish, Janie stumbled on, trying to come up with a story that wouldn’t sound like madness. “We had a call in town from a cousin of Mrs. Van Duyvil and, well, he seemed to think that the children belonged with their family in England.”

Lies, rank lies, but what else was she to say?

“That’s why I came, really,” said Janie, settling for a version of the truth, “to make sure Mr. Lacey didn’t try to remove the children.”

Was it her imagination, or was there a scuffling and scuttling in the walls? She couldn’t imagine Mrs. Gerritt would stand for mice. Even understaffed, the house was painfully clean. Or that might just be its newness.

“No one has been here,” said Mrs. Gerritt, making it sound like an unalterable law of nature. “If there is nothing else?”

So much for a comfortable coze with the housekeeper. When Sherlock Holmes went to call, Janie thought with some asperity, retainers fell over themselves to provide useful bits of information. Mrs. Gerritt just wanted her gone so she could get on with her dusting.

Or perhaps Mrs. Gerritt had a secret passion for French novels and only wanted to get back to her office so she could revel in forbidden love.

One could hope.

That scrabbling sound again. Moving very slowly, Janie pushed her chair back from the table, pretending to carry her plate to the sideboard. The breakfast room was decorated in a style Janie could only think of as ye olde monk’s parlor. The ceiling was coffered and painted with Tudor roses, thistles, and various other horticultural embellishments. The mullioned window that took up one wall was inset with numerous small panels of stained glass. The other three walls were all heavily paneled in dark wood, hung at intervals with tapestries that stretched from ceiling to floor.

Was it her imagination, or was the tapestry on the far wall moving?

Moving quickly now, Janie poked her head behind the tapestry. Not solid wall, but a narrow passageway and a small figure pressing itself into a depression in the wall.

“Sebastian?”

Nothing. Not even dust motes. The secret passage was too new—or Mrs. Gerritt too efficient—to harbor the sort of dust and cobwebs it seemed to demand. Janie wondered that her brother hadn’t ordered cobwebs crocheted from string and hung for effect. No cobwebs, but was that the tip of a boot she saw?

“Sebastian? I know you’re there. I can see your boots.”

A wisp of white. Not a boy’s smock, but the ruffle of a pinafore. “It’s Viola.”

“Hello, Viola.” Janie didn’t want to let the tapestry fall behind her, which left her stuck where she was, at the end of the corridor. “I would have come to see you last night, but I was told you were already in bed.”

A small figure emerged from around the corner. Her hair was the same tow color that Janie remembered from her own childhood, but the rest of her was pure Annabelle, from the three-cornered face to her dark eyes, too large in her child’s face. She held a doll clutched in her arms, the silk hair snarled around a painted china face.

“My mother and father have gone.” There was a challenge in the child’s voice. “That’s what Nurse says.”

Janie stood, holding the tapestry. “Yes, I’m afraid so. I’m very sorry.” It sounded so hopelessly inadequate. “Won’t you come out and join me? There’s toast.”

“I’ve already had toast.” Viola slipped under her arm, small and fierce in her pinafore and buttoned boots. She turned to face Janie, saying accusingly, “They won’t let me go home.”

“But … you are home. Aren’t you?” Janie felt as though she’d fallen through the rabbit hole. She didn’t know the first thing about speaking with children. She hadn’t spoken to children since she’d been a child, and rarely even then.

“This isn’t my home.” Viola’s shoulders hunched, her face twisting as she tried to maintain her expression of scorn. “I want to go home. I want my real home.”

“Oh, Viola.” Janie dropped down on her knees, her black worsted skirt pooling around her. If she was confused and miserable, how must Viola feel? Her parents had doted on her, spent far more time with her than parents were wont to do. Janie remembered the bleak days after her father’s death, when she would creep into the deserted library to sit in his chair, pretend his presence beside her. “Would you like to come back to town with me?”

“I don’t want to go to town, I want to go home.” Viola scowled at her, infuriated by the idiocy of adults. “Nurse and Mrs. Gerritt say we can’t go there. The house is closed.”

Her words had the conscious echo of Mrs. Gerritt. It was clearly a direct quote.

“What house?”

“My house.” Viola crushed the doll’s face under her arm in a punishing embrace. “The white house.”

“The … oh.” Understanding dawned. “You mean the old house?”

“My house,” Viola corrected her. And then, sensing, perhaps, that here was an adult that might be used, she took Janie by the hand and tugged her towards the window. “You can see the roof just there.”