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“So I notice.”
“He used to be quite different. Cheerful, always good-tempered. He did wear those dreadful black suits, even then, but at least with colored ties. That was before his son died—such a tragedy. He’s been a different man ever since.”
“Robert.”
“Yes, the little boy was called Robert,” said Mrs. Jenkins. “Has Mr. George been telling you about him?”
“No.
“A dear child. He drowned in a pool at a birthday party. Imagine that.” Mrs. Jenkins counted years on her fingers as we walked along. “It was eighteen years ago now. Poor Dr. White.”
Poor Robert. But at least he didn’t look like a drowned body. Some ghosts thought it was fun to go around looking the way they did when they’d just died. Luckily I’d never yet met one with a hatchet in his head. Or without a head at all.
Mrs. Jenkins knocked at a door. “We’ll just look in and say hello to Madame Rossini. She’ll want to measure you.”
“Measure me? What for?” But the room Mrs. Jenkins let me into gave me the answer. It was a sewing room, and in among the fabrics, clothes, sewing machines, tailor’s dummies, scissors, and rolls of thread, a plump lady with a lot of sandy hair stood smiling at me.
“’Allo,” she said. She had a slight French accent. “You must be Gwyneth. I am Madame Rossini, and I look after your wardrobe.” She held up a tape measure. “We can’t have you traveling in time in zat dreadful school uniform, n’est-ce pas?”
I nodded. My school uniform really was dreadful, today or any other time.
“There’d probably be a riot if you went out in the street like zat,” she added, wringing her hands, tape measure and all, at the sight of it.
“I’m afraid we have to hurry. They’re waiting for us upstairs,” said Mrs. Jenkins.
“I’ll be quick. Can you take that jacket off, pliss?” Madame Rossini put the tape measure around my waist. “Wonderful. Now the ’ips. Ah, like a young colt! I think we can use most of what I made for the other one, with maybe some leetle alterations ’ere and there.”
By “the other one” she must mean Charlotte. I looked at a pale yellow dress with white lace trim hanging on a coat stand and looking like one of the costumes for Pride and Prejudice. Charlotte would have looked lovely in that.
“Charlotte’s taller than me,” I said. “And slimmer.”
“Yes, a little bit,” said Madame Rossini. “Like a coat ’anger.” I couldn’t help giggling. “But that is no problem.” She measured my neck and my head as well. “For the ’ats and the wigs,” she said, smiling at me. “Ah, how nice to make dresses for a brunette for once. You must choose colors so carefully for red’eads. I’ve had this lovely taffeta for years, a color like sunset. You could be the first that color suits—”
“Madame Rossini, please!” Mrs. Jenkins pointed to her watch.
“Mais oui, nearly finished!” said Madame Rossini, scurrying around me with the tape measure and even measuring my ankles. “Men, always in such a ’urry! But with fashion you cannot ’urry.” Finally she gave me a friendly pat and said, “We will meet again soon, my little swan-necked beauty!”
She herself had no neck at all, I noticed. Her head seemed to be set directly on her shoulders. But she was really nice.
“See you soon, Madame Rossini.”
Once we were out of the room again, Mrs. Jenkins walked faster, and I found it quite difficult to keep up, even though she was wearing high heels and I had my comfortable dark blue school shoes on.
“Nearly there.” Yet another long, long corridor lay ahead of us. It was a mystery to me how anyone could ever find her way around this maze. “Do you live here?”
“No, I live in Islington,” said Mrs. Jenkins. “I leave work at five and go home to my husband.”
“What does your husband think about you working for a secret lodge with a time machine in its basement?”
Mrs. Jenkins laughed. “Oh, he has no idea of any of that. I had to sign a secrecy clause when I took the job. I can’t tell my husband or anyone else what goes on here.”
“Suppose you did?”
“I’d be fired, plain and simple,” said Mrs. Jenkins, sounding as if she didn’t like that idea at all. “Anyway, no one would believe me,” she added cheerfully. “Least of all my husband. He has no imagination at all, bless him. He thinks I work on boring files in an ordinary set of legal chambers all day— Oh, my word! The file I had out—I just left it where it was. Dr. White will murder me.” She looked undecided. “Can you find your way without me from here? It’s only a few yards. Left around the corner, then the second door on the right.”
“Left around the corner, second door on the right. No problem.”
“You’re a darling.” Mrs. Jenkins was on her way, at top speed. How she did it in those high heels I couldn’t think. Well, now I could take my time over the last “few yards.” At last I could look at the paintings on the walls properly, tap a suit of armor (rusty), and run my forefinger cautiously around a picture frame (dusty). As I turned the corner, I heard voices.
