She did not know what time it was, because of the new rule. It had
been the girl’s habit to creep up the stairs and then, depending on
the day and who might be home or what servants watching, slip into her
mother’s rooms, at the end of the hallway, or into her father’s, to the right
of the landing. Her mother’s bedchamber was filled with the deliberate
clicking of a clock made of Chinese porcelain, all creamy white with a
flickering of red flowers. If she was careful and again unseen, she could lift
it off its stand and put her ear against the brass-ringed face. Her father’s
rooms were altogether different:seldom occupied, and smelling of tobacco
and dust. Here stood the tall, dark pendulum clock, with a glass front
through which she could dimly see the swinging metal disc, lurking in its
permanent shadow. It was this clock that most satisfyingly rang the hour,
and the smaller Chinese clock that more reliably gave out the minutes in
between. But it had been three days since the girl had seen her mother,
and another three before that since her father had kissed her cheek at
breakfast, the stiff collar of his uniform tunic scraping against her chin,
then marched out to the street, already lighting his first cheroot of the
morning. Mr Flempton had shut both rooms – telling all the other servants
that the three children were forbidden the entire floor. The girl knew there
were other timepieces in the house, indeed that her merest question to
Cook, or their maid Amelia, or even the forbidding Mr Flempton, would
give her the time in a trice, yet she refused to ask. If she could not go
upstairs to find it for herself, she did not care to know.
Her brothers asked all sorts of things, persistent questions – especially
Charles – but received no answers at all. This upset her, because she
knew there were answers – her parents were some place – and she did
not understand why people she had trusted would avoid the truth so
cruelly. She had retreated instead, for hours every day to their schoolroom,
also empty, since their lessons had been suspended as well (she
could not remember when she had last seen their tutor, Eloise – it was
almost as if the woman had vanished along with her parents). As Charles
hated lessons and Ronald was too young, the room became a place no other
occupant of the house had any cause to visit. And so the girl passed her
time with books, with picture paints, and with looking out the window to
the square, where the coaches came and went as if the world was not
profoundly amiss.
What vexed her the most, as she strove ever more diligently to read or
draw or arrange the paint pots into a wall and jump the collection of her
brother’s carved wooden horses over it, like the soldiers in her father’s
regiment – the black horse always being her father’s and always making
the highest jump of all – was that those moments, her father at breakfast,
her mother kissing her goodbye after supper, would be the last for so long
a time. The girl had not fixed her parents into her mind – their smiles,
their moods, their final very important words. If she could only get into
her mother’s clothes closet, she could shut her eyes and lean her face into
the line of hanging dresses, breathing in the perfume. Instead she had the
smells of servants and well-scrubbed common rooms, and worried whispers
from the kitchens that stopped whenever she was seen.
It was after Cecile had collected her for afternoon tea, after so many
hours of silence the maid’s voice echoing up the stairway harsh as a crow’s,
that the girl found herself, hands washed and dress changed, waiting for
Ronald – her younger brother was always troubled by shoes – and staring
down the main hall, through the foyer to the closed front door.
The door chime was pulled, then after the briefest interval pulled again.
Mr Flempton rushed past her, tugging at the cuffs of his jacket. Cecile
touched the girl’s shoulder to guide her away, but she ignored it. Mr
Flempton opened the door wide to reveal three men in long black coats
and high black hats. The men to either side held leather portfolios. The
coat of the man in the centre was draped limply over one shoulder, the arm
beneath it wrapped with white plaster.
‘May I help you?’ asked Mr Flempton.
‘Ministry orders,’ said the man with the plaster cast. ‘We’ll require your
complete cooperation.’