The Tiger in the Well (31 page)

She knew little of the formalities and routines of a ser-

vants' hall, and she had to remind herself constantly to be careful to be modest and retiring and polite to everyone. It seemed to be working; they took little notice of her, apart from the interested glances from the menservants, the frank stares at her figure. She knew that if she'd come into this house as a guest, they'd never have dared to look at her in that way.

She found out more after supper, when the other housemaid, Eliza Foster, took her up to see the room they were to share, and to find her a uniform from the servants' linen cupboard. Eliza was a plain, dumpy girl with freckles. As soon as they left the kitchen, Eliza carrying a candle, she whispered, "Watch out for that bloody valet. Mr. Michelet."

"Why.? What's he like.?"

"His hands go all over the place. Not only hands, either. That was why Lucy had to go."

"The other maid.? I thought Mrs. Wilson said she drank.?"

"She wouldn't tell you straight off, would she.?"

They were on the first-floor landing of the back stairs. Eliza stopped and listened. Her eyes widened, and she put her finger to her lips. "Sssh! He's coming now. ..."

A door had opened below, and someone came up carrying a lamp. Eliza hastily set off upward, but a voice from behind said, "Aha! Who is this.?"

Eliza stopped. Sally could sense her reluctance. Sally tumed and waited as the man came up to them, but kept her eyes modestly on the floor till he said, "And what is your name.?"

"Louisa Kemp, sir," she said.

"Ah! Not sir! Mr. Michelet," he said. "Or if you like, J/o«j/>»r Michelet. Look at me, child."

She looked up. He had a plump, greedy face, somehow soft and hawkish at the same time. He held out his hand. She shook it, and he retained hers, bringing it up close to his face.

"Soft hand," he said. "You are housemaid, Louisa.?"

"Used to be a lady's maid, s—Mr. Michelet."

"Ah. Very soft hand. Very pretty face. Well, Louisa, I am glad to make your acquaintance. We will talk together. I hope."

"Yes, I hope so, Mr. Michelet."

But he wouldn't let go of her hand for some seconds. When he did, she made a little bob that might have been taken for a bashful girl's embarrassed half-curtsy.

"Come on," said Eliza.

Sally followed her, conscious of his eyes on her as far as the turn in the stairs.

When they were in the bedroom, a poky little place under the roof with two narrow beds and one chest of drawers, Eliza made sure he was nowhere near before saying "I hate him. It's only 'cause I ain't pretty like you or Lucy that he never does more than touch me. Poor Lucy—I dunno where she is now. ..."

"What happened.?"

"The usual thing. I tried to warn her, I really did. She'll have her baby, and then she'll have to leave it in the foundlings' home or summing. She won't find it easy to get another situation without a character. But you daren't say no to him, that's the trouble. He'd go to the master and then you'd be out on yer ear anyway. It's so much better when he's not here."

"What's he like.? The master.?"

"He gives me the creeps. The way he just sits there looking. I ain't seen him much, mind you, 'cause he likes us to keep out the way. Poor man though, being paralyzed. And having to depend on that bloody Frenchman for everything—^washing, dressing, all of it. No, it's him you want to watch out for."

So it was clear that Sally's route to the Tzaddik had to lie through Michelet. One step at a time, she told herself in bed, shivering under the thin blankets. She felt like a soldier on campaign. Coolness under fire. Keep your powder dry. Don't shoot until you see the whites of his eyes.

She slept dreamlessly and woke up at once when Eliza shook her at six o'clock. The uniform she was to wear was a little loose, but by tightening the apron she managed to make it fit.

"We got to make up all the fires, all through the house," Eliza told her, "same as a normal house, except that he has 'em all burning all day. Shocking expense in coals. Just had this new lift thing put in to take his chair up and down; you'd think they'd put a lift in for the coals, but, oh, no. Up and down the bloody stairs, same as anywhere. We got to clean extra-thorough—he's that fussy; a speck of dust and there's all kinds of trouble. You do the dining room first, then the drawing room. I'll do in the library and the hall, and then we'll do the upstairs. Breakfast at half past seven."

Having washed in cold water and cleared and refilled four fireplaces, Sally was feeling dirty and uncomfortable by the time the servants sat down to their breakfast. However, it had given her time to think what her next move should be, and she said quietly to Mrs. Wilson as they sat down to the porridge and tea: "Mrs. Wilson, ma'am.? Could I ask a favor.? I know I ain't been here for five minutes, but it's me old mum—I said I'd let her know directly I had a situation. She's waiting for a bit of money, and if I slip out for five minutes I can catch the post at half past eight around the corner. I'll make the time up, ma'am. ..."

Mrs. Wilson looked doubtful. Sally dreaded her saying that someone else would post it later, but she just nodded and muttered, "Mind Mr. Clegg don't see you. It's your own risk."

"Thank you, Mrs. Wilson," Sally said.

She bolted the porridge, which was palatable enough, though thin, and waited for Mr. Clegg to leave before slipping out. There was a good deal of coming and going, breakfast not being so formal a meal as supper, and within five minutes she had run through the rain and was standing at the counter of the post office around the corner. Again her luck held. Not only did they accept telegrams here, but there

J

The Valet Z7S

was no queue. It didn't take long to write on the telegram form the words:

AT ALL COSTS SEND FAVORABLE REPLY TO FORTHCOMING REQUEST FOR SERVANT'S CHARACTER STOP NAME OF LOUISA KEMP STOP DESPERATELY IMPORTANT STOP EXPLAIN LATER STOP SALLY LOCKHART.

She handed it in, paid the fee, and was back in the house within five minutes.

That left the other problem: what to do when the girl tumed up from the agency. Well, there was no point in holding back. She waited till she knew the valet was alone in the drawing room, and then slipped in and shut the door.

"What are you doing—ah! Louisa! But you must not be in here after this hour—"

She held her finger to her lips. His eyes glistened. He came closer, and she said softly, "Monsieur.?"

* 'Vous parlez frangaisP Mais —''

"Only a little. Please, Mr. Michelet, can you help me?*'

"What do you want.?"

She was looking up at him, she hoped appealingly. He came still closer. She smelt his eau de cologne.

"I shouldn't be here. The thing is I don't come from the staff agency. I was only in there when the message came from here, and I was desperate, so I came last night. They said they'd send someone today. Another girl. I don't know what to do. ..."

"Ah . . . you want me to send this other girl away.?"

She looked up at him, and then down, and then shyly up again. He licked his lips. Then he traced the outline of her cheek with his finger.

"Well, Louisa. The household staff is not for me to arrange. It will be difficult. However ..."

"I'll do something for you one day, monsieur."

"Yes," he said. "You will."

He twisted his hand slowly into the short hair on the back

of her head and began to pull her toward himself—and then something screamed on the ceiling.

She started and looked up. Michelet let go with a curse. There, leaping from cornice to cabinet to bookshelf to mantelpiece, was the monkey she'd heard about: a little gray flash, screeching with hatred and gnashing its yellow teeth. It leaped—clung—swung on—leaped again—and it had something with it in one arm, a little brown bundle—

Michelet reached up and snatched it out of the air like a cricketer catching a ball.

Immediately it fell quiet and lay motionless in his hand. The object it was carrying had dropped unregarded beside the wall. He brought the creature slowly, threateningly, to his mouth as if he would bite it, and it lay as limp as a rag doll, its eyes closed.

Then he dropped it to the floor. Like a cat, it twisted the right way up in midair and landed on its paws, and scuttled away through the door and out. She could hear it chittering angrily in the hall.

"Oh, Louisa," Michelet said softly. "You must be very wicked for the creature to hate you so much! You saw how she was making with her teeth.? Very sharp teeth, Louisa. She would like to bite you. . . . But I can control her. She is afraid of me. You mustn't be frightened, Louisa. You have to be cruel, and then they are afraid."

He slipped out quickly, leaving the door open.

She leaned on the back of a chair and took a deep breath. There was worse to come. Well, let it. She could face it. But she had her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, she saw the object the monkey had dropped; so she reached down automatically to pick it up and found herself holding Harriet's toy bear, Bruin.

He was unmistakable. His left ear was torn, and Sally had mended it with scarlet thread once when Sarah-Jane was on holiday and she couldn't find anything else. Her heart leaped with recognition and love, and she clutched the battered little thing to her breast helplessly. But this was proof. . . .

They ^^7

Michelet opened the door. She put Bruin down at once, and he took the toy from her.

"She must not have this," he said. "She hates it. She was going to destroy it, and the master would not want that to happen. A good thing we saved it, no.'"'

And he took it and left.

What did they want with Bruin if he wasn't for the monkey.^ It must be for Harriet. It must be to make her feel at home when they brought her here. No, don't think about that; one thing at a time.

But she'd crossed two bridges this morning, and now she was safe for the time being. She'd better act like a housemaid, though, or she'd be dismissed for incompetence—and that would be ironic, to say the least.

So for the rest of the day she labored diligently wherever Mrs. Wilson sent her: polishing silver, ironing linen, replacing all the candles in the great chandelier in the dining room, dusting, fetching coals . . .

In the late afternoon she was sitting down for five minutes in the kitchen when a bell rang. She looked up at the row of little bells beside the door and saw the one labeled library still bobbing on its spring. There was no one else in the kitchen; it was her job to answer it.

She stood up, smoothed down her apron, made sure her cap was on straight, and hurried up the stairs and through the green baize door.

Don't knock and enter—knock and wait, she thought. She expected that Michelet would open the door, but instead a deep voice called, "Come in."

She entered and gave a little curtsy to the man in the invalid chair, keeping her eyes modestly on the floor. There was nothing she wanted more than to look at him, but she managed not to. She had the impression of a dark, still bulk, and saw another man there out of the corner of her eye, standing by the window.

"Some tea for us," said the deep, cracked voice of the man in the wheelchair.

Something profound stirred a long way down in Sally's memory, but only for a moment, like a great slow fish moving a fin; and then it vanished.

She was about to turn and go when he said, "Wait. You are new. What is your name.?"

"Kemp, sir."

She looked up then, because at the sound of her voice something made a chittering sound. She looked into his vast moon face briefly, registering only his impassive eyes, and then to the implike malevolence perched on his shoulder, baring its monkey teeth at her.

"Kemp. Very well. Go."

She curtsied again and turned to go, and as she did so the man at the window turned around, and she found herself looking into the eyes of Arthur Parrish.

He didn't react, apart from casting the usual automatic glance at her figure. Then he looked away, ignoring her, and she managed to get out without shaking.

It works, she thought triumphantly. They can't see mel

It was either the hair or the servant's dress, or both, or the fact that it was the last thing they'd have expected. She felt jubilant as she walked back to the kitchen. And she thought of Parrish's glance. When I was a lady, she thought, no one looked at my body so openly. Now that Vm a servant they all do. . . .

Mrs. Wilson was in the kitchen when she got back. She explained that the master liked his tea placed on the low table near the fire; the guest would pour for him.

When Sally took the tray back the two men were talking. They took scarcely any notice as she set the tray down carefully on the low table.

She curtsied and heard Parrish say, "No, sir. I'm afraid she'd flown the coop. We got there just too late."

"What was this place.?" said the Tzaddik.

"Some kind of socialist settlement in Whitechapel. There's

no doubt she was there, with the kid as well. But we're working on another lead at the moment. The Jews . . ."

She couldn't stop to hear more. As it was, she feared that her shaking hands would give her away. When she shut the door, she pressed her ear against it; but all that came through was a confused mutter, and then she heard Mr. Clegg coming. She smoothed her apron and went back to the kitchen.

James Wentworth knocked at the door of the office in Bengal Court. Cicely Corrigan, who opened it tentatively, sighed with relief and let him in.

"Miss Haddow!" she called. "It's the lawyer—Mr. Wentworth. I'm sorry sir," she said, turning back to him. "We've been upside down today."

"Come in, Mr. Wentworth," said Margaret, and the lawyer limped through, leaving his hat and coat with Cicely.

Margaret poured him some tea without needing to ask whether he'd like any. He was pale, she thought, and he sat down as if he were aching in every limb.

"Well, it took all day," he began, "but I've held them off for the time being. I won't go into the technicalities, but you can write checks again, on your number-one account at least. They've agreed to honor them on your signature alone, provided that you don't exceed twenty pounds a time."