The Typewriter Girl (10 page)

They worked in the room that had been the office of Mrs. Elliot’s late husband, a physician. Dora Pink, one of the few servants in the household, made her way about the perimeter of the room, needlessly repositioning objects with a dramatic bustle. Betsey recognized this as the tactic of a maid who wanted attention, but Mrs. Elliot, fully absorbed in her task and inclined to be dreamy in any case, failed to notice until the light in the room fell by one lamp.

Mrs. Elliot sat back on her heels, mystified. Then she caught sight of the maid reaching toward another lamp. “Dora Pink!” she exclaimed, but the lamp was out before the name.

Dora jerked back her hand, all the way to her mouth, a fair simulation of innocence. “Begging your pardon, ma’am! It’s just they’s lights on all over the house, and somebody’s got to keep on
to it, you know. See if the pendant lamp ain’t enough—I’ll wager it is.”

“My servants think I am a fool, Betsey,” Mrs. Elliot said upon Dora’s departure, and then sighed. “I fear I’m still not terribly clever about treating my home as a business, am I? Turn again, now.”

Betsey obeyed. She already had noted how the lodging house staff, with amiable stealth, either supervised or ignored Mrs. Elliot, but hadn’t been certain if Mrs. Elliot herself had. She was a distracted mistress and incautious giver, protected by an affectionate collusion between staff and lodgers. At suppers, she insisted plates be refilled, and no one complained when Dora Pink apportioned the extra servings as though they were lifeboat rations. For newcomers, she demonstrated the lighting fixtures in the house, and Dora Pink issued three candles per week per lodger, and it was clear whose lead was to be followed.

Charlie, Mrs. Elliot’s only child still at home, came to the door, stopping short at the threshold to consider Betsey standing on the ottoman. Betsey gestured at the new skirt. “Will it do, Charlie, do you think?”

His eyebrows, normally so fair as to be invisible above his deep-set eyes, took on a glow as the skin around them darkened. He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s not that bad. Mum, John’s come for his piano lesson, but don’t hurry, because I’ve got that annual to show him.”

He was off. He was thirteen.

Mrs. Elliot finished the pinning, then bade Betsey to make use of all the lamps she needed to finish up. “I know I’ve said you must call me Sarah!” she interrupted as Betsey tried to thank her for her help. She clutched both of Betsey’s hands and squeezed them as she put a quick kiss on her cheek. “You will be wonderful tomorrow, I know it!”

Betsey would be hosting a hundred employees of Pollit & Company Glassworks. Nervous enough, she could have melted in Mrs. Elliot’s burst of warm encouragement. In her surprise, she faltered
for some way to return it and finally managed to say, “I am so glad Mr. Jones made me live here, Sarah.”

Mrs. Elliot laughed, but Betsey cursed herself for how awkward the comment sounded, how shallowly it reflected her gratitude.

Mrs. Elliot gone, Betsey changed out of the skirt and finished the hem on the sewing machine, then started for her room, where she would sew the buttons on to the vest. Most of the lodgers were in the parlor, the purr of comfortable chat broken by Mr. Jones’s intermittent plinking on the piano. He’d begun lessons, of all things, coming to The Bows nearly every evening so Sarah Elliot could teach him to play the piano. Or one particular tune, rather. He worked at the same piece, over and over, something he was preparing for a party in London, Mrs. Elliot had told her. Miss Gilbey’s party.

He sat watching Mrs. Elliot’s hands now, his elbow propped on the piano, his head on his fist. His gaze flicked up as Betsey passed on her way to the staircase, and his smile for her was ready and lavish, and no less stunning for its brevity. By the time she’d returned it, he was looking down again, telling Mrs. Elliot, “Now the difference I hear. Let me go at it once more.”

Who could learn in such a way? More evidence of his madness, Betsey thought, though all she knew of music lessons came from overhearing the Dellaforde children practice their scales. Mrs. Elliot had tutted upon realizing Mr. Jones had no intention of learning to read the music, that he was certain he could mimic the process of this one piece if she only showed him how enough times.

Betsey suspected he’d found it trickier than that. Unseen on the steps, she paused with her uniform draped in her arms and listened to him play, stumble, correct; play, stumble, correct. A growled expression of frustration. A jeer from Charlie Elliot. A threat about moving out from one of the lodgers. Mr. Jones, laughing, pleading for mercy; Mrs. Elliot laughing, too, demanding more diligence.

Half-afraid of her happiness in the moment, she rushed upstairs to her room.
Her
room, shared with no one but Thief. That she woke with astonishment morning after morning had nothing to do with the unfamiliarity of it all. She knew where she was. She just couldn’t believe it.

Betsey turned up a lamp and opened the small windows in the dormer, admitting the voices and piano lesson inside. She readied her needle and spilled seventeen buttons from an envelope onto the coverlet of her bed, then grabbed them up and let them sift through her fingers. It felt luscious. A miser with his gold. Her brother-in-law, Richard, with his full bins of flour, or whatever he most adored. For a moment, Betsey understood him.

A small extravagance, these buttons, only brass-dipped tin, to be sure, but still a dearer choice than she might have made. Adding each one to the vest, however, she couldn’t regret it.

A final fitting. She tilted the small looking glass on the dressing table, and, alternately ducking and standing on tiptoe, she tried to get a sense of the whole effect. She couldn’t see it, quite. She could feel it, though. She knew how she felt behind the buttons, inside the thin Coburg wool.

No, indeed, Mr. Seiler. A ribbon or badge would not have done as well, not at all. In this uniform, she could believe the cheery reassurances she’d written to Caroline were more than wishful thinking. She could believe things would go as they ought tomorrow, that she could move past Mr. Seiler’s warning about trials and failures. Tomorrow, in this uniform, with all her preparations in place, she could impress him. Mr. Jones, too. Mad, kind Mr. Jones who’d chosen to be her ally for some reason. Tomorrow, she wanted him to be glad of his choice.

•   •   •

The excursionists’ train was punctual. However, the char-à-banc Betsey had hired was not. It irritated her, but she held her “Pollit & Co.” sign aloft with a smile and greeted the arrivals as they filtered out of the rail station and gathered round her. She gave her
welcome speech, distributed the handbills printed with the schedule and a simple map, and concluded with the assurance that, for those who cared to wait, the char-à-banc for the tour to Castle Hill would arrive shortly.

Most ambled off toward the Compass Walk, but the fifteen or so who remained would nearly fill the conveyance. She waited with them, waited with small talk, waited as the small talk grew halting. However fondly she had regarded Mr. Jones last night, she had a few ill thoughts for him now, for he had recommended this particular driver as a knowledgeable guide for the tours to Castle Hill.

The watch Sarah had loaned her (“I
never
use it,” she’d sworn) weighted Betsey’s pocket as she refused to check it every minute. In any case, the clock outside the rail station was within view, so she knew very well the fellow was twenty-six minutes past due when he at last arrived.

The excursionists streamed for the char-à-banc before it had even stopped. Betsey let them go ahead and begin boarding, intending to have a private word with the driver before they departed. The vehicle and its team of horses appeared impressively maintained, the harness and wheels clean, green paint glossy, and six rows of bench seats polished. On the char-à-banc’s side, in red and gold letters, “The Sundial” was scripted.

As she noted this irony, she realized her excursionists were finding something else amusing: their driver, welcoming them aboard with extravagant bows, lurching each time his head went near his knees. “Good Lord, he’s soused,” she heard someone say.

Suddenly, the horses moved, jerking the char-à-banc and causing a man boarding to fall and all the twittering and guffawing to swoop up in a collective gasp. Betsey rushed toward the fallen man, but someone nearer helped him up. He seemed unhurt.

Betsey spun on her heel and marched to the driver, who’d taken the bridle of the nearest horse. “
Mr. Noonan.
”

She watched his flushed cheeks drain. Squirming beneath her gaze, he drew his coat sleeve over his mouth. “Must’ve something bit. No harm.”

Her silent response to that made him shrink further. His red-rimmed eyes shifted away, and though he was certainly above forty, he looked like a child about to weep.

Betsey turned to the excursionists. She already had their attention. “It seems we’ll not get to the castle ruins today, ladies and gentlemen. I’m so sorry—”

“Here, now, what’s the need—”

“Mr. Noonan.
Mind your horses.
”

To the excursionists, she continued, “You’ve been good to wait such a long time, I know it’s a disappointment, but I must ask you to leave the char-à-banc now.” She reminded them of the amusements awaiting them on the Esplanade and about the photographer who would give them a special price if they came before noon. She heard complaints and regrets and jokes as they filed away, and all of it felt wretched.

“You won’t need to call off the afternoon tour, ma’am,” Mr. Noonan said in a low voice. “By then I’ll be—”

“Less drunk? Never mind. You needn’t come back this afternoon. I’ll not be requiring your services at all this season, so pickle yourself at any rate you desire, it’s no more my concern. Good day.”

“But I come today.” He tore his cap from his head and gestured toward the char-à-banc. “Took days gettin’ it ready for you. Painted the gig and all.”

She understood him suddenly. “You want to be paid! For what, a performance? If you think you’ll do a bit of good—”

Something made her stop. His jaw jutting forward, a deflation under his coat. Something stung her with guilt, and she felt stupid and weak for it, because she was doing what was required, what was black-and-white right, for God’s sake.

“There’s nothing I can do about it, Mr. Noonan.”

He knew she was right, too. He was giving up as she spoke. Betsey moved from him quickly, only to realize one of the excursionists had been waiting for her.

Or no, not an excursionist.

Avery Nash. With baggage.

He smiled. “At last, the little manageress notes my presence.”

Betsey could only stare, overcome with the confused pleasure of seeing the familiar in a foreign place, with the thought, incredulous but not yet skeptical:
He’s come after me?

With a laugh, he took her elbow and kissed her cheek. “My darling Lizzie.”

“What in hell . . .”

Avery, for all his admiration of theater that held an unblinking mirror to an imperfect audience, now proceeded to spin an awfully sweet tale, beginning with his missing her—“You always woke me in time for work, you know”—and raveling its way to a happy conclusion that hinted a return to London at summer’s end: “Once everything shutters here for the season, you’ll be ready to go back, and I’ll certainly have my play finished, perhaps even another one started. You were right, I’ve realized . . .” He paused to lift his face toward the sky and take in a deep breath. “I can heal here. I can
work
here.”

Certain details remained ambiguous. He’d left Baumston & Smythe—what good could clerking do him?—and exactly how, or whose idea that had been, was unclear, though it seemed to have originated with Betsey herself, who had failed to wake him for work, she being, of course, gone.

“And when Mrs. Bainwelter came round for the rent sometime after that, I was still gone,” Betsey pointed out.

He wondered what he should do with his bags. Betsey offered no suggestions. “I’m working, Avery, and I shall be working until late this evening. Tomorrow, perhaps, we may meet, but I cannot be distracted today.”

He called after her, told her to be fair. He’d come all this way to declare his affections.

Over her shoulder, she remarked, “Is that what you’re doing?”

Both of the morning’s encounters left her more rattled than she hoped she’d shown. As she had planned to accompany the tour to Castle Hill, the cancellation left her with some open time; she might have spared Avery a half hour or at least directed him to
an inn. But it was too shocking. She didn’t know what to do with him.

She headed for the hotel, darting past holidaymakers leisurely admiring the tall pines and small parks along the Compass Walk, until she brushed by Mr. Pollit, the owner of the glassworks. He recognized her. He and his wife had already heard about the char-à-banc incident.

“I was thinking of everyone’s safety,” she explained. Channeling Mr. Seiler’s calm demeanor, the way he never let people believe they’d interrupted something important, she walked alongside the Pollits to the Esplanade, turning the conversation to the private tour of the Swan Park that she’d arranged for him and his managers that afternoon. “I can scarcely think of anyone who will appreciate the stained-glass dome more than you, Mr. Pollit.”

She found them shady seats by the bandstand where they could enjoy the forthcoming performance. Mr. Pollit and his wife seemed content enough when she left them, but Betsey disliked the blemish on the day. She spent the remainder of the morning at the pavilion and in the kitchen and stores of the hotel, making certain all was in place for the dinner dance. In the afternoon, when she went to the office, she was cheered to find letters on her desk. More bookings, she hoped.

But no, they were bills, one she’d been anticipating, from an advert she’d placed in a weekly magazine, and the other already opened. Flowers.

She glanced about the office. It was a half-day for nearly everyone but her. Most of the workers were leaving, but Arland Hamble, the bookkeeper, was still at his desk.