Corey McFadden (38 page)

Will reached into the drawer and took out the two uniforms. Giles disengaged one hand from Joanna’s tresses long enough to turn up the wick on the lamp that burned low by the bed. The room brightened enough that he could see her face.

“Oh, my darling, I thought I’d never see you again,” he moaned, crushing her to him. His lips seized hers in a ravenous kiss, broken only when he felt a tug at his pants leg.

“You’re right, Tom,” he said smiling when he looked down and saw Tom’s reproachful eyes on him. “This is no time for such silliness, is it?” He took the uniforms from the boy and handed them to Joanna.

“Can you take Emma behind a screen and get yourselves into these outfits? If you can pass for servants long enough to get downstairs to the back entrance, we may be able to get out.”

Joanna took the uniforms and with a great sigh disengaged herself from Giles’s arms. She and Emma disappeared behind the screen, but were out in no time.

“Let me see you,” said Giles, still keeping his voice low. Indeed, they looked almost like maids, but their hair needed to be put up. He cursed himself for forgetting to bring mobcaps, then smiled as he remembered they had likely brought the servants’ wardrobe with them.

In a few seconds he had unearthed mobcaps, frilly white affairs, from the drawer, as well as a few bent hairpins. He tucked and pinned Joanna’s hair up into her mobcap while she worked on Emma’s.

“Now,” Giles said, holding Joanna out at arm’s length. “Yes, you look perfect. Oh, no....”

“What is it?” Joanna asked, her face draining of color.

“Shoes!” he whispered. “I never thought about shoes and you are barefoot!” He was furious with himself. How could this whole plan unravel for the lack of two pair of shoes?

But Joanna just smiled and walked over to the side of the bed. She bent down and came up with two pair of soft house slippers.

“But, darling, you cannot wear those. They’ll give you away.”

“Have you seen any of the female servants, Giles?” she asked, putting the slippers on her feet. “They all wear these slippers, at least the ones I’ve seen upstairs do. I imagine it’s because the other—inmates”—she grimaced at the word— “are sleeping during the day when the maids are about their cleaning. We won’t look the least bit odd.” She bent down and pushed the slippers onto Emma’s feet.

Giles smiled his relief, realizing he had given not a thought to the footwear of the maid who had grabbed Tom. He looked down at Tom’s feet and was surprised to notice that Tom, too, wore house slippers, just like those Joanna and Emma had on.

“Tom,” said Giles, bending down to the boy. “The next part of our escape is going to be much harder, I think. Do you know if there is a back door to the outside that does not go through the kitchen? I want to stay away from the front of the house and I do not want to see many servants.”

Tom puzzled it out for a moment. “Back door to outside? I don’t know. The hall goes way back past the kitchen.”

Giles let out the breath he did not know he had been holding. “I don’t suppose you or Emma saw much of the layout of the house, did you, Joanna?” he asked.

“No, we were carried up from the front,” was Joanna’s discouraging response.

“Then we’ll just have to chance being able to find the way out on our own. We still have one big problem to solve, and that is how to get us all out of doors at once. It wouldn’t be so hard to explain taking the broken chest out to be repaired, but why would Joanna and Emma be going out, too?” He paused, considering, while Joanna finished tucking up Emma’s hair.

“I have an idea,” he said slowly, still piecing it together. “There is a small Oriental rug on the floor by the door. Let’s roll that up and you and the children can carry it down. If anyone stops you, you can say that one of the girls got sick on it and it needs to be aired. Will it work?” he asked Joanna, desperate that she should find no flaw in the plan.

“It’s as good a plan as we can possibly come up with, Giles,” she said, considering it. “I noticed that the windows are heavily barred and the bedroom doors are locked from the outside. I am quite sure the girls here do not have free run of the house, but the maids seem to. I think we have a very good chance, indeed.”

He knew she was being deliberately optimistic but he blessed her for it.

“Emma, the rug will be heavy, but I think you and Tom can manage one end of it. Can you do that, darling?” he asked gently, taking her hand.

“Yes, Uncle Giles,” she said, looking up at him. “Can you really get us out of here? Everyone is so mean to us.”

“We’re going to try our best, sweetheart. Stick with Aunt Joanna and if anyone asks you anything, let her answer.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“When we go out, I want you to lock the door behind us and put this key back on the hook so that nothing looks amiss,” Giles said, handing the key to Joanna. “This is the part I don’t want anyone to see, because I don’t want anyone to think to check on you two if they see us all leaving from one room. We’ll just have to pray that we can all get out and away from this door before anyone comes down the hall.”

“It has been fairly quiet in the hall until now, Giles. I’ve heard very little noise,” Joanna said.

“Good, we’ll listen at the door and hope for the best.” He tried not to sound as grim as he felt. If he had to, he would fight to the death to save them all, but he had few illusions about what would happen if a general alarm was sounded. This was their only hope.

They rolled up the small rug and Joanna and the children lifted it between them. Giles was relieved to see that Emma seemed able to manage her end with Tom.

“Let Tom take the lead, and Will and I will be right behind you. Tom, take us down the back stairs and back hall. We will pray for a door to the mews.” As he spoke he turned the lamp down completely so the room was in darkness again.

Giles and Will hoisted the chest between them. They stood at the door, listening, but heard nothing. Carefully, quietly, Giles eased the door open with one hand and put his head out. The hallway was empty. He stepped out with Will and they waited while Joanna and the children brought the carpet out. Joanna put down her end and fumbled with the lock on the door. When she finally heard the tumblers fall, she placed the key on the hook outside the door and picked up her end of the rug. Giles nodded at her to go forward, and she and the children started silently down the hall, Tom in the lead.

By Giles’s mental calculations, they were now on the third floor, but he did not know whether this house, like many in London, had a rear entrance that was one floor down from the one at the front. In all likelihood it was so, because he remembered coming up a flight of steps to get to the front door. Praying that Tom could lead them to the right place, he followed behind, his eyes burning into Joanna’s back.

The back stairs were dark, lit only at intervals with lamps mounted on the landings. They plodded slowly down, looking, he hoped, like put-upon servants and workmen. Between the first and second floors, a young maid passed them, carrying a tray with a cloth over it, a meal of some sort. Noting how they were burdened, she stepped aside and let them all pass. Looking back over his shoulder, Giles was relieved to see that she continued on her way without so much as a shrug of acknowledgment in their direction.

Tom reached the first-floor landing and kept going. Now they would be heading into the servants’ regions, the area of the house populated only by those they were impersonating. Giles had no way of knowing where Teddy and Bobby and the other henchmen were, but if his experience upstairs was any example, they stayed close to the front door and the mistress of this establishment, to be at her beck and call. Of course, there was always the grim possibility that one or more of them was having a meal now, and that would likely be down here in the servants’ dining hall or the kitchen. Giles tried to reckon what time it might be. In a normal household it would be past luncheon, but who could say what sort of schedule was kept in this palace of evil? He could smell food cooking or cooked, but large kitchens smelled of food at all times, the odors lingering many hours after the meal had been eaten and cleaned away.

They passed two more maids, scullery by the looks of them, who paid no mind to the procession other than to step to one side as it passed, not breaking-so much as a word in their conversation to look up.

Now they were on the bottom floor and the hallway stretched on into darkness ahead. Doors on either side of the hallway were standing open. On the left they passed what appeared, from the side glance Giles gave, to be the kitchen. There were several women in it, busy at their tasks. No one looked up, as far as he could tell. The scullery area was empty, but piled high with dishes and pans to be washed. Good. Perhaps that meant the midday meal had been taken.

Looking ahead, he could still see no signs of a door that might lead outside. The hallway ended just up ahead, and with a sinking heart, Giles saw that there was no door at the end, merely a brick wall with a bench in front of it.

He was smelling soap now, and boiling laundry. Tom stopped at the last door and looked back at Giles. Confusion and fear were plain on the child’s face.

“There you are, you worthless little idiot!” came a voice screeching from inside the room. Tom disappeared abruptly as if he’d been plucked up. Emma staggered under the weight of the front end of the carpet and lost her grip.

“Wot’re you doin’ with that carpet, may I ask? No one told me nothin’ about no carpet.” The voice was full of exasperation. Giles saw Joanna swallow. He and Will moved up behind her but he could not see into the room.

“We’re takin’ it out to be cleaned in the back. One of the girls sicked up all over it and it stinks,” Joanna said. Giles marveled at her coolness. He and Will could take care of a few people if they had to, but it appeared this hallway had led them down a blind alley, not a good defensible position.

“Well, take it out then. Don’t unroll it in ’ere. I put up with enough smells as it is.”

Joanna hesitated. Giles knew what her problem was. Where was ‘out’?

“Well, wot’re you waitin’ for? I’m not ’elpin’ you none, that’s for certain,” came the voice.

“Which way is the door?” came Joanna’s voice with a tremble in it that Giles hoped would pass unnoticed.

There was a pause from inside. Then the woman’s voice came again. “Are you new ’ere? I ’aven’t seen you before, ’ave I?” Was there suspicion now in her voice or were Giles’s nerves putting it there?

“Started this mornin’, ma’am,” said Joanna, her voice more steady. “That’s why I get stuck with the puke, I suppose.”

“Oh, don’t think it gets any better than this, my girl,” the woman cackled. “Your troubles are just beginnin’. Git on with you now, the door is right through ’ere, so’s I can get my wet wash out to ’ang.”

Giles could see Joanna’s sigh of relief.

“If you please, ma’am,” Joanna said, her voice uncertain again. “Can the boy bring out a bucket of suds and a brush?” Bless the resourcefulness of his bride, thought Giles. She would get Tom back for them, a problem that Giles had been dealing with since the woman had grabbed the boy.

“All right, but I need ’im back ’ere in a ’urry. These wet sheets are ’eavy to lift and I need strong young legs to do the carryin’.”

Joanna started forward into the laundry room. Throwing up a quick prayer, Giles stepped after her with Will on the back end of the chest.

“Now wot, for the love of...wot’ll you be doin’, if I may be permitted to ask?” The woman stood over a large steaming washtub. Giles could see that her reddened arms were covered with soap well past her bare elbows.

Joanna cast a nonchalant glance over her shoulder at Giles and Will. “The girl chucked all over the chest, too. I wiped it up but it’s marred the finish. We was told to get it out and clean it up better.”

“Well, go on then, the lot of you,” retorted the woman, bending back down to the large tub. “You, boy, there’s a bucket and a brush in the corner. Fill it from the kettle and mind you don’t burn yourself.” She paused, eyeing him thoughtfully. “One of you should ’elp the tyke,” she went on. “’E’s just an idiot, after all, and ’e’s no good to me all blistered.”

Joanna set down her end of the rug and went over to fill the bucket for Tom, blessing the woman’s selfish championship of the boy and cursing the delay. She went as slowly as she could force herself to go, aware that servants rarely hurried unless they were being overseen by their superiors. She found some chips of soap and added a few to the boiling water they had absolutely no use for.

“All right, be careful with this now,” Joanna said, hating herself for the cool tone she forced herself to use to the child. Tom took the bucket, his eyes appropriately vacant. Joanna was surprised at what a fine little charlatan he was turning out to be.

Giles and Will had moved forward with their burden to the door in the back wall. Giles slid the bolt back and held the door open while Joanna and Emma struggled through with the carpet, and Tom followed behind with the heavy bucket. Giles had time to note that the one window that looked out the back was filmed over with years of soap grease. Well, at least this woman would not be able to see where they went after the door was shut behind them.

And then they were all through, Will pulling the door closed.

They stood for a moment, Giles looking about. He had not seen the back of the house before, so he had to do some guessing as to the layout. There were the stables across the small yard. There were several sheds and outbuildings against the high wall which ran all around. There was a gate, which stood open, and a driveway leading from the stables into an alleyway.

“Follow me and keep your faces down,” Giles said, as low as he could and still be heard.

He and Will moved toward the stables. His heart was hammering in his chest. Their story could plausibly get them as far as the back, but there would be no way to explain them all climbing into a carriage and trotting merrily off.

They made it across the small yard without seeing anyone and disappeared into the dark of the stables. Giles set down the chest, signaling for Joanna and the children to put the carpet down as well. Peering back at the house, he noted that while the draperies on all the upper-story windows were closed, some on the first floor were open. They could have been seen from the house. Giles signaled for Joanna to take the children and step back behind the large stable door.