Authors: Janette Jenkins
‘And why will it tremble?’ said the doctor. ‘Sheer excitement? Or perhaps from utter relief?’
But Mrs Swift refused to take any chances when it came to her favourite ornaments, rolling them into tea cloths, hoping to save her lone shepherdess when the new shiny century made its agitated appearance.
Standing with their heads tipped, Jane and the doctor looked into the sky above Regent’s Park. ‘But what does it say?’ asked Jane, trying to string the flickering
stars
into some kind of message. ‘Is the world really going to end? Will everything be lost?’
‘Of course not,’ said the doctor. ‘The start of this coming year will almost be the same as the last.’
‘But the century has finished.’
‘Like the centuries before it. All things must pass.’
Jane and the doctor passed a man standing on a crate quoting from the book of Exodus as they walked through the ice towards the cracked boating lake, the moonlight making milk of the water.
‘My sister is very fond of parks,’ said Jane, watching a group of girls, laughing, arm in arm.
‘Really?’ said the doctor. ‘I hear most people are.’
‘She tells me they are a respectable place for finding a young man.’
‘She does?’ The doctor laughed. ‘And I am sure she is right,’ he said. ‘Though I suppose you might fare better at a social gathering. Are you fond of them?’
Jane shrugged. The only gatherings she had ever really known (apart from the occasional funeral, christening or wedding) were the impromptu parties her parents had thrown, the house crammed with the drinkers they’d pulled from the tavern: Irish bricklayers, watermen, and whoever else could bring an extra jug of ale. At first she would stay downstairs with Agnes, as her father sang his heart out and Mr Jones played the fiddle. Later, they would crawl beneath the bed, the dusty floorboards rattling as they tried to block their ears and hum themselves to sleep.
‘Miss Silverwood is hosting a party,’ the doctor said. ‘Tomorrow evening. Of course, I can’t attend, because
I
cannot leave my over-anxious wife on such an auspicious evening, but would you like to go?’
‘I don’t know, sir. Yes.’
All the next day Jane wondered what she might wear to the party. 1899 would soon be 1900. Guests would make an effort, yet what did Jane have but her two plain dresses and her aprons? The blue was faring better than the grey, but it was still washed out and mended. She would look ragged.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the blue dress hanging from the hook on the wall, Jane thought about Agnes, who could sew velvet onto collars, tuck waists or cut a bolt of cheap fabric and make it look like something recently fashioned in Paris.
Oh where are you Agnes? I need you! I need you! I need you!
By eight o’clock, she was very close to tears. At ten past, she could hear Mrs Swift gasping and wheezing, negotiating the steep splintery flight of narrow attic stairs.
‘Are you all right, ma’am?’ said Jane when she appeared at her door, gulping like a goldfish out of water.
‘Perfectly, just a little squeezed and a little out of breath.’
‘Did you need me, ma’am?’
Mrs Swift shook her head and sat on the end of the bed. The springs made a groaning sound. ‘No,’ she puffed. ‘I was thinking of this party.’
Jane asked Mrs Swift if she would like to go, thinking her very ordinary day dress, with the mutton grease on the sleeve, looked like a gown compared to her own poor outfit.
‘Most definitely not, but I will lend you something to wear.’
‘You would, ma’am? Really?’
‘Of course it would have to be something to make your own dress a little more dignified, a necklace perhaps, or a shawl. A lovely silk sash would brighten you up no end.’
Moving downstairs, slowly, like a woman with a badly sprained ankle, Mrs Swift eventually made it into her bedroom, where she reached for a small leather case, pulling out a turquoise scarf, which she tied around Jane like a medal sash, pinning it at her shoulder with a ribbon-shaped brooch.
‘But what if I should lose it, ma’am?’
‘You won’t lose it,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it is nothing but twisted metal and glass.’
Jane glanced into the mirror, to be met by a much improved version of her tattered former self. She straightened the sash a little. She pressed her finger over the brooch.
‘The next time I see you a new century will have dawned,’ said Mrs Swift. ‘Or the world will have ended, and we’ll be floating like ghosts towards the next one.’
‘In heaven, ma’am?’
‘I doubt it.’
Jane took a long deep breath. ‘Is it right to go to this party, ma’am,’ she asked, ‘without so much as a chaperone?’
Mrs Swift turned and tilted her head. She gave a small wistful smile. ‘Do you know Miss Silverwood?’ she asked.
‘Not really, ma’am, no.’
‘Miss Silverwood’s parties are always very informal, no chaperones are ever required, though if you would like the doctor to walk you to the door, then I am sure he would be willing.’
Jane felt nervous, but she told Mrs Swift that there was really no need for the doctor to go out of his way, yet by the time she arrived in Axford Square, she was wishing he was with her. Closing her eyes, she knocked on the door, and then she pushed at it, finding the hall already full of people laughing and talking. She suddenly felt breathless. Where should she go? How should she behave? All these people were strangers – the shiny, pretty girls with feathers in their hair, men with loosened neckties, a raven-haired woman with a face like Cleopatra who sat at the bottom of the stairs stroking her wide fur collar as if it were a sleeping Persian cat. What would they think about Jane? Would they sneer at her bones? Would they snigger? A few faces looked up, and as one or two of them smiled warmly, Jane battled on.
The house had been transformed, though Jane could not quite see how Miss Silverwood or Nell might have done it. The furniture looked more or less the same, the stiff leather sofas, the low carved tables, the plants shooting leaves in all directions, but instead of girls wringing their hands, dark moons beneath their eyes, these crushed visitors were joyous, their eyes sparkling, their hands chinking glasses, while somewhere in the background someone was playing a piano.
Since Jane had started working for the doctor, Nell had always been friendly, and now here she was, wearing a dark green dress and a clutch of yellow
bangles
, her arms outstretched and rattling. ‘You look dazzling,’ Nell said, fluttering her lashes. ‘“Dazzling” is a word I picked up tonight, I swear it’s a word they all use at least a dozen times a minute. Everything is dazzling, from my eyes I’ll have you know, to the icing on the coffee cake I made this afternoon. Oh, they’re a lively bunch all right, and only one or two to be avoided, including that chap over there.’ She pointed to a man in a dark velvet jacket. ‘He’s known as Archie Racer, having lost most of his worldly goods, including his second wife, on a race at Epsom Downs.’
‘Where’s Miss Silverwood?’
‘I’ve really no idea,’ said Nell, handing Jane a glass of lemon. ‘You know, I think she might have left us to it.’
‘You mean she isn’t here at all?’
‘She’s famous for her disappearing act. That woman might be anywhere.’
They moved into the kitchen, where the table had been draped with a stiff white cloth and held rows of green bottles and small plates of food. There were jugs of holly. A clutter of silver knives and forks. The sink was crammed with dirty pots and pans. ‘There’s only so much a girl can get round to,’ said Nell, waving a hand and helping herself to a pastry. ‘I’ve been up since the crack of dawn, sweeping floors, mixing cakes, and though I could never call myself a cook, they haven’t turned out badly.’
As they pushed through the crowds, a man in a Turkish silk hat patted Jane on the head. ‘Oh that’s Henry,’ said Nell as they inched their way into a corner. ‘Theatrical agent, and on the whole, harmless.’
Jane asked Nell how she knew all these guests, and Nell told her they were simply people who often passed through. ‘They come and go,’ she said. ‘And sometimes they come back again.’ Jane wondered if Agnes had ever passed through. Had she heard of Miss Silverwood? Did she know of Axford Square, or the doctor?
The air in the room was stuffy. The smoke from the tobacco made her eyes sting. Through the window, which had just been opened half an inch, Jane could see nothing but the blue-black smear of outdoor shapes and the shadow of a tree.
‘The house feels very different.’
‘That’s because we’re not working,’ said Nell, ‘or at least you’re not working, because it’ll be my job to clear all this awful mess up in the morning.’
‘In the next century.’
‘That’s right,’ she laughed. ‘I’d forgotten.’
For at least an hour they talked about nothing, transfixed by the crowd, their strange fashions, shrieking voices, the hungry-looking man who was said to be the brother of a famous violinist. In another room people were singing, ‘I’ve Gone and Lost My Pretty Polly’.
‘You know who’s in there?’ said Nell. ‘Fanny Lockwood.’
‘No!’ Jane put her hand to her mouth. She had seen her picture pasted on the billboards. Fanny Lockwood was the face of Calvert’s soap and was now starring at the Oxford where there were queues around the block day and night.
‘Come on,’ said Nell. ‘Let’s see if we can find her.’
Pushing through the arms and jabbing elbows, Jane found herself squeezed by a baby grand piano, where Miss Lockwood was holding court, a glass of Champagne fizzing in her hand. Jane, immediately mesmerised, could not stop looking at Miss Lockwood, who wore a comical expression, her nose being slightly too large, her eyes too small, and her mouth, ‘as wide as the Thames’, according to the critics. Her hair, a vivid shade of yellow (‘Blond as a baby on Benger’s’), had fallen from its large glittering combs, and she had to puff a piece from her eyes between verses. The room was in uproar, and Miss Lockwood seemed to be glowing as she told the pianist, a skinny man, to ‘Play on!’
The music set the room roaring, but Jane, now being crushed on all sides, thought she had better escape, at least for ten minutes. Only when she found herself released and in the hall did the house drop into silence and the clock chime twelve. It was January 1900 and the world hadn’t ended, the walls hadn’t trembled, and from what Jane could see through the fanlight, the moon was still hanging in the sky. She smiled with relief. People were clapping, whistling, a man shouted for more Champagne. Fanny Lockwood started singing ‘Welcome! Welcome!’, a chirpy, cheery number that seemed very fitting, and the crowd eventually joined her, knowing most of the words.
Stepping through a doorway, Jane found herself in Miss Silverwood’s little parlour, where a few lamps were lit. The walls, a deep shade of red, were decorated with oval portraits of dogs, snowy poodles, Pomeranians and small, milk-faced chihuahuas.
‘Do you like dogs?’
Having thought the room was empty, Jane started. When she turned, she could see Miss Silverwood sitting in the shadows in an armchair.
‘Yes, miss, my father had a dog, a mongrel he called Beauty.’
‘Faithful friends.’
Miss Silverwood was a dainty woman of fifty, and in the half light she looked almost Chinese, her fine dark hair pulled severely over her forehead, a piece of cut jade sitting at her throat. ‘Parties always seem like a good idea,’ she said. ‘You offer invitations, people accept, the day arrives and you must welcome it with open arms, though sometimes I would rather bolt the door and retire to my room with the curtains firmly closed.’
‘I am very sorry, miss.’
Miss Silverwood smiled and waved a hand. ‘Oh, don’t worry about me. It doesn’t matter. Haven’t you heard? I am a well-renowned misery and lucky to be tolerated, and unlike Dr Swift I don’t have a spouse to help with my excuses.’
‘Mrs Swift does not like parties at all.’
‘Oh, but she used to.’
‘Do you know her, miss?’
‘We have met.’
‘She saved my life,’ Jane told her.
‘Really? How marvellous. I always knew Margaret had it in her.’
Jane left the party soon after, feeling lightheaded, like the world was shifting. The cold wind had stilled, the frost was glowing, and most of the houses had
settled
into darkness. Everything was shuttered. Even Mr Beam had retired for the night. Pausing at the Swifts’ back door, Jane looked at the sky and mouthed ‘Happy new century’. She thought about Kent. Then she mouthed it again for her sister.
*
‘Come along, come along,’ said Dr Swift, ‘chop, chop, we are needed at the Alhambra, where I have an urgent meeting with the manager, regarding one of his acts.’
‘You want me to go to the meeting, sir?’ Jane looked horrified.
The doctor paused in his stride, scratching the side of his beard. ‘No, but I would like you to stay close by; you see, the matter is delicate, and things might get out of hand. It’s the garlic,’ he said. ‘It heats up the blood.’
‘Garlic, sir?’
‘I am led to believe the new theatre manager is French.’
‘Like the apothecary?’
‘No, he’s a different kind of Frenchman al together.’
‘But what could I do, sir?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Plan my escape?’
They walked down the Strand, past a cartographer’s recently damaged by fire, the owner picking through the wreckage, maps with half their coastlines missing melting in his hands. They passed gentlemen’s outfitters, boot-makers, boot-menders, giant emporiums, caves of antiques, the enormous shopfronts noisy with pictures and sales, and for a moment Jane wondered how it must
feel
to be one of those raw-faced girls sent up from the country, girls used to birdsong and bleating now being pummelled by the great dark mechanics of the city.
Behind the stage door, they found a man at a desk, his hands behind his head and his boots on the table. ‘You want Duflot?’ he said. ‘His name is written on his door. Walk down the passage and you’ll find it.’
When Jane’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom, she could see the walls had been papered with old theatre bills. The uneven floors were scattered with beads, crushed cigarettes, a torn Jack of Diamonds.