Julia Vanishes (11 page)

When I get back, the household is in a flurry of activity, preparing for our guests. Mrs. Freeley is terribly upset about having to accommodate an additional member for supper.

“What do they think I am? I've got four pork chops! How can I make five suppers out of four pork chops?” she complains.

A fair question, but I assure her I have no doubt she is up to it.

Florence slips in a snide comment about how long I was about my errand, but she is too excited to expend much energy on being cross with me, and I play the deferential underling when she snaps orders, to cheer her up. We sweep and dust the back parlor and make up a comfortable bed with a little nest of pillows and blankets for the child next to it, and then set about tidying the front parlor, though really we are just waiting for the hackney. When it pulls up outside the front gate, Chloe gives a squeak of excitement, and all three of us stop pretending to clean and run to the window. It is frosted over, and so I pull it open. A toothy, long-jawed driver helps his passenger out: a dark-skinned woman in a fur coat, holding a baby. I judge her to be not much over twenty. The child is wrapped in a colorful blanket, large eyes peering about him. I can hear her clear, pleasant voice from the gate, saying, “Thank you, Jensen,” to the driver.

“Isn't the baby sweet!” cries Chloe.

“Shh,” says Florence.

I am not on duty in the dining room and do not see our guests again for the rest of the day, though I hear the woman's voice from the parlor, and the child's high-pitched babble. Chloe and I are still cleaning up the supper dishes when Florence comes in.

“They went to bed early,” she says smugly. “Must have been exhausted.”

“What are they like?” Chloe presses her, so I don't have to.

“She's a southerner, perhaps with Eshriki blood too,” says Florence. “Brown as a nut, and too pretty for her own good, I reckon.”

“What do you mean?” asks Chloe.

“I mean that she doesn't have a ring on her finger,” says Florence pointedly. Chloe gasps, shocked.

“Not wellborn either, for all that she's well dressed,” Florence continues. “She was trying to chat with me. She's not used to servants.”

I wonder if Bianka Betine will find Mrs. Och's house the safe refuge she'd hoped for. In the back parlor, she's sure to hear the nighttime howls from the cellar.

I am fetching water from the outdoor pump next to the scullery the following morning, shivering, the snow almost knee-deep, when I hear a sharp whistle from the gate. I look up and see a boy gesturing at me from the street. I know him—everyone calls him Boxy, and he delivers messages for Gregor. I leave the great copper tub in the snow and struggle over to him.

“They can see you from the windows, fool,” I scold him.

He gives me an impudent little smirk and hands a folded paper through the gate.“You caught me by surprise; I've nothing for you,” I say, snatching the paper.

“He paid me already,” says Boxy, trudging off, sadly underdressed for the snow but seeming not to mind.

I unfold the paper then and there, not very prudent, given I might be seen and am not supposed to know how to read, but I am too impatient to wait even a moment.

The client wants to meet you next Temple Day,
it says.

C
oming back inside with the copper tub full of water and snow, I find Bianka Betine in the scullery, wearing an expensive-looking white nightgown with a heavy robe of blue silk hanging open over it. She has beautiful fur slippers on her feet, and her hair springs and tumbles in tight, dark curls.

She is indeed very pretty, as Florence said, with a rather impish face and a good figure. She is not doll pretty like Csilla or nude-illustration pretty like Arly Winters, however. It's just as easy to imagine her decked out like a queen as it is to picture her barefoot in a village with her hair in a kerchief. There is something sly and clever about her face too, like she is guarding a private joke that may be at your expense. I put the copper tub on the stove, grunting with the effort, and drop her a curtsy.

“Hullo,” she says. She has a very direct gaze. It feels like staring, but perhaps that's because she's from the south. Her accent is soft and pleasant to the ear, her speech slower than that of Spira City. Like she has all the time in the world. “I've lost the baby.”

“What?” I say stupidly.

“Baaaa!”

I nearly jump out of my skin. A curly-headed moppet pops out from the laundry basket, shedding towels and underthings. I am not particularly fond of small children, but even I can see he is a beautiful child. He is lighter than she is—golden-cheeked, with a hint of red in his dark hair. He has two top teeth, four bottom teeth, and a winning smile.

“How did you get in there?” Bianka drawls at him, as if it's entirely normal to let one's children go crawling into laundry baskets in strange houses.

“It's not clean,” I say.

“It won't kill him,” she says as he tips out onto the floor and then begins to wail. She pulls a delicate brown foot out of her slipper and wiggles the toes at him, which distracts him from his tumble. He reaches for her foot, and she puts it back in the slipper.

“Hide-and-seek is his favorite game,” she says. “I find it a rather tiresome game, myself. Do you work here too?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I say.

She looks me over curiously. “This house has so many servants.”

I have no idea what to say to this. Three housemaids, a cook, and a groundsman do not amount to a great many servants for a rich lady in a fine house.

“Theo and I have been exploring and got lost,” she continues. “My name is Bianka. That little rat is Theo.”

“Pleased to meet you, ma'am,” I say, bobbing another stupid curtsy. She raises an eyebrow in faint surprise. “My name is Ella,” I add.

“Well, pleased to meet you too, Ella.”

The little boy pulls himself to standing holding on to the edge of the laundry basket and totters over to his mother, with his arms out for balance. He walks like a tiny drunkard. He collapses against her leg, delighted with himself.

“So this is where you do the cleaning up and so on,” she carries on conversationally, looking around the scullery.

“It's the scullery, ma'am,” I say awkwardly. Has she never been inside a fine house like this one? “You're not from Spira City, are you?” I go on. “Your accent is different.”

“From Nim,” she says absently, as if she's suddenly lost interest in me. She shakes the baby off her leg and wanders out. He goes wobbling after her, clinging to the edge of her robe and saying “ma, ba, ma, ba, ma, ba,” with great concentration.

The rest of the day is busy, and I cannot seem to get out from under Florence's watchful eye. Mr. Darius stops me as we are clearing supper and draws me aside. His hand is heavy on my arm, and my heart speeds up a little, even though I am sure I am safe here in the dining room, in plain view.

“I want to thank you for helping me yesterday,” he says. “You were very kind.”

“Of course, sir,” I say. He is still holding my arm. I look pointedly at his hand, large and bristled with black hairs, and he lets go.

“Frederick tells me I was raving utter nonsense,” he continues with a forced laugh. I wonder if he remembers what he said to me. “I hope I did not alarm you.”

“No, sir,” I say. “I am only glad to see you recovered. You're quite well now, sir?”

“Quite well,” he says, though he doesn't look it, gaunt and wild-eyed as he is. “Thank you.”

“Not at all, sir.” He doesn't seem about to leave me, so I curtsy again, slide past him, and duck into the scullery. After supper has been cleared away and everyone has retired to the front parlor, I find Chloe watching the baby in the music room. He is gnawing on the piano leg, and there are papers all over the floor.

“He just chews on everything,” says Chloe despairingly. “I don't know how to make him stop!”

“You're bigger than him,” I point out. “Besides, shouldn't he be in bed?”

“I tried. I rocked him and sang to him. He bit my nose, Ella!”

There are indeed two red indentations on either side of her nose. The baby grabs hold of a piece of paper in his fat fist—it is sheet music, though I've no idea where it came from—and tears it cleanly.

“Stop it, baby!” cries Chloe, near tears.

“Don't be pathetic,” I tell her. “He just needs a smack.”

I snatch the paper from him and make to slap him across the face. I wasn't going to hit him hard, but if I've learned anything from the harried mothers and grandmothers in the Twist, it's that babies are too stupid to learn anything without a good smack now and then. Before I can slap him, my wrist is caught in an iron grip and twisted back, and a tug sends me staggering right across the room into the bookcase. I gasp with shock and pain, sliding to the floor.

“There will be no smacking of Theo by
you,
” says Bianka acidly. She had crept up so silently, I had no idea she was there. Chloe looks petrified.

“I wasn't going to hurt him,” I say, still stunned. She is no taller or bigger than me. But she is
strong.
Too strong.

She scoops up the baby and swishes out before I even have time to get angry at the way she just chucked me across the room. I get to my feet and look at Chloe, whose mouth is still hanging open.

“You'll catch a fly if you don't shut your trap,” I say nastily, and limp out of the room, cradling my throbbing wrist.

“Is Miss Betine all right?” I ask Frederick at our next reading session. “She wasn't at breakfast this morning.”

“I believe she slept late,” says Frederick.

“She is very beautiful,” I say. “And the baby! Such a little poppet!”

“Yes, indeed.” He gives me the sort of tender smile that people give to young women when they talk about babies, and it is a tribute to my acting skills that I do not laugh in his face.

“What is her relationship to Mrs. Och?” I ask. “She said something about her brother.”

Frederick looks startled at this and begins to stammer. “Oh—oh…yes, I believe…a distant cousin.” He is a terrible liar. When he has to tell a lie, he sweats and fidgets and can hardly get a sentence out. It must be an awful handicap. I suppose it would keep one honest, for whatever that's worth.

“Will her husband be joining her?” I ask, all innocence.

“Ah! No…no, I believe not.”

“It seems very sudden, her visit,” I say. “Had Mrs. Och no warning of it beforehand?”

“I think…not,” says Frederick.

“And Mr. Darius? I was glad to see him at dinner last night—he is better, I take it?”

“Much,” says Frederick, beginning to sound exasperated with me. “Aren't you interested in reading today?”

I give up. “Of course I am. I only wondered about our guest. She is rather mysterious, appearing out of nowhere all of a sudden!”

“I suppose she is,” says Frederick.

I pick up one of the books in his pile and immediately sit up straighter. On the cover, a white stag stares at me from a copse of silvery trees. I open the book and gather it is a collection of Lorian nature poetry.

“What's this?” I ask, scanning a few pages quickly.

“Mrs. Och recommended that one for you,” he says.

That gives me another start. “Mrs. Och? Does she know about…this?” I almost say “about
us,
” but I wouldn't want to give Frederick the wrong idea.

“Yes, yes, I told her,” he enthuses, glad to be off the topic of Bianka, I expect. “She was all for it. She greatly approves of the education of the lower classes. It's one of her causes, you might say. She suggested poetry, said the rhythm would help with learning, and I expect she's right. This kind of poetry doesn't get read much anymore. I suppose some people think it has folklorish elements.”

“Well, that's illegal,” I say.

“It's illegal to worship the gods of the elements,” he says plainly. “It's not illegal to write poetry about nature, and indeed it is a sad state of affairs when simple appreciation of beauty becomes conflated with archaic beliefs. Besides…well, as a scientist, of course, I am in favor of dispelling ignorance, and there is no doubt that the old folklorish beliefs were often very ignorant, but I do not see the purpose in banning harmless practices outright. I think education is a better way to reach the people. Then, understanding more of the world, they would abandon their foolish old practices on their own.”

I am shocked that he would so openly criticize the Crown, but intrigued too. Frederick has never struck me as much of a rebel, but then again, he left a promising career to come and work in isolation for a man whose career is utterly dead. There is some kind of wrong-headed principled stand in there somewhere.

“How would educating people change anything?” I say.

“It was Girando's telescope that struck the first blow against the old beliefs, three hundred years ago,” says Frederick, smiling at me. “Before that, even educated people believed that all the power in the world was
of
the world. Earth, fire, air, water—the spirits or gods called
Arde, Feo, Brise,
and
Shui.
”