The Typewriter Girl (29 page)

“Fine,” she answered, before he could invite the whole damn lodging house and make it thoroughly proper and well within the limits she herself had imposed.

She had hoped to get away without Sir Alton seeing her, but he and Lady Dunning were alighting the barouche as she and Mr. Jones exited the Kursaal. Mr. Jones made her even more conspicuous by walking her to her bicycle. Just like she was having her first lesson again, he held the handlebar while she mounted. She touched her foot to the pedal, poised for motion.

Still he held on.

“What do you think, girl? Was it the right thing?”

Betsey glanced over her shoulder, trying to make out where his gaze had fixed. Nothing in sight helped her make sense of the question.

She turned back. He looked down to the handlebar as though he knew he should release it, but he didn’t. “How I left Owen,” he said. He lifted his gaze again, his need for an answer so naked it jarred her. “Was it the right thing?”

Tears scalded her eyes without warning, the only ready answer that she possessed. What would she ever know of children? She suspected Owen woke to distractions of food and play and family routines, that his brother was the only one yet haunted by that day, but was that comfort? He came to her with the question that undid all his confidence, and she didn’t know what to tell him.

“That child loves you, John.” She had at least that truth to share. “How could he help it? No matter how you had to leave, that is what he’ll remember, that he loves you.”

•   •   •

“Lady Morey—she finds the reading material in the ladies’ lounge is too much of the edifying strain and not enough of the entertaining.”

Mr. Seiler reached for the cup of coffee sitting on the corner of his desk, and his glance over the top of the complaint book fell upon Betsey. No longer just an observer, she was expected to supply an idea now and then.

She knew she had the space of a single sip to offer a remedy for Lady Morey’s dissatisfaction, and after attending these complaint book meetings regularly over the past few weeks, that should not have been so great a challenge.

But before today, Sir Alton had never been present. He hadn’t seemed surprised to find her there, only greeted her with the comment that he’d heard she was making herself useful round the hotel in any number of ways.

The rim of the cup lingered at Mr. Seiler’s lips. He graced her with another sip, forgoing his customary practice.

One submanager suggested, “It will be a simple matter to ask the lady what she prefers. A porter may bring it from town, or if it is very extraordinary, we may send to London.”

Mr. Seiler nodded. “Very well. For you.”

The submanager made a note. Proceeding to the next item, Mr. Seiler turned a page in the complaint book.

“She has a companion,” Betsey said in the pause. She was not certain Mr. Seiler would appreciate this addition. Going to the companion would be more discreet, and he preferred complaints to be resolved with minimum fuss, but once the “for you” order had been pronounced, the matter was considered finished, and Mr. Seiler did not revisit it. But having begun, there was nothing to do but finish. “Lady Morey has a companion with her, Miss Thee. She would know Lady Morey’s reading preferences.”

Mr. Seiler’s
hmm
was brief but thoughtful. “For you, then, Miss Dobson.”

The submanager struck the task from his list, Betsey recorded it in her notebook, and Mr. Seiler went to the next item, all as if Mr. Seiler asked her to resolve guest complaints every day. What did Sir Alton think of it? There had been none of his previous failure to recognize her when he’d joined the meeting this afternoon.

Mr. Seiler’s ritualistic precision meant his two cups of coffee were drained and the complaint books shut by five to three—that was, unless Sir Alton attended, a submanager had once warned Betsey. He had come often in the early days of the hotel, and still was likely to drop in now and again, and his questions and concerns could lengthen the meeting considerably.

Betsey saw no sign of that today. Indeed, at ten of, Sir Alton took his leave, having said very little. Betsey noted the glances exchanged amongst the remaining men after the secretary closed the door. Mr. Seiler shook off his puzzlement and returned to the groundskeeper’s complaint book. It was still possible to finish on schedule. “Mrs. Guy—roast pheasant with plum jelly served on a chipped plate, sans jelly.”

Betsey left the meeting with an armload of complaint books to
return and a plot to chance upon Lady Morey’s companion. Mr. Seiler was preparing her, she thought to herself as she turned into the corridor of offices. Once the season was over, if the excursion scheme were canceled, he could still find a place for her here at the hotel, something besides a chambermaid or laundress. If she could learn enough and prove herself—

Had she heard her name? She stopped, looked about.

It was Sir Alton.

If a machine has been properly cared for but the carriage sticks, the trouble almost always is with the dogs.

—How to Become Expert in Type-writing

H
e stood beside one of the half-columns protruding from the corridor walls, gloves draped over his hand in a way that reminded her of a portrait, impossible to miss if she’d been outside her own head a little more. Startled, disconcerted, Betsey reverted to her years as a housemaid at the Dellafordes’ and curtsied.

Two of the complaint books she was carrying slipped from under her arm as she did so. She hesitated awkwardly. Was he greeting her in passing, or did he mean for them to converse? About what? And oughtn’t he offer to collect the books for her?

Involuntarily, her eyes turned to John’s closed door.

“I startled you,” Sir Alton said. “Such absorption. Head full of business, Miss Dobson?”

Betsey forced herself to meet his eyes, then glanced down to the fallen books. And then at Sir Alton again.

This seemed to amuse him. “Allow me, do.”

He stooped at her feet. Betsey put out her hands for the books when he rose, but he held onto them, inspecting the spines.

“Seiler entrusted these to you.”

Betsey remained at a loss. The books were not especially confidential; any page in the hotel might have been given the task of returning them to their respective departments. The advantage was Betsey’s, that she had the opportunity to move about the hotel and interact with the heads of each department.

“He likes you. Decided to groom you, as it were. He’s done so before—he is an excellent judge of potential, generally.”

She did not feel safe to thank him for this oblique praise. His smile held as he offered the books. John claimed the ability to interpret the subtleties of Sir Alton’s expressions, but she saw nothing in his face to help her deduce his purpose or feelings. She took hold of the books, and was not much surprised when he did not release them. He nodded in the direction of John’s door, and a warmth grew in her, as though she’d been caught doing something she oughtn’t.

“Jones, for example. He learned well under Seiler’s guidance. I’ve noticed . . . he likes you, too.”

A pair of staffers passed on their way down the corridor, assiduously restraining any show of curiosity.

“Rather more than Seiler, even,” he added, so very softly.

She guessed he was having a bad time of it, trying to identify what John might find attractive in her. She thought of helping him, thought of dipping her chin and looking out from beneath her lashes, of letting her lips curl, sounding biddable as she spoke his name.

Instead, she pulled the books into her possession, which surprised him. Still, he made the sparest gesture with his arm, and her intention to continue to the office died. She was not dismissed.

“Yes, Jones learned well. And, in turn, has done well for the company, all things considered. I know Web Fawcett thinks so.”

Betsey couldn’t help it. She frowned at the name, unable to place it with either a face or a reason for Sir Alton to mention it.

“Surely you’ve heard Mr. Jones mention Web Fawcett? Of Reading? A rather substantial property there he’s preparing to develop.”

Fawcett was staying at the hotel at present, she remembered. She could have heard the name from John, but also from Mr. Seiler or any of the staff if he were an impressive enough guest.

“He’ll need a contractor.”

Understanding at last what Sir Alton was after relieved her to some degree, though it provoked her more than anything. She wished she
did
know John’s interests regarding Web Fawcett just so she could keep the information from Sir Alton.

Yet she did know something, didn’t she? Sarah sometimes sighed over the thought of how Charlie would miss John once he moved on from Idensea. And Betsey witnessed almost daily how he drove himself, his vision relentlessly future-fixed, except for that night on the Sultan’s Road.
What if I am sick to the death?

She knew John—Mr. Jones—had ambitions that would take him from Idensea. She hadn’t thought when. She hadn’t thought soon. Sir Alton’s questions, the mention of a specific position, made it seem
very
soon.

“I suspect you would be as pleased as I,” Sir Alton said, “seeing an opportunity like that come to our Mr. Jones. Although, really, he is not quite ready for such a position—”

He stopped as her lips parted, ready to defend John. His eager accommodation made her change her mind and close her mouth.

He sighed. “I confess, I’d come to think of our Mr. Jones as part of Idensea—many of us imagined he was here for a good long while, working for the pier company. It would be good for him. He could marry. . . .”

The lightest pause.

“The company would help him to a house. . . . Perhaps you know Tinfell Cottage? A good house, some property with it. Fine start for a young family . . . should our Mr. Jones decide to stay on.”

She could have laughed. If it didn’t ache so, if it didn’t feel like such a vicious violation that he had guessed her simple, secret dream, she could have laughed, knowing she, of all people, had become useful to Sir Alton.

Perhaps you know Tinfell Cottage?

She didn’t give Sir Alton even a nod, but yes, she knew it. Later that afternoon, she went out of her way in order to pass it. The house was let for the season, and the family in residence appeared to be expecting guests for the evening, so standing here before it, she needed no imagination at all to see it occupied, humming with life. She imagined anyway. She dreamed in a way she had not since Thomas Dellaforde had allowed his mother to strike her a second time; she dreamed wildly and without boundaries.

John had taught her about such things. Mr. Jones and his mad railway tacked up on a wall, Mr. Jones and his fanciful notion that a type-writer girl was something else altogether.

She was in love with him. Soon he would be gone, off after his
someday
, and she was in love with him.

•   •   •

“My God, what a mess.”

Noel Dunning picked his way through a stack of building materials, pausing beside a tall crate of terra-cotta tiles. He lifted one tile out and studied it briefly before casting a glance up to the Kursaal, where the tile would soon become part of the frieze over the main entrance. “And you still entertain illusions of having it all done by August?”

John finished his count of pallets and signed the receipt before he answered. “You’ll see.” The tiles had arrived a week early, the skating rink floor would be finished tomorrow, and all things seemed possible today.

“I won’t, actually.” Dunning shrugged as John frowned at him. “That’s why I’m here, to trade farewells.”

He sounded so wistful, John knew at once he meant something more than another one of his jaunts to London or house parties in the countryside.

“I’m being sent away. That is, I’m being given a wonderful opportunity I’ve done nothing to deserve, so I’m given to understand. Father got a story, remarkably accurate given the roundabout
fashion it came to him, but—ah, he didn’t mention it, I suppose? That I’d been playing a music hall?”

John gestured toward the Kursaal. “I would have recommended he book you here if he had.”

“Dreadful little dive. In Hoxton. We were there as spectators, just larking, you know. Some fellow—obviously a devoted patron of the arts—expressed his dissatisfaction with the show by chucking a chair over the pianist’s head. Knocked him cold, and, well, what could be done?”

“The show must go on,” John agreed.

“It was a lark. Penny—Lord Penderson—all but carried me down to the stage. No harm done, naught but a foolish lark that first night.”

“First.”

“It was near a week before the pianist was fit enough to return. What could be done?” Dunning attempted a careless smile. “The reek of the place is still in my suits. Can you imagine what it’s like to play somewhere like that, knowing you might be clubbed in the skull should they take a disliking to you?”

“You weren’t clubbed, by the looks of you.”

“No. I was not.” He reached inside his coat and repeated, “I was not.”