There was no reply. She continued—for this was often her experience in public conversation and she was perfectly able to press on, adopting the pose of the knowing veteran.
“I am also, of course, happy for any excuse to be wearing so much silk—”
She was interrupted when the man with the flask stood and crossed to the far door. He took another nip and stuffed the flask into his tailcoat as he walked, then opened the door and closed it behind him. Miss Temple looked at the remaining man, whose face in the interval had gone even redder, if that were possible. She wondered if he were in the midst of some kind of attack, but he smiled passively enough and continued to smoke. The door opened again and the man with the flask poked his head through, nodded to the man with the cigar, and disappeared from view. The man with the cigar stood and, smiling once more at them all—the gaze of each woman following him closely—crossed to the open doorway. “Any time you’re ready,” he said and walked out, closing the door behind him. A moment later Miss Temple heard the distinct sharp click of that door being locked. Their only path led back to the theatre.
“You’ve kept your shoes,” said one of the women, on the right.
“I have,” said Miss Temple. It was not what she wanted to talk about. “Have any of you been in the theatre?” They shook their heads no, but said nothing more. Miss Temple indicated the restraints, the bolts, the collars. “Have you looked at this room?” They blandly nodded that they had. She became almost completely annoyed. “He has locked the door!”
“It will be fine,” said the woman who had spoken before. Miss Temple was suddenly caught up—did this voice seem familiar?
“It is merely a room,” said the woman in the middle, kicking at one of the leather restraints hanging near to her leg. “It’s not what it is used for now.”
The others nodded blankly, as if no more needed saying.
“And what exactly would that be?” demanded Miss Temple.
The woman giggled. It was a giggle she’d heard before too. It was from the coach. This was the woman who’d let the men unbutton her dress. Miss Temple looked at the other two—seeing them in such different apparel, such different light—were they the pirate and silken woman whose eyes she had poked? She had no idea. She saw that they were smiling at her too, as if her question had indeed been very foolish. Were they drunk? Miss Temple stepped forward and grasped the woman’s chin, tilting her face upwards—which she passively, strangely, allowed—and then lowered her own face to the woman’s mouth and sniffed. She well knew what alcohol—particularly rum—smelled like, and its squalid influence. The woman wore perfume—sandalwood?—but there was another odor that Miss Temple did not recognize. It was not alcohol, or indeed anything she had smelled before—nor, further, did the odor emanate from around the woman’s mouth (again occupied with giggling), but higher on her face. The odor was vaguely mechanical, almost industrial, but it wasn’t coal, nor rubber, nor lamp oil, nor ether, nor even burnt hair, though it seemed adjacent to all of these unpleasant smells joined together. She could not place it—not in her mind, nor on the woman’s body—was it around her eyes?—behind the mask? Miss Temple released her and stepped away. As if this were a signal to all three of them, they hopped off the table as one.
“Where are you going?” Miss Temple asked.
“We are going in,” said the one in the middle.
“But what have they told you? What will happen?”
“Nothing will happen,” said the woman on the right, “save everything we desire.”
“They are expecting us,” said the woman on the left, who had not yet spoken. Miss Temple was certain it was the woman who had arrived wearing the blue silk dress.
They pushed past her to the door—but there was so much more to ask them, so much more they could say! Were they invited guests? Did they know of any hotel? Miss Temple sputtered, dropping for the moment her condescending pose, crying to them all, “Wait! Wait! Where are your clothes? Where is the lady in red?”
All three erupted into stifled laughter. The one in front opened the door, and the one in the rear dismissed Miss Temple with a derisive flip of her hand. They walked out, the last closing the door behind them. There was silence.
Miss Temple looked around her at the cold, menacing room, her early confidence and pluck having quite ebbed away. Obviously, if she were bold, the path to full investigation lay up the dark ramp and into the theatre. Why else had she met the challenge of changing clothes, of formulating questions, of coming all this way? At the same time, she was not a fool, and knew enough that this room and the theatre, this party—all legitimately disquieting—could well pose a keen danger to both her virtue and her person. The outside door was locked, and the men outside that locked door horrid. The room held no cabinets or alcoves in which to crouch concealed. She pointed out to herself that the other women—who must know more than she—were unconcerned. The other women might equally be whores.
She took a breath, and chided herself for so brusque a judgment—after all the women had been finely dressed. They might be unchaste, even slatternly, they might indeed be here by way of some hotel—who knew the complications of another’s life? The true question was whether this must lead perforce to a situation beyond her skills to manage. There were great gaps in Miss Temple’s experience—which she would freely acknowledge, when pressed—that were only generally filled in with equally great swathes of inference and surmise. About many of these things she nevertheless felt she had a good idea. About others, she preferred to find pleasure in mystery. In the matter of the strange theatre, however, she was determined that no gaps, so to speak, should be filled at all.
She could at least listen at the door. With care she turned the knob and opened the door perhaps an inch. She heard nothing. She opened it a bit wider, enough to insert her head through the gap. The light looked the same as before. The other women had only just gone out—she could only have dithered for the space of a minute. Could it be that the crowd was so soon in hushed concentration? Was there already some ghastly tableau on display? She listened, but heard nothing. Peering around the corner, however, just gave her the glaring light in her eyes. She crept forward. She still heard nothing. She lowered herself to a crouch, then to her hands and knees, all the while gazing up the ramp at an uncomfortable angle. She saw and heard nothing. She stopped. She was at the point where any further movement would reveal her to the gallery—she was already fully visible from the stage, had anyone been there to see her. She shifted her gaze to the table. There was no one upon it. There was no one at all.
Miss Temple was extremely annoyed, if also relieved, and further, more than a little curious as to what had actually happened to the three women. Had they merely gone out the other side? She resolved to follow them, but happened in crossing the stage to glance up again at the blackboard, the glaring light now out of her eyes. In the same block letters, someone had inscribed, “SO THEY SHALL BE CONSUMED”. Miss Temple visibly started, as if someone had blown in her ear. The words had definitely not been there before.
She whirled around to the gallery seats again, looking for anyone hiding on their hands and knees. There was no one. Without delay she continued across to the first ramp and down it, rounding the corner to the door. It was closed. She put her head to the door and listened. She heard nothing—but this meant nothing, the doors were thick. Tired as she was of unnecessary stealth, she again turned the knob with excruciating patience and opened it just enough to peek through. She widened the opening, listened, heard nothing, and widened it again. Still nothing. Annoyance getting the best of her, Miss Temple opened the door completely, and gasped with shock.
Strewn across the floor were the tattered, savaged remains of her hooded cloak, her dress, her corset, and her undergarments—all slashed beyond repair, nearly beyond recognition. Even her new notebook had been destroyed—pages torn out and scattered like leaves, the binding snapped, the leather cover pitted and gashed. Miss Temple found herself shaking
with outrage, and with fear. Obviously she had been discovered. She was in danger. She must escape. She would follow Roger another time, or she would engage professional operatives, men who knew their business—stout fellows who would not be so easily tricked. Her efforts had been ridiculous. They might well be her undoing.
She crossed to the wall of cabinets. Her own clothing was destroyed, but perhaps one of the others held something she could use to cover herself. They were all locked. She pulled with all her strength, to no avail. She looked around for anything to force the cabinet doors, to pry them open, but the room was bare. Miss Temple released a cry of guttural frustration, an unexpectedly plangent whine—which when she heard it herself, with a certain shock, made clear the true extent of her desperate position. What if she were discovered and her name made known? How could she distinguish herself from any of these other similarly clad women? How could she face Roger? She caught herself. Roger! It was exactly the thing to restore her resolve. The last thing she wanted was to be in any way subject to his scrutiny—the very thought of it filled her with rage. He filled her with rage. In that moment she despised Roger Bascombe and was newly determined to get free of this horrid predicament and then, at her leisure, dedicate herself to ruining him utterly. And yet, even in the act of imagining that ruin, and herself sneering in triumph above him, Miss Temple felt a stab of pity, of proprietary concern for what the foolish man had managed to become involved in—what depravity, what danger, what career-destroying scandal was he here so blithely courting? Was it possible he did not understand? If she were to somehow speak to him, could she apprise him of his peril? Could she at least divine his mind?
Miss Temple walked to the hallway door and opened it. The hallway seemed empty, but she craned her head out as far as she could, listening closely. One way took her back to the front, to the thick of the party and directly past—she assumed—other guests, servants, everyone. It would also take her to the coaches, if in her present costume she were able to get out of the house without being discovered, exposed, ridiculed, or worse. The other way took her deeper into the house, and deeper into danger but also deeper into intrigue. Here she might legitimately hope to find a change of clothing. She might find an alternative route to the coaches. She might even find more information—about Roger, about the woman in red, about the Lord in residence. Or she could find her own destruction. While Miss Temple posed the question to herself as one of “running away” versus “bravely pushing on” it was also true that going deeper into the house, though more frightful as a whole, served to postpone any immediate confrontation. If she were to go back to the entrance she was certain to run into servants at least. If she went forward anything at all might happen—including an easy escape. She took one more look toward the great entrance, saw no one, and darted in the opposite direction, moving quickly and close to the wall.
She came to three successive doors on her side and one across the mirrored hall, all of which were locked. She kept walking. Her shoes seemed impossibly loud on the tiled floor. She looked ahead of her to the end of the hallway—there were only two more doors before she’d have to turn around. Another door across the hall—she glanced backwards again and, seeing no one, dashed across to it. The handle did not budge. Another look—still no one—and she trotted back to the other side, and up to the last door. Beyond it, the hallway ended in an enormous mirror that was inset with panes and posts to look like one of the great windows that faced out from elsewhere in the house—only the view here was ostentatiously and pointedly turned inward, as if to confide that (frankly, behind doors) such an interior view was truly the more important. To Miss Temple it was chastening, for she saw herself reflected, a pale figure skulking on the border of opulence. The earlier pleasure she’d felt upon seeing herself so masked was not wholly absent, but tempered with a better understanding of a risk that seemed to be its twin.
At the final door her luck changed. As she neared it, she heard a muffled voice and sounds of movement. She tried the knob. It was locked. There was nothing else for it. Miss Temple squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. She knocked.
The voice went silent. She braced herself, but heard nothing—no steps to the door, no rattle of the lock. She knocked again, louder, so that it hurt her hand. She stepped back, shaking her fingers, waiting. Then she heard quick steps, a bolt being drawn, and the door snapped open a bare inch. A wary green eye stared down at her.
“What is it?” demanded a querulous male voice, openly peeved.
“Hello,” said Miss Temple, smiling.
“What the devil do you want?”
“I’d like to come in.”
“Who the devil are you?”
“Isobel.”
Miss Temple had seized the saint’s name on instinct, from nerves—but what if it gave her away, if there were another Isobel who was known to be somewhere else, or didn’t look anything like her, some fat blotchy girl who was always in a sweat? She looked up at the eye—the door had not opened a jot farther—and desperately tried to gauge the man’s reaction. The eye merely blinked, then quickly ran up and down her body. It narrowed with suspicion.
“That doesn’t say what you want.”
“I was directed here.”
“By whom? By whom?”
“Whom do you think?”
“For what purpose?”
Though Miss Temple was willing enough to continue, this was going on, and she was acutely aware of being so long visible in the hallway. She leaned forward, looked up to the eye, and whispered, “To change my clothing.” The eye did not move. She glanced around her, and back to the man, whispering again. “I can hardly do so in the open air…”
The man opened the door, and stepped away, allowing her to enter. She took care to scamper well past his possible grasp, but saw that he had merely closed the door and indeed stepped farther away. He was a strange creature—a servant, she assumed, though he did not wear the black livery. Instead, she noted that his shoes, though they had once been fine, were scuffed and clotted with grime. He wore a white work smock over what looked to be a thoroughly simple and equally worn brown shirt and pants. His hair was greasy, smeared back behind his ears. His skin was pale, his eyes sharp and searching, and his hands black as if they had been stained with India ink. Was he some kind of printer? She smiled at him and said thank you. His reaction was to audibly swallow, his hands worrying the frayed hem of his smock, and then study her while breathing through his open mouth like a fish.
The room was littered with wooden boxes, not as long or deep as a coffin, but lined with cushioning felt. The boxes were open, the tops haphazardly propped up against the wall, but their contents were not apparent. In fact, they all seemed empty. Miss Temple took it upon herself to glance into one of them when the man snapped at her, traces of spittle lancing into the air with his vehemence.
“Stop that!”
She turned to see him pointing at the boxes and then, his thoughts shifting, to her, her mask, her clothing.
“Why did he send you here? Everyone’s supposed to be in the other rooms! I have work to do! I can’t—I won’t be the butt of his jokes! Hasn’t he done enough to me already? Hasn’t his lap-dog Lorenz? Do this, Crooner! Do that, Crooner! I have followed every instruction! I am just as responsible for…my own designs—one momentary, regrettable lapse—I have agreed to every condition—submitted utterly, and yet—” He gestured helplessly, sputtering at Miss Temple. “This torment!”
She waited for him to stop speaking and, once he did, to stop huffing like an ill-fed terrier. On the far side of the room was another door. With a serious nod and a respectful dip of her knee, Miss Temple indicated this door and whispered, “I will trouble you no further. If you-know-who does happen to question me, I will make plain that you were solely focused on your task.” She nodded again and walked to the door, very much hoping it was not a closet. She opened it and stepped into a narrow hallway. Shutting the door behind her, Miss Temple sagged with relief agai
nst the wall.
She knew there was no time to rest and forced herself on. The hallway was an unadorned servants’ corridor, allowing swift, undisturbing passage between vital parts of the house. With a surge of hope, Miss Temple wondered if it might lead her to the laundry. She padded as softly as her boots would allow to the door at the far end. Before turning the knob, she noticed a metal disk the size of a coin fixed to the door with a tiny bolt. She swiveled it to the side and revealed, set into the wood, a spy hole. Obviously this was so a careful servant could be sure not to interrupt his master with an untimely entrance. Miss Temple fully approved of this engine of discretion and tact. She stood on her toes and peeked in.
It was a private closet, luxurious in size, dominated by a large copper bath. On a table sat an array of bathing implements—sponges, brushes, bottles, soaps, and stacks of folded white towels. She saw no person. She opened the door and crept in. Immediately, she lost her footing—her heel skidding on the wet tile floor—and sat down hard on the floor in an awkward, spraggling split. A sharp ripping sound told her the outer robe had torn. She froze in place, listening. Had anyone heard? Had she actually yelped? There was no answering sound from beyond the open closet door. Miss Temple gingerly stood. The floor had been liberally splashed with water, a number of used towels dropped without care on the floor, crumpled and soaked. She carefully leaned over and dipped her fingers into the bath. It was tepid. No one had been in the tub for at least thirty minutes. She dabbed her fingers on one of the towels—no servant had been in the room either, or all would have been cleared and swabbed. This meant that either the occupant was still there, or that the servants had been warned away.