Florence and Giles. John Harding

but bills, this pile from the grocer, that from the livery stable, that from the draper. There was nothing more. I replaced them and the account book and closed the drawer.

      At that moment I heard voices outside in the passage. Mrs Grouse and Meg. She would be in the room any moment. There was no time to examine the second drawer without being red-handed, I had to get out of her chair fast and distance myself from the desk or face the consequences, but…well, I could not help myself, I had to see what that drawer contained. I heart-in-mouthed as I reached for the handle, for I could hear the approach of footsteps outside, Mrs Grouse about to enter. Nevertheless, I grasped the handle and tugged and…nothing happened. The drawer stuck fast, it was locked.

      At that moment the door of the room began to open and I near cried out in alarm at being so caught when I heard again Meg’s voice from afar, the other end of the corridor, and Mrs Grouse – for it was she at the door – pause to answer. I upped the chair and skiptoed fast to the other side of the room and stood innocenting out the window when behind me the housekeeper entered the room.

      ‘Oh, there you are, Florence. Was there something you wanted?’

      I told her about the stocking, which led to a discussion that I was growing fast and needed new clothes. ‘Let me have a look at the account book and see what we can manage,’ she said and I heart-in-mouthed again as she slid open the drawer, terrified she might notice some disarrangement of its contents. She did not, and, satisfied that Blithe could afford it, sanctioned a trip for the morrow, herself and I, into town.

      The trip to our little town distracted me, though not in the welcome way of one who is bored, but rather by diverting me from my urgent task. The next few days I mooned around the house, unlibrarying in the morning, untowering the afternoons, for I could think of nothing but that locked drawer and how I might obtain the key.

      I almost salivated every time Mrs Grouse passed me by, the jingle-jangle of her household keys upon the great iron ring she wore on her belt sounding as a dinner bell to a starving man. It impossibled I should steal them, for she would miss them the moment they were gone, even suppose I could magick the ring from around her belt, which, all my wishes notwithstanding, I could not.

      My opportunity came one day as it darked and I saw her through the drawing-room window, outside, talking animatedly to John. Their discussion appeared somewhat heated, on her part, that is, for John never lost his temper. It evidented she was reprimanding him; no doubt he had wasted some little bit of something somewhere, for she was tasked by my uncle to keep all spending at Blithe on a tight rein. This was my chance. I dashed from the house and breathlessed up to her.

      ‘Mrs Grouse, Mrs Grouse!’ I shouted as I approached.

      She annoyed me a look at the interruption. ‘Whatever is it now, child?’

      ‘Please, Mrs Grouse, I have dropped my needle on the floor of my bedroom and cannot look for it, for I haven’t a candle. Would you fetch me a new one, please?’

      She exasperated a sigh. She had been full-flowing her complaint and did not want to be cut off. In a trice she unclipped the key ring from her belt and held it out to me by a particular key. ‘Here, Florence, unlock the large armoire in the storeroom and take one out – only one, mind – then lock the cupboard and bring the keys straight back here to me.’

      I skipped off. Now, normally this would have been a rare chance to purloin an extra library candle or two, but I unheeded that. I straighted to the housekeeper’s sitting room and her desk. Then began an anxiety of trying keys. There must have been some thirty keys on that great jangling hoop and I knew I had but a minute or two at most to find the one I wanted. It obvioused that most were too big, great door keys that they were, so I concentrated on the dozen or so small keys that doubtlessed for cupboards and drawers. I lucked it the fourth one I tried. It slipped gratefully into the lock like a child into a warm bed on a cold night. It turned with a satisfying click.

      I was tempted to open the drawer and it was all I could do to stop myself, but I knew that if I did and found something I would be powerless not to look at it and so would end up redhanding me. I left the drawer unlocked, which all along had been my strategy, and hastened back outside. There was no time now to visit the storeroom for the candle and so I had to hope that Mrs Grouse would not think of it or, if she did, assume it was in my pocket and not ask to see it.

      As it was, it fortuned she was still so busy complaining John she simply took the keys from me without a word or even a glance and I awayed fast before she turned her attention to me. I made my way up to my room and from under my bed pulled out the box of old dolls and other such childish things that were long unplayed these days. This was where I kept my secrecy of bedtime books, for no one but me ever looked in it. It was also the hidery for my purloinery of candles, which I needed for the library and for reading in bed at night; I filched one whenever I could. For instance, whenever I aloned in the drawing room I would remove a candle from its holder, break off the bottom half, secrete it in my pocket and replace the top part; nobody ever noticed the candles were growing shorter. In the double candelabra I operated on both candles this way, to keep the appearance of them burning at the same rate.

      Tonight I intended to open the drawer I had unlocked and inspect the contents, if any, and for that I would need my own candle. I could not risk lighting Mrs Grouse’s sitting-room candles. She might notice next day that they had mysteriously burned down overnight; and in the event of anyone hearing me and coming into the room, even if I heard them approach and managed to snuff the candles first, they might see them smoking or spot that the wax was warm and soft. My own candle I could snuff and then push under the rug next to Mrs Grouse’s desk, for retrieval in the morning.

      My intention was to pretend to nightwalk, which I had often done before when I sleeplessed and wanted to library during the night. My nightwalks had been described often enough to me to know just how I should walk, as regards posture, pace, facial expression and so on, but there was an extra difficulty this time: because my nightgown was unpocketed, I could not carry candle and matches with me, for if caught it would obvious my trip was planned and not a nightwalk at all. So I took my candle and matches downstairs and hid them in the top of a plant pot in the hall. The plant was some bushy thing with leaves like a jungle, under which my lighting equipment would not be seen.