“I have missed you so, Aunt Lizzie.”
“And I’ve missed you, child.”
“And now, finally, we get to be neighbors.”
“Aye, it’s been a long time coming.”
“You know, it’s only twenty-two minutes away. Your new house, from here. I’ve been there often and have counted the distance. Door to door, twenty-two minutes on foot.”
“Is that all? A mere hop and a skip.”
“We shall do all sorts together, shan’t we, Aunt Lizzie?”
“There’ll be time for it all. We’ll not lack for things to do, nor time to do them in.”
The rest of them are stood in the hall passage: the family display. Mother, father, and eldest daughter, biding to bask in the honor they know we must feel to be connected with them. Frederick walks in and is greeted by more of the German, and more again, till the air is full of it. I leave them to have their minute. Lingering on the matting, I marvel at the tree they have in a tub on the porch.
“A tree,” I says, “in a tub.” I tug on Tussy’s sleeve. “I wouldn’t let that grow any farther or it’ll burst out.”
Giving vent to a howl of laughter, Tussy pulls me up the step and presents me as the ringmaster presents his lioness: hip cocked back, arms stretched out, fingers twinkling, a giant grin. Young Janey comes forward first and she’s a winsome sight to see. It’s a beauty that might need a little bringing about, true, but it’s a beauty all the same, and I wouldn’t take it from her. Next comes Karl, his whiskers like bramble on my face, his lips like dried-out sausage.
“Willkommen, Lizzie,” he says.
And final now, Jenny herself. The changes in her face speak to how long it’s been. Five or six years, by my count, though she looks to have been drawn out by a decade and more. Well settled she is now, into the autumn of her time.
“Welcome to our home, Lizzie,” she says with a bit too much energy. “Welcome to London.”
I offer a grateful smile and now blush at the falseness of it. We’re not used to playing this visiting game with each other. For some reason or another, I always decided to stay at home when Frederick took his trips to the capital; likewise Jenny never joined Karl or Tussy on their visits to Manchester, and no one ever seemed to wonder at it, no excuses were given for us, our absences were taken to be the normal and wanted way, which I suppose they were.
“And Laura?” I says, in case I forget to mention her later and am judged thoughtless for it. “Are there tidings from Laura?”
“Safe,” Jenny says. “They have moved from Paris to Bordeaux. They will be safe there.”
I open to inquire further, but she grips my arm to say there’ll be plenty of time for that, I’m not to worry, now is a moment for reunion and celebration.
Behind us, Karl and Frederick start a scuffle over who ought pay off the cabby, as if it made a piddle of difference on earth which pocket it came from: isn’t it all water from the same fountain? Jenny can’t help but to get involved, and I’m glad of the free moment to take off my bonnet and have a proper look. The hall, I see, is papered gay. There’s a table with pottery animals and a bust. A mirror and a line of pictures, and in every wall a door. The carpet is rich and unworn and goes up to the first landing and into the beyonds. The banisters are painted three coats of white.
Once the cabby has been dealt with, Jenny sends the men into the parlor and out of the way. She smiles a moment through the silence, and now she says, “Nim?” only the once and bare over her breath, almost a sigh.
Miraculous-like the maid comes up from the kitchen. She’s wearing a simple dress and a white cap and apron. I’ve heard so much about her, how good she’s supposed to be to look at, I’m relieved to see she’s plainer in true life. Fine bones, to be sure, but the work tells upon her.
“Nim, the cases, please,” says Jenny. She whispers it, as if the giving of orders hurts her and must be made soft. “Into the guestrooms. Thank you.”
Nim nods at her mistress and, as she passes, gives me another as a greeting. I step aside to give her way, but not so far that I can’t measure her up.
Her nose doesn’t reach my shoulder!
The sight of her knocks me out of myself, for when a figure has been made famous to you—when she’s been talked about till her name sounds louder in your ears than Jehovah’s—you expect her to tower over and be massive, and yet here she is now, a tiny thing. As I watch her go up the stairs, I’m left in no doubt as to the solidness of her frame, and her limberness—she manages to haul two burdens at a time and not be tripped by the dogs whirling about her—but there’s no getting clear of the fact that, God bless her, she’s but a pip. If you didn’t keep an eye on her, you’d lose her.
“Oh, and, Nim,” says Jenny when the maid is already gone round the bend of the stairs, “when you’re done with that, we’ll have some refreshments in the parlor.” Jenny now turns to me and makes a gesture to indicate that it’s a relief to be rid of ugly tasks. She takes the bonnet out of my hand and leaves it down on the table. “Come,” she says, and puts me on her arm and walks me off for the tour.
I count a parlor, a morning room, a conservatory, a cellar, five bedrooms, three cats, and two birds.
Says Jenny: “It is indeed a princely dwelling compared with the holes we have lived in before. In fact, to my mind it is far too large and expensive a house. I am forever telling Karl we ought to move, that we live too grandly for our circumstances. I for my part wouldn’t care a damn about living in Whitechapel. But he will not hear of it. He thinks the house is the one means by which the Girls can make connections and relationships that can assure them a future.” She unfurls a finger and makes circles in the air with it. “Surrounded as we are by doctors and lawyers.” The shape of her mouth is supposed to tell me that such people are a necessary unpleasantness to her, like the stink of the slop pail. Pondering a moment, she lets the face fall away. “But I daresay Karl is right. A purely proletarian setup would be unsuitable now, however fine it would be if we were alone, just the two of us, or if the Girls were boys.”
We’ve stopped outside Karl’s study. By the way she puzzles at the half-open door, I can tell she’s queasy about whether to venture in or to pass over it. Shamming ignorance of her unease, I unhitch myself and go through.
“It might look like a mess,” she says, following after me, “but it has its own peculiar method.”
I make my way to a clearing on the rug, a small circle of carpet bordered by piles of books and papers.
“It may not be immediately evident, but this room is actually the brightest and airiest in the house.” She picks her way through and draws the curtain back. “The Heath right there. The air the best in London. One has only to leave the windows open a moment and that cigar smell is killed.”
I’m close enough to the chimneypiece to have a proper gander at the things littered on it: the matches, the tobacco boxes, the paperweights, the portraits of Jenny and the Girls.
“Look, here’s yours,” she says, pointing at the picture of Frederick.
On the way back out, I take the liberty to push in a file that looks ready to topple from the bookcase.
“He calls them his slaves,” says Jenny, meaning the books.
Back downstairs a tray has been made ready in the parlor. Nim stands beside it, biding our wishes. Frederick and Karl have already been served liberal shorts of gin.
“Lizzie, what shall it be, tea or coffee?” says Jenny.
“Whatever you’re having yourself,” I says.
“What do you say to coffee?”
“Nay, I won’t have coffee, but thank you.”