Dot had admitted the two of them into the reception room at half past nine, ten minutes ago, then roared up the stairs to the little drawing room in a pitch of excitement.
“We’ve a pair of sisters what be lookin’ for a room! They look somewhat decent!”
While this was not a triumphant endorsement, hope surged painfully.
Delilah and Angelique removed their aprons, smoothed their hair and skirts—their version of donning battle armor—and headed downstairs.
They found two women sitting side by side on the blue settee, looking about the room with bemused expressions.
It was a bit difficult to quite get a sense of how old they were, but if their clothing was any indication, they’d been sealed up in a room for a decade or more, much like The Grand Palace on the Thames itself. They were swathed in shawls, probably two apiece. They were, in fact, dressed as modestly as nuns, in dark brown and dark red wool respectively, with high-rucked collars and long sleeves fitted at the wrists. They each wore a mobcap. A few gray ringlets traced Jane’s temples. Her face was long and tapered to a pointed chin.
They didn’t resemble sisters so much as a fox and a bear in dresses.
Delilah felt protective of them almost at once.
“We saw your leaflet, you see, advertising your boardinghouse. We lost our previous rooms in London, you see, to a fire. We’ve a small income and wish to spend it comfortably, near the sea air and the liveliness of London, and this place sounded hospitable and comfortable. And it seems so.”
It was like listening to a frail, whispery woodwind. As though Jane Gardner had been shouted at all of her life to stay quiet.
“Oh, it is indeed.” Delilah found herself accidentally speaking loudly to compensate. She cleared her throat and adjusted her volume. “Particularly for women. Our guests are family here. We, in fact, ask all of our tenants to join us in the drawing room at least four nights a week, so that we all might come to know one another better. And gentlemen will be required to put a pence in a jar if they curse. We feel it is a playful way to keep things civilized. It’s one of the requirements for staying here. We’ve rules, you see.”
They had indeed. They had printed them on little cards, which were stacked on the table behind them. “We’ve even printed them, if you’d like to review them.”
Margaret and Jane exchanged a swift look.
Margaret looked disconsolately down at her hands, which were squeezed into gloves that looked a little too small, and which were folded in her lap tightly.
“Oh, we trust that your rules are fair. But Margaret is so very shy, you see, it would be a bit of a torment for her to be surrounded by... er, gaiety. Where she might be expected to speak.”
“Very shy,” Margaret confided in a sad whisper. To her lap.
“How doyoufeel about gaiety, Miss Jane?” Angelique asked.
“Oh, I don’t suppose I remember, it’s been so long now.” She laughed timidly behind her knuckles.
“Well, perhaps she can just sit quietly with all of us in the drawing room and we can enjoy her presence,” Delilah suggested. “Andyoumay yet rediscover an appreciation for gaiety, when you hear the pianoforte played well. We are planning to hold musicales.”
She ignored the dry look sent her way by Angelique.
Margaret’s head shot up briefly and Delilah got a glimpse of the whites of her eyes, flared in alarm.
“Perhaps she’ll feel free to come out of her shell when she sees that we are all friends here, and we will not tolerate anyone making fun of her whistle. We will all be patient,” Delilah continued. Sweetly but firmly.
“You’ve come to a welcoming place for women to live,” Angelique soothed. “We will have male guests, too, but they will be held to a strict and gentlemanly code of conduct. And that also means no sneaking gentleman callers up to your rooms.”
Delilah shot Angelique a reproving look.
But Miss Margaret giggled softly behind her fingers. Her gloves were kid, and fine. It was rather touching to see that she had indulged herself in at least one elegant thing.
“It all sounds lovely. We should like to share your largest room, on a low floor.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but our largest room suitable for two people hasjustbeen let.”
The sisters went absolutely still.
They appeared paralyzed by disappointment.
The mutual faint creaking of stays signaled the resumption of their ribcages moving in and out with breathing.