Mary snorted. “Begging the master’s pardon, ma’am, but, no. You know them. They had been drinking all night, of course—and Mr. Grimsby was quite wild in those days. And the first Mrs. Grimsby was here, pleading with him to come home. He told her he wouldn’t be ordered about—of course they all cheered him on—and then he said he was fit to take them on a nice pleasure drive and they’d go where he wanted and so on. But of course he wasn’t in any kind of state to do that. They hit another car—the other driver was a dwarvven, you see, that’s where that comes in. Mrs. Grimsby was killed instantly. Mr. Grimsby went through the windshield. That’s when he got into all the Copperhead stuff about One People One Race and started warping all of them to it, even though the dwarvven driver didn’t do nothing. People go mad from guilt you know.”
“Yes, they do,” Helen said softly.
Mary shook her head. “I hate to say it, ma’am, but I don’t know if I can stay in this position much longer. I hate to leave you with them, but…”
“I know,” said Helen. “I’ll write you a recommendation. I will.”
She opened the door, and Mary added, “I really don’t think you want to go down there, ma’am. It’s not decent.”
Voices drifted down the hall from the games room and Helen remembered, with a shocking start, that Tam must be down there with them. Of course, she had laid the geis on Alistair to behave, but … “You go to bed, Mary,” she said. “Tell the housekeeper I said you could have the night off. George can go in if they need something.”
Helen strode past Mary and went firmly down the hall. The male voices were louder, raucous. On top of them a female laugh drifted out and Helen felt her bones freeze. They had women over, too? She opened the door to the games room and took it in. Men, slouched in chairs, muddy feet on tables. Musky cologne, lavender soap, cheap floral perfume. A woman perched on the arm of Boarham’s chair, another in Morse’s lap. And a small figure in an explorer hat, sliding half-off a footstool, holding a tumbler of beer.
Alistair and his friends were getting Tam drunk.
Helen dropped Jane’s bag and stormed into the room, a whirlwind of frustration at herself and them. “What are you doing? Absolutely not. What is this? What is…?” she spluttered off in frustration. She could not even handle the topic of the women for the moment; all her focus was on that small boy she had tried to protect. She had given Alistair specific instructions. Not specific enough?
Alistair furrowed his brow. “You said to entertain him and have a good time.”
“Not like this. I said—”
“Entertain him,” finished Alistair.
“And we’re doing that,” said Boarham. He squeezed the waist of the girl perched on his chair and Helen saw with rapidly growing distaste that the girl was wearing a mask of iron. Not a real mask of iron. A lacy half mask meant to mimic Helen’s own, but giving shape and allure to an ordinary set of features. Helen glanced at Morse, whose wife really did have a fey face. The girl in his lap was not his wife. She, too, wore a domino of grey silk.
Helen was left momentarily speechless.
“Look, Master Thomas, tell Miss Helen she can suck it,” said Boarham.
“You can suck it,” said Tam, sweet funny Tam.
Helen was a whirlwind of indecision. She couldn’t leave Tam. And yet, how safe was it in the dwarvven underground? They wouldn’t hurt a child, she was sure. That seemed a small hope to pin things on, and yet that small voice inside her told her she could still trust Rook.
She ran through her other options. Frye—gone. Jane—mentally gone. And she couldn’t stay here at Alistair’s house with Tam, because Jane was outside, circling in a cab, and if Jane came in these drunken louts would sober up and take her away for murder … or worse.
“You’re coming with me,” Helen said to Tam. At least he would be with her, and she could keep him safe, whatever happened.
“It was only one drink,” said Hattersley, offering her a tipsy smile. “Young man has to learn to hold his beer.”
“Get your coat,” she told Tam. He crossed his arms, trying to imitate Boarham’s pugnacious stance. “Now,” she said, and he went.
Morse looked sharply at her from his spot in the armchair, arm held firmly around the girl’s waist. He had always been a nasty sort of drunk, she remembered. It struck her for the first time how sad it was that she could recite the exact sort of way all these men got drunk. Emotional, sleepy, quarrelsome … “What about that new curfew Grimsby got passed, hey? I expect you’re supposed to be off the streets soon.”
“To stop walking them,” snorted Boarham, pleased with his wit. He tumbled the girl from the arm of the chair to his lap and she giggled.
Morse waved his glass of whiskey around with his free hand. “If she were my wife she’d know what’s what,” he told it.
“Some of us know how to sacrifice for the cause,” said Boarham in a self-satisfied way to Morse. Helen imagined him slinging an unconscious Jane over his shoulder and she wanted to wipe that smirk off his face.
“She has an escort,” Alistair said with a funny simpering smile. “That dwarf fellow of Grimsby’s.”
Morse barked laughter. “What, is she going to help him blow up the slums?” He smiled maliciously at Helen. “I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing.”
“I’m going,” Helen said quietly, but firmly. She nodded at the quiet girl in Morse’s lap, the giggling one in Boarham’s. “You can come, too, if you want.” But they both shook their heads no, and truth was Helen had no idea what she would do if the men rose up against her. They were so big, so wild, so unpredictable in their drunken whims. And she did not think she could change them the way she had changed Alistair. It had felt with Alistair as though she knew him so well she could move things, make new things lock, pull out the Alistair she thought she knew. She had changed that man in the street through anger and fear. But a whole crowd of them, drunken and pressing in? No.
She looked at Alistair, relaxed in a chair with water in his hand. At least her power seemed to be holding. “You can go,” he said dreamily.
“Really,” said Morse.
Boarham snorted. “If he doesn’t care about his reputation, why should you? Pass the whiskey.”
“He cared about it the night we met those dancing girls from Varee,” said Morse. He smirked at Helen and her heart beat faster. Surely he was not telling her to her face that Alistair was even worse than she had imagined. That it was only chance that he didn’t have a girl captive in his chair, half-mask on her face.
Hattersley looked sideways at her. “Before your time,” he muttered. He had always been the nicest of the bunch, though Helen did not know if that meant he was telling her the truth, or a lie to make her feel better.
“Has it really been that long?” said Morse. Ostentatiously he counted back months on his fingers. “November, October…” He shrugged, dropping the game. “What about your little theatre piece, Hattersley? Bitty or Betty or some such?” His free hand inscribed suggestive lines an inch away from the girl he held.
“She’s fine,” Hattersley said neutrally.
Morse dipped a finger in his whiskey and sucked it off. “Consolation prize after you-know-who?”
All of Alistair’s friends suddenly stopped and looked at Helen, including Hattersley, who was frozen in shock. She felt her face flame bright red, and did not know exactly what had happened. She looked at Alistair, but he was staring off into nothing, a vacuous expression on his face.
Tam stumbled back in, his coat on upside down, laughing at himself. He had his jar of bugs in one hand and his binoculars strung around his neck. “Ready for an expodishon,” he said.