Free The Typewriter Girl by Alison Atlee Page A

dozen ready visions about how and where they would be worn. Noel Dunning was easy to like; he didn’t discomfit her with ambivalence.
    John Jones, a great deal of work. Worth it? With Mr. Dunning at the table, it was impossible not to think of Sir Alton, who’d come by his title through his music, a composition memorializing Prince Albert. Could not a builder who served the Public Good hope for some similar honor?
    These things, too: Whom else did she permit to call her Lils, or to kiss her entire mouth? Things like that surely meant Something, even if neither of them said so.
    •   •   •
    In her determination to extract herself from Mr. Jones’s invitation as rapidly as possible, Betsey went the wrong way, deeper into the hotel rather than where she wanted to go, out. Out, for God’s sake. She halted when she realized the light had changed and found herself in an airy space with ferns and palm trees—entire trees, indoors! On the furniture, on the islands of carpet atop the parquet, on Betsey’s own sleeve and glove as she started to touch her forehead, dapples of light glowed blue and turquoise, and she could only look up.
    The source was a dome of colored glass, white feathers and yellow scrolls strewn over a patchwork of watery hues. Betsey allowed herself to stare, to wonder at the imagination behind it, one unfettered by practicality or moderation. She followed the repetition of the scrolls and plumage in the plasterwork as it ringed the dome and cascaded down to the pilasters with the easy profusion of cake icing flowing from a piping bag. Each archway surrounding her framed its own ideal view of some other architectural feature, like the stairway directly across from her, itself an exhibition for the ladies gliding down the steps, the misty fabrics of their gowns wafting behind them.
    No one here rushed.
    The carpet beneath her boot soles felt like it had been rolled out over sponges.
    Cream-colored upholstery covered the settees and chairs. People actually sat upon them, extending their arms along the backs in utter ease. At least one held a cup and saucer.
    Behind her hand, to herself, Betsey whispered, “Hell and hell.” As she retraced her steps to find her way out, she wished she’d stayed put at the lodging house and delayed this misery.
    How could she work here? The parlor at The Bows had nearly done her in. How could she ever even enter here and not feel like a playactor or a foreigner whose very name was unpronounceable to the natives?
    “Miss Dobson?” An apple-cheeked page stopping her.
    “Yes?”
    He looked relieved. As the hair on the iced cake, Betsey reckoned she’d been easy enough to pick out, but the boy had not been certain. “Ma’am, Mr. Seiler sent me. He’s eager to meet you, he says, and wonders if you’d be so kind as to await him in his office.”
    Mr. Seiler, at last! “Certainly—”
    But the boy had memorized the entire message; he would relay it. “However, as it may be some time before he is able to join you, he does not wish you to feel obliged. If the wait is an imposition, he is pleased to see you Monday morning.”
    These were the most courteous words she’d ever received from a supervisor, but Betsey didn’t fool herself that they were anything but an order to stay. The page showed her to the anteroom of Mr. Seiler’s office, very near the hotel’s main entrance. Tea arrived minutes after she’d taken a seat, white china with a leafy gold border, a harp imprinted on the saucer—no, a lyre, the head and neck of two swans creating the curved sides of the instrument.
    She took her time preparing her cup. She expected to wait a good piece, knowing Mr. Seiler was at tea with Mr. Jones and his London girl—Miss Gilbey, Sarah Elliot had told her during the ride to the hotel.
    Mr. Jones, asking her to join them. As if her fare-dodging and arguing were quite forgotten. As if she, in her tweed and falling-down hair, could be just another guest at the table.