The Girl Behind the Curtain

The following morning Pandora was cleaning one of the upstairs windows when she noticed the two boys sneaking away from the hospital. They climbed the apple tree near the back of the garden, tied a rope to one of its overhanging branches and jumped over the surrounding wall, disappearing from view.

She watched for a while, then caught sight of her reflection imprisoned in the glass. A girl with a mutinous expression and ghastly hair—the victim of another of Mrs. Kickshaw’s haircuts—stared back. Pandora glowered in response. Why did she have to look like this, dress like this and do the same tedious housekeeping, day in and day out, while the boys were free to roam outside? It wasn’t fair.

She picked at the scarlet ribbon on her coarse brown uniform and found the answers lining up in her head like obedient schoolchildren: because she was a girl; because she was a foundling; because the Governor had kindly taken her in, fed her and clothed her since the week she was born; and because she had nowhere else in the world to go …

A small sigh escaped her and she watched as her doppelganger faded in the dull glass. Then, remembering the cloth in her hand, she halfheartedly began to wipe her sigh away.

Without warning, footsteps approached and the door opened. Instinctively, Pandora backed into the folds of the heavy, half-drawn curtain and made herself invisible. She grasped the keys in her apron pocket to keep them from jangling and peered cautiously round the edge of the curtain.

Mr. Chalfont, the Governor, looked in. A portly gentleman with spools of woolly white hair, he swept his eyes round the dimly lit chamber, misjudged it to be empty and stepped aside to admit the most breathtaking person Pandora had ever seen.

A tall, graceful woman, dressed entirely in silvery blue, strode into the room. A thousand tiny frost flowers seemed to shift and shimmer across the surface of her gown as she moved, and Pandora longed to stroke the fabric, wondering whether it would sting her fingers with cold. Then, with a shock, she drew back. The woman’s hair was coiled in an intricate system of loops and curls that stayed in place on their own; it was the most extraordinary thing she had ever seen.

Pandora blushed, touching her own scrub of curls, and felt the damp rag brush against her skin. There was no time now to dash the duster round the room, pretending to look busy. Nor could she politely excuse herself and leave. Mr. Chalfont would surely suspect that she had been up to no good: napping, thieving or, worse, evading her chores … when all she had been doing, really, was gazing out of the window, wishing she could be somewhere, anywhere, else.

Yet here she was. Trapped.

Fortunately, neither Mr. Chalfont nor his visitor appeared to have noticed the gently swaying curtain or the hyperventilating girl now safely concealed behind it. There was only one thing for her to do: remain hidden.

Hitching up her skirts, Pandora climbed onto the window seat behind her and knelt on the plump velvet cushions. She pressed her eye to the partition in the fabric, curious to see what would happen.

“The boy,” said the woman presently, as Mr. Chalfont drew the dark wooden door shut behind them. It closed with a soft, furtive click. “Is he here?”

“Cirrus Flux?”

“You know very well the boy I mean. You received my letter, did you not?”

Mr. Chalfont moved toward the fire, though the day was neither wet nor cold—merely overcast and murky. Embers snoozed in the blackened hearth, but, brandishing a brass poker, he managed to prod them into life. Shadows began to prowl.

For a dreadful moment Pandora feared the Governor might open the curtain to let in more light, but he appeared to have other things on his mind. He kept his voice to a whisper and his motives to himself.

“I fear, dear lady, that we cannot oblige you,” he said, removing a letter from his frock-coat pocket and unfolding it in his hands. “Cirrus is but a child, and not the most agreeable child at that.”

His eyes drifted toward the window and Pandora cringed in her hiding place.

“I confess that, even now, he is most likely running off in the fields, causing trouble,” the Governor said. “Indeed, we’ve had a most difficult time placing him with a master.”

“Which is precisely why I have come for him now,” said the woman. Her eyes narrowed. “To offer him a position. A trade.”

Mr. Chalfont said nothing. Instead, he gazed into the hearth and, with a casual flick of his fingers, dropped the letter into the flames. The paper flared for a moment, then curled into a tight crimson fist.

The woman, in the meantime, stepped over to an ornate table clock.

“You do know who I am?” she remarked, removing the casing and inspecting the dial.

Mr. Chalfont inclined his head. “Of course, Mrs. Orrery.”

“Madame Orrery,” said the woman sharply. “Of the Guild of Empirical Science.”

The man glanced up.

“Of the Guild of Empirical Science,” she said again. “Do not think for a moment, Mr. Chalfont, that my origins—or my humble sex—should ever thwart me. I am accustomed to getting what I want.”

“I was under no such illusion,” the man murmured to himself, averting his face so that only Pandora, listening very carefully, could hear. He began to fumble with the ends of his lace jabot, which was knotted round his neck.

“Yet even so, Madame Orrery,” he continued, “I am afraid you seek the impossible. You see, here at the Foundling Hospital, we endeavor whenever possible to apprentice young boys to masters, not mistresses, and Cirrus”—his eyes darted this time to a side door, as though he wished he, too, could escape—“Cirrus is not like other foundlings. His is a special case. His circumstances were … are … exceptional.”

Mr. Chalfont almost choked on his choice of words, and his meager smile came slightly unraveled.

Madame Orrery studied the man closely for a moment, her powdered face pinched with suspicion. Then, pursing her lips, she calmly extended a hand, which was dominated by a large oval ring. She smoothed her fingers over its flat, moon-colored surface and somehow retrieved a miniature key from its secret compartment.

“I knew his father,” she said softly, her words shivering in the air before melting into silence.

Mr. Chalfont turned pale. “I see,” he said, mopping his brow with a large linen handkerchief and sinking into the arms of a waiting chair. “I do not suppose he is … still alive?”

Pandora did not hear the response. Like most foundlings, she longed to know where she had come from, exactly who her parents had been, and at the mention of the boy’s father she had plunged her hand deep into her apron pocket, past the loop of keys, searching for the scrap of fabric she always carried with her. A patch of pink cloth with a single word embroidered across its front:

It was the only memento she possessed of her mother, a token of remembrance she had found in the Governor’s study and taken without permission. She studied its gold lettering carefully, trying to draw solace from its simple message.

When at last she looked up, Mr. Chalfont was squirming in his chair. The woman had withdrawn a delicate silver object from the folds of her gown and was winding it very slowly, using her tiny key, all the while staring intently into the man’s face. A pocket watch. Pandora could hear the instrument whirring and ticking, spinning time.

“Yet, even so, Madame Orrery,” she heard Mr. Chalfont repeat feebly, “Cirrus is a special case. His circumstances are exceptional.”

He ground to a halt, too tired—or else too dejected—to continue.

A sudden rap on the door caused them to turn round.

Madame Orrery snapped the watchcase shut and returned it to a pocket, while the Governor glanced up, bleary-eyed and confused.

“Yes, what is it?” he said as a stout, middle-aged woman looked in.

“Begging your pardon,” said the woman with a curtsy, “but there’s a gentleman to see you, sir. Come about a child.”

“Good, good. Show him to the waiting room,” said Mr. Chalfont. “I’ll be with him shortly.”

“As you wish, sir,” said the woman, giving Madame Orrery a suspicious stare. “Are you all right, sir? You look a bit peaky.”

“Yes, yes, never better,” said Mr. Chalfont, blinking hard. “Just a twinge of the old gout, I’m afraid.” He smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Kickshaw. That will be all.”

“Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Kickshaw, with another curtsy, and closed the door.

Madame Orrery stood for a moment before the fire and then turned to face the Governor. “Are you certain there is nothing I can do to change your mind?” she said. “About the boy …”

Mr. Chalfont held up his hands apologetically, but shook his head.

“Very well,” said Madame Orrery. “I shall not test your patience further, Mr. Chalfont. Good day.”

She moved toward the door.

Mr. Chalfont appeared to have wakened from a disagreeable dream. He blustered to his feet.

“Madame Orrery,” he gasped, rushing to detain her, “if you merely seek a child to assist you in your work, then why not consider one of our other foundlings?”

He crooked his arm round her ruffled sleeve and escorted her back toward the fire. “We have female children—girls, even,” he said, his tongue tripping over itself in an attempt to make himself useful. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to consider one of these? We are always eager to place them.”

The woman paused. “A girl?” she said, as if tasting the foreign flavor of the word.

“Very obedient girls,” said Mr. Chalfont, regaining some of his composure. He leaned back on his heels and revealed the full globelike girth of his belly. “Trained in sewing and cleaning and general housekeeping,” he continued, unable to stop. “Indeed, we have several in need of employment, ranging in age from ten to—”

“Enough!” said Madame Orrery.

Mr. Chalfont held his tongue and gazed down at the floor like a scolded dog, the hopeful expression on his face wavering just a little.

Madame Orrery considered him for a moment and then said, “Thank you, Mr. Chalfont. That is an agreeable suggestion.”

Her eyes searched the room and a thin smile spread across her face like a ray of sunlight on a very cold day.

“If you do not mind, I think I shall take the girl hiding behind the curtain.”