The Typewriter Girl by Alison Atlee Page A

its like in Britain.”
    As they passed, everyone on the tram turned to look at thefacade, where colorful arabesques embellished an arcade between two towers with tops like sugar kisses.
    “You built this?”
    “Not alone,” he replied with a smile, but she sensed his pride, how he enjoyed the stir of excitement and speculation amongst the passengers. She begrudged him none of it. A mountain range rising up from the English sand, that dainty pier holding against the sea—she would have called it magic if the word did not seem to discount the work.
    The yawning central arch of the pleasure railway echoed the shape of the towers, four or five stories at its kissed peak. It appeared to be the entrance, but the view was hidden by a painted canvas curtain with lettering that promised ADVENTUROUS & EXOTIC SCENES OF THE EAST! ALL-MODERN LIGHTING & MUSICAL EFFECTS! A THRILLING COAST OVER THE GRAVITY TRACK!
    And: “6d Admission.”
    Betsey multiplied that number by her rough estimate of the crowd at hand. “What a shame it could not open for Whitsuntide.”
    He laughed as though this pleased him. She took the opportunity to ask, “Are you taking me to the hotel?”
    “The Bows, you’ll stay there. Tobias—Mr. Seiler—hasn’t time to see you today.”
    She disliked both nuggets of information. “The Bows” sounded like a lodging house, and she’d expected to live in the cheap staff quarters at the hotel. Nor would she be at ease until the hotel manager himself assured her of her position. She held her tongue, however; she’d left her power to argue along with her wages at Baumston & Smythe.
    She felt a raindrop on the brim of her hat and had begun to unfold her cloak when Mr. Jones sprang from his seat with fingers in his mouth to deliver a piercing whistle over the side of the tram. He shouted to someone, then urged her off the tram, and they ran to an empty dray headed away from the Esplanade. Before taking a place on the dray’s end, Mr. Jones handed her up to the driver, who took one look at her and said, “You ain’t his London girl, not you.”
    The sprinkles ended, and the rain began. They drove up into the yellow heath, a mile or two from the Esplanade, and Betsey’s spirit turned as soggy as her cloak. These were homes along the lanes, real ones with property, tended gardens inside cast-iron fences, places where families grew, not make-do housing for transient holidaymakers, or anyone else who might be moving on soon.
    And The Bows, indeed, was one of these homes, its name true to the matching pairs of broad bow windows on each side of the house, both the first and second stories. Mr. Jones seemed to notice her sluggishness in climbing down from the dray, the trouble it was to keep her under his umbrella as they walked to the door, but aside from assuring her this was a fine house, he ignored it.
    A discreet plaque at the door stated “The Bows, Mrs. Elliot, Proprietress.” The maid let them in and promptly harangued Mr. Jones as to his purpose here—how could he bring Miss Gilbey without notice, or was that Miss Gilbey, couldn’t be, and did Mrs. Elliot know what scandals he was up to now? Through it all, it was plain no better treat existed than to have Mr. Jones turn up at the door of The Bows.
    Betsey half-listened as Mr. Jones explained his errand and her identity. With increasing panic, she looked into the parlor at her left, which, with the dull light from the overcast day and the absence of any occupant, should have seemed forlorn. It didn’t. It looked inviting, and . . . pretty. Pretty green wallpaper and hooked rugs and gilded picture frames, groupings of pretty chairs for conversation, a pretty bowl of peonies sitting on a cottage piano.
    Pretty. Far, far too pretty.
    “Dora Pink,” Mr. Jones offered to Betsey as explanation for the maid, now off to find her mistress.
    Betsey coughed to clear her throat of the thick and mortifying rise of tears. “I won’t—I cannot stay