Killers of a Certain Age(33)

Miss Halliday doesn’t say anything for a long minute. She sits instead, tapping a letter opener on the desk and teaching Billie the power of silence.

Finally, Constance Halliday throws the letter opener on her desk. “Miss Webster,” she says with a sigh, “I begin to despair. You are not a bad recruit—”

“Thank you.”

She carries on as if Billie hasn’t spoken. “But you are very rapidly becoming a superfluous one. You shoot well, but not as well as Miss Randolph. You are good with languages, but not as fluent as Miss Tuttle. You are heedless of your personal safety to a degree that one might be tempted to call courageous, but you are not quite as indomitable as Miss Schuyler. In short, Miss Webster, I fail to see the point of you.”

She pauses, but there is nothing Billie can possibly say to that. Constance judges the pause perfectly, then continues on, her tone pleasant. It is the casual, matter-of-fact delivery that hurts more than the words.

“We do have a placement with a perfectly good secretarial college in London. We could send you there. I daresay you might be able to pick up shorthand or typewriting without too much trouble. They could find you a nice office job after you earn your certificate. Perhaps you’d like bookkeeping? That can be rather fulfilling, I’m told.”

Only the tiniest gleam in Constance Halliday’s eye tells Billie she is doing this on purpose, pushing her for a reaction. She doesn’t know what Constance is trying to kindle—anger? Denial? But she is determined not to give it to her.

Billie waits her out in silence and Constance finally gives in, smiling thinly. “It must be difficult for you. I understand.”

“Understand what?”

Constance has gotten her to talk, but she doesn’t gloat. She merely carries on in the same bland tone, tapping a file on her desk. “You’ve never had to work for it, have you? Never been tested, not really.”

Billie thinks about her childhood and tamps down the rising anger. “I don’t know what your little folder says, but I’m not like the rest of them, okay? I didn’t get the picket fence and the golden retriever.”

Constance shrugs. “I am not speaking of the trappings of a happy childhood, Miss Webster. I mean what happens inside—your intellect and what you’ve done with it. Or rather, what you haven’t done with it. Your records show exceptional intelligence and mediocre results. It’s a comfortable place, mediocrity. Never pushing oneself to the limit to see what you can take. Never staring down your fears, never reaching into yourself to find that last bit of courage. You don’t even know what it is that you are made of—and what’s more, you seem distinctly uninterested in finding out. You do just enough to get by, and frankly, I would rather have a dozen recruits with less potential and more heart, Miss Webster. I fear my brother has made a mistake.”

She continues to smile but this time there is pity in it.

“Bullshit!” The word erupts from Billie before she can stop it.

Constance gives a slow nod. “I appear to have struck a nerve there.” She pushes herself to her feet and gestures for Billie to come around the desk. She turns the girl by the shoulders and points to the painting with her stick. “I know you have not had the benefit of a Classical education, Miss Webster. Do you know who that is?”

Billie shrugs.

“Astraea. Have you ever heard the name?”

Billie looks at the slender figure in her gauzy white gown. She is drifting just above a landscape, her toes brushing the grass as she rises into the air. One hand is stretched out towards a group of weeping shepherds, offering them a gesture of farewell, while the other holds a pair of measuring scales to her chest. “I don’t think so. It sounds Greek.”

“Very good. Astraea was a goddess, the daughter of Dusk and Dawn, gifted by the gods with the tools of justice. She was the last immortal to live amongst mankind. But in the end, she despaired of our wickedness and she left, fleeing to the stars with her scales. She sits among the stars today as the constellation Virgo, the scales of Libra next to her. She waits, they say, for the day she will return.”

Billie looks closer at the goddess, at the expression of resigned sadness on her face as she regards the humans who are clearly pleading with her to stay.

Constance Halliday goes on. “All the great English poets wrote of her, Shakespeare, Milton, Browning. Historians compared Elizabeth I to her, and Catherine the Great. And Aphra Behn, Charles II’s playwright spy, used ‘Astraea’ as her code name in honor of her. She has always been there, in the shadows.”

Constance Halliday gestures again, pointing to the goddess’s feet. A narrow line of silver lies in the grass, almost obscured by the greenery, but just visible. Forgotten but not gone.

“Look closely. Astraea took her scales with her, but she left her sword behind—the sword that was given by the gods to administer justice. The question is, Miss Webster, will you pick it up?”

She doesn’t expect an answer. Instead she dismisses Billie and the girl goes to her room, where she stretches out on her bed, smoking contraband cigarettes and thinking until the sun sets and the room falls into shadow.

The next day, Billie tries. She oils her gun and rubs it down just as she has been taught. She loads it and lines up her sights, firing seven times. Six go wide. She knows Constance Halliday is standing behind her, but she does not turn to look. She tries again and it is a little better but not much. Her face is hot and she feels tears sitting behind her eyes. If she gives in, it would be an ugly cry, snotty and heaving. So she chokes down the disappointment that Constance Halliday is right. She is undisciplined and haphazard. And these qualities will get someone killed in the field.