Pandora(103)

‘He was looking for something. That night, in your room. A note. He found it in the cage.’

Something shifts in Dora’s face. ‘Lottie.’ Her voice is pinched. ‘Speak plain.’

Edward thinks the housekeeper truly does look as though she is about to cry.

‘I asked him why he hadn’t sold the vase. He told me that there had been something in it.’

Cornelius folds his arms. ‘See? Didn’t I tell you?’

Dora ignores him. ‘What thing?’ she presses, and Edward can see she holds herself so tightly together he is afraid she will snap.

The housekeeper takes an unsteady breath. ‘He said that inside the vase there was a note. A note written by your parents, about a fortune they left you. The note would say how to claim it.’

Edward lets out his breath. ‘Christ.’

Dora is standing very still, her face a perfect blank. Very quietly, so quietly they would strain to hear if they were outside, Dora says, ‘And he found it? In Hermes’ cage?’

Lottie nods.

‘But how?’

Confusion knits her forehead. Cornelius cuts in.

‘Where is this note now?’

Lottie looks to him. ‘I don’t know. Honest, I swear I don’t.’

Dora is silent for a long and painful moment. Edward watches the pulse pound in her neck. He wants to reach out and take her hand but instinctively he knows she will not allow it, so all he can do is watch as Dora looks to him, to Cornelius, then back again to Lottie.

‘Why are you telling me this? Why are you helping us?’

The housekeeper shakes her head, split lip trembling. ‘I’ve got no good excuse for the way I treated you. I knew Hezekiah long before he met your mother. I loved him, you see. And when I saw how cut up he was about Helen after she … I hated you because I hated her. But that was wrong of me, I know that now.’

Dora stares at the floor for a very long time. Then, finally, she exhales. ‘It’s all right, Lottie.’

‘It is?’

Suddenly Dora looks tired. ‘We’d best be getting on. Would you mind very much bringing us some tea?’



Dora sets herself down on the floor in front of the pithos, unties the sketchbook with such vigour that Cornelius and Edward share a concerned look.

‘Would you like to speak of it?’ Cornelius tries, but she cuts him off with a short sharp shake of her head.

‘No, I wouldn’t.’

Edward opens his mouth to respond.

‘It is best I concentrate, if you please,’ she says, pencil poised on a fresh page, and Edward reluctantly closes his mouth again.

Dora will speak when she is ready. Attempting to force her will not work, and with regret Edward watches her sketch, knows exactly what her concentration costs her. He understands all too well the need to bury pain with work.

Keep busy, it does not hurt. Keep busy – it leaves no time to think.

Cornelius has begun taking a slow turn around the pithos, and he releases a long whistle.

‘It really is quite magnificent, isn’t it? I didn’t look at it properly before, at Latimer’s.’ Then he hesitates, catches sight of Dora’s sketchbook. He leans over her shoulder, rests his hands on his knees. ‘Edward was right,’ he murmurs. ‘Your drawings are quite spectacular. You are an extraordinary artist, Miss Blake.’

Dora’s pencil hovers over the page. She looks up at him, blushes.

‘Thank you, Mr Ashmole.’

Edward stares, notes Dora’s pinked cheeks, Cornelius’ admiration that shows so clearly on his handsome face.

It has not escaped Edward’s notice that Cornelius’ attitude toward Dora has changed. He knows there was no choice in letting Dora stay with him, that to stay with Edward would have broached the bounds of propriety altogether. Certainly, after their disagreement, such a thing would have been untenable, but since Dora has been staying with him Cornelius has been less vitriolic toward her, more – if not kind, then – accommodating, and Edward feels a flicker of jealousy.

Has something happened between them? The thought makes him breathless.

‘What does this scene represent?’ Cornelius asks Dora now, gesturing at the section of pithos she sketches, and Edward’s stomach begins to churn.

Dora shifts her position on the floor.

‘It is a depiction of Athena blessing Pandora with all the gifts Zeus felt it necessary for her to have. There are different versions of the myth – some say the gifts were given not by one goddess but many. Given by gods, too.’ Dora shifts again then huffs in frustration. She moves to lie on her side to take a closer look at some of the detailing at the base. ‘Apollo taught her to sing and play the lyre, Athena taught her to spin, Demeter to tend a garden. Aphrodite, apparently, taught her how to dance without moving her legs.’

‘An impressive feat, I dare say.’

‘Hardly possible for anyone, I would have thou—’ Dora breaks off.

Cornelius frowns. ‘What is it?’

‘My God,’ Dora whispers. ‘Look at this.’

‘What?’ Edward asks.

‘Come and see.’

Edward gets down on the cold floor next to her, must lie flat on his chest to see what she is pointing at.

A series of words, in Greek: