Pandora(6)

‘Uncle, are you ill?’

Hezekiah jumps, looks directly at her for the first time all day. His eyes betray for a moment a nervousness she has not seen before but he shields it quickly.

‘What a notion.’ He pops his fork into his mouth, chews open-mouthed like a cow. Dora watches with distaste as the overcooked meat swirls about on his tongue. A speck of gravy lands on his chin. ‘I was pondering the future of the shop. I feel …’

Dora sits up straight in her seat. Is he finally going to discuss the running of the shop with her? For she has ideas, so many wonderful ideas! First, she would remove the dead weight and replenish with good, genuine articles sourced from her father’s old contacts. Second, make enough money to hire men to undertake digs overseas, employ artists and engravers to catalogue their finds. They could be listed once more in Christie’s directory, provide a retreat for scholars and private collectors, house a small museum, a miniature library. Perhaps – for the more frivolous aspects of the business – cater to the aristocracy’s whims of themed soirées. Restore the shop to its former glory. Begin again.

‘Yes?’

Hezekiah swallows his food, takes a long swig of wine.

‘Now we have begun a new year, I feel it might be time to sell. I tire of trade. There is far more pleasure to be had elsewhere, after all, far better things to invest my money in.’

His voice is offhand, almost cold, and Dora stares at her uncle across the table. ‘You would sell Father’s shop?’

He sends her a level stare.

‘It is not his shop. It passed naturally on to me when he died. Does it say Elijah on the board, or Hezekiah?’

‘You can’t sell it,’ she whispers. ‘You just can’t.’

He dismisses this with a wave of his arm, as if he were batting away a fly.

‘Times change. Antiquities are no longer à la mode. The money from the sale would be sufficient to purchase a fine seat in a more reputable part of town. It would be an agreeable change for me.’ He wipes the corner of his mouth with a napkin. ‘The building would fetch a good price, as would the contents, I’m sure.’

Dora feels entirely numb. Sell the shop? Her childhood home?

She takes an unsteady breath.

‘For shame, Uncle, you would contemplate such a thing.’

‘Come, Dora. The shop is not what it once was—’

‘And whose fault is that?’

Hezekiah’s nostrils flare, but he ignores this too.

‘I should think you would be glad of a change of scene, more, ah, liberating surroundings. Is that not what you wish?’

‘You know what I wish.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he sneers. ‘Those little sketches of yours. You’d be much better off finding someone to buy you such pieces rather than attempting to fashion them yourself.’

Dora lowers her cutlery. ‘And where, Uncle, would I wear them?’

‘Well now …’ Hezekiah hesitates, gives a little laugh that carries on its edge something she cannot quite decipher. ‘Who knows where our fortunes might take us? You do not wish to stay here for ever, do you?’

She pushes her plate away, her appetite – never prodigious on Lottie’s mediocre cooking – completely lost.

‘I prefer, Uncle, to think on more practical endeavours rather than flights of fancy.’

‘And is designing jewellery a practical endeavour or a flight of fancy?’ Dora looks away. ‘I thought as much,’ he says, his sneer even more pronounced. ‘No goldsmith will accept a female designer – you know that, I’ve said so often enough but you will not listen. You waste the sketchbooks I buy you. Do you realise how much good paper costs?’

Lottie comes in then to clear the plates. It is just as well, for Dora is on the verge of tears. As the housekeeper slides her master’s plate across the tabletop, Dora dips her head. She will be damned to let them see her cry.

‘I do not want to work for a goldsmith.’

‘What now?’

She spoke too quietly, she knows. Dora steels herself, raises her head to look at him squarely across the table.

‘I do not want to work for a goldsmith,’ she repeats. ‘I want to open my own establishment, to work independently of anyone else.’

Hezekiah stares at her a moment. Lottie stares too, empty plate in hand; a drip of gravy threatens to make its escape onto the floor.

‘You mean to make the jewellery yourself?’

Her uncle’s voice is laced now with amusement, and his mockery makes Dora colour.

‘I wish to become a reputable artist, for a jeweller to make up the designs on my behalf. Mother’s friend Mr Clements, perhaps.’

There is a beat of silence. Dora had not expected Hezekiah to support the notion – that would be far too much to hope for – but then, as the ridicule spills itself from her uncle’s lips in cruel disjointed laughter, joined by the giggled snorts of Lottie Norris, her chest tightens with anger.

‘Oh, dear heaven,’ Hezekiah cries on a sigh, wiping the corners of his eyes with fat thumbs, ‘this is the most amusement I’ve had in weeks. Come now, Lottie, what a fine joke she tells!’

Dora scrunches the napkin she holds in her fist, directing all her frustration into the starch. ‘I assure you, sir,’ she says tightly, ‘I am perfectly serious.’