Pandora(63)

Make haste, indeed. It is all now he can do.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN





The same man who delivered the pithos arrives to take it away. From her position at the shop door Dora watches him and her uncle exchange words in undertones that appear both urgent and threatening. Then Hezekiah turns, brushes past her into the shop without meeting her gaze.

The day is dry but there is a sharp breeze that whistles down Ludgate Street and through its clamour of pedestrians kicking up mud and filth on their heels. The red-headed man waits patiently for a hawker – six filthy urchins trailing behind her – to pass before rounding one side of the wagon. He takes a pile of ropes from the back, gestures to his companions with a grunt.

The two brothers, Dora notes, are not with him. Instead he has brought another man – a Mr Tibb, she heard her uncle call him – and two others who smell, faintly, of excrement.

Dora retreats into the murk of the shop, loiters near the green chair Edward sat on that first day. As he passes, the hulking man greets her with a small duck of his chin, a barely-there nod, and Dora thinks how much older he seems since she last saw him. There is a tightness to his face, a tense, sick sort of expression that disturbs her.

She watches the men as they haul the pithos up the basement steps using a complicated system of pulleys and the ropes. Dora clasps her hand to her mouth, resists the urge to cry out to them to take care, but Hezekiah has no such qualms.

‘Watch what you’re doing!’ he snaps, as one of the smaller men – dark-skinned, little more than a boy – buckles under the weight.

‘Now, now, Mr Blake,’ the man named Tibb says, tone mollifying, ‘we know what we’re doing – we got it on the wagon to begin with, if you remember?’

Hezekiah glances briefly at Dora before straightening his cravat.

‘Of course I do! But luck was with us that day.’

‘Luck,’ the large man mutters, shifting the rope holding part of the weight of the pithos on his shoulder, ‘had nothing to do with it.’

Hezekiah rounds on him. ‘Have a care,’ he warns. ‘I’ll not have such talk here.’

The man glowers, but Hezekiah is already turning away, limping past Dora into the street. Frowning, she looks up at the large man. His lip twists.

‘Best keep out the way, miss, until it’s loaded.’

They stare at each other a moment. Then Dora nods, follows her uncle outside.

She decides to stand on the far side of the wagon, watches with interest the pithos’ laboured journey onto the back. When it has been loaded and covered with a sheet, Mr Tibb and the two lads join it, and the larger man returns to where Hezekiah waits at the shop door. Dora folds her arms as her uncle takes from his waistcoat three paper bills, which the man swipes with his fist, shoving them unceremoniously into his pocket. The payment Lady Latimer laid out was delivered by a footman this morning – a different but equally pretty man this time – but it interests Dora to see so much of it going to Hezekiah’s lackey. What are they about?

‘Dora!’

She turns to see Edward rushing toward her from the direction of the Strand. He comes to a stop, out of breath.

‘I’m sorry for my tardiness. I had a commission to finish. Got here as quickly as I could.’ He takes a gulp of air. His cheeks are red. Edward looks at the set-up dubiously, at the sheet and web of ropes keeping the pithos in place, then shoots Dora a concerned look. ‘Will it be safe?’

‘Safe is not a word I would use,’ the large man says as he pushes roughly past them. Dora turns to him in surprise.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘If you’re asking if it’s secure,’ he responds shortly, tightening the ropes with a tug, ‘then yes, it is that. It won’t be falling off, of that you can be certain. But as for its safety …’

‘Coombe,’ Hezekiah says from the shop doorway. ‘Enough.’

His voice is a low warning. Across the horse’s back the two stare at each other before the man named Coombe gives the buckle one last pull. He says nothing, instead heaves himself up onto the seat, seizing the reins. It is then that Hezekiah notices Edward.

‘Mr … Lawrence, was it?’ he says, his words freighted equally with surprise and suspicion. ‘Pray, sir, what do you do here?’

Hezekiah addresses Edward but he is looking at Dora, and she knows it is she who must answer.

‘He is here at my request, Uncle. Mr Lawrence, it transpires, is quite the expert in Greek antiquities.’

Dora feels no shame, no qualm in telling him this. Since they came to blows the other evening Dora has felt empowered, rebellious. But beside her Edward takes a hesitant step back. Hezekiah’s sharp gaze shifts between them.

‘It appears you have been keeping much from me, Pandora.’

‘A family trait, it seems.’

Hezekiah blinks at her answer, in surprise or defiance, she is not sure. But then Mr Coombe coughs.

‘We’d best be on our way, miss. You may both ride up here with me.’

Hezekiah sneers, turns away. Edward offers his hand, guides her up. As Mr Coombe reaches down to assist her, Dora cannot help but notice a putrid-yellow stain on his cuff.



The wagon trundles away from Ludgate Street toward the more affluent environs of the city, and Dora finds herself leaning against Edward, pressing her weight into his shoulder. He does not seem to mind, but makes no move to draw her closer.