Pandora(7)

‘And therein lies the joke,’ Hezekiah crows. ‘Practical endeavours indeed! You have neither the education nor the capital to carry out such a thing. No one in their right mind would take a peculiar half-foreign orphan like yourself seriously. You would be laughed right out of trade before you’d even started.’ He sits back in his seat, expression sobering. ‘You have your mother’s creative talents, I grant you. But also, like your mother, you think far too highly of them. She was convinced she and your father, my own dear brother, God rest his soul, could make their fortune in antiquities, would be recognised the world over for their more, ah, unique finds. But look where her ambition took them …’

Dora is silent. Her uncle’s neglect, though painful in those early years, she is used to. His fits of anger, manageable. This cruel contempt, however … this is new, and simply too much for Dora to entertain. She takes a deep breath that pulls painfully at her lungs, begins to push her chair out from behind her when Hezekiah raises his hand.

‘Sit. We are not yet done.’

But I am. The words stitch themselves to her tongue, will not unpick themselves as she does as she is told, but Dora glowers deeply at her discarded plate, recites the Greek alphabet internally to calm her:

Alpha, beta, gamma, delta …

‘Lottie,’ Dora hears Hezekiah say, ‘will you bring in the tea?’

The housekeeper is all simpers and curtseys. When the door swings shut behind Lottie Dora senses Hezekiah turn back to her, and he offers up a humourless laugh.

‘I can admire your aspiration at least, as lofty and unrealistic as it is. Draw away, if you must. It will keep you amused in the coming months. I will even continue to provide the paper.’

Something in his voice. Dora’s brow furrows. She looks up.

‘Uncle?’

Hezekiah is lazily stroking his scar.

‘You’ve grown to be quite a picture in the last year. So much like your mother …’ A log in the fire cracks. ‘You’re twenty-one now,’ he continues, leaning his complete weight onto his elbows. ‘A woman. You’re far too old to still be sharing my roof.’

Dora is silent a moment as the import of his declaration sinks in. She swallows hard. ‘You mean to be rid of me.’

He spreads his hands. ‘Don’t you also mean to be rid of me?’

She hesitates, cannot dispute the question.

‘Where would you have me go?’ she asks instead, but Hezekiah merely shrugs. Smiles.

Something hard settles in her stomach and turns itself over. Dora does not understand the meaning of that smile, but she does know her uncle well enough to understand that no good can come from it.

Behind her the door swings open. Dora remembers how to breathe, and Lottie sets the tea tray down on the sideboard, the fine bone china rattling.

‘Here we are, sir,’ she says, over-bright. ‘And I’ve brought in the sugar plums you ordered, fresh this morning.’

Lottie is brandishing a box shaped like a hexagon.

‘Offer one to Dora, Lottie.’

The housekeeper hesitates, narrows her eyes, but she does as Hezekiah asks and Dora stares at the box, the treats nestled within. Her gaze moves warily to her uncle who watches, hands clasped beneath his chin.

‘What are these?’

Her tone is suspicious. She cannot help it.

‘Sugar plums, as Lottie said. A delicious delicacy.’

Lottie wafts the box under Dora’s nose. She catches the scent of sugar. Hesitates.

‘Go on,’ Hezekiah presses. ‘Why don’t you try one?’

Gingerly she selects a plum from the top and bites into it, teeth sinking into the gelatinous orb, and for a brief moment Dora relishes this fine and unexpected offering. The flavour bursts on her tongue – vanilla, spice, a hint of orange and nut, quite unlike anything she has ever tasted in her life – but then she catches Hezekiah watching her from across the table. He is looking at Dora in a way he never has before.

A cat watching an unsuspecting bird. Hungry, calculating.





CHAPTER FOUR





From a cramped window seat tucked into a small alcove, Edward Lawrence watches January play out its cruel and bitter game. The morning is as cold as a mortuary slab and the wind has whipped itself into a frenzy, sending flurries of biting ice down the terrace of Somerset House. The sycamore trees that line the formal path bend against the wind, empty bird’s nests hang on desperately to their bare branches the way a beggar clings to bread. The water in the fountain is frozen solid, the walkways dangerously slick, and over the balcony the barges rock angrily in the Thames.

How long he has been waiting, Edward cannot say. At the far end of the lengthy corridor – above the large doors behind which his fate is being decided – there is a clock, but it needs winding. His shoulders ache from slouching into such a confined space; the window seat is uncomfortably hard. He has been nibbling a jagged fingernail on and off since he got here, counted the frescos on the ceiling twice. He has recited the Society’s motto – Non extinguetur – too many times now to count. Shall not be extinguished. So. He might have been waiting an hour. He might have been waiting only minutes.

On his lap is a copy of the report he presented to the committee. The binding is simple, the paper the cheapest in stock, but it is his labour of love, his proudest achievement in his twenty-six years and what Edward hopes will be his ticket into the Society of Antiquaries. A Studie of Shugborough Hall’s Shepherd Monument. It all rests on the election – the Blue Paper – a minimum of five votes.