Pandora(99)

Absently Dora turns the pages of the sketchbook, looks at her past creations. The most recent sketches are with Mr Clements – Dora notes she must return to fetch them and the money she is owed – but the others, the cannetille necklace with its glass stone (now mended and hanging around her neck), the three pairs of earrings, the bracelet in pinchbeck and garnet, the two Vauxhall brooches, the ribbon-tie necklace of agate, all the creations that came before.

She flicks to the very back. To the drawings of the pithos.

Here is the outline, the ghost-sketches of the carvings. And here, the carvings themselves. Dora studies them, and deep down she feels pride in the way she has executed the details. There had been four in total, but Dora has managed to draw only three. She thinks about what Lottie told her, that Hezekiah will soon be removing the pithos, that her chance to finish the drawings will be gone for ever.

Is that, she thinks, such a bad thing? She has taken from the pithos what she wanted. She does not need the sketches – only Edward will benefit from them now. Dora shuts her eyes. The anger she feels at his deceit is still there but it has been dampened, as if someone has placed a cool cloth on a burn.

You are entirely mistaken in your beliefs.

And what is it she believes? That he has used Hezekiah’s history of underhand trading for a study to further his career. This, she knows to be true. But what else? What else does he mean to do? Turn her uncle in to the authorities, and she along with him?

That theory simply does not sit right with her. It goes against everything she believes about him as a person. A friend. If not for Edward she would not be here at Clevendale, safe from Hezekiah. If he meant her harm he would have done it by now. Dora sighs, closes the sketchbook. No, she owes it to Edward to finish. She made a promise, after all.

Besides. There is another reason.

Tiredly Dora takes off her spectacles, puts the end of one of the arms between her teeth.

Why, she wonders, has it taken so long for Hezekiah to sell the pithos? What on earth was he doing all that time in the basement? Why was he searching her room? Why kill Hermes? She does not understand. None of it makes any sense. To find out she must go back, and soon.

Dora jumps as the door opens and she turns in the chair, a question on her tongue. Mrs Howe – who has taken the news that Dora appears to be a houseguest for the foreseeable future with not much enthusiasm – stands at the threshold. Her eyebrows are shooting up so high that Dora fears they may reach her hairline.

‘A Lady Latimer to see you, miss.’

‘Oh!’ Dora stands. ‘Please,’ she says, rather awkwardly, for she is not used to giving orders, ‘do send her in.’

And in she comes in plumes of periwinkle pink and overbearing lavender scent, her footman Horatio at her side.

‘Miss Blake!’ the old woman exclaims, white wig quivering precariously. ‘Why is it I am being sent halfway across town and back again?’

‘Madam?’

Lady Latimer sends her an impatient look. ‘I reach your shop, only to be told by some uncouth woman that you have instructed all customers interested in your designs to come here instead. I assume that since I find you here this is correct.’ At Dora’s nod the old woman breezes on. ‘It is most inconvenient. Do you have any notion, miss, how busy the traffic is at this time of day?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t, ma’am.’

‘Of course you don’t.’ Lady Latimer glances around the room, spies the second damask chair and makes a beeline for it. Horatio follows her immediately. When the old woman reaches the chair the footman bends, lifts a fistful of skirts in his hands. ‘Down,’ Lady Latimer instructs, and as she sinks into the chair Horatio releases them. The pink silk billows before settling at her feet.

Dora must hide her amusement behind her hand, and all a-sudden she feels a wave of gratitude. It is the first time she has smiled in two days.

‘Well, now,’ Lady Latimer says, looking about her. ‘It is a charming room, I must say.’ Her eyes go to the cabinet next to the bureau Dora sits at. ‘What pretty globes,’ the old woman remarks, nodding at them lined together side by side. She turns her attention back to Dora. ‘Now tell me, miss, why I find you here?’

The excuse is already on her tongue and it is the truth, too, or a version of the truth, at least.

‘I had a disagreement with my uncle, Lady Latimer. I felt it would be best if I stayed elsewhere until I can set up an establishment of my own.’

Lady Latimer waves a bejewelled hand. ‘Oh, yes, you are much better off without. That crumbling establishment of his does not suit your talents at all. Everyone was quite raving about you the day after my soirée.’ She frowns. ‘Although there was much complaining to be had too. It seems many of my guests were sick as dogs the next morning.’

‘Oh?’

‘Did you not hear? It was the punch, apparently.’

‘Lady Hamilton did not say.’

Lady Latimer screws her nose. ‘Emma does not partake of punch. She much prefers wine. But those who did … well, it is just as well they fell ill the day after. Imagine what would have happened to my potted ferns, Horatio! I can’t bear to think on it.’

It is wise, Dora decides in this instance, to say nothing, but she thinks of the monkey she saw with its tail dangling in the punchbowl and wonders if that had much to do with it.