Page 117 of Pandora

“Not well, exactly, but well enough to care that he’s dead. How?”

Dora’s lip thins. “Hezekiah, of course.”

Lottie pales, fleshy chin trembling.

“Missum, I... I’m so sorry. For all of it. I should have told you.”

“Told me what?” Dora’s voice comes sharp, and tears begin to well in Lottie’s eyes.

“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 vigor 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.

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