Page 55 of Pandora

“Lottie,” she asks carefully, “are you quite well?” and when the housekeeper finally deigns to raise her head, Dora stares at her in shock.

She is very pale, eyes rimmed dark as if she has rubbed them with fingers dusted thick with soot. But it is the split and swollen lip that makes Dora step down from her stool and reach out her hand. No matter how much she dislikes the woman, she does not deserve this.

“Lottie, what did he do to you?”

“Nothing, missum.” Lottie does not meet Dora’s eye, refuses the hand she offers. “I tripped on my way up to bed last night.” She places the basket she is carrying on the floor. Inside Dora spies the edge of a discolored rag, blotched yellow-pink. “Has your uncle come up yet?” Lottie asks.

The blunt edge to her voice is unmistakable and Dora wants to challenge Lottie’s bare-faced lie, but it is clear from her tone that she will not say another word on the matter.

“No, not yet,” Dora answers.

“Then I suppose I should get on with supper. Do you know if he’s eaten anything?”

“Not since breakfast, I imagine.”

“Then I’ll take something down.”

With seeming difficulty she retrieves the basket, disappears through the door into the living quarters.

Dora stares at the closed door.

So, her uncle has taken to violence. Hezekiah never seemed the type. Though quick to anger he had always appeared to Dora a man who was all show and no substance, full of threats and nothing more. But now... She wonders how much Lottie Norris is privy to, how much her uncle has shared with her. It is clear the housekeeper knows more than Dora for Hezekiah permits her presence in the basement but perhaps, Dora muses, he is keeping secrets from her, too.

Returning to the hard stool, she taps her pencil on the sketchbook and ponders.

***

Dora waits until St. Paul’s strikes three before hesitantly asking Lottie to take over, and though she anticipated resistance, the housekeeper does not object at all. In fact, she seems relieved of the opportunity to rest.

The fog has lifted but has left in its place a rain that patterns the air in fine mist; Dora is barely out in it five minutes before her face is wet. A fat bead of water runs, tickling, down her nose. Dora rubs it away and tucks a damp curl back into her bonnet.

Never has she known a winter so dismal.

Dora walks fast, head down, arms tucked across her chest so the shawl that protects her sketchbook cannot blow open in the cold breeze. The snow melted three days ago, the sludge too. Now the streets are slick with rainfall, mud squelching underfoot. When she reaches St. Paul’s churchyard Dora keeps to the cobbles, avoids the slick grassy banks.

Before the liveried guard will let her into Mr. Clements’ establishment Dora must vigorously wipe her boots on the reed mat. She waits in the dim candlelight for the jeweler to finish with a customer. When said customer (an elderly gentleman by the name of Finch, Dora overhears) finally steps aside—a case of ivory goblets for which he has paid an obscene amount of money clasped tight to his chest—and Mr. Clements notices her, he is too lax at concealing his look of resigned chagrin.

“Miss Blake, I—”

“Did not expect me so soon, I dare say.”

The goldsmith sighs. “No, I dare say I did not.”

“But I am here nonetheless, as promised.”

Dora has spread her sketchbook open on the counter, has turned to the first page before he can object.

“You advised that Grecian designs were in demand. I have produced five designs for your approval. First, the bracelet.”

A design to echo a meandros, it is an elegant circlet to which Dora could not help adding her own flair.

“The diamond rosettes break up the geometric shapes. Within each rosette, a small amethyst, although an emerald or sapphire would work nicely too. Made of gold,” Dora adds, “of course.”

Mr. Clements adjusts his spectacles on the bridge of his nose. Dora turns the page.

“The earrings are daintier. The Greeks, as I’m sure you know—” and here Dora bows her head in deference to the jeweler—“often favored laurel crowns. Here, two laurels form a hoop, from which hang three teardrop pearls. I understand chandelier earrings are very much in favor at the moment?”

Mr. Clements hesitates, nods his head. Dora takes this as encouragement.

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