Page 9 of Pandora

The man takes a sip of his coffee, crinkled lips pursing the rim. He licks his mouth, places the cup down on the table with precise care. Then he leans forward, as if ready to divulge a closely kept secret.

“In Ludgate Street, there is a shop. It belonged to an intrepid couple by the name of Blake. Antiquarians by trade, they made a living excavating tombs in southeastern Europe, in Greece specifically. I understand the taste for antiquities verges more now on British discoveries but there is money in the ancient world, a curiosity for it still. The couple are long dead, I am sad to say, some twelve or thirteen years now, and the shop... it is not what it once was. Elijah’s brother, Hezekiah”—and here the old man’s mouth twists—“has quite ruined its fortunes, but you might have some luck conversing with the daughter.”

“The daughter?”

“Pandora Blake. She was only eight when her parents died but she accompanied them on every excavation they went on, has a taste for the field. The uncle—a cartographer originally—cared for the child after their deaths, moved into the shop, kept her on. If she is anything like her parents then she will prove quite exceptional.”

“You knew them well, then?”

His companion hesitates. “I make it my business to know those in the trade.”

“You’re a collector, then?”

“Of sorts, yes.”

He says nothing more. There is a beat, a beat in which a customer enters the coffeehouse, bringing in with him the sharp cold air of Fleet, and now Edward is unsure how to press the matter further. They both are silent. The old man raises his cup. It has left a wet ring.

“How did they die?” Edward finally asks.

The man takes another sip of his coffee. “A tragedy. They were unearthing a Grecian ruin. The walls caved in. Buried alive.”

“And Pandora?”

“She was saved, be praised.”

Edward shakes his head. “Dreadful.”

“Indeed.”

The bells of Temple church chime the hour. His cue, Edward thinks, and he digs into his coat pocket, exchanges his Studie for a coin.

“I’m much obliged to you, sir. Your kindness...”

The gentleman waves him off. “Not at all,” he says mildly, as if it truly was nothing and not, as Edward believes, a cannily timed intervention. “It was my pleasure.”

As Edward stands the old man looks up at him, blue eyes clear and piercing: a world in them. He holds out his hand for him to shake.

“Perhaps we shall see each other again, Mr. Lawrence?”

“Yes,” Edward says, clasping it. The skin feels papery, a worn-out glove, but the grip is surprisingly firm. “Yes, perhaps we shall.”

It only occurs to Edward later that evening—his boots and stockings warming by the fire—that he never asked the old man his name, nor was it offered, and more to the point, Edward never mentioned his own.

Chapter Five

Hezekiah has left her in charge again, the arrival of a dirty lad bearing a letter having taken him away with unmitigated haste; her uncle bounded up from his half-eaten breakfast and catapulted from the room like a hare before she could blink. Dora had glanced at the clock—twenty minutes past the hour of eight—and wondered what urgent business Hezekiah could possibly have so early with a boy that stank so overpoweringly of something she did not wish to name.

In the shop Dora perches on a stool (this one no less uncomfortable than the one upstairs), swinging her legs in boredom. While she knows there is plenty to entertain her—if Lottie will not do it, she might as well do the dusting herself—Dora cannot quite bring herself to, for her mind is as peaceful as a stormy sea. Under the counter are her sketchbook and reticule, close at hand so that when Hezekiah does return she can make her escape as quickly as possible.

Today is the day that everything will change.

The cannetille design is finished. All it will take is a “yes,” an acknowledgment that her work is worthy of fashioning into beautiful pieces fit for members of high society to wear. It only need start with one item—just one—sold to a woman of quality. A lady, maybe a baroness. A duchess, perhaps. Of course, she thinks, the chances of someone so far up the peerage taking a fancy to her designs is unlikely but with any sale Dora would gain a cut of the value, be commissioned for more. It would go from there. She would gain her independence. She would be free.

What of the shop? a little voice whispers inside her head. What will happen to it without you?

Dora’s legs still. This shop is all she has ever known. It is her home. To leave it would break her heart clean in two. And if Hezekiah were to sell, her parents’ legacy—what is left of it—would be as dead as they are. Though these walls are woodwormed and their joists have begun to weaken like dried-out leaves, they contain within them the very map of her, the memory of what once was.

She thinks back to one Christmas spent at the shop, the merchants and patrons who joined them to toast the season, to celebrate a year of successful trade. Blake’s Emporium had been warm and welcoming back then, the oak floor polished to a rich shine, the beams free of cobwebs, and Dora remembers being fascinated by the shimmering candlelight that reflected off the clean unbroken windowpanes. Her father carried her high on his hip, and though she had no true understanding of them he was keen to include Dora in conversations about expansion, East India shipments, new lots to sell at Christie’s. Hezekiah was meant to honor those memories. If he can discard his loyalty that easily, Dora thinks, what then will become of her when the time comes to sell? She thinks back to what he said to her at dinner... You’re far too old to still be sharing my roof.

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