Page 113 of Pandora

“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 bejeweled 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.

Lady Latimer is looking about her again, her head nodding every now and then with approval which makes her ridiculous wig bounce dangerously. Horatio seems ready to catch it at any moment.

“Your Mr. Lawrence keeps a fine little house.”

Dora coughs, both at the implication and description. “Little house” is not how she would describe Clevendale, but in comparison to Lady Latimer’s own home Dora supposes it must indeed appear so.

“It does not belong to Mr. Lawrence, ma’am.” The old woman blinks. “This is Mr. Ashmole’s home.”

A pause. “Oh! Then you and Mr....”

Her ladyship’s meaning is quite clear.

“Good heavens, no, my lady, not at all.” Dora hesitates. “Mr. Lawrence could not offer me his home for he lodges. Here at least there are guest rooms and Mrs. Howe, the housekeeper, acts as chaperone.”

Lady Latimer looks relieved.

As if, Dora thinks wryly, she would be in any maidenly danger from Cornelius Ashmole. She shakes herself, clears her throat.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Lady Latimer?”

“Ah, yes.” The old woman needlessly arranges her skirts. “I’d like to commission more pieces from you. But now that I see you are unsettled in your situation I am more than happy to wait until you have reestablished yourself. You have capital?” Dora hesitates, but her ladyship seems not to notice. “Either way I would be happy to offer my patronage. I am entirely grateful to you, my dear, for making my outfit the crowning glory of my soirée, and I would be very sorry to see a woman of your talent go to waste. There have been others who have approached you for commissions, I assume?”

Dora can barely eke out a nod in the face of this news. Patronage? Can she truly mean it?

“Very good. But I shall not bother you any more today,” Lady Latimer is saying, and she rises from her seat in a cloud of choking lavender. “I will let you think on it, how about that?”

***

Dora cannot sleep. For hours it seems, she tosses and turns, her mind fluttering frantically like butterflies trapped in a bell jar.

She thinks of Lady Latimer’s offer this afternoon. A part of her is thrilled, but the old woman’s news is overshadowed by everything else. Dora cannot forget the loss of Hermes, the truth about—

Dora shuts her eyes, tight. She still cannot let herself think on it. Not yet.

When the clock strikes one she finally admits defeat. Dora gets up, reaches for her father’s banyan which she managed to salvage from her attic room. She ties the cord around her waist and then brushes her fingers over the bobbles in the shoulder, tries to remember what it felt like when Hermes used to perch there, talons catching in the material, and Dora swallows a sob when she realizes the memory has already begun to fade.

She means to go into the front room, attempt once more to sketch out a design. But when she reaches the bottom of the stairs she notices an orange glow on the tiles. Dora turns. Under the far door—the library she was shown into the first day she came here—shines a light.

Mr. Ashmole is awake.

For a long moment Dora hesitates on the stair. A part of her does not wish to see him, to speak to him at all. But company—even his—must surely be a better tonic than her restless thoughts and so, grudgingly, she makes her way down the corridor.

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