Page 53 of Pandora

He hesitates. Very slowly, he reaches out to take her hand. Dora lets him.

“Miss Blake. Dora,” he tries, and when she does not object to it—in fact, she finds the sound of her name on his tongue comforting—he carries on, though there is a hesitance now to the tone of his voice. “There is still a chance your uncle obtained these items legally, that a credible paper can be written. And until we find otherwise, well, if you were to provide the sketches to accompany a report of the pithos, it would make all the difference. I could use the other items in the crates, too. Certainly, they would add value to the report. And—” Mr. Lawrence draws out a tentative smile—“if the study were successful, I would ask you to work as my assistant on all future projects for the Society. My paid assistant. You would—”

“Be independent. Free,” Dora finishes.

“Yes.”

“And my jewelry? If I were to find success with that?”

A pause. “Why could you not do both?”

In the silence that follows, Dora lets herself think on it. It sounds like a dream, as delicate a thing as spun glass.

Independent.

Free.

Safe.

And yet. What likelihood is there of such success? What if both her jewelry ambition and Mr. Lawrence’s aspirations of academia were to tumble, like a cliff-face into the sea? She pictures herself thrashing in the icy current, gasping for air, drowning in her own folly, her own misguided make-believe.

“Please, Mr. Lawrence,” Dora whispers, “you must understand. This shop is all I have ever known. It belonged to my parents. I had hoped, one day, it would be mine. But then my uncle ruined its fortunes, its credibility. And now I find...” She shakes her head, bites her lip so hard she fears it might bleed. “Do you know the penalty for black-market trading?” Dora does not need to say it; the answer is writ clearly on his face. “The likelihood of my uncle owning these objects legally is very slim. So my livelihood—in all ways—relies on my success. If we fail in both our causes what will become of me? What then? You have the bindery. You may earn your living, and honorably. But if Hezekiah is found out I will be condemned as his accomplice. They’ll hang me.”

His face goes very still. “Listen,” he says, sitting forward, his expression earnest, urgent. “I’ve been advised by the Society director—in point of fact, told—to contact an expert to gather further information about the pithos. Do I have your permission?”

“Mr. Lawrence, I—”

“Edward. Please.”

“Edward, I...” Dora falters, tries again. “If the pithos is as old as you say it is, then my uncle must mean to make his fortune from it. And if he sells, neither you nor I will benefit. The pithos will be lost to us both.”

“But this is why we must work quickly! Learn everything about it that we can.”

She opens her mouth, closes it again.

“Dora.” Mr. Lawrence—no, Edward—squeezes her hand. She had quite forgotten he was holding it. “I know you are afraid. But please, let me investigate this. There could still be an innocent explanation. Let me try.”

Try. A word full of promise. Of hope. And yet... Dora shakes her head, the cog of her mind spinning like a tandem wheel. In an effort to stop it she pulls her hand free, rises unsteadily to her feet.

“You have more faith in my uncle than I do. But very well. I give you leave to continue looking through those crates, to take from them anything you can which will help with your studies, and I shall continue to sketch the pithos, for my jewelry. Once I am finished you may take what I have done and I wish you luck with it, truly. But let us not dwell on fancies that may never come to pass.”

Edward rises too. “You sound like Cornelius.”

Dora does not answer. She crosses to the desk to retrieve the sketchbook from where she left it upon coming down to the basement. Hermes blinks up at her, spreads his wings in a monochrome stretch. Very gently she strokes his fine head with the backs of her fingers. When she turns Edward is watching her, a troubled expression on his face.

“What is it?”

He opens his mouth, closes it again. Shakes his head.

“Nothing. Nothing,” he says again and he shrugs himself from his coat, unwinds his scarf, proceeds to the shelving, and begins to lift down the crates, one by one.

Chapter Twenty-One

Dear Sir,

Please forgive my writing to you without any formal introduction, but I wished to direct a missive to you before appearing on your doorstep.

I was advised to seek your assistance by the Director of the Society of Antiquaries himself, Mr. Richard Gough, as I have recently come across a most extraordinary item that will undoubtedly be of interest to you—a large pithos, of what appears to be Grecian design. On analyzing a sample of clay taken from said pithos, the Royal Society have discovered—quite to my own shock, and, I am sure, to yours—that the pithos cannot be dated. Indeed, it is so old that there appears to be no record of anything like it in our known history.

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