Page 30 of These Violet Delights
When she did not take the offered material, the preacher held up his hands, lightly touching Violet’s shoulders.
“Is this where you belong, dear child?” he murmured, almost sad. “With the dregs and the prostitutes and those who would parade themselves before the public for vanity’s sake?”
A shadow fell across them, and Violet blinked up and out of her anger to see Mr. Kerr had come. He had only to gaze down at Danforth in his direct, silent way and the clergyman removed himself, lowering his presumptuous little hands to clutch his basket with a half-mumbled apology.
“I would not advise touching the lady again,” warned Mr. Kerr.
The words nested inside her, somehow both warm and cold.
“Maybe he could come every day to escort us,” she heard Winny breathe to her right.
Mr. Kerr touched his hat and kept the solid bulwark of his body between Danforth and Violet until she and the others hurried safely inside the Florizel. Violet did not draw breath until she noticed the tightness in her chest. People flowed around her, hardly more than streaks of color whooshing by her head. Mr. Kerr’s presence, his protectiveness, had made her less afraid and even momentarily grateful.
“Did Emilia sneak in before us?” Winny asked, bringing Violet back to herself.
“I don’t know,” she stammered. But a quick glance around the front hall and office did not produce Emilia. Cristabel had already gone ahead to the stage to begin mixing pigments, and Mr. Lavin could be heard ranting about Danforth in his office. Ginny’s cat, Sailor, rubbed against Violet’s ankles until she picked up the creature and absent-mindedly stroked its neck.
“Perhaps Mr. Lavin can have someone look for her outside,” Winny suggested. “I’ve no interest in elbowing through that crowd again.”
Cristabel summoned Violet, impatient to begin the work they were in danger of not finishing in time, and she went, and let Sailor go to chase mice or dream of fountains of milk or whatever cats fantasized about, and the morning rolled on. And in all of it, surprisingly or not, Emilia’s absence was forgotten. For Violet’s part, she could not forgive herself for feeling so much relief when Mr. Kerr leveled his mild threat at Danforth.
Nor could she stop imagining that look of his, all of that considerable strength and concern rallied just for her.
When the afternoon wore on and there was no more to be done, when Violet’s hands were stained with paint and cramped from effort, she and Winny said their goodbyes at the front doors, walking outside to find it blissfully quiet. Violet foundherself wishing Mr. Kerr were there waiting for them, a sentinel to protect them in case Danforth burst from the bushes or flew down from the roof.
But he wasn’t there, and neither was Emilia, whom, it became evident, they had entirely forgotten.
“I did ask Mr. Lavin to send someone out to search for her,” said Winny, her voice rising as the ladies descended into panic.
“Emilia is a smart woman. I’m sure she returned to Pressmore,” added Cristabel, though her pallor told the fuller story. “Of course she would. Of course…”
Violet let them spin and speculate while she sifted through her thoughts for the answer. “No, oh no,” she murmured, slapping her cheek and holding her hand there. “I shouldn’t have said anything, but I may have mentioned that Freddie Kerr still loves her.”
“What?” Cristabel rounded on her. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Because it’s likely true,” Violet groaned, stamping her feet against the cold. “Mr. Kerr said as much as a sort of defense of Freddie, an explanation for why it couldn’t be him who set the fire at Pressmore.”
“It could have been anybody,” Cristabel said with a sigh. “Your cousin never found hide nor hair of the cloaked person you described.”
“I know,I know,and they probably found each other in the crowd when we were distracted, and…”
Cristabel reached for her, turning Violet until they faced each other. “Let us not fall to mischief with our minds when reason will better serve, yes? She might have returned to the house. She probably returned to the house.”
Violet had never let reason stop or serve her before. “Orthey are already halfway to Gretna Green,” she cried, her headfalling back loose on her shoulders. “And it is all my fault. Oh, God, Ann is going to kill me…”
“She will do no such thing,” Cristabel assured them. “But Ann is our answer. We will hire a carriage at the inn, it will be faster than walking back to the estate. If Emilia is not at Pressmore, then we can decide our degree of frenzy.”
Winny called it an excellent solution, and so it was. They returned to Pressmore Estate with all haste, the driver from the Gull and Knave understanding the urgency very well, subsequently conveying them at appropriate speed. The ladies flung themselves from the carriage and raced up the drive to the front hall, where Bloom met them with the sort of long-suffering look only a butler who had seen decades of youthful waggery could conjure. It was put to the family simply that Emilia had not come into the theater, and only Lane and Ann were told about the alarming Freddieness of it all.
“Oh dear,” said Ann.
“Blazes,” said Lane.
“She is not here,” Ann continued, her mouth turning down with fear. “But we will search the grounds at once.”
By now it was dark, and the grounds were searched with lanterns and calls of “Emiliaaaaaa,” but Emilia was nowhere to be found.
“As much as it pains me to say it,” said Lane, as the collective consternation grew, “we should send word to the Kerrs. This could have everything to do with them.”
