“Touch of stomach flu, I expect,” said Edith, striking an offhand note, although her stomach was heaving from the lingering smell of herring. She would never tell him the truth. She would solve her problem without him ever knowing about it. If she didn’t, she would never be free of him.
“Do you think I’m attractive?” she asked after an interval of watching him shovel in the bombe. He was a surprisingly inelegant eater. Lately she had begun to notice nothing but flaws. She supposed that was how love died, although was “love” the right word for what they had shared? The question was not posed in the simpering manner that some women might adopt. Edith had never simpered in her life. It was more a case of simple curiosity. She knew her worth to him and it was not founded on vanity.
“Do I think you’re attractive?” he said. He considered the question a little too long. (Just say yes, she thought irritably.) “I would say handsome.”
Wrong answer, she thought bitterly. “Handsome is as handsome does,” her mother was wont to say. Nellie was full of empty phrases. “I have to go,” Edith said abruptly.
“So do I,” he said, from which we might presume a family waiting at home, and although this was true, he was usually on one nefarious quest or another in the evenings. He was a Catholic, he would never leave his wife. Edith took some comfort from that.
“Well, I expect I’ll see you soon,” she said as he called for the bill.
“I expect so,” he said.
Lately she had been trying to keep him at arm’s length. It amused him. She wondered if this was the last time that she would see him. Even if she broke it off, she feared he would still pursue her. He couldn’t afford to let her go, she knew too much.
There had been a time, not so very long ago, when Edith had been in thrall to him. He was good-looking, complicated and devious, all three adjectives had made him interesting in her eyes, especially compared to the pleasure-seeking buffoons who populated her working life. Even the clever ones seemed to succumb to idiocy once they were inside a nightclub. Now, however, she understood that “interesting” was the last thing one should look for in a lover. He wielded a lot of power, more than she could, but nonetheless Edith was strong. I must be on my mettle, she thought. If they were to go into battle with each other it would not be an easy victory for him.
“You should go home,” he said. “You’re not at all yourself.”
“Tell me about it,” Edith said. She had a plan. (She was her mother’s daughter.) It was time to execute it.
* * *
—
Edith left Pinoli’s quickly and hailed a cab while he was still inside paying the bill. She didn’t want him to know where she was going. It certainly wasn’t home.
“Bedford Street,” she said to the cab driver, unwilling to share her actual destination. On Bedford Street she alighted, paid the fare and walked the rest of the way.
From what she had managed to glean beforehand, the whole thing would be over pretty quickly. With any luck, all would be done and dusted and she would be back in Hanover Terrace in time for supper.
She walked along Henrietta Street, checking the street numbers, looking for number four. There was no number on the door, but as the house was shouldered by two and six she presumed she had found it. There was an ugly iron knocker on the door, wrought in the image of a demon, or maybe the devil himself. Well, that was fitting, she thought as she lifted it and rapped firmly. The door flew open, seemingly into a void, and Edith said, “Mrs. Darling?” In answer, a bony arm shot out, grabbed Edith by the wrist and pulled her inside.
A Kidnap, a Raid and a Small Fire
Kitty had been abandoned as usual, leaving her free to wander through her sisters’ bedrooms in Hanover Terrace. When Nellie had been away in prison Kitty had already thoroughly investigated her room several times, but, disappointingly, the only thing she had been able to find had been a tatty little bag beneath her mother’s mattress. It held a tooth, a lock of hair, the mouldy old foot of some animal and other bits and pieces. Kitty recognized witchcraft when she saw it. She had thrown the bag in the canal in case it was used against her and claimed blank ignorance when questioned later by Nellie.
She appropriated a fox-fur tippet from Betty’s wardrobe and wound it round her neck and then applied Shirley’s blood-red Molinard lipstick. In Edith’s room she “borrowed” two shillings from a little porcupine-quill box that Edith kept on her dressing table. Kitty was rarely encouraged to come into this room and so it was interesting to investigate Edith’s things. There was a bottle of Shalimar on the dressing-table. Kitty sprayed her wrists with it, intrigued. Edith was not known for wearing perfume.
An envelope propped up against the mirror had “Edith” written on it. It had already been opened, so it was fair game as far as Kitty was concerned, although she would probably have steamed it open anyway. It was dated today and a bold, masculine hand had penned, Dear Edith, just a note to confirm I will be able to see you tonight. Pinoli’s at seven. Yours, A x. Not just “A” but “A” followed by a cross—a kiss! Without the kiss it might have been a note from the brewer who supplied the beer—but a kiss transformed it into something else. Unlikely as it seemed, Edith had an admirer.
Kitty had to make her own way to the Amethyst as no one had seen fit to arrange a cab. Nor had anyone left her any money, so taking Edith’s two shillings seemed quite justified to her mind. She left the house and, clutching her two shillings, was waiting on the pavement in the vain hope of a taxi—there were never any on the Outer Circle—when a car drew up against the curb.
The driver leant across and rolled down the window of the car. He opened the passenger door and smiled at her. He looked foreign, like a portly version of Valentino. “Hello, little girl,” he said.
“Hello,” Kitty replied politely.
“Hop in and I’ll give you a lift. I can take you for a spin, if you like. What do you say?”
* * *
—
Shirley and Betty were in the habit of travelling to the Foxhole and the Pixie together. They did most things together—they were “Irish twins,” born in the same year, and although very different were also very alike, both possessing a preference for style over substance. (“Substance,” Shirley said, “led to the battlefield, style rarely so.” “Perhaps a killing look,” Betty said, pleased with herself. They considered themselves to be wits.)
Nellie had insisted on educating them to within an inch of their lives. After their expensive private school they had gone up to Cambridge together, cutting a powerful swathe through Girton College. They had both been icons—for their sporty little cars, their couture clothing, their coiffed hair. Shirley single-handedly pioneered the raven-wing shingle that every girl in her year then copied, with varying degrees of failure. Their fellow students begged to do them favours, run errands, sit at their feet in front of their coal fire, toasting crumpets on a brass fork for them. And that was just the girls. Young men from the male colleges threatened suicide, offered Herculean labours, wrote poetry. (“Ghastly stuff,” Betty said.)
Although they had been fond of Girton, they had left their alma mater without a backward glance. Orpheus could have sent them in to rescue Eurydice from Hades.
Edith was too useful to Nellie for marriage and Kitty had already been abandoned to chance, so buccaneering Nellie’s ambitions for an entrée into the upper echelons of English society rested on Betty and Shirley. She would not be satisfied until they married someone who had climbed to the highest rung on Debrett’s ladder. Not her sons, she would just be relieved if they married at all. Particularly Ramsay.