by P. N. Elrod
I should have gone to a hotel.
Alex was prepared, inspired by Lennon’s opinion of German Christmas customs. “There was a fire in the building next to my house. It was too smoky to stay.”
“There are hotels,” she pointed out.
If not for her “gift,” and the intervention of a loving father, Alex might have turned out just like Andrina. Or not. There was no denying they often thought along similar lines. She smiled. “And miss Christmas dinner with my family? Aunt Honoria has ever welcomed me to the table.”
“Yes, she has a wonderful goodness of heart for poor relations.”
“Is that the best you can do?”
“Have I misapprehended something? You work, therefore you must not have an income.”
“It’s a match to yours, Andrina, and you know it. I work because I like to do so.”
“How could you possibly like mucking about with dead people?”
“They’re better company than some I can name. Now before we draw blood I suggest you hear me out. It will be to your advantage.”
Andrina sniffed, but chose to listen.
“I’ll be pleased to not disrupt Aunt Honoria’s seating arrangements at table today. If someone brings a tray to Uncle’s study you won’t even know I’m here.”
Honoria, splendid in an obviously new morning dress, came in. “Why, Alex, what are you doing here? And at such an hour?”
“Her house burned down, Mother.”
Lady Pendlebury gasped in horror.
“It did not!”
“That’s what you said.”
And just like that, they were back to being snarling schoolgirls again, engaged in yet another round of explosive tit for tat. Alex raised her hands and voice. “Enough!”
Andrina, standing behind her mother, beamed with delight. In the past, whoever shouted first lost the battle, collecting a reprimand from Honoria for not behaving as a lady should.
What a fool, Alex thought, deciding the judgment applied equally to Andrina for setting the trap and to herself for walking into it. “Aunt Honoria, my cousin’s grasp of the facts is imperfect. The house next to mine had a fire. There’s smoke all through my home, so while it airs I’d hoped to find a safe harbor here.”
“Not burned down? You’re sure? Well, of course you may stay as long as you like, child. It’s been ages. We must catch up, but this is such a busy day. Have Mabrey sort things for you. You’re a bit early for breakfast, but we’ll sit down together and have a nice chat. Church is at nine sharp; we’ll expect you to come with the family.”
Mentioning her meeting with Fingate at the same hour would not be the done thing. Alex would come up with some excuse. “Thank you so much. I’m sorry to intrude like this.” Very sorry.
“Nonsense, what are families for if not to give refuge when one is in need? Mabrey, excellent timing. Lady Alex requires a room for a few days. Have someone prepare her old one, please, and add another place for breakfast.”
Mabrey, the butler, hadn’t changed much, possibly because Aunt Honoria had ordered it. He nodded a silent greeting at Alex. She smiled and returned the courtesy. Her old room? While not the comforting refuge of Uncle’s study, at least she’d not have to share with her cousin.
When she’d first arrived they’d put the girls together, thinking they’d become friends. The instant they were alone for the first time, Andrina made it clear she was in charge and Alex was always to be subordinate. In two trips around the globe, Alex had never encountered such bald-faced discourtesy before and laughed, thinking it was some sort of poor joke.
Andrina responded with name-calling and throwing a shoe to assert her authority. It hit Alex lightly in the chest. She stared, realizing that this was a variant of the sort of challenge that duelists engaged in; Alex was pleased to provide satisfaction.
The next few moments were a bit of a blur, but she emerged the unquestioned victor of the skirmish.
Master Shan’s instruction included physical as well as mental training. Andrina had expected girlish tears, slaps, and hair pulling, not being flipped head over heels, slammed flat to the floor, her limbs temporarily paralyzed by knuckle strikes to key nerve points. Her bloodcurdling screams brought most of the household into the room. Once order was restored, it was Mabrey who quietly suggested to her ladyship that a separation of the combatants might be the best for all.
After that humiliation, Andrina confined herself to subtle verbal blows when her mother was out of earshot, as well as keeping her distance: even now she withdrew as Alex followed Mabrey from the parlor. He dispatched a footman to bring the bag and a tweeny to lay a fire.
No impression of Alex’s tenure remained, but upon moving out she’d taken everything that was hers. It was a stranger’s room now, and she was comfortable with that. Certainly she was a stranger to her hosts. They didn’t know her, couldn’t possibly understand her. She was comfortable with that, as well. The more they knew, the more it could be turned into a weapon. Lennon’s instincts were right, even if he was not conversant with how things worked under this lofty house’s roof; keeping one’s pie hole shut was ever a wise idea.
The tweeny scuttled out and Honoria’s personal maid, who looked to be a sensible sort, unpacked the bag. Alex explained that she was too exhausted to take breakfast with the family, but absolutely had to be wakened at quarter past eight to go to church with them. The woman nodded. Would some tea be required then?
Alex had to admit that she missed having an army of servants to see to mundane needs. Her own household was small because she couldn’t abide the conflicting emotions generated by a large staff.
The woman left, and Alex applied a buttonhook toward undoing her cycling boots. She’d been tempted to have the maid do it, but that meant physical contact and she was tired of keeping her barriers up.
Boots off, thank God. Her liberated feet seemed to breathe and expand. Next, her outer clothes, skirt, jacket, and blouse on a chair, then the corset cover, then the corset, which was painfully constricting by now. She’d experimented with several styles, needing something she could easily don without help. Her corset maker introduced her to a design that laced in the front, yet presented a smooth silhouette by means of a clever facing. Alex loosened it and climbed into the bed. The sheets were cold, but she hardly noticed through her flannel chemise.
She expected, considering the terror and strain of the last few hours, to be wakeful. Sleep rarely came easily. She often coaxed it with warm milk and dull books, and when those failed, put herself into a meditative trance in the hope of dropping off.
So it proved again. However tired she was, her mind refused to blow out the candle. Questions for Fingate, speculations about the morrow, mental images of her poor father’s dangling feet, the death room, Lord Richard’s blood on everyone, masked killers and their near-silent guns, her own home invaded—and mingled throughout were the emotions, hers and those imposed on her. Even a person without her Reading talent would be overwhelmed.
Shan tried to persuade her to adapt the traditional cross-legged sitting posture for meditation, but she got better results lying flat. Alex pulled the covers to her chin and went through the steps she’d used for years to still her racing mind. While bred and born to the idea that nothing could replace a good night’s rest, when that eluded her, then a few hours of meditation would suffice.
She had no sense of time passing; it seemed but an instant later that Honoria’s maid was shaking her awake.
Definitely a quarter past eight, the nearby church bell—she’d not missed its loud proximity—tolled.
Alex’s head was clear. Her body was stiff and ached from not enough physical rest, but stretching helped.
A tray with tea, toast, jam, and a boiled egg was on a table by the window. She gulped a cup of the blessed brew between bites while washing up and getting her clothing sorted.
Her abused feet wouldn’t go back into the boots again, but she’d wisely packed some plimsoles. Though wrong for c
hurch, a long black skirt would hide them. It was not precisely right for church, but more acceptable than the walking skirt. In the more informal congregations women could be found wearing female trousers, but not in the Anglican fastness of St. Paul’s Knightsbridge and never on Christmas.
At twenty-five of the clock she was presentable and hurried downstairs.
The Pendleburys were gathered in the drawing room and upon seeing them in their unrestrained finery, Alex faltered, for the first time feeling like a poor relation. Damn Andrina, anyway, for putting forth the idea. Alex had a generous income, but was in the habit of dressing like any young working woman of the middle classes.
“Really, Alex, you look like a parlor maid,” said Andrina, who resembled one of the princesses she waited on: watered silk, buttons, ruffles, and other embellishments in a shade of pale rose that suited her complexion, a matching hat, shoulders swathed in fur. She was a vision.
Honoria was just as well turned out, as was Uncle Leo, who stood by the door in an astrakhan coat. He’d have a new suit under it. His wife would have insisted.
“At least put on a decent hat,” Andrina continued. “Mother, have you something she could borrow?”
“Please, girls, no rows today,” Honoria said, reaching for the bell pull. “I’ll have Clara bring down that one I wore to the—”
“Aunt Honoria, I have a hat; please don’t trouble yourself. It’s not important.”
“It is, my dear. You’re a Pendlebury. One must keep up appearances.”
“We’ll be late,” said Leo. “Hello, Alex. Remember me?”
His voice was so much like her father’s she got a knot in her throat. Dear God, dear God, she would have to tell him about Gerard.
It can’t be now.
“Yes, Uncle. It’s so good to see you.” For him, she was able to go over and kiss his cheek in greeting. He grunted and told her she looked fine, ending further discussion about her appearance. “Where’s Teddy? We must leave now.”
“Outside waiting for us,” said his wife. “I wish you would tell him to stop smoking in the street. He’ll be mistaken for a common loafer.”
“I doubt that. Come along, no more time, come along.” A footman held the door and the family filed out into a freezing gray, overcast day. Alex was last, not wanting Andrina behind her making faces.
Cousin Teddy, also in astrakhan, shoes polished, top hat at a jaunty angle, finished his cigarette and flung it away, drawing matriarchal criticism.
He shot a grin at Honoria. “One of the servants will get it. Cousin Alex! It’s been too long. Finally weary of fortune-telling?” He took her hand and she made herself accept the touch. Her lead armor was firmly in place and having gloves on helped. Two years her junior, he’d been a ruthless snot of a boy when she’d arrived. Though more friendly than Andrina, he was also more open to doing mischief if he knew he could get away with it. He was clever enough to not take sides between Andrina and Alex, keeping his own pranks clear of the house.
Teddy had grown into a handsome man, though this morning his eyes were as bloodshot as Alex’s. He’d been out on his usual Christmas Eve carouse, and probably had not slept. She smelled spirits on his cigarette-tainted breath. He’d have made a fine crony for her Fonteyn cousins. Teddy contrived to take Alex’s arm as they strolled to church. She was unused to lengthy contact and on guard for a reprise of some childhood trick, but a small trickle of Teddy’s cheerful mood filtered through. She would not allow more, else lose her focus for the problem at hand: how to get away to meet Fingate.
“I heard you were burned out of house and home; bad luck, that,” said Teddy. “Oh, don’t fuss, I know dear sister overdramatized things. Mother set me straight. Bad luck for your neighbors, what? Are they Germans?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised. I was out with Etchells Braddock and his crowd last night; must have seen the fire brigades a dozen times if we saw them once. You’d think Germans would be more careful with candles and trees, considering they have the ancestral practice of putting them together. Oh, I must sound a right nob, you do know what I’m talking about?”
“Yes.” There was no danger that Teddy would ever overestimate her intelligence.
“Well, I hope you’ll stop a few days with us. What have you been doing with yourself?”
“Teaching.”
“What, in a little schoolroom with girls, ribbons in the hair and giggling?”
“Young men and women, mostly. The Service has coeducational arrangements for some courses.”
“There’s luck for the lads, getting a chance to show off.”
She fought the urge to disabuse him of whatever nonsense he’d imagined. Alex taught a number of subjects not found in public school. Few could pass the rigorous qualifications the Service demanded—you had psychical talent or you did not—putting females and males together was a necessity. Sometimes there were no more than four to a class. She was to be teaching tomorrow, helping a new crop hone their ability to discern truth from fact (the two often differed), but that might be changed in the light of Lord Richard’s murder. By then the queen would have been informed and then the rest of the Service. How that would influence the daily run of things, she could not guess.
And Father’s death. What about it?
Alex resolved, after her interview with Fingate, to not wait to be sent for and go straight over. She’d persuade him to come, too, or demand a damned good reason why not.
“Still at the Home Office with Uncle?” she asked Teddy, shifting the subject.
“Following in his footsteps, as expected. I can’t talk about much of it, one half is too secret, the other half too dull.” Teddy smiled at her.
She attempted to mirror him, but his statement had the quality of being a frequently repeated witticism, and she didn’t find it witty.
“Just teaching at the Psychic Service?” he asked. “I thought you did more than that, laying murderers by the heels and such.”
“We help Scotland Yard with inquiries.”
“Call yourselves Readers or some such? How does that work?”
“It’s not something easily explained. I’m awfully tired, Teddy. Was up half the night because of the fire business.”
“And yet you’re coming to church with us? You should have slept in.”
“It’s easier to agree with Aunt Honoria than disagree.”
“Isn’t that a great truth of the world? I tell Father we’ve the wrong people at the Home Office. If he wants to get anything done, send his men home and let their wives take over.”
“Women work there now.”
“A few. There’s plenty of the old club men who worry that their lady comrades can’t keep a secret, so you won’t find a lady running anything that matters. The bearded dodgers don’t want to chat politics with females, would rather kiss ’em, y’see.”
“How shortsighted of them.”
“The way the world works, my girl.”
“Then change and improve it.”
“Oh, things are fine as they are. You’ll see that, in time.”
Alex reflected that Teddy had grown from ruthless snot to predictable prig. Measured against her cousin James, the latter was preferable company. He was annoying, but never patronized her.
“You’d do well in the Foreign Office, y’know,” he observed. “They could give you plenty of work translating documents. Father might know a few chappies who could offer you a place. It would be a jolly sight better than chasing fortune-tellers.”
She’d rather do that than be buried alive in a damp basement slogging through tedious papers.
They reached the arched gate to the church. The street was crammed with carriages and there was a great crowd on the sidewalk.
“I see a friend I need to have a word with,” she said, detaching from Teddy’s grasp. “She may invite me to sit with her for the service, so please apologize to Aunt Honoria for me, I really must have a word.”
Alex d
id not wait for a reply, but slipped off, went around two carriages, and dove into the many churchgoers, threading against their flow along Wilton Place. Her short stature was in her favor amid the stately march of the beautifully garbed pious. Top hats on the men and elaborate chapeaus on the ladies helped; she passed virtually unnoticed beneath their cover.
The crowd thinned; she was on Knightsbridge Street with the Arthur Gate ahead and no other Pendleburys in sight.
The gate was open and less spiritually minded sporting types passed through it, across Rotten Row and into the park. She blended better with this crowd, but they were raucous, having started their Yuletide celebrations early or continuing what they’d begun the night before.
When no less than three men in as many minutes grinned and approached her with a greeting of ’Ello, girly, you be wantin’ some candy? she realized she should have borrowed Aunt Honoria’s hat after all. There were women in the park, but some of the solitary ones in plain clothing were apparently tarts.
Alex pulled the veil of her hat down, lifted her chin high, and fell in close behind a group of ladies taking the air, in quest of safety in numbers.
There was a risk that Fingate wouldn’t see her, but the man was observant and smart. He’d be looking at every short woman in the park.
She cast about, checking anyone with the least similarity to his form and height. She couldn’t count on spotting the port wine birthmark on his ear—he’d have something covering it—so she looked at men wearing mufflers, low hats, and even uncommonly long hair, on the chance he’d wear a wig as a disguise.
At least fifty men within view were similarly attired.
Cold duck, his note said, but is this what it meant? She worried that she might have gotten the clue wrong.
Chill drizzle clung heavily to the net of her veil. A light wind pressed the damp folds of silk against her face. She followed the women down to the bank of the Serpentine. At this point the lake was as wide across as the Chelsea Reach of the Thames. The water was a vile gray, its surface seeming to shiver in the wind. Ducks were about, along with a number of the park’s mute swans, most ashore on the opposite bank, looking droopy and miserable.
