The Heiresses (40 page)

Thalia smiled slightly, glad of her reserve. She had done the right thing by holding back. “For once,” she said now, as she turned and ruffled the ears of Haggis McTavish, who was sitting beside her on the front seat, “I may have made the correct choice.” Haggis McTavish, who loved having his ears ruffled, simply moved in closer to push up against her, looking for more. Yes, that was it, before she approached Mrs. Blount, just like Hestia, she would make her own little visit to Charles …

*   *   *

Clio found her situation no better after breakfast. It was all she could do to focus on swallowing her toast, so consumed was she by thoughts of Nicholas’s letter … and Edwin. Edwin had been so helpful, spending an age drawing that portrait of William’s housekeeper. It had been very kind of him. If only she knew what to do. “I was thinking of making my way over to St. Paul’s this morning,” she said as she stood up from the table, hoping neither Hestia nor Ro would want to accompany her. Hestia was already slightly put out Thalia had gone out unaccompanied this morning, and without telling them where she was off to.

“I think that would be all right.” Hestia looked up from her breakfast. “As long as you take a taxi, go straight there, and come straight back.”

“I will,” Clio agreed.

Clio had the taxi driver drop her off at the very end of Fleet Street. She wanted to walk the approach to St. Paul’s—it was perhaps her favorite thing about the cathedral. Her father had shown her this many years ago on one of their very rare trips to the city. As she traveled that same walk now, she felt the strength of his faith beside her. This feeling grew as, the closer her footsteps took her, she watched, and waited. And then, there it was. Turning the slight bend in the road, the cathedral appeared before her, suddenly, majestically: solid and unchangeable, its pillars and rounded dome strong, bearing the weight of so many, uplifting so many for so long. Surely she would find the answer to her problems within its hallowed walls?

With every step closer that she took to the cathedral, Clio felt her whole person become lighter until, finally, she was inside. As she stepped quietly across the smooth black and white floor, the cool calm of the cathedral surrounded her. The sudden peace and quiet, as compared to the hustle and bustle of the London streets outside, saw her eyes well with relief. Finally, here was somewhere she could think. Could breathe. The peace enveloped her like a soft blanket.

Clio slipped into an empty pew, sliding along the polished wood until she was in the center. She immediately closed her eyes and began to pray for the guidance she so needed.

*   *   *

Stepping out of the taxi once more in Belgrave Square, Clio felt amazingly refreshed. She took a moment to reflect on her morning and to enjoy the sunshine that fell on her shoulders. It had taken an hour of quiet contemplation, sitting in the pew at St. Paul’s, before she had felt a true, lasting calmness fall over her body. It was then that she had been able to become more attuned to the confusion inside her and able to think through her problems more clearly. She had come away with a sense of relief—a sense that everything would be all right, if she could simply take one day at a time and trust that what would be, was meant to be. She needed to trust that there was a plan for her and to try to remain calm enough to accept the path that God would lay out for her.

Just as Clio turned, ready to happily make her way back inside the town house, the door was wrenched open and an argument spilled onto the steps outside.

“I’m going and you can’t stop me.” Thalia bounded down the steps. “No, Haggis McTavish, you stay here.” She pointed back inside the front door and a put-out Haggis McTavish immediately slunk back inside.

Edwin followed close behind, while a bored-looking Venetia came as far as the front door, then stopped, watching the scene unfold before her rather dispassionately. Edwin, however, did not pause, even for breath. “I might not be able to stop you, but I can come with you.” He took the steps two at a time.

Thalia raced by Clio, as if oblivious to her presence, her eyes intent on one thing only—her motorcar. Now, she hastened over to it and jumped inside, and it soon chugged to life.

“Clio!” Edwin spotted her at the last moment, but didn’t pause to talk to her. “Just stay there. Wait for me.”

Clio watched, confused, the whirl of the unnecessary commotion pulling her out of the blissful serenity she had felt this morning. As she viewed the motorcar pulling sharply away from the town house, taking any last vestige of peace with it, she sighed. She had her answer. Edwin, it seemed, was incapable of change, as was Thalia.

“Thalia?” Ro joined the group, calling out from behind Venetia, as she pulled her coat on in the doorway.

“She’s gone,” Venetia said with a shrug, as she leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms.

“But where to?” Ro shook her head as Clio ascended the steps to find out more.

“Oh, goodness knows,” Venetia replied. “All she would say was that she had to go somewhere near Covent Garden. And I told her I certainly wasn’t going
there
. How dire! Edwin and I had just arrived, too. A complete waste of a journey.”

Ro’s mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious. After all Thalia has just been through, that’s all you have to say? You couldn’t go with her to find out what was going on? To see if she needed help?”

“Not to that part of town. One must have some limits. Anyway, Edwin has gone with her, hasn’t he?”

Clio remained silent before them both, too furious to speak. She wasn’t sure who she was more cross with—Edwin and Thalia for taking up yet again with their silly games, or Venetia for her inability to truly care about anything, or anyone.

“Well, if Thalia is so terribly busy, I must be off.” Venetia waved a hand, unperturbed by Ro’s lecture. “I’m sure she’ll tell us all about her little trip later on.”

“Oh, I do hope it will be an entertaining enough story for you,” Ro spat as Venetia passed them both by, skipped down the steps, and made her way along the pavement.

When she was out of earshot, Clio spoke up. “Most likely Thalia and Edwin are on one of their idiotic missions once more.” She was not used to speaking such unkind words and they felt all wrong in her mouth after this morning’s visit to the cathedral, but she was tired of Edwin’s and Thalia’s childishness. This was the end for her.

But Ro only frowned. “I don’t think so. The thing is, Thalia was here for only a moment, then gone once more. She seemed awfully … agitated. That’s why I ran for my jacket. I thought I’d go with her—to find out what the problem was.”

Clio felt terrible for her harsh words then. She turned to face Ro properly. “What I said just now—it was wrong of me. It’s just that … well, you know I don’t care for their games. The thing is, I … well … Nicholas proposed to me. In that letter that came the other day…”

It took Ro a moment or two to collect herself before she could reply. “Wait. Nicholas from Kenya? He proposed?”

Silently, Clio nodded.

“And have you responded to him?” Ro finally asked.

“Not yet,” Clio replied. “But I’m beginning to think I might accept his offer. It would be excellent for my mother’s health. And Nicholas did mention that she might move over with us.”

Ro was quiet for a moment or two. “And what of
your
health? Your sanity? Do you think you could—”

Clio cut her sister off, quickly. “He is a good man. I’m beginning to think it’s much wiser to choose with your head, rather than your heart.” Her words were an obvious nod to what Ro had been through herself, with Vincent.

Ro saw this immediately, her face hardening. “Maybe so,” she told Clio. “But I would be careful, Clio, for something that is so seemingly perfect, rarely is.” She turned then and ran back inside the house.

Left alone once more, Clio gave a long sigh before slowly following Ro. She had not meant to upset her. And as for Edwin, despite his asking her, she had made a decision—she would wait for him no longer.

*   *   *

“I simply don’t think it’s wise, Thalia,” Edwin yelled as Thalia took yet another corner way too fast, her driving becoming more and more erratic as the pair sped toward Seven Dials. “You should speak to your aunt about it first.”

“No,” Thalia said firmly, breaking sharply and narrowly missing the taxi directly in front of her. “She wasn’t home and I can’t spend the time locating her. I need to go now, while it’s all still fresh in my mind.”

“At least let me drive.” Edwin tried to persuade her. “You’re obviously upset.”

“I am not upset!” Thalia glanced over at him.

“Thalia, watch where you’re going!”

“All right! All right! As I was saying, I’m not upset. I just need to get to the bottom of this, that’s all.” Thalia’s trip to see Charles had certainly been a fruitful one. He had told her close to nothing, of course, denying all of her suggestions. She had almost been about to leave when it happened. Charles had been standing across the room from her; she had looked at his face and had had an amazing moment of clarity, where she had seen what she had missed before, what had been right in front of her, waiting to be realized. Suddenly, she had seen the truth. She had blurted out her thoughts, which Charles had, again, denied. But his expression had told her all she needed to know. Mrs. Blount, she knew for certain, would tell her the rest.

Concentrating on the happenings of the morning, rather than on the road, Thalia returned to the present—and her driving—with a start, as the motorcar barreled along quickly toward a sharp bend in the road. Shocked back to attention, she turned the wheel too fast and Esmerelda shuddered and lurched beneath her.

“Thalia!” Edwin cried out too late, leaning over and making a grab for the wheel, as they hurtled in an arc toward the opposite side of the road.

The last thing she heard was a sickening crunch.

*   *   *

“Is this for me?” Clio called out from the hall later that afternoon.

“Is what for you?” Ro replied, from where she was curled up in the drawing room, reading some medical textbook or another that made Clio flinch whenever she saw the inside illustrations by accident.

“This note,” Clio said, turning it over in her fingers. It was folded up along with her portrait—the one Edwin had drawn of her that day in the park. She traced one of the pencil strokes that formed her hair with her index finger, feeling, somehow, as if she had lost him forever to that other world of his she would never be able to understand. “The note with my name on it.”

“Oh!” Ro ran out to the hallway now. “Yes, sorry. I forgot all about it. Edwin left it for you.”

Clio glanced at her sister, to see if she had “forgotten” on purpose, after Clio’s words concerning Vincent.

“I’m sorry, Clio,” Ro said, with a shrug. “I really did forget.”

“It’s all right,” Clio replied, with a sigh. She opened up the note and began reading it.

“What is it?” Ro stepped forward on seeing Clio’s expression change as her eyes scanned Edwin’s words.

Clio refolded the note before glancing up, every fiber of her ashamed of her previous thoughts regarding Edwin. “Edwin wasn’t being silly at all in racing off. He was looking after Thalia. He was worried about her.”

Ro frowned. “But where did they go? Thalia was looking for Hestia, but she wasn’t here before. She did seem in an awful rush.”

Clio clutched the note in her hand. “He doesn’t say. But they still haven’t come back. And that was over five hours ago. I hope they’re all right. Thalia didn’t give any clue as to what was going on?”

“No, none.” Ro shook her head. “Though I expect she’ll turn up soon, with or without Edwin. Not to mention Haggis McTavish has been extremely cross that she left him behind.”

In front of Ro, Clio began to feel a distinct sense of uneasiness creep across her body, from her head to her toes. Haggis McTavish, she began to think, was the least of their worries. “The thing is, that’s exactly what you said last time,” she told her. “And look what happened to Thalia then.”

*   *   *

At the dinner table, Hestia, Ro, and Clio barely touched their food. “And you both honestly have no idea what she wanted from me, or where she was going?” Hestia glanced at both of her nieces in turn, asking her question for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Honestly,” Clio answered. “I only arrived home as they ran out and Ro said Thalia was only here for a minute or two. As soon as she found out you weren’t here, she took off again, with Edwin in tow, leaving Haggis McTavish behind. She was quite insistent about that.”

“But what was Edwin doing here?” Hestia turned to Ro.

“He wasn’t here,” Ro told her. “He came in with Thalia. Though I got the impression he had just met her outside, by chance, and that he was really here to see Clio.”

Hestia’s eyebrows shot up with this. “Perhaps he was here to ask for your hand again, Clio?” she said to her niece.

“What?” Ro burst out. “He proposed to you as well? Both Edwin and this Nicholas in Kenya?”

“Who is Nicholas in Kenya?” Hestia interjected, but the doorbell disturbed the three.

“I’ll see who it is,” Clio said as she rose quickly, glad of the interruption. She ran down the hallway and across the marble flooring toward the front of the house and pulled the thick, heavy wooden door open.

A police constable stood on the doorstep. “I’m afraid there’s been a motorcar accident, miss,” he told her, glancing behind her, down the hallway. “Is her Ladyship at home?”

*   *   *

Hestia, Ro, and Clio raced over to the London Hospital in Whitechapel as fast as they could. The police constable had few details to give them. All he knew were the addresses and persons he needed to inform and that both the male and the female involved were alive and not in any immediate danger.

When their taxi dropped them off, they wasted no time with formalities and began asking anybody and everybody for directions. Finally, a nurse who recognized Hestia directed them personally through several of the hospital’s mazelike corridors right to Edwin and Thalia’s bedside. “They should still be in here, your Ladyship,” the nurse told Hestia, who thanked her profusely for her help.