The Heiresses (8 page)

Clio got up now and crossed the room, drawing back the curtains when she reached the window with its twelve rectangular panes. It was earlier than she had first thought, she realized, as she looked down onto the empty street below. She felt the unfamiliar nightgown on her skin and ran her hands up and down her arms, remembering the events of the previous day.

When Hestia had told them afternoon tea was over (and they had needed to be told, for no one had truly eaten very much), she had herded the three girls outside and hailed a cab. They had all piled in and returned to the town house in Belgravia. There, she had proceeded to inform them that they would be staying at the town house for the night, before meeting their half brother the following day. When Clio had tried to protest that she needed to return to her mother, Hestia had waved her concerns away. Surely her mother could spare her for one night? Hestia had telephoned Thalia’s family (though Thalia had not seemed to care one bit whether they were informed or not), left a message for Ro’s uncle at his hotel, and sent a telegram to Clio’s mother, as they had no telephone, of course.

After this there was more food in the dining room, which Clio could not eat, as before. She supposed it was dinner, but she found she had lost track of time, and the conversation ricocheting back and forth across the too-wide table made her head spin. Thalia, especially, made her nervous. She was beautiful and confident, for a start—traits that always struck fear into Clio’s heart, because beautiful, confident people never seemed to be at a loss for words, as she often was. Also, people rarely disliked her, yet Thalia had seemed set against her from the moment she had laid eyes on her. She didn’t know how to make it right. As for Ro, while she was lovely and seemed kind, Clio could not help but look from her, sitting on one side of the dining table, to Thalia, sitting on the other. She did this over and over and over again. As if to torture herself. They were a matching pair. And she … well, who knew what she was? Perhaps Hestia sensed her agitation, because they did not spend long in the drawing room after dinner, when Hestia suggested an early night. She could not remember ever having been so relieved to go to bed.

Leaving the window, Clio made her way around the large room, touching this and that—the enormous wooden wardrobe, the long, thin writing table, the dressing table—all the while doubting they had ever been touched by a guest before. She paused beside the dressing table to stare at the neat little sink, tucked in beside it. She had never seen a sink in a bedroom before. Beside the sink, on a small stand, there was a washcloth waiting for her, as well as some tooth powder, a toothbrush, and lavender-scented soap. She made use of all of these things and then located her clothes, which for a moment she feared had been stolen away, but found they had simply been hung in the wardrobe. She supposed this must be what it was like to be wealthy. Imagine having everything done for you at every turn!

After this, Clio tidied the room, located the book she had borrowed from her aunt, sat down gingerly in the armchair that looked as if it had never been sat in before, and read, too scared to exit the room, her stomach flip-flopping with hunger and worry about what the day might bring.

*   *   *

“If you’d like to follow me to the drawing room, I have something to show you,” Hestia told the girls after they had finished their breakfast in the dining room. Thalia glanced at Ro to see if she knew what this was all about and Ro shook her head slightly. Why did everyone believe she knew more of what was going on than they did? Ro noticed that Thalia did not bother asking Clio.

In the drawing room, Hestia motioned for all three of them to sit beside each other on one of the long, low sofas.

“Here we are.” Hestia picked up a thick, dark cardboard box that was lying on a small, square side table. Then she moved a chair, coming to sit close by, and opened the box carefully on her lap.

“Oh, photographs!” Ro leaned forward in her seat.

“There aren’t very many, I’m afraid.” Hestia took the few photographs out of the box. “Things were a little different then. You didn’t simply have your picture taken all the time. Oh…” She paused on seeing one particular photograph. “Now, this is my favorite.” Hestia laughed, passing it to Clio first, who was seated closest to her.

Ro leaned over to see the photograph as well and then smiled when she realized why her aunt favored it. “You’re scowling!”

“Yes, quite the scowl, I’m afraid! I’m scowling because your dear mother had just kicked me in the shin. To be fair, I deserved it. We’d been made to stand around for simply ages and I’d been pinching her and sticking out my tongue at her relentlessly. I got in terrible trouble for scowling in every single photograph.”

The four of them stared at the photograph for a moment or two, taking in the two figures, both dressed in their white, wide-sashed dresses, their long hair pulled back on top with a ribbon—one girl was smiling triumphantly, eyes bright, while one girl was scowling, but both possessed the same fair hair and large, light-colored eyes. “The sashes were blue, to match our eyes,” Hestia said, dreamily, reaching out to touch the photograph once more.

“How old are you here?” Clio looked up from beneath her dark lashes.

“I was seven years old, which meant Demeter would have been eight.” The question seemed to return Hestia to the present and she looked down at her lap once more, selecting another photograph. “Here are some others from around the same time. Oh, and a picture of us as nothing more than babies, really. And another from when we are eleven and twelve.” She passed the photographs to the girls, who studied them dutifully. “And here is your mother on her wedding day.” This photograph Hestia seemed slightly reluctant to pass to them, her eyes resting on the image of her sister for some time.

Ro took this photograph first. It seemed to have been taken as the newly married couple exited the church. The woman (her mother—how odd it felt to think this!) clasped the arm of the man—her father—in an odd sort of halfhearted, dangly way. Neither of them looked particularly happy. While the man gazed directly into the camera, the woman gave only the impression of doing so, her thoughts elsewhere. Her image bore a striking similarity to Thalia, but, oddly, not as much so as in the previous photographs of her as a child, Ro thought. In those photographs, her personality had shone through and was captured by the camera. Here, she seemed rather … subdued. She did, however, look beautiful. Breathtakingly so. Her long dress falling elegantly to the floor, a shimmering, sheer layer skimming over the top of her silk-covered form, her waist cinched to nothing, highlighted by the dress’s large square neckline. A matching veil had been thrown away from her face, held on by a glittering halo of diamonds in a tiara resembling a laurel wreath.

“What a beautiful tiara,” Thalia noted, accepting the photograph from Ro.

“Yes, our father had several of our mother’s jewels altered to create it,” Hestia replied, distracted. Ro glanced at her aunt to see another photograph in her hand. “But
this
photograph … this is the closest you will ever come to seeing what your mother truly looked like. There is everything of her here.” Now that Hestia had said this it was almost as though she could not bear to look at the photograph any longer. She held it out toward all three of the girls, as if begging someone to take it from her, then stared at the girls’ expressions, waiting to hear their thoughts.

Ro took the photograph first and immediately saw what her aunt was talking about. It was of Demeter around the same age as her daughters were now, in a rowboat, obviously on somebody’s estate, as there was no one else around but a few well-dressed watchers-on standing on a small iron bridge. Behind them, the kind of basket and glassware picnic that required servants was laid out. It was an extremely informal photograph for the time and Ro suspected it was meant to be posed, but the situation had gone awry. There were several children in the boat with Demeter, one of whom (a boy of perhaps eight or nine) was standing up when he was surely not supposed to. Demeter’s face was turned to the camera and upon it was a mixture of laughter, exasperation, and love. She seemed a completely different person from the one in the wedding photograph, Ro noted—carefree and happy. But the thing that truly took Ro’s breath away was the similarity to Thalia. It could have been Thalia in that boat, if Ro had not known better. There were undercurrents of her own looks, she could see that—the eyes, the hair, the nose—but the overall effect was Thalia. All Thalia.

“Oh.” At the exclamation, Ro managed to drag her eyes from the photograph to see Clio’s hand fly to her chest and, watching her, she immediately regretted her hasty words yesterday, telling Clio she could not be one of them. Not that it mattered now, because, with not a single word uttered, this was worse—a slap across Clio’s cheek. “Oh,” she repeated. Ro could not blame her. There was nothing of Clio there. Nothing.

“What’s the matter?” Thalia glanced over at Clio.

“What do you
think
?” Ro hissed, sitting in between the pair. Why did Thalia feel the need to taunt Clio at every opportunity?

After a moment or two, Hestia reached out hesitantly to touch Clio’s knee. “I do believe you are the image of your father,” she told her niece, with a decisive nod. Ro frowned slightly on hearing this, but said nothing. As for Clio, she shuffled the photographs in her hand until she reached the one from the wedding once more. She stared at her father intensely, as if looking for even the smallest resemblance. And, because there was none, all the time her eyes kept moving, moving, moving over the photograph. Beside her, Ro watched her expression, wanting to say something (was her aunt insane after all? Clio did not resemble the man pictured in the slightest!), but knowing that there was nothing to be said.

“The image of him? In what way?” Thalia said needlessly, though her words didn’t surprise Ro at all.

Hestia did not grace this comment with a reply. After a few more minutes, she rose with a sigh. “I have a short meeting to attend,” she said, striding over to the other side of the room and gathering a few bits and pieces. “I won’t be long. When I return, it will be time to make our way to our meeting with Charles.”

“But…” Clio glanced at the clock on the wall. The day was already wearing on. If they were to meet this Charles later on, there would be no hope of her returning home today.

“Yes?” Hestia turned her full attention to Clio.

Clio bit her lip and seemingly considered her options for a moment or two. “Nothing. It’s all right,” she finally replied.

“I know you’re anxious to get started on this journey,” Hestia’s gaze rested on all three of the girls in turn. “But we must tread carefully and bide our time.”

Ro watched as Clio turned her gaze to rest on the pattern of the parquetry floor. She guessed that she was willing her tears back and stretched out a sisterly hand to clasp one of Clio’s for a moment. When she pulled back again and scanned the room, her aunt was gone. Only the three girls remained.

After a moment or two of silence, Thalia became animated. Turning, she ran to the window, standing beside the curtains in order to be able to see, but not be seen. When she had spied what she was looking for (Hestia’s retreating presence, Ro guessed), she swiveled once more, looked at both Ro and Clio, and clapped her hands. “And now,” she said, “for some fun!” She ran straight over to the gramophone and began rifling through the gramophone records lying beside it. “Hopefully…,” she said as she kept rifling, “they’re not all political speeches, Gregorian chanting, or similar. Here we are! Perfect!” She lifted one record high into the air and waved it about.

“Thalia! Be careful!” Clio said.

Thalia simply waved a hand at Clio while she busied herself readying the gramophone, finally placing the record carefully onto the player and gently lifting the stylus. “Ready?”

Ro and Clio glanced at one another, both thinking the same thing, which ran along the lines of “probably not.”

There was a crackle and music rang out through the room. Thalia raced once more—this time over to the piano. Sliding sideways onto the bench seat, she flung open the lid with a bang. Not wasting any time, her fingers flew straight to the correct keys and began to play as she sang along in a well-practiced, even voice with the record. “Five foot two, eyes of blue, but oh! what those five foot could do! Has anybody seen my gal?”

Ro couldn’t help herself. She laughed out loud.

“Come on then, next verse!” Thalia called out over the music.

Ro glanced at Clio with a grin, then opened her mouth and joined in. “Turned up nose, turned down hose. Flapper, yes sir, one of those. Has anybody seen my gal?”

Thalia abandoned the piano at this point and made her way back over to the other two girls. “Care to foxtrot?” She held out her hand to Ro. “I’m sure you’re used to leading after all those years of boarding school.”

“Sadly, yes,” Ro called out, taking the lead as Clio watched on.

The pair spun around the room, avoiding sofas and side tables, almost knocking over a lamp at one point, which Clio went and righted, setting it farther from the edge, away from danger. After their second turn, as Ro approached Clio once more, she held out her hand, offering Clio a spin. Clio simply shook her head, wide-eyed.

When the song finally ended and the room was, once more, silent, Thalia dropped into an armchair. “Imagine!” she said, when her breath had returned. “Living like this!” One arm swept across the room. “Being able to come and go as you please, playing gramophone records at three in the morning if you felt like it. Having your own money, answering to no one.”

Ro’s eyebrows raised. “I’m afraid Hestia only answers to no one because her parents both died of the Spanish flu.”

“And she doesn’t seem terribly upset about that, does she?” Thalia said, carelessly.

“Thalia!” Ro interjected.

Thalia simply shrugged. “It’s not like you knew them.”

“Still, they are your grandparents all the same,” Clio chimed in.

“So Hestia claims.” Thalia rose again now and began to circle the room, picking up items as she went in order to inspect them more closely. After she had picked up a small brass clock, brought it to her face, grimaced slightly, then replaced it, she turned to the other two girls. “Though she really is out of her mind. Clio looks nothing like the man in that photograph and we all know it. So, do you believe all of this?” she asked them, looking first at Ro, then at Clio. “Everything Hestia’s told us, I mean?”