Portrait of a Scotsman by Evie Dunmore

Chapter 4

Ruskin was right: Persephone looked lovely.

The realization struck Hattie not two minutes into her class, and she backed away, her gaze flitting erratically across the painting. The soft scratch of chalk and brushes on canvas and Ruskin’s footsteps among the easels faded into a white roar. How had she not seen it before? Here was Persephone, in the process of being dragged from her flower field into the underworld by a muscular arm around her waist, and while her expression was horrified, it was … politely horrified. The dynamic of her body as she twisted away from Hades, god of the underworld, was, at second glance, restrained. This was probably not how one would resist an abduction.

She wiped her damp palms on her apron. Disaster. Without intending to do so, she must have focused on preserving Persephone’s poise throughout her ordeal; now her heroine looked as though she was conscious of her coiffure while fighting her attacker. Where was the passion, the fury, the truth? An Artemisia Gentileschi she was not. In fact, this had to be the most tepid interpretation of the abduction since Walter Crane …. At her plaintive whimper, the collective attention of the all male students in the University Galleries shifted onto her with an audible whoosh, and she quickly shrank back behind her canvas. To her right, Lord Skeffington had ceased sketching and was watching her curiously. “Is anything the matter, Miss Greenfield?” he murmured.

Where to begin? The warmth in her cheeks said her face was red as a beetroot. She pasted on a smile. “No. Not at all.”

She dabbed her dry paintbrush aimlessly at a bit of sky, pretending to be immersed. Soon, the attention was drifting away from her. Her distress lingered. Her work, five weeks in the making, was soulless, dead.

It was the kiss’s fault. The kiss.

Three days after the fact, the memory of Mr. Blackstone’s mouth on hers had not faded. On the contrary: during her daydreams and when in bed, she had shamelessly revisited the fleeting contact over and over, and by now it was so thoroughly embellished, it had become a vivid, drawn-out, and voluptuous—rather than shocking—affair. She didn’t really wish to forget it. Several white spots on the topography of her daily life had now been colored in: she could insert the warm pressure of Blackstone’s mouth into all the countless romantic novels she devoured, when before, her understanding of what kissing felt like had been limited to feeling her own lips on the back of her hand. She finally understood what her friends Annabelle and Lucie enjoyed behind closed doors ever since they had paired off with their betrotheds. But she also knew now that being grabbed by an underworld lord elicited shock, disbelief, heat, confusion. She had slapped Blackstone before she could think. None of these base emotions were present in her Persephone. Her painting was ignorant. Now she knew. Blackstone’s kiss had made her see.

She turned to Lord Skeffington. “My lord,” she croaked.

“Miss Greenfield.” He lowered his brush, his expression inquisitive.

“Do you think it is possible to make good art without experience?”

His high brow furrowed with surprise. “Hmm. Are you having trouble with your painting?”

“No, no, it is a general question I ponder.”

“Ah. A matter of philosophy.”

“Of sorts. I wonder: must an artist have personal knowledge about the subject of her art for it to be … art?”

Lord Skeffington chuckled. “Thinking grand thoughts before lunch—oh dear.”

His smile briefly edged out her troubles. He was so charming. In the brightly lit room, his fluffy golden hair glowed like a halo around his face. His lips were rosy and delicately drawn—if he were a girl, such a mouth would be described as a rosebud. He was very much how she imagined her favorite Austen character, Mr. Bingley, and it wasn’t a coincidence that she had chosen to work next to him during class.

“Let’s see.” He was tapping his index finger against his chin as he feigned contemplation. “Well, I know that not one painter of classical paintings has ever seen a Greek god in the flesh. Hence, I declare that no, no personal experience is required to create something delightful.”

She hesitated. Did he truly believe the purpose of art was to be delightful? But he looked so pleased with his answer … and she could feel the attention of the other students shifting their way again, like ants scurrying toward a fresh carcass. Today, it irritated her. It had taken the young men months to not murmur and stare when she showed up during the lectures. Ruskin’s general drawing class was open to the public and welcomed both men and women without further ado, but a woman properly enrolled in his actual art history lectures? Scandalous. Next she’d want the vote. She did, actually. And a woman with permission to attend the academic drawing courses in the galleries? Shocking, even with her chaperoning aunt stitched to her side. Aunty was presently taking a nap in a specially provided wicker chair, cozy in a shaft of sunlight by the nearest window, and in no position to dole out withering glances.

Hattie caught a glimpse of her Persephone, looking so boring and bored, and her stomach squirmed.

“You see,” she whispered to Lord Skeffington, ignoring the ears straining toward them, “I read an essay by John Dewey a little while ago. He argues that art is art only when it succeeds at creating a shared human experience—a communication, if you will—between the work and the audience. If it doesn’t, it’s just an object.”

His lordship was blinking rapidly; she must have spoken too fast.

“There is a sense of recognition,” she tried again, “between the artist, whose art embodies a universal experience, and the personal experiences of the observer. A moment of strangers’ minds meeting?”

“Dewey, Dewey,” Lord Skeffington said, his expression polite. “The name is familiar—isn’t he American?”

“He is.”

“Ah.” The corners of his mouth turned up. “They usually have funny ideas.”

Funny? To her ears, it had rung true. And with her limited experiences, she might well create something delightful, but how could she create something that was also moving and true? If one’s spirit happened to be born into a female body in the upper classes, the leash was short. The nosy men in this room could draw directly from the rawness of the world if they wished, from ill-reputed or far-flung places she could never go. Acclaimed contemporary female painters existed—Evelyn De Morgan and Marie Stillman came to mind—but they hailed from artistic families or had been allowed to study in Paris. Besides, there was an expectation that women depicted quaint motifs. And while she liked her dresses frilly and her novels swoony, Hattie wanted something different for her art …. She wanted …. She supposed she foremost wanted.

Lord Skeffington stepped in front of her painting. “Why, it’s fine work. Nice bit of scumbling technique here. Weren’t you planning to exhibit it at a family function?”

She groaned inwardly. “Yes. Next week. At a matinée.”

A dozen men of influence and their wives would attend the event in her parents’ St. James’s residence and stay for luncheon. She already knew she would rather exhibit nothing than this.

“It shall do nicely for a matinée,” said Lord Skeffington. “Though again you chose quite the grim subject matter.”

She smiled cautiously. “Grim?” Again?

“You seem to have a penchant for, how to put it, violent scenarios, Miss Greenfield.”

“I … wouldn’t say that I do.”

“I recall your Apollo hunting an unwilling Callisto.”

“Oh. That.”

“Then at the beginning of last term, there was your ravishment of the Cassandra.”

“Which is one of the most popular depictions in Greek art.”

“I was merely observing a theme,” Lord Skeffington said mildly.

She supposed there was a theme. She had painted Helen of Troy last term, her best work yet, but then again, in her interpretation, Helen had been the only one left standing against the smoking ruins of a ransacked city with both Paris and Menelaus broken at her feet.

“Well,” she said, “is there a subject in the classics that is not at least a little … violent?”

“Dancing nymphs?” Lord Skeffington suggested. “Demeter and her cornucopia, tending to the fields? Penelope weaving cloth? All perfectly wholesome, suitable subject matters.”

Suitable for a female artist were the unspoken words. Her mood turned mulish.

“I believe Hades was desperate when he snatched Persephone,” she said demurely, because she mustn’t repel the embodiment of Mr. Bingley in a fit of temper. “Being surrounded by darkness and death every day gave him the morbs. He needed company, someone who was … alive.”

Lord Skeffington tutted. “Making excuses for the villain, Miss Greenfield? Shocking. Though I suppose the tender female heart cannot help but hope for good in even the lowliest man, and that includes”—he raised his fine hands dramatically—“the king of the dead.” He chuckled again, and so she kept smiling, and her cheeks ached a little from the effort.

Aunty was wide awake and opinionated during the brief walk from the galleries’ side entrance to the Randolph, where they had rented rooms during term time.

“Young Lord Skeffington is rather forward,” she said loudly enough to make Hattie wince. “I saw him distract you from your work with chitchat.”

She slowed their pace by hooking her thin arm through Hattie’s and dizzied her with the heavy scent of her French perfume. Now they made a formidable obstacle for other passersby on the narrow pavement.

“He was just making conversation about the painting, Aunt.”

Aunty cupped her ear with her hand. “Your pardon?”

“He was just making conversation,” Hattie bellowed. Mr. Graves, her spurned protection officer, trailing behind with his bland face and gray coat, was overhearing every word whether he wanted to or not. Aunty’s hearing was mysterious, it seemed to wax and wane depending on whether she actually wanted to hear something, and Hattie had caught her speaking in perfectly hushed tones with her lady friends.

“Ah,” said Aunty, and forced a gentleman who tried to stride past onto the road with a wave of her cane. “They always started with just a conversation, in my day they did. Next, they demand to accompany you for a walk.”

“Mama would be delighted if he started something.”

“What?”

“I said: Mother would be delighted!”

“Ah. Would she now? He’s a bit reedy, isn’t he?”

Reedy? Lord Skeffington had the perfectly pleasant, nonthreatening build of a young gentleman who enjoyed the fine arts. Besides, his looks would hardly matter—ever since Papa had married Flossie to a ham-fisted Dutch textile tycoon, her mother had her eye on someone titled for her remaining daughters. And since Mina was expecting a proposal from a mere knight before the end of the summer, the task of securing a blue-blooded match fell onto Hattie’s shoulders. On a normal day, she absolutely fancied a nobleman for herself. She found Lord Skeffington’s appearance ideal: golden, noble, and only a little older than herself. They would have many years left for him to sit for her paintings as Knight in Shining Armor ….

“Watch out.” Her aunt tugged at her arm with enough strength to stop her in her tracks.

They had reached the crossing to the Randolph, but the next approaching carriage was still a long way away.

“This head of yours,” Aunty muttered. “Always away with the fairies. It will get you into trouble one day.”

Hattie patted the frail hand clutching her arm. “You’re watching me, so I shall be fine.”

“Hmph. Then why have you been limping?”

Because her turned ankle continued to be a painful reminder of her foolish bid for an hour of experiences in London.

“I took the stairs too hastily.” Having to yell the lie made it much worse.

“That should teach you not to hurry,” Aunty said. “I suppose his lordship should be invited to dinner, then. Tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow is terribly short notice, Aunt—and it’s the family dinner.”

“Very well. Then we shall prevail on your mother tomorrow night to extend an invitation to Lord Skeffington for a more formal occasion, and soon.”

Aunty waited until they had crossed the street and entered the cool, resounding lobby of the Randolph to ask, “You do know his Christian name is Clotworthy?”

She had known. Now the hotel staff manning the reception desks, Mr. Graves, and some wide-eyed guests who had been in conversation on the settees near the fireplace knew it, too.

“Yes,” Aunty boomed as she took course toward the lift, “Clotworthy, like his late father—come to think of it, his grandfather was a Clotworthy, too.”

“Right—”

“I thought you should know before we extend an invite. A woman must give it due consideration whether she should like to be eternalized in the annals in a long line of Clotworthy Skeffingtons. They would name your son Clotworthy, too—a mouthful for a small child. I suggest you could call him Clotty.”

Hattie cringed and cast a covert look around. This—this was how rumors began. Such rumors could get a young woman into terrible trouble, and she liked to think that she wasn’t skirting trouble for the sake of it. In fact, after her latest excursion had ended with her mouth glued to that of a scoundrel, she had decided to behave impeccably for the foreseeable future. Mr. Graves would appreciate this, too, she thought as her protection officer brushed past her into the apartment to do his usual round of checking whether any potential kidnappers had stolen inside during their absence. For now, Graves chose to keep his employ with the Greenfields rather than report her absence three days ago, but he would not do so forever.

In the drawing room, she dropped her heavy satchel onto one of the divans surrounding the fireplace and stretched with a sigh. Aunty disappeared to the side chamber, and so she moved to the nearest window for some respite. Her apartment faced busy Magdalen Street, and from the lofty height of the second floor she could indulge in watching snippets of strangers’ lives drift by without being caught staring. Today, her gaze meandered restlessly over the pavement below. She still felt subdued from her Persephone fiasco. Painting was the discipline where she had set her sights on “outstanding” rather than “passable,” a dream born from ambition as much as necessity. Painting required none of the usual skills required for excellence, such as writing or arithmetic. She couldn’t write a line without making spelling mistakes and she couldn’t copy a row of numbers without switching figures around. Today had been a harsh reminder of the fact. It is not the eyes, but one could call it a word blindness of sorts, the last of many doctors had concluded years ago, when she had failed to improve despite rigorous schooling. Her father had been aghast. If it’s not her eyes, is it … her brain? Something wrong with her brain? A stupid Greenfield, hopeless at investments, and from his loins! His disappointment had cut deeper than her tutor’s ruler, which used to crack across her palms over and over, punishing her for writing with her left hand and for writing wrongly with whichever hand. A life of sore fingers and bruised spirits, until she had found her talent in a colorful paint palette. Still, she had heard her father’s words loud and clear in the gallery earlier.

“Harriet,” came her aunt’s voice from the adjacent room. “I’d like to play bridge.”

Bridge. Please, no, not again. “I’ll be a moment, Aunt,” she said without turning.

Across the street, the sun-kissed sandstone wall of Balliol College radiated stoic, golden tranquility. If walls could look wise, the walls of Oxford would win first prize.

She pulled back her shoulders and took a deep breath. She had come so far. Her place at Oxford was the culmination of hard work, and this held special weight for someone who was usually given things before she even knew she needed them. Her paintbrush used to be awkward and slick with her fear in her right hand; she had practiced for a thousand hours with gritted teeth until she had wielded her tools as competently with her right as with her left. She had battled through all of Ruskin’s wordy books, including The Laws of Fésole. Word blind or not, she was currently learning from the best. Fine, Oxford was not Paris, where she, like any artistically inclined, fashionable young woman would have preferred to go—but it was as far as they had let her go, and she would not give it up because of a crisis over a kiss ….

“Harriet!”

A small sigh escaped her. Perhaps it was also time to escape from under her family’s thumb. Inviting a potential husband to dinner was the first step.

The memory of a cool gray gaze brushed her mind then, and a tiny, indeterminable shiver prickled down her spine.

The Friday family dinner in St. James’s quickly verged on riotous. Flossie was visiting from Amsterdam with her baby son because she had fallen out with her husband, and Zachary had returned from Frankfurt. Debates were heated before the main course was served. Flossie sat across from Hattie between Benjamin and Aunty, the color in her round cheeks high with chagrin. “I hadn’t expected such a laissez-faire attitude on the matter of starvation, not from you, Mama,” she said as she stabbed her fork at the steaming mushrooms on her plate.

Their mother’s displeasure washed over the table with the cool force of a wave.

“Quarrelling so severely with one’s husband is excessive and in poor taste.”

Flossie’s red curls bristled. “Not when he is defending grain-price speculation.”

“Your tone has a strangely proselytizing quality to it, which I find tiring.”

“Hardly as tiring as hungry children! Have we learned nothing from the latest Indian famine?”

“Or the Irish one,” Hattie murmured.

“As for that, Lord Lytton hasn’t learned a thing,” Zachary remarked between bites. “I hear he’s still objecting to the Famine Codes for India. Deranged creature.”

Flossie raised her brows at her mother, as if to say, See?

“Famines, dreadful as they are, are a natural occurrence,” Adele said. “As inevitable as snow falling from the skies in winter.”

“However, financing the British infantry in Afghanistan with famine relief money is not a natural occurrence,” Flossie said, “which is what Lytton did last year. This famine was greatly exacerbated if not caused by the British government by transporting all the wheat of Bengal straight to London, and then certain men compounded the issue by deliberately withholding the distribution and speculating on grain prices.”

“According to whom?” Adele demanded.

“According to Florence Nightingale,” Mina said calmly. “I read her reports.”

“I say.”

“She concludes that the famines are a result of gross failures on the part of the British government,” Mina added. “This includes the diversion of famine relief funds to finance the infantry in Afghanistan.”

Adele’s lips flattened. They all knew she admired Florence Nightingale’s contribution to the nursing profession and occasionally turned to her for advice on her own charitable efforts. From politics, she respectably stayed away.

“My dear, these mushrooms are excellent,” said Julien Greenfield. “A new recipe?”

Hattie eyed him with suspicion. Her father rarely intervened in dinner quarrels, but he had been radiating quiet satisfaction all evening, and with the white beard framing his mouth down to his chin, it gave him the look of a contented walrus. Probably because Flossie was home. Flossie was a credit to him. She knew about shorting stock, how to hedge a long position, and which industry would boom next. She and Zachary would be debating the best strategy for this or that in Uncle Jakob’s German portfolio by the time the main course arrived. Mina would join them—she was already following every word, occasionally making a blind pick at the food on her plate. Benjamin, at fourteen years of age, in the awkward place between boy and man, would just fervently support anything Zach had to say. Mina would ridicule him for it. She had already poked fun at him for wearing his chestnut hair the same way Zach wore his: short at the sides, wavy on top. Inevitably, when matters became too rowdy, someone, probably Zachary, would turn to Hattie and say, How is your art, Pom Pom? Her art was neutral territory in that it roused no strong emotions in anyone present. It was the palate cleanser in between the meaty courses.

She sipped her wine, overly aware of her position in the dining table hierarchy tonight. She had been relegated to the lovely spot when it had become clear that her brain was odd and that her interest in banking was limited. And whenever she entered her parents’ home in St. James’s, she inevitably left the new woman, the one who had her own studio at Oxford and ran with the suffragists, at the door. A husk of her younger self would be waiting for her in the entrance hall every time, to be slipped on like a badly fitted gown. The feeling of wearing her old skin was particularly strong tonight; she felt itchy. But this was how they all knew her, and they would not see her otherwise.

“… I would go as far as calling speculation of any kind immoral,” Flossie said, “since it caused most of the panics and depression of the past decades—”

Her father put down his wineglass. “Now, Florence, be a dear, take a breath, and stop provoking your mother. Do you think your dowry consisted of charitable donations?”

Flossie sputtered. The signal for Zach to turn to Hattie with a twinkle in his brown eyes. No, she had no desire to be their light interlude tonight. She looked past her brother, at her father. “Papa,” she said. “I have been wondering about some rumors.”

Her father’s bushy brows pulled together. “Rumors? Do I look like an edition of The Tatler to you?”

“The rumors are about Mr. Blackstone.”

It had been inevitable that his name would slip out; it had been teetering on the tip of her tongue all week. A confounded silence promptly filled the dining room, and her heart drummed faster. Her father’s eyes kindled with alertness, and for a terrible second, she worried that he knew.

“Blackstone, you say,” he said. “The man of business?”

She nodded. “They say he ruins peers. I was wondering what exactly he has done.”

“Whatever made you wonder about him?”

What indeed. She should have just quietly finished her roll; now all eyes were on her.

“Well, Julien, you hardly hide your vexation every time the man ignores your lunch invites,” her mother said.

“Which happened all of twice,” her father said mildly.

“You invited him?” Flossie asked. “Was it about Spain?”

He squinted at her. “I don’t recall discussing Spain with you.”

“You sent Zachary to negotiate with Uncle Jakob on the matter,” Flossie said. “Then we have the banking reform, the railroad speculation bubble, the Pereire brothers—”

“Yes, yes, for Spain,” he said, and grabbed his glass again.

“If I may, Father,” said Zach, and he turned to Hattie. “To answer your question: Blackstone has ruined peers by calling in their debts at precisely those times when they lacked the funds to cover them. One can speculate how he knew when exactly to strike. Either way, with nary an exception they had to sell the family silver or an estate to pay up.”

Flossie looked appalled. “What gentleman in his right mind would inflict such horror?”

“Blackstone isn’t a gentleman,” Zachary said dryly.

“Is he a client with us?” Hattie asked.

“Lord, no. I suspect he is with one or two small, private banks like Hoare and Company. And they keep silent because if he were to withdraw his deposits, it would close their entire house.”

“Is he as rich as they say, then?”

“Indecently rich, from what we can see.”

The tension left her shoulders. No one seemed to suspect a thing about her excursion. “Why would he do it?” she murmured. “Humiliate those peers—it’s awfully spiteful of him.”

Flossie made a face. “More interestingly, why would gentlemen in their right mind continue to become indebted to him?”

She thought of Lucie’s fiancé, Lord Ballentine, who had taken money from Blackstone in order to purchase his half of London Print. Admittedly, he was the devious sort.

“Men are a bit silly sometimes,” Mina said. “They enjoy gambling at either the stock market or the roulette table but frequently overestimate both their luck and their prowess.”

“Mina,” said Adele. “You are not to talk like this.”

“Apologies, Mama.”

“Cynicism in a young woman is never endearing. Neither is political fervor.”

“I shan’t say it again, Mama.”

“See that you don’t. Your betrothal is not official yet, and Sir Bradleigh may well still abscond.” While admonishing Mina, she skewered Hattie with one well-aimed glare as Hattie was angling for another bread roll. Twenty-some years after the fact, Adele Greenfield was still put out that she had passed on her red hair to each of her three daughters but not her lithe frame, which she considered most elegant, and she never let any one of them forget it. With a sigh, Hattie put down the tongs for the bread basket.

“Gentlemen rarely have direct dealings with Blackstone,” Zach told Flossie as he took the roll for himself. “He is notoriously private and very mean. I understand he bought some of the ruinous debts from other gentlemen—and at a hefty surcharge.”

Flossie’s eyes rounded. “How calculating—why, it’s as though he had a bone to pick.”

Mina nodded. “He sounds like a cartoon villain—apologies, Mama.”

“One wonders how such an unsavory man was able to forge a fortune from nothing,” Flossie said, reluctantly impressed.

“It started by him trading bills of exchange ten years ago,” Papa said. “And cleverly so.”

“He also appears to have a habit of investing in industries that turn a greater profit as soon as they employ new technologies, into which he also invests,” Zach said. “It seems his only duds are mines. He can’t make much profit off the ones we know he acquired here in Britain.”

Her father split a roasted potato. “He does set his cap for the ailing ones, though there might be method to the madness.”

“I’d wager on it,” Zachary said with grudging respect in his voice. Hattie adored him for it. Zach was a skilled banker at only four-and-twenty, but she loved him most for his fairness.

“Trading requires capital in the first place,” Flossie insisted. “Who gave him the funds?”

Beneath the table, Zach nudged Hattie’s skirt with his foot. A moment later, he placed something onto her lap. She peered down most discreetly. There was the roll Mama had denied her. Oh, she loved him the very most for his protectiveness. She stuffed the roll into her skirt pocket while her mother began enumerating the many misdeeds of Mr. Blackstone, which were chiefly his murky origins and his horrid treatment of a Lord Rutland.

“He has changed tactics, lately,” her father said. “Has sold and forgone a few debts. The chaps at the club are taking note.”

Benjamin inclined his head. “Is that why you invited him?”

“Well spotted.” Her father sounded pleased, as though Benny had said something astute.

“Why is this a reason?” Hattie asked, feeling sullen because she failed to see a connection.

“The reason,” her father said, “is that Blackstone might be no longer content with a position in the shadows. He might feel that he has exhausted its potential—which is the point when men become hungry for more.”

“Father thinks he might consider selling some shares that are of great interest to us,” Zach added. “We are keen to exploit the man’s potential desire for some social elevation.”

“Sometimes, a man’s own lips become a strong snare to him,” Adele remarked.

“We shall find out soon enough,” Papa said, and the purr in his tone raised the hair on Hattie’s nape. “Blackstone has sent word,” he continued. “And I invited him to the matinée next week. He has accepted.”

She gasped. It went unnoticed; everyone was preoccupied with their own surprise.

“Have you now?” came her mother’s cool voice. “For the matinée, you say?”

It is because of me.Ice-cold heat poured over her. Was he coming to tattle on her?

“Yes, the matinée,” her father said. “And I’m expecting each of you to act perfectly natural around him. The fish may be hooked, but has not yet been reeled in.”

Blackstone. Blackstone was to prowl around in the sanctity of their home.

“Mr. Greenfield, this is ridiculous,” said her mother. “Whether he has changed his ways or not, he isn’t Good Society. If he attends the matinée, I shall have to introduce him to respectable people, and how can I possibly do so when we know nothing about him?”

“My dear, where is your charity?”

“Well, it certainly ends where our reputation begins!”

“The matinée!” Across the table, Aunty’s head had jerked up as though she had napped with her eyes wide open until now. She picked up her ear trumpet, a bejeweled accessory, which she kept on her lap, raised it to her right ear, and turned to the foot of the table. “Adele, we must extend an invite for another guest: the young viscount Lord Skeffington.”

“No.” The word was out of Hattie’s mouth before she could stop it.

“No?” Aunty’s wizened face was bewildered. “Why, you were adamant that he join us.”

Mina, Benny, and Flossie were smirking, intrigued.

“Adamant, was she?” her father said. “Do we know the young man? Skeffington—Lord Clotworthy Skeffington?”

The walls of the dining room were not quite steady. “We must invite Lord Skeffington some other time, Mama,” she said, her voice tinny like cheap brass. “I shan’t be in attendance during the matinée.”

Her mother’s expression was at once alarmed. “Whyever not?”

“I … shall be indisposed.”

“How do you know? Are you not well?”

She wasn’t. And it would likely get worse.