Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy

CHAPTER 44

That evening, Eliza rose from a fitful nap and looked around the room, her eyes straining as the spare sliver of moon replaced the sun. She needed a weapon—something that would give her better odds than a bowl of hot soup. Malcolm wouldn’t be letting his guard down around her anymore. Her mind raced. What sort of weapon would a woman have in her bedchambers? What unconventional method of defense could she concoct in a room full of half-used toiletries and moldering lace petticoats?

As if her baby sensed her unease, it turned and kicked within Eliza’s womb, sending flutters through her abdomen. She rubbed her belly through her dingy trousers. “There, little one. All is well.”

It was so dark. She needed light to find something to defend herself. Eliza rushed to Ada’s dressing table and rustled around inside the drawers. There was nothing within but a few handkerchiefs and underthings. She felt around the edges of the drawers to see if any of them might have a false bottom. No such luck. Finally, tucked beneath a stack of folded stockings in the last drawer, a familiar shape met her touch. It was a tin of matches and a few stale, hand-rolled cigarettes. Ada had been a closet smoker, too. This made Eliza smile. At the very least, she’d get to have a cigarette, even though finding a candle to see by would have been better.

She lit one of the rustic fags. The ember glowed dully in the mirror as she took a tug of smoke into her lungs. The tobacco was bitter with age, but it served to calm her trembling hands and made the cold funneling through the window seem less keen. She sat on the foot of the bed to order her thoughts, her shoulders slumping. She couldn’t let despair overtake her. She had to find a way out of here. Tonight.

After a few more rallying puffs, Eliza stubbed out the meager butt against the footboard and went to the wardrobe snugged against the corner of the room. She opened the mirrored doors and searched its compartments, running her hands over the surface of the shelves and along the top. Nothing but dust. She could break one of the mirrored panels, but she’d be just as likely to injure herself in the process. And Malcolm would see the broken mirror upon his next visit and know immediately what she intended. There wasn’t a thing in the entire room that she could remotely fashion into a hidden weapon meant to kill or wound.

Or was there?

Eliza’s heartbeat picked up its cadence. She remembered Lydia’s prescient worry on the night she and Malcolm had gone on their first ride, and the two pins she’d used to fasten her hat to her hair—something all women had at the ready to fend off street harassers and beaus who attempted to take liberties. Hatpins. Surely Ada had them, too! With renewed determination, she searched beneath the mattress and behind the headboard, then pawed through the drawers of the vanity once more, but it was futile. There wasn’t so much as a brooch remaining in Ada’s jewelry cases. “Dammit!”

And then, just as she was about to lose hope, the silk dressing screen came to mind. Eliza crossed the room and pushed the pleated panels of the screen closed. A pile of carelessly discarded clothing lay on the floor. Eliza knelt and sorted through it, sending dust flying into the air. When she found a wide-brimmed hat at the bottom of the pile, she couldn’t contain the shriek of joy that burst through her lips. Sticking out of its crown was a single pearl-tipped hatpin.

Eliza pulled the pin free and clutched it in triumph. She brandished it like a tiny sword, stabbing the air. This, this was a way to improve her odds ever so slightly. She could go for his neck. Or his eyes. Even if she couldn’t land a mortal wound, she could at least blind him or cause him enough pain to give herself a fighting chance at escape. She practiced her routine a few more times, then threaded the pin into the leg of her filthy dungarees, hidden from sight, its pearled head against her fingertips.

Tomorrow morning, when he brought her breakfast, she’d be ready.

As midnight chimed in the main part of the house, the tolling of the clock as empty as a death knell, Eliza nestled under the covers, shivering as she fought for rest and warmth. Just as she was drifting off, a thread of sound filtered through the room.

Eliza sat up.

Someone had just said her name. She was sure of it.

“Eliza . . .” It came again. The voice was wan and distant, as if her name were borne on a tail of wind. It seemed to be coming from below—perhaps from the same room where she’d heard the mysterious gramophone? Eliza rose and put her ear to the floor grate nearest the bed. The sound of labored breathing came through, followed by a low groan.

“Hello?” she said, her voice quaking.

“Look . . . ,” the voice said, followed by a raling cough. Distinctly male. “Behind the wardrobe . . . way out.”

She sat up, her forehead wrinkling in confusion.

It suddenly came to her. Ada’s diary entry. The dumbwaiter Beatrice had hidden in had to be in this room. Might it still be there, perhaps behind the armoire? If Ada had used it to escape, so could she. Excitement rallied her strength. She scrambled to her feet and rushed to the hulking piece of furniture, using her hips as leverage to push it inch by inch across the wooden floor. She could have cheered at the sight of the rectangular dumbwaiter door, mounted flush with the wall, its keyhole surrounded by a heart-shaped hasp. She fumbled to open it, but it was locked.

Eliza gave a growl of frustration. To have the possibility of freedom offered and then cruelly taken away was too much. Bitter tears welled in her eyes. She was going to have to fight her way out after all. A fight she would most likely lose.

She was reaching for the tin of matches in her pocket to light another of Ada’s cigarettes when her fingertips brushed against the luckenbooth Malcolm had given her.

The luckenbooth whose elongated arrow looked suspiciously like a key. Was it a key?

If she was wrong, what more did she have to lose? May as well chase one final folly. Eliza withdrew the brooch and carefully inserted the tip of the MacCulloch arrow into the keyhole and turned. After a few seconds of fumbling, the lock gave a satisfying click and the latch sprung free. Eliza could hardly believe her eyes.

She slid the door up with shaking hands. There was just enough room for a person to fold their legs into a crouch and fit inside.

Eliza took a deep, wavering breath and folded herself into the cubby, her burgeoning belly poking between her knees. She had no idea what she was going into, or who might be at the bottom of that shaft. Malcolm could be setting a trap for her. But if he was, she would be ready.

Her heart pounded like the surf as she threaded the pulley rope between her hands and pulled. The dumbwaiter jumped. She said a silent prayer and tugged on the rope again. The pulleys creaked and groaned, but she began moving slowly downward, the floor of Ada’s room closing like a camera shutter as she plunged into darkness. She kept going, feeding the rope through the squeaking pulley.

As she descended, the air around her grew colder. Finally, a sliver of yellow light showed at the bottom of the dumbwaiter. She pulled one last time and the rope went lax in her hands. She crashed to the bottom of the shaft. What she saw next took her breath away.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up.”