Page 72 of A Study in Scarlet Women
“But it’s as much as I ever hoped to make, after many years of school, training, and experience!”
“Well, we may not bring in five hundred a year, since we may not always have a steady supply of clients. Or we could bring in much more, if we have a few dukes and princes whose secretaries I’ll bill fifty quid a piece,” said Mrs. Watson with great relish. “And don’t you worry that I’ll overcharge them. Not every nobleman is in dire financial straits. The Duke of Westminster has an income of two hundred fifty thousand pounds a year.”
Charlotte couldn’t help laughing. “My dear lady, I feared to impose on your kindness. I see now that I needn’t have worried. You are a shark!”
Mrs. Watson preened a little, evidently pleased by Charlotte’s observation. “A shark with a good nose for money in the water but, let’s say, rather soft teeth.”
“Miss Livia,” said the maid, “there’s a woman to see you. She says her name is Rajkumari Indira.”
Livia looked up from the frame of embroidery on which she hadn’t made any progress in days. “What?”
Occasionally one did see an Indian princess in London, but the Holmeses had few ties with the subcontinent and did not move in the kinds of circles that hobnobbed with foreign dignitaries. Why in the world would one call on her?
In the parlor, a woman draped in scarlet and gold silk stood at the window, her back to the room, her hair covered by a very long shawl that had already wrapped around her person once. At Livia’s entry, she turned around, the shawl drawn across her face, concealing everything except her eyes.
When she saw that Livia had come alone, she dropped her hand from the edge of the shawl. Charlotte!
Charlotte placed a finger over her lips, signaling Livia to be quiet. Livia ran across the room and embraced her sister.
“Oh, Charlotte!” Then she pulled back. “My goodness, you are practically naked!”
The blouse Charlotte wore ended just beneath her breasts. The shawl, drawn diagonally across the body from hip to shoulders and then back around, covered most of the exposed portions of Charlotte’s torso, but from the side one could easily see four inches of skin.
“It’s so nobody looks at my face.” Charlotte laid a hand on Livia’s arm. “Are you all right, Livia?”
“I’m well enough. People don’t actuallybelievethat I did away with Lady Shrewsbury, but it gives them something to speculate about in the meanwhile.”
The situation was a little less promising than that. The discovery of arsenic had tongues wagging that while Mr. Sackville might havebeen murdered, he had to have been done in by someone local, most likely one of his servants—leading to the current consensus that his death had nothing to do with Lady Shrewsbury’s and Lady Amelia’s.
With the suspicion for those latter deaths once again falling squarely on Livia and Sir Henry, respectively—which must be the reason Charlotte had taken the risk to come see her.
“You’ve become too thin,” said Charlotte softly.
“It was always more enjoyable to watch you eat than to eat myself.” Livia took Charlotte’s face in her hands. “At least you haven’t become too thin.”
“Mrs. Watson feeds me ’round the clock and I haven’t turned anything down. But at the rate I’m going, within the week I’ll reach Maximum Tolerable Chins. Then I’ll be obliged to give up this reckless dining.”
Livia chuckled.
Charlotte took Livia’s hands in her own. “If only there had been an inquest, at least in Lady Shrewsbury’s case.”
Livia sighed.
“Don’t worry.” Charlotte came beside Livia and placed an arm around her shoulder. “Inspector Treadles will get to the bottom of this. He is very good at what he does.”
Charlotte didn’t possess the instinct to comfort. Livia well knew this: When they’d been girls, Charlotte remained in her corner of the room and observed as Livia battled with her sometimes overwhelming feelings of inadequacy and insignificance. But over the years her sister had learned that it made Livia feel less alone, less despair stricken, to be gently stroked on the back. Or embraced. Or patted on the arm.
Really, any kind of contact at all.
And the odd thing was, knowing that Charlotte was not naturally inclined to physical closeness made her touches not lesseffective, but more—they were not a reflexive reaction to the distress of another, but a considered one.
Livia leaned on her sister and finally gave voice to the fearful thought that tumbled day and night in the back of her head. “What if Inspector Treadles gets to the bottom of it, only to find out that Mr. Sackville’s butler did it?”
Leaving Livia forevermore known as the woman who probably had something to do with Lady Shrewsbury’s death.
Her entire life she had been frustrated by her invisibility. At home she was the last daughter her parents remembered. In Society the women were prettier, livelier, younger, cleverer, or even more pathetic—she knew of at least one instance in which a widower offered for a plain, penniless spinster who would otherwise have to endure a lifetime under the thumb of a tyrannical brother. Whereas Livia always seemed to carry her own special shield of obscurity everywhere she went, behind which she could stand in the middle of a room and not be noticed.
How she’d yearned to be the center of attention.
