Page 28 of Evil at the Essex House
Sarah Schlomsky drew breath, her chest inflating like a pouter pigeon, and I braced myself. But instead of letting the breath out on invective in my direction, Mrs. Schlomsky merely informed me, in a tight but civil voice, that, “Our daughter is not the independent sort.”
“She came all the way to England by herself,” I pointed out. “Someone wouldn’t do that who wasn’t at least a little bit interested in independence.”
“Florence came to England for her health,” Mrs. Schlomsky said stiffly.
“Her health?” There’s nothing healthy about the British climate. It’s chilly and gray and wet most of the time.
Hiram Schlomsky put a hand on his wife’s arm to stop her from responding. “Didn’t you say you know our daughter, Miss…Sweetling, was it?”
“Darling,” I said, while I thanked my lucky stars that St George hadn’t been around to hear that. He would never let it go.
Hiram nodded. “Miss Darling. Of course.”
“And I do know your daughter. She has lived down the hall from me for as long as I’ve been in the Essex House Mansions. And she’s a friendly sort, so I’ve seen rather a lot of her.”
They exchanged a look. Mrs. Schlomsky murmured something, and her husband shook his head. “You’re sure we’re talking about the same girl?”
Who else would we be talking about? “She’s around my age,” I said. “A little shorter than me, a bit more curvy.”
I have what is generally known as a boyish figure, with not much in the way of hips or a bust. Perfect for the current fashions. Florence, meanwhile, took after her mother; both of them shaped in the traditional mold.
“She has brown bobbed hair and a round face with pink cheeks,” I continued. Mrs. Schlomsky opened her mouth and then closed it again. Perhaps Flossie had acquired the bob since she left America. Nothing unusual about that, either, especially if her mother didn’t approve of short hair. “She has an American accent. And lots of… um…” I flushed, “she has a big, bright smile and very nice teeth.”
They both nodded. “That does sound like our Florence,” Hiram Schlomsky said.
Well, of course it did.
“I don’t know where she might be,” I added. “We don’t spend much time together outside of the Essex House. But I’m sure she’ll be home safe and sound by this evening. She does keep a busy schedule. She probably just spent the night with a friend.”
“Do you know any of her friends?” Sarah Schlomsky wanted to know, and I had to tell them both that I didn’t.
“I’m afraid we don’t travel in the same circles. Christopher and I stay away from his parents’ generation—” We hadn’t come to London to deal with the peerage, had we, nor to make advantageous marriages, “—but we’re also not terribly keen on the Society of Bright Young Persons.”
I saw enough of St George as it was. And I had seen entirely too much of Lady Laetitia Marsden and her ilk.
“Is she—” Sarah Schlomsky’s brows drew together. “Does Florence spend time with the Society of Bright Young Persons?”
“Not as far as I know,” I assured her. The stories about the Society’s exploits must have made their way across the pond too, it seemed. “The one time Crispin was on his way to a Jungmann sisters bash and he gave Florence a lift, she was going to Lady Montfort’s, she told me. He hasn’t mentioned meeting her while he’s been out running around with his friends.”
They usually met right here at the Essex House Mansions when they met at all, usually in the lift… although it was perhaps best not to mention those encounters to Flossie’s mother. If she had been shocked to learn of her daughter’s new cosmopolitan wardrobe and bobbed hair, she would be appalled to hear about Florence’s exploits with young men—or at least her exploits vis-à-vis St George, which were the only ones I had witnessed.
No, much better to let Flossie breach that subject herself when she came home.
“Hasn’t she told you what she’s been up to?” I ventured instead.
“We hear from her once in a while,” Sarah Schlomsky said. “Not as often as we expected.”
“Or we were afraid of,” her husband added,sotto voce.
Sarah gave him a look before turning back to me. “We’d feared Florence would have a difficult time acclimating. You’re all so reserved compared to what we’re used to.”
She gave me a disgruntled look. I opened my mouth to apologize, but before I could, she had gone on. “But it seems as if she’s settled in all right. I’m glad.”
“For what it’s worth, Florence has always seemed happy whenever I’ve seen her,” I said. And added, a bit grudgingly, “She’s very personable.”
A bit too much so, especially where certain members of the opposite gender are concerned.
“We’re a friendly bunch in Toledo,” Hiram Schlomsky said, preening, even as his wife gave him a jaundiced look.
