“You may cease with this charade, Eliza, for nobody is fooled,” he replies harshly.
Miss Burgess’s expression tightens, and she reprimands him for vulgar informality. “I have not given you permission to address me by my first name.”
“That is the least of the permissions you have given me, as you well know,” he says, unfolding his arms as he steps away from the wall. “The scarf, if you please. Now!”
Shaking her head as if amused by his persistence, Miss Burgess darts an indulgent look at Mrs. Holcroft. “Men and fashion—they do get particular notions in their head.”
A knock sounds on the door, and she immediately rises to answer. After a brief exchange with her footman, she returns to her seat with a small valise. Opening it, she withdraws a dark red shawl with a yellow paisley edge. “Here is the puce one I mentioned in my reply to the footman,” she says, holding it up for the company to inspect. “In pristine condition, just as I promised! May I ask whom it is for? If you are thinking of giving it to Mrs. Nutting, I must warn you that the color will not suit.”
Miss Burgess is a paragon of equanimity and composure.
If all murder suspects were as poised as she, then they would be impossible to identify.
The only reason we discovered that Grimston had set out to kill us was that Grimston had set out to kill us.
“You will not speak my wife’s name, you hussy!” Mr. Nutting seethes.
Miss Burgess lowers her eyes, too embarrassed to look at Mrs. Holcroft directly. Then she raises her chin as she clucks her tongue softly, and I realize she is embarrassed for him, not herself.
Softly, she apologizes for failing to show more empathy. “I know how difficult it is to accept charity, especially for a man in your position, and I will not make it worse by extending this ordeal any longer than it needs to be. You may take the entire case and allow your wife to choose whichever shawl strikes herfancy. The same goes for your daughter. You may return the rest whenever you see fit.”
Mr. Nutting, appearing on the verge of apoplexy, yells, “Enough with this nonsense! Enough! I do not wantascarf. I wantthescarf, the orange one that I gave you early in May. Bring methatscarf!”
Once again, she glances at Mrs. Holcroft, her visage bewildered and amused as she asks if Mr. Nutting has recently been imbibing. “The high color in his face implies the intake of a large amount of alcohol. Was it claret? I think I smell claret on his breath.”
Practically glowing with rage, Mr. Nutting storms across the room—well, weaves and bobs around chairs to manage the crowded floor—and holds his clenched hands before him as though to squeeze something violently. “You termagant! You are trying to send me to the gallows because I won’t buy you a cottage in Marston Bend!”
Now that he is near, Miss Burgess is prepared to confirm that it is claret.
Mr. Nutting has no words.
He has only his hands.
His stiff claws, which he lowers slowly as though to seize Miss Burgess by the neck.
Keeping stock-still in her chair, she nevertheless manages to look victorious.
Mrs. Holcroft sees it too and orders Mr. Nutting to get ahold of himself. “A display of violence does not advance your cause.”
Abruptly called to himself, he steps back.
Miss Burgess tilts her head down to hide her satisfaction.
At the end of her rope, Mrs. Holcroft snaps, “You may also get ahold of yourself, Miss Burgess. As Nutting said, we are not fooled. Your illicit liaison with him is well known to me and Mrs. Braithwaite and no doubt many others. Neither one of youis as clever as you think, which is all to say this performance has grown tedious. I do detest a long, drawn-out affair. We are here to see the shawl Nutting gave you because it has been implicated in our steward’s murder. If you will just get the shawl in question, it will prove that Nutting speaks the truth and is not involved. Now please show it to the company so that we may be on our way.”
These revelations have little effect on Miss Burgess, who remains as tranquil as ever. “I am sorry to hear that, ma’am, because I really did believe we were discreet. I am ashamed that my moral deficiencies have brought me so low as to expose me to this scene and even more ashamed that they have exposedyouto it. But even from my place of deep personal shame, I cannot get a shawl I do not have. Nutting never gave me an orange scarf.”
“Shawl,” I correct.
It is a habit.
Mr. Nutting persists in identifying it wrong.
And then I realize it is a slip.
Miss Burgess—wonderful, perfect, poised Miss Burgess—blundered.
“It is a shawl,” I say again, more forcefully this time as I shuffle forward in my seat. “Mr. Nutting calls it an orange scarf because he does not know the difference, but it is a shawl in Russian flame, and hedidgive it to you.”
