(Mrs. Rotunder had recently failed in an attempt to have Miss Darlington assassinated by means of trained parrot, unaware of Miss Darlington’s belief that parrots carried syphilis and were therefore to be scrupulously avoided. This had been in retaliation for Miss Darlington’s theft of Mr. Rotunder’s leg, which was said to be inlaid with wood from the True Cross, and yet only fetched five hundred pounds on the Catholic black market. Mr. Rotunder—a thin, anemic gentleman who’d never been quite right since a mad doctor sawed off two of his limbs only moments before rescue arrived—had been willing to let the matter go and live out his days in a rocking chair, writing letters to newspaper editors with his one remaining hand and sighing mournfully every now and again, but his wife would have none of that. When the assassination attempt failed, she took solace in stealing Miss Darlington’s favorite mahogany cabinet, from which a new leg was made for Mr. Rotunder, and thereafter all was well again between the ladies.)
“Gertrude,” Miss Darlington replied. “How suited you are to that headdress. Parrot feathers, I take it?”
“Ha ha ha,” Mrs. Rotunder said. “Snowy egret, in fact. Won’t you have a seat? Cecilia dear, perhaps you would be most comfortable by the fire?”
Cecilia blinked. She felt her pleasant expression slip and hastily drew it back up into a smile. “Mrs. Rotunder,” she dared to say, heart pounding, “may I venture to share my latest news? Lady Armitage has employed an assassin against me.”
Mrs. Rotunder raised one pruned silver eyebrow. Behind her, theother ladies exchanged glances. Cecilia was fluent in the language of those looks; she did not require a conversation to know even assassination had failed to win her a promotion. Her heart clenched. Was it that they deemed her inherently inadequate? Or did they care too much for Miss Darlington’s nerves? She could not ask. Nor would she sigh, for she had her dignity, but deep inside her heart lay back and moaned into a handkerchief.
“Yes, I had heard,” Mrs. Rotunder said pleasantly. “How nice for you, dear. Oh look, I see your friend Jane is over there, and Constantinopla too.”
Cecilia curtsied, then retreated without further word to the domain of the junior women: the sofas near the fireplace.
“An assassin!” Constantinopla said with gratifying enthusiasm as Cecilia sat beside her. “Is she fierce and cunning?”
“Something like that,” Cecilia murmured in reply. She looked across at the delicate, tight-haired young woman seated opposite. “Jane, lovely to see you.”
Jane peered over the rim of her spectacles, nodded sharply, then returned to reading a book of classic war poems that lay across her bony hand. Cecilia suppressed a grimace. She and Miss Fairweather Junior had been chums a long time ago when they shared riding lessons, learning to saddle their horses, trot elegantly, and swing from the pommel with a knife in their teeth. But a dispute had risen between them as to the value of Wordsworth’s poetry, and they had not spoken for years. They would not begin again now.
Constantinopla leaned closer to Cecilia. “I don’t think Jane likes me,” she whispered ostentatiously. “Why isn’t she sitting at the main table? Surely she’s old enough?”
Cecilia’s heart wailed and flapped its handkerchief. She managed, however, to smile. “Jane débuted three years ago,” she explained quietly, “but has not yet robbed a bank.”
She contrived to fit several volumes of opinion into that one sentence. Jane, having heard it, as intended, turned a page in her book with such vehemence that the edge tore. Cecilia could not help but gasp, and Jane flung her a look like a dagger before tossing the torn paper to the floor. Cecilia felt sure one day she would be thwarting assassination attempts from the lesser Miss Fairweather.
“I plan to rob a bank just as soon as I get my wings,” Constantinopla declared.
“Some of us,” Jane said pointedly, smacking back another page, “think that a girl shouldn’t fly until she’s putting her hair up and lowering her skirt hems—or actually wearing skirts like a proper lady ought.” She looked down her nose at Constantinopla’s trousers, and the girl flushed.
“I’m proper, only in a different way,” Constantinopla said. “And I’ve completed all the theoreticals, I just have my practicum to go.”
“How exciting,” Cecilia said with an encouraging smile. “It does takesomegirls a few tries before they pass—”
Now Jane was the one flushing.
“—but I’m sure you’ll do well.”
A maid brought tea and a selection of food to the young ladies, and they partook of these while Jane read, Constantinopla talked about her school experience, and Cecilia tried to hear what the seniors at the table were saying.
“Jane and I had gone out to buy arsenic,” Muriel Fairweather explained.
“My fencing master’s mustache,” Constantinopla sighed dreamily.
“Such a shock, to see my own house overhead—”
“Curled with a Hungarian pomade—”
“Well, that’s what you get for trusting—”
“Men—”
“Servants—”
“Pink prancers.”
Cecilia, frowning slightly, turned to Constantinopla, who giggled. “I know, who names their shoes?” the girl said. “But he’s awfully proud of them, and I do admit they let him move ever so well—”
“Last seen over Bodmin Moor—”
