Fleeing her tormenter, Fina stopped to catch her breath – but more importantly to wipe away her tears in front of a gilt-edged mirror in a small recess off the main hall. As she looked at her splotchy, freckled face, another round of tears welled up, from what felt like her toes. She removed her handkerchief – eternally grateful for the ingenious pockets Ruby had designed in her dress – and dabbed her eyes. Would the pain ever go away? Or at least be dulled by that maddening cliché of time? Connor… Her jaw tightened with the now-familiar transition from sadness to rage. A rage that fuelled her. Gave her purpose. Tucking her unruly, wavy hair behind one ear, she sniffed and plastered a smile on her face that belied the torment underneath. She must focus on the task at hand.
Tap-tap. After knocking on the nearest door and hearing nothing, Fina escaped inside. She did not know if this room was on her ink-blot map. Through bleary eyes, she struggled to find her bearings. A rapid scan of the lived-in room revealed it was one of the family bedrooms rather than guest quarters. Though the room was hardly disorderly, it somehow felt more human than Granville’s room. Perhaps it was the fact that the stack of books on the nightstand, for example, were slightly askew. No political literature for this member of the family. The faded gold titles on the spines read Othello and Beowulf. Hmph, thought Fina. Serious reading. Her eyes crinkled with delight when she read the spine on the top: Wilkie Collins’ Moonstone.
Moving on, her eyes fixed on a small mahogany roll-top writing desk in the corner of the room. Rubbing her hands together and blowing into them, as much from the chill as from her encounter with Leslie Dashwood, she marched over to the desk. The surface held one small framed photograph of a woman with a child, aged three or four, perched on her knee. By the style of the woman’s dress, Fina judged the photo to be least fifteen years old. The mother’s thick mane cascaded about her shoulders, half hiding a contented smile. The little boy’s legs looked as if they had just been swinging about the mother’s knee, complementing the joyful grin on his face. Recalling fond memories of her own mother, she fought back the grief welling up from her already exhausted tear ducts. Shaking her head, she said aloud, “Fina!” just like her mother had said when she was in trouble as a child. Rolling back the top of the desk revealed writing paper, pens, envelopes and a few closed drawers.
The tiny drawers divulged little of interest. Fina flicked through the carelessly assembled papers: race meeting schedules, college reading lists, tobacconists’ bills, and lists of figures which meant nothing to her. One sheaf of paper was particularly thick and incomprehensible. ‘Due Diligence Report: Dulcet & Sons’ was the heading, followed by: ‘Based on Files Examined, With Particular Regards to Foreign & Colonial Assets, Property and Debentures’. Fina frowned. If only it had been seventeenth-century English, or basic Latin, she might have stood a chance of understanding it. As for the columns of numbers running down the sheet, they must be sums of money – at least, the ones marked with £ must be – but what about the others?
She turned the page and her eye was immediately caught by a handwritten scribble across the top: ‘NOW’. It was underlined twice, and the writing was emphatic enough that the pen nib had nearly torn through the paper. Whoever wrote that had been desperate, she thought. Desperate for some action to be taken straight away. But what? How could this dry financial statement inspire such panicked urgency in whoever had held the pen?
She straightened up, carefully restoring the items to their homes, and eased the top of the desk back into place. Now on to the wardrobe. Opening it revealed a row of tweed blazers, pressed trousers, a few jumpers and a row of brown shoes of varying styles. All expensively tailored, of course, but not particularly avant-garde in the men’s department.
Satisfied, she made her exit with a rapid, efficient step, ready to report her findings to Ruby.