In the Tenth House by Laura Dietz

Author:Laura Dietz
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307394262
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2007-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

26

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6

Obedience

“It is not enough to be a good wife and mother…you must also be an attractive and pleasant woman. It is sometimes easy to become pretty and agreeable to look at. Begin by choosing, in your dress, colours that will suit your complexion and your hair.”

—Baroness Staff,

trans. by Lady Colin Campbell,

The Lady’s Dressing Room, 1893

Lily was prepared to wait weeks, but it was Friday when Mr. Eldard came ’round her room at the back and peppered the door with nervous little knocks. His anxiety was as good as a prearranged code.

Moments in Miss Gennett’s company made Lily doubt her own judgment. Her initial assessment had been wrong. It would never, ever be weeks of waiting for this one. Not when it was one of those decisions, however few, that she had the power to do something about. Their initial meeting had been very brief. What Lily knew of Ernestine Gennett was mainly gleaned from the notes that had launched their acquaintance, and that mainly from between the lines. Not a great deal—some practitioners had gone mad for graphology and touted it as a new science, but Lily had seen penmanship vary too drastically to consider it the key to personality. Also, she had faked too many hands herself. Besides, all too often handwriting pointed in one direction and reliable methods, such as the birth chart, pointed in another. Once she had seen aggression, leadership, and recklessness attributed to a Pisces, with a Cancerian ascendant, no less, on the basis of a sharply angled vowel. It was suitable for a parlor game, perhaps, but not serious investigative work.

There were other things a note could tell. Ernestine Gennett’s were a study in contradiction. They came on delicate mauve paper, scented with a heavy hand and faintly powdery to the touch. The ink was pale. The words wanted to lift off of the page with bile. Dear Lily, the last note began. If I may call you Lily, Miss E. I do feel as though I know you, and have known you all my life. Your insights and uncanny perception convince me that your powers over the paranormal world are everything they are purported to be and more. How delighted and flattered I am that you are considering attending one of our amateur meetings at my home and lending us for a time your renowned expertise. I myself am but a poor student of these arts….

The overpowering resentment could be felt on the border, where the writer’s fingers had warped the page from pressing on it, boring down into the blotter as she traced out flattery. The nib never took a firm footing on the page, and paused often, the pen considering as the words gushed. Emphasis came in odd places. Lily could hear it when she mouthed the words: forced. False modesty. Sarcasm. Lily ran the elegantly formed lines over her lips silently and felt an airy, contrived gentility creeping into the vowels, and her eyebrows arching. Sarcasm and contempt.

Establishing contact had been no trouble.

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