The Starlet Letter by Julie Mathison

Author:Julie Mathison [Mathison, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

APART FROM THIS TEASER, Vivian would say no more about phase three of their investigation, and it would be several days before they’d be able to implement it. There was still schoolwork to be done, a reminder that although the twins were now eighteen, in the eyes of Mistress Dubois they were very much children.

“Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris italiam,” Viola said, reciting the first verse of The Aeneid. “Arms and men sing,” she began her translation, “of Troy who first from the mouth of Italy—my, that is awkward verbiage, don’t you think?” She looked over at the governess, who was busily mashing a ball of wax. “I say, Mistress Dubois, that likeness is uncanny.”

The elderly woman glanced up from her creation, which looked remarkably like the head of a cyclops, with one eye protruding from the lump. “Do not worry your head about the arms and the mouth, ma petite,” she said. “Voilà!” She held the wax ball aloft. “Behold the eye, blinded by Ulysses’s sword. He is so proud! And yet, is not his pride itself the monster? Who is it that is truly blind? This is the question.”

“It’s certainly a question, two, in fact,” Vivian noted dryly. “Absurde quaestio, if you ask me,” she added in a barely audible grumble. “Besides, I thought we were talking about The Aeneid, not The Odessey.”

“I don’t think it’s absurd at all, Viv,” Viola protested, tilting her head to consider the lump. She had recently begun to suspect that Mistress Dubois was in fact a genius, disguised as a bumbling crone, just like in those old fables where the sage tested the wanderer by pestering him for a drink of water and some gruel. “Besides, I’d much rather talk about The Odessey and poor Ulysses’s dreadful plight, wandering from shore to shore, only to confront the monsters of his lamentable existence. Why, I do believe everything in both poems is a symbol, so why should the mouth and arms and eyes be any different?”

Vivian suppressed an eyeroll. Mistress Dubois’s flights of fancy were surpassed only by Lala’s own, although one had to concede the point. The poem could be read literally or figuratively, which was why it put her in a foul mood.

“Well, I think it’s utter nonsense. And as for Ulysses, he’s just survived the sack of Troy. If he’s seeing monsters, it’s probably because he has a dreadful case of shell shock.”

Viola caught her sister’s eye, and for a moment, they were both quiet. The mention of shell shock put them in mind of Father, which invariably felt like the floor falling away under their feet.

“This is enough of both the Latin and the Greek for today,” Mistress Dubois said with a canny look at the twins. She set her wax aside and clasped one hand to her back to rise. “We will take a constitutional, oui?” Ever since they’d whisked Mistress Dubois away in pursuit of Babs, the governess had conceived a fascination with the morning constitutional as a cure for every ailment.

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