Chapter Five #4
which meant that the information they got from it was only patchy, but it was better than nothing.
“Is it working?” Olivia asked.
“Yes. I’ll send you the report later.”
“Thank you. Can we make it twice daily, please.”
“Is something wrong?” Twice daily was more than normal.
“We weren’t expecting Diana to be in London, and Anya Brown has traveled down, too, which seems very soon after her arrival
in St. Andrews. It doesn’t feel right.”
“Are they reacting to the attack on the lab?”
“It’s possible.”
“Doing something with the embroidery?”
She was deeply worried that the Fellowship of the Larks had hired Anya to work for them at the Institute, which everyone knew
was a front for their hunt for The Book of Wonder.
Her worry went far deeper than just bitterness that the Fellowship of the Larks had outplayed them over the embroidery. Her
fear was that they were closer to finding The Book of Wonder than she knew.
The thought that it could be sold tore a piece from her.
It would be devastating to the Order of St. Katherine.
The Book of Wonder was an indescribably important text.
For the Order it had the status of a lost relic.
It was the first link in a centuries-old chain of women working quietly and with dignity to help one another, for the good of society. It represented their ideological soul.
She couldn’t share her thoughts with Conchita. The Order had a strict hierarchy, and you didn’t share information down the
ranks.
“I don’t know,” she said.
There was silence on the other end of the line, then Conchita asked, “Do you want me to do something more?”
“No. We’ll watch and wait for now. Thank you. You know how important you are to us, don’t you, Conchita?”
Conchita was an asset; she had a promising future with the Order.
“I don’t dress up as a cleaner for just anybody. Of course I know.”
She would also have to curb that tone if she was going to make a good marriage.
Diana
Diana sat at the desk in her hotel room in London. She was trying, and failing, to thread a needle. When she flubbed it for
the fourth time, she swore in frustration.
Reading the article about the body had thrown her. The arson attack had thrown her. The lack of sleep was catching up with
her. This was a difficult day, and it had barely started, though thank God for Henry. The hour she’d spent with him had passed
far too quickly, but it had been perfect, and it would sustain her.
She tried with the needle one more time, and this time the thread slipped through its eye.
She sighed with relief and laid it down on the desk, then unbuttoned her blouse and removed it, reached behind her to unclip her bra, and took that off, too.
It had full cups, and she ran her fingers around one of them and examined it under the desk light.
It had a thin, soft layer of padding. She took her nail scissors and, holding the bra even closer to the lamp, made some small snips until she’d opened up a few centimeters where the cup met the underwire.
She removed the embroidery from her bag. Wincing because she was afraid it would cause damage, she folded it a few times so
that it was smaller than her bra cup. Luckily it wasn’t too bulky. She eased it into the cup, between the padding and the
fabric that sat next to her skin, so that it wouldn’t show when she wore it. When she slipped the bra back on she could barely
feel it was there. She looked in the mirror, turning this way and that. No one looking at her would ever guess it was in there.
She removed the bra again, picked up the threaded needle and, using tiny stitches in a technique her mother had taught her,
she sewed up the gap she’d made as delicately and invisibly as possible. When she finished, she was pleased with what she’d
done.
A lot had gone wrong in the last twenty-four hours. Two disasters already, and while Diana wasn’t superstitious, she couldn’t
help thinking that bad luck is reputed to come in threes.
Sewing the embroidery into her underwear made her feel better. She was damned if she was going to take any more risks by having
it anywhere other than right next to her skin.
She got dressed again. It was time to meet Anya Brown.
God help me, she thought as she left the hotel and stepped out into the city. I need this to go well.
Anya
I’d never woken up in Mayfair before, never drawn back the curtains to catch the sun rising on such valuable real estate,
never looked down on so many sleek, expensive vehicles waiting to ferry sleek, expensive people to wherever they went every
day. It was a very polished scene, topiary in heavy pots and chessboard-tiled walkways, impeccably groomed dogs and elegant
wrought-iron railings.
I sent Sid a photo of the hotel’s sumptuous breakfast buffet. He sent one back of his mug of tea and bowl of cornflakes with a sad-face emoji.
While I was eating, Mum messaged me with another riddle, which made me smile, because it meant she wasn’t feeling too bad.
It was a tough one.
Precious gown and wooden throne
Has ancient archetype outgrown.
By larvae of wasp and flock of sheep,
Where golden vine o’er poison creeps,
Six hands four feet make ten,
Among horned lady and horseless men.
I got the third line first. Wasp larvae caused oak galls to form on the trunks of oak trees. These growths were used to make
the ink used in many medieval manuscripts. The vellum for a large manuscript often required the slaughter of one or more flocks
of sheep or goats. A manuscript gave context to the first line: precious gown and wooden throne. The most expensive color
to make was blue, implying this concerned a woman in a blue gown, seated on a wooden throne. I thought immediately of the
Virgin Mary, but the second line brought that into question. Mary was a classic archetypal woman, not an evolved one.
The bottom three lines were a test of my memory. Because Mum was contrary, horseless men made me think of the four horsemen
of the Apocalypse, and I guessed that it meant there were four men in the image and one woman. “Horned” could relate to a
hat or headpiece. I thought of those strange medieval hats that women wore. My memory whirred until I smiled. I had it.
The riddle was describing a manuscript illustration of Christine de Pizan, the first professional female author, fourteenth-century defender of women’s rights, and therefore smasher of archetypes.
In the picture, she was seated on a wooden throne, teaching four men who looked displeased to be at the intellectual mercy of a woman.
Only four feet were visible in the image—well, three and a half, if I was to be precise—and the hands of only three of the people had been painted, including Christine’s, which were, as I remembered, elegantly posed over the manuscript.
She’d been an intellectual powerhouse, and here she was, both in a manuscript and teaching from one.
Never content putting just one meaning into her riddles when there could be two, this was Mum’s way of saying F**k the patriarchy
and show them what you’re made of!
I sent a reply: Love you too x
Diana had asked me to meet her in Green Park and it was gorgeous that morning. Falling copper leaves twisted gently as they
fell through the still autumn air, and slivers of mist lingered here and there. Diana sat on a bench, talking on her phone.
She hung up as soon as she saw me and rose to kiss me on both cheeks, as if we were society friends, and I had another of
those moments where my life didn’t seem like it belonged to me.
We walked toward Buckingham Palace, skirting the tourists gathering outside the gates. Diana kept the conversation light.
Was I okay walking? she asked. She loved Green Park; it was one of her favorite places in London, and on a day like this . . .
She hardly drew breath. I barely knew her, but this seemed unlike her. I sensed that she was anxious, and her nerves were
contagious. I began to feel wary.
We turned onto Grosvenor Place and then almost immediately off it into a residential enclave in deepest Belgravia. Diana led
me to a row of mews cottages. “Here we are,” she said. The sweet little road was cobbled; window boxes burst with trailing
ivy and flowering heathers. The mews cottages were an eclectic mix of styles. Some had basements dug out. They must be worth
millions. At the end of the row, a dead end, she stopped.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. My heart was beating, though.
“Diana, how lovely to see you.” The woman who answered the door looked to be in her forties, with long blond hair, a husky
voice, skin that had seen some treatments. She wore wide-legged sweatpants, and a baggy sweatshirt and sheepskin slippers.
She was somehow familiar to me, but I couldn’t place her.
She turned to me after they embraced. “This is very special, Anya.” We’re not being formal then, I thought. I was crap at
knowing how to talk to rich people, so this whole exchange was a source of anxiety for me. I usually solved it by being overly
ingratiating, then castigating myself later for it because that kind of behavior was against my beliefs, the opposite of what
Mum had taught me. Nobody is above or beneath you.
She held out both hands. I hesitated, then let her take mine. I hadn’t expected the meeting to happen in a private home, and
it threw me.
“I’m Cece. Thank you so much for coming today. We’re thrilled to meet you,” she said, and I said, “It’s nice to meet you,”
but my voice sounded tight and my smile felt fake.
Diana had been here before, because she knew to remove her shoes. I took mine off, too, and we followed Cece along a narrow
hallway carpeted thickly in cream. The walls were painted white and hung with modern artwork. I saw a Basquiat drawing. “He’s
upstairs,” Cece said.
Diana knocked on a door at the top of the stairs. It was slightly ajar.
“Come in.” A man’s voice.
We entered. The room faced the street. Slats on the shutters were tilted, ensuring privacy, filtering the light. Stunning
artworks caught my eye: a large de Kooning Woman in oil, a Jackson Pollock sketch, works by Miró and Chagall. A Giacometti sculpture stood on a table in the corner of the
room, barely there.
A ripple of anticipation ran up my spine. This man wasn’t just a collector of old texts, or of London’s finest real estate, but of modern art, too, of fluid, brave painting that was expressive and imaginative, a little wild, violent, even, in the case of the de Kooning.
It was exciting to think what that might mean for his manuscript collection.
He was approaching me. I clocked his silver hair, the glint of the heavy timepiece on his wrist. He took three rangy strides
across the room toward me, quicker than I was expecting.
“Hello,” I started to say but the breath was punched out of me as he wrapped his arms around me. The amber smell of his cologne
was pungent. I heard Diana say, “Oh!” and his words, slightly muffled but audible: “Anya, my God, I’ve waited so long for
this. Thank you so much. Thank you.”
He loosened his grip on me a little. I put my hand to my cheek. It was wet. Was he crying? Then I really saw him.
“Oh my God,” I said.
I’d seen him online, but never in person. For years, I’d googled him obsessively—his wife, his children, their privileged
lives—until I’d forced myself to stop because it was unhealthy and it wasn’t going to change anything and I never wanted Mum
to find out what I was doing. This man and his wife hadn’t wanted anything to do with me, until now. I was the baby he had
decided wasn’t good enough for him before I was even born.
And Cece. She was, of course, Cecilia Beaufort. The woman he’d married after abandoning me and Mum. I hadn’t recognized her.
I should have.
“Dad,” I said. The word left my mouth involuntarily. Just saying it felt like a betrayal of Mum.