Emberlight

Chapter Nine

I

The October days grew cold, and soon all of the bright leaves upon the London trees had fluttered to the ground in orange downpour. Life became warm and cozy inside the tall white houses.

Eleanor was far from ready to accept all of the unwelcome discoveries she'd made upon her inherited business, and she had wanted to forget about it all, and all of the men involved, if just for a little while.

Thus, she began to take up the passions and past-times of her fellow female aristocrats; dinner parties twice weekly, book discussions over tea and cakes, museum visits, the occasional ball hosted by the Ritz hotel. She built up a steady stream of acquaintances.

She also made an effort to eat properly at every meal, answering Marianne's haughty questions with such grace and good humour that her cousin could barely conceal the surprise on her face. Aunt Louise had sent a couple of lengthy letters narrating their worldly travels in fine detail; enjoying the burning Roman sunshine at the Forum of Augustus, visiting Michaelangelo's David sculpture in Florence, eating apfelstrudel in the bustling Stephanplatz of Vienna. Michael and Marianne wrote back, to tell her of their spontaneous move to London, and Aunt Louise's reply still sat in its envelope on the table in the foyer, where the Butler had placed it the previous week, for they were too fearful of experiencing her wrath, even in the form of a letter written from a distant place.

Eleanor further pampered herself with long luxurious baths, sprinkled with lavender and rose hip oil, and would emerge from the steaming water with soft skin, all flushed and sleepy.

With her inheritance she bought the finest satin gowns the dressmaker could produce, along with corsets, a gorgeous long mink coat for the coming winter months, several pairs of gloves (her favourite accessory) and even a frilly white parasol to use in the summer. She'd also purchased a perfect little chocolate-brown lap dog, Pozzo, who followed her around all day with relentless excitement.

One morning, after the serviceman had dropped off the umpteenth delivery from the tailor's, Michael had leaned against her door and watched her unpack the new garments with crossed arms and brows furrowed. 

"Good God, Elle, I thought I was the one guilty of spending all of my allowance."

Eleanor had smiled wryly up at him. "The difference between you and I, dear cousin, is that I actually have money to spend."

He'd rolled his eyes and walked away. It had been one of those rare days that he'd woken up sober and cheerful, ready to call upon people in the city.

He knew nothing of the brown packet of opium, which she'd squirrelled away into a drawer full of shift dresses, a place she doubted he'd ever snoop in. Worryingly though, Michael's peculiar tendency of 'going on a walk' and returning a day, maybe two, later, with wrinkled clothes, spaced out eyes and an unidentifiable odour, was becoming more frequent. When he returned from these mysterious absences, he'd be utterly awful in his behaviour the entire day, and would  frequently insult and lay hands on the servants if they didn't fulfil his demands fast enough.

The other two accepted him into the home as if such a thing never occurred, for their previous attempts to inquire into his affairs had resulted in shattered glasses against the wall and slammed doors. Marianne, the poor soul, only tolerated his tantrums because she feared what might happen if she put her foot down; would he leave completely? Steal her money for more opium? Hit her? He was deteriorating so rapidly, it seemed that those possibilities might occur by their own volition anyway.

Eleanor, on the other hand, felt sick to her stomach with guilt that the potent narcotic which sent him into such depressing frenzies might have come from the same crates that filled her own pockets with coins by the second. It was one of the reasons why, in her despicable shame, she'd become overwhelmingly generous towards him; buying him exorbitantly-priced bow ties and cuff links, one-of-a-kind books and fountain pens, a velvet-lined trunk for his upcoming Grand Tour in Europe. It seemed like the only form of compensation she could offer to him until she garnered more information from Rafe and figured out how to shut down the smuggling enterprise.