“Oh!” the young man said, gasping. “I’m so glad I got here in time.”
Smythe put out his arms protectively, making a human barricade between the gasping young man and the two sisters.
“Please,” the newcomer said, still entirely out of breath. “I mean no harm. On the contrary—I wish to help. Miss Quinn, hello! Do you remember me?”
“Walter?” Clem asked.
“Yes! It’s me.” Walter beamed. “Walter Ainsley.” He took an embroidered handkerchief out of his pocket and proceeded to pat his forehead. Then he glanced at the handkerchief, surprised, before tucking it into his pocket. “Must be one of my sister’s,” he muttered, peering at Clem behind the attorney’s shoulders. He tipped sideways to see Rosetta and gave her a little wave. “Greetings! So pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“What is it you want with my client?” Mr. Smythe asked.
“I have a proposition…that is to say, no.” He shook his head. “Not what I meant. A proposal. Heavens!” He slapped his palm to his forehead. “My words are confused. Not a proposition and not a proposal. What I mean to say is…an idea.” He smiled winningly.
Clem raised her eyebrows.
“My clients are not, at present, interested in ideas,” Mr. Smythe replied, with what I thought reflected a rather expansive pessimism.
“Perhaps another time, Walter,” Clem replied. “Thank you. It’s been a difficult day.”
“Of course, of course,” Walter Ainsley said, shaking his head. “Shocking event. The paper…things. Totally horrible.” He held his hands up by his ears and wiggled his raised fingers, perhaps meaning, by this inexact gesture, to simulate the flying papers. “But I congratulate you on the outcome. On not being guilty of fraud, I mean. That’s a happy turn of events.” He ran a hand through his hair, aghast.
“If I could just give you my card,” he said desperately, plunging a hand into his pocket and returning with the embroidered handkerchief and a small rectangle of paper. He handed the paper to Smythe and squeezed the handkerchief, as if to wring some moral support from its flowery folds. “Please contact me,” he said, waving to the Quinn sisters again. “I realize I haven’t made the soundest impression, but I assure you that I’m not generally as addled in my wits as I appear today. And I have the greatest wish to help, if I can. With the spirit thew and all that.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ainsley,” Smythe said, cordially enough, as he turned to open the door to the law practice and usher the young women inside. They had, to my relief, reached relativesafety: the law practice was unmarked and thereby unidentifiable.
“Thank you!” Walter replied cheerfully. “Good day!” He watched them disappear through the door and then stood for some time, muttering to himself disconsolately and rapping his knuckles on his forehead.
Even in the relative calm of the law offices, I could see that Clementine was struggling. She held the indigo shawl rigidly over her arms, hiding the parts of her dress where the paper daggers had struck. Her expression was carefully blank, and I worried that the pain, combined with the effort of concealing it, would overwhelm her. I sent her a strong current of encouragement. She smiled very slightly in acknowledgment.
Fortunately, while good lawyers can be efficient and thorough, they are never overly convivial. Mr. Smythe conversed with the Quinn sisters in a businesslike way about their plans. Their discussion was brief. He explained that they would need to wait for the university’s response. If Commonwealth agreed to follow the judge’s recommendations, Clem could proceed. If they rejected it, another plan would have to be made. Smythe assured Clem that he would communicate with the university to ascertain their response.
That settled, and having thanked Smythe for his quick intervention on their behalf, Clem and Rosetta headed home. They walked in silence. The packs of young men had dispersed, moved on to other diversions, other hunts. Rosetta appeared quite shaken by the experience in the courtroom, and she clung to Clementine in a pitiful manner. Clem remained stoic, making no complaint at the pressure of Rosetta’s hand in hers. When they arrived, the sun was setting, filling their second-story rooms with a somber yellow light. They were home at last.
Clem said something about a change of clothes and disappeared into her room.
With the door firmly closed, she dropped the shawl from her arms. The pinstripe fabric of her sleeves was saturated with blood. She undid the buttons of her dress and peeled down the sleeves, gingerly pulling the fabric away by inches.
I had no wish to see this, but I stayed.
With the dress hanging at her waist, Clem raised her bare arms and examined them in the oval mirror that stood in the corner of her bedroom. Only with her arms stacked, as they had been to protect her head, did the writing become legible. They were capital letters, their shape crude and hasty, only some of them fully formed:
TWO DAYS STONES
I felt a stab of fear for her. The writing was messier this time. Angrier. More brutal. I couldn’t inspect it closely, because the mere sight of the grisly letters, the rent skin, the dripping blood…utterly sickening! If Clementine felt any such revulsion, she didn’t show it. She merely looked closely at the injuries. Perhaps she was attempting, as I was, to divine the remainder of the message that Richardson’s spirit thew had interrupted. Would the stones come in two days? Did she only have that long?
“Clementine?” Rosetta knocked lightly at the door.
“Yes.” Clementine abruptly gathered the dress over her arms, though the door didn’t open.
“Can I come in?”
“Just a moment.”
A pause. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’ll meet you in the kitchen in a moment.” Withpurposeful movements, Clem opened her bureau and withdrew some strips of linen and the bottle of solution given to her by Livia. She dabbed at the broken skin with a clean cloth, applied the solution, and then wrapped her arms carefully. I looked away as Clem stepped out of the pinstripe dress and pulled on a yellow cotton housedress with loose, billowy sleeves that buttoned at the wrist. For a moment, she regarded herself again in the mirror. She did not look in the least deterred.
And yet…she was only a small person, in a yellow dress that had been mended several times, with somewhat tousled hair and eyes that looked old beyond her age. The bandages were not visible beneath the cotton dress, but I knew they were there, covering the old cuts on her back and the new cuts on her arms. It was too much. She was but a single person, and the tasks she faced were monumental.
