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Chapter Five
As Ariadne came out of the room, she found her sister conversing with Mrs. Tula at the door. Why was she here at this hour?
“Ariadne!” Leda called out to her as she walked toward the door. “There you are.”
“Is everything all right?” she asked. She knew it wasn’t. Mrs. Tula had all but threatened to throw them out of their flat. Was she already here to make good on her threat? But it hadn’t been two days yet.
Mrs. Tula walked into the flat without invitation. “I don’t think I need a reason to check on my tenants, do I?” She looked around as if she was trying to find something. Fear rose in Ariadne’s veins. Had she figured out she had hidden a man in the flat?
“Not at all,” Leda said. She threw her sister a fearful look. Even she had understood the implication of the situation.
Mrs. Tula walked to the window and looked down. “Say, you didn’t notice anything unusual last night, did you?”
“What do you mean?” Ariadne asked.
“Neighbors complained of a man moaning,” Mrs. Tula said. She looked up sharply. “What is that?”
On a chair beside the table lay Edward’s undershirt. Ariadne had left it there to wash off the blood and completely forgotten about it. Ariadne stood in front of it before Mrs. Tula could come over and pick it up. “It’s a rag. I use it in the studio.”
“Oh is it? What about the stains?”
“Dye,” Ariadne said, trying to scramble for a good excuse.
“You’re still going on about your inventions?” Mrs. Tula asked. “I thought that after your father died, you would give up on those. It's a useless exercise.”
Anger rose inside her but she maintained her composure. She didn’t want to give Mrs. Tula the upper hand in the situation. She was deliberately trying to provoke her it seemed.
“After you leave—” she began.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Ariadne said, cutting her off immediately.
“Oh? Then where is my rent? Give it to me and I’ll leave right away.” The building where they lived was better than most of the quarters around them at a reasonable rent. Mrs. Tula knew that and was trying to use it to her advantage.
“You told me I had two days to arrange the money,” Ariadne said. She didn’t want Leda to know that she was having difficulty finding it.
“I remember,” said Mrs. Tula in a way that was evident that she regretted giving her the time. “All right, see that you have the money to me as soon as you can arrange it.” Her gaze lingered on Edward’s soiled shirt as she exited the flat.
Ariadne dropped down on the chair after the door closed behind Mrs. Tula and covered her face. Everything was going wrong for her. The lack of sleep was making her head pound.
“Why didn’t you tell me that she was threatening you about the rent?” Leda exclaimed.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” Ariadne said, shaking her head. “You’re young, you shouldn’t be worrying about this.”
“And neither should you,” Leda said. “Maybe it's time that we look into other forms of employment.”
Ariadne looked up at her sister. “What do you mean?”
“Have you considered what Emma said yesterday? The Earl of Brexley is generous enough to overlook our heritage.”
“I’m not ashamed of who my mother was,” Ariadne said.
Leda shook her head. “Neither am I.” Ariadne’s mother had been a woman of ill repute. But her father had never left her, even when she fell pregnant with Ariadne.
The Davy family were poor but they led a happy life, welcoming their first daughter and then another. Their father was never the same again after she’d died. He chose to bury himself in his inventions to lessen the blow of his dear wife’s death and that’s how he had lived the rest of his life.
“I will consider it,” Ariadne said.
Leda squeezed Ariadne’s hand. “I know you love your inventions, just like Papa, and you would rather be with them the entire day. I wish you would make a breakthrough soon.”
