The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

But a quick riffle through King James produced no more than an old church leaflet and a mourning card for some dead de Luce from the time of the Great Exhibition.

Then suddenly I remembered that Father had plucked the Penny Black from the bill of the dead snipe and put it in his waistcoat pocket. Perhaps he had left it there, meaning to dispose of it later.

Yes, that was it! The stamp wasn't here at all. What an idiot I was to think it would be. The entire study, of course, would be at the very top of the list of too-obvious hiding places. A wave of certainty washed over me and I knew, with what Feely and Daffy incorrectly call “female intuition,” that the stamp was somewhere else.

Trying not to make a sound, I turned the key and stepped out into the hall. The Weird Sisters were still going at it in the drawing room, their voices rising and falling between notes of anger and grief. I could have listened at the door, but I chose not to. I had more important things to do.

I went, silent as a shadow, up the west staircase and into the south wing.

As I expected, Father's room was in near-darkness as I stepped inside. I had often glanced up at his windows from the lawn and seen the heavy drapes pulled tightly shut.

From inside, it possessed all the gloom of a museum after hours. The strong scent of Father's colognes and shaving lotions suggested open sarcophagi and canopic jars that had once been packed with ancient spices. The finely curved legs of a Queen Anne washstand seemed almost indecent beside the gloomy Gothic bed in the corner, as if some sour old chamberlain were looking on dyspeptically as his mistress unfurled silk stockings over her long, youthful legs.

Even the room's two clocks suggested times long past. On the chimneypiece, an ormolu monstrosity, its brass pendulum, like the curved blade in “The Pit and the Pendulum,” tock-tocking away the time and flashing dully at the end of each swing in the subdued lighting of the room. On the bedside table, an exquisite little Georgian clock stood in silent disagreement: Her hands were at 3:15, his at 3:12.

I walked down the long room to the far end, and stopped.

Harriet's dressing room—which could be entered only through Father's bedroom—was forbidden territory. Father had brought us up to respect the shrine that he had made of it the day he learned of her death. He had done this by making us believe, even if we were not told so outright, that any violation of his rule would result in our being marched off in single file to the end of the garden, where we would be lined up against the brick wall and summarily shot.

The door to Harriet's room was covered with green baize, rather like a billiard table stood on end. I gave it a push and it swung open with an uneasy silence.

The room was awash in light. Through the tall windowpanes on three of its sides poured torrents of sunshine, diffused by endless swags of Italian lace, into a chamber that might have been a stage-setting for a play about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The dresser top was laid out with brushes and combs by Fabergé, as if Harriet had just stepped into the adjoining room for a bath. Lalique scent bottles were ringed with colorful bracelets of Bake lite and amber, while a charming little hotplate and a silver kettle stood ready to make her early morning tea. A single yellow rose was wilting in a vase of slender glass.

On an oval tray stood a tiny crystal bottle containing no more than a drop or two of scent. I picked it up, removed the stopper, and waved it languidly under my nose.

The scent was one of small blue flowers, of mountain meadows, and of ice.

A peculiar feeling passed over me—or, rather, through me, as if I were an umbrella remembering what it felt like to pop open in the rain. I looked at the label and saw that it bore a single word: Miratrix.

A silver cigarette case with the initials H. de L. lay beside a hand mirror whose back was embossed with the image of Flora, from Botticelli's painting Primavera. I had never noticed this before in prints from the original, but Flora looked hugely and happily pregnant. Could this mirror have been a gift from Father to Harriet while she was pregnant with one of us? And if so, which one: Feely? Daffy? Me? I thought it unlikely that it was me: A third girl would hardly have been a gift from the gods—at least so far as Father was concerned.

No, it was probably Ophelia the Firstborn—she who seemed to have arrived on earth with a mirror in her hand… perhaps this very one.