Written to Die for the Angel, So I Exposed Her First novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Mortgage
The Dowager calls her family's loft debt due, the angel visits with sweet menace, and she learns the Tide orphans are eating the loft's leftover bread.
The Valmorin sail loft smelled of tar and wet hemp, and Perrine stood in the middle of it for a full minute just breathing.
Long benches ran down both walls under high windows.
Canvas hung from the rafters in pale tongues, and four women sat cross-legged on the floor stitching a topsail the size of a ballroom.
Her hands knew where everything was.
She walked to the first bench and picked up a sailmaker's palm, the leather strap with the metal disc.
It slid onto her fingers at once.
"You're doing it again," Garance said from the door.
"Doing what?"
"Looking at the place as if you've never been here."
"I've been ill," Perrine said.
"Mm."
A boy of about ten ran in from the quay with his cap in his fist.
"Lady Valmorin! There's a coach outside with a crest on it. The big old lady and the pearls."
Garance shut her eyes.
"The Dowager," she said. "Give me a minute, I'll put the kettle on and the dogs out."
"We don't have dogs."
"I'll borrow some."
The Dowager Countess Quillon came in sideways, because the door was not made for her skirts.
She was fifty-four, broad and pink, in three ropes of pearls that clacked when she moved.
She did not look at the women on the floor, or the sails, or the tar.
She looked at Perrine and found her wanting.
"Miss Valmorin."
"Lady Quillon. You'll take tea."
"I will not." The Dowager lowered herself onto the one good stool and spread her gloves on her knee. "You embarrassed my ward this afternoon, in my garden, before thirteen of the best women in Saltmere."
"Only twelve," Perrine said.
"Don't be pert. I held your father's note for nine years. I held it out of kindness, because he was my late husband's friend, and because I am not a woman who throws a widow and a girl into the street," the Dowager said.
"My mother isn't a widow who needs holding."
"Your mother is in the country on a pension that I arrange."
Perrine hadn't known that.
She kept her face still.
"The note comes due at the end of next month," the Dowager said. "Four hundred crowns. I'd like it in my hand by the last day, or I'll take the loft and every stick in it."
"We don't have four hundred crowns."
"Then I suggest you earn Aurelie's forgiveness before then." She stood. The pearls clacked. "She has a heart so large, that child. She is already making excuses for you. Come to the Auction of the Orphans of the Tide on Saturday and apologize on your knees and I'll be generous about the date."
"I'll come to the Auction."
"On your knees."
"I'll come," Perrine said.
The Dowager smiled and sailed out.
Garance rubbed her temples.
"Four hundred crowns," she said. "We've got sixty. And two orders. And that topsail is going to the Navy yard and it pays on delivery."
"I know."
"Do you? Because you didn't, this morning."
"I do now," Perrine said.
She did.
She stood in the doorway with her hand still wearing the sailmaker's palm and looked out at the quay.
Barrels, ropes, gulls, and a long line of children in grey smocks being walked along the waterfront by a thin woman with a bell.
The Tide children.
The orphans.
In the book they appeared once, in chapter twelve, when the angel stood on a dais and wept over them.
"Garance," Perrine said. "Do the Tide children get their bread from the Fund?"
"They're supposed to."
"Do they?"
"I've been taking the loft's end-of-day loaf down to them since March." Garance gave her a look. "You told me not to say. You said it was between you and God."
"I did?"
"You're remarkably forgetful lately, my lady."
Perrine looked at the children.
They were thin.
All of them had hands too big for their wrists.
"The Dowager is the Fund's treasurer," she said slowly.
"Everyone knows that."
"And she's the one who wants four hundred crowns from me. Which she's never needed in her life," Perrine said.
"So?"
"So where does it go?"
A shadow fell across the doorway.
Perrine looked up.
Aurelie Quillon stood on the quay with a basket on her arm and the sun in her hair.
A footman behind her carrying a second basket.
"I came to see you were all right," Aurelie said. "May I come in?"
"Of course."
She came in lightly, and set the basket on the bench, and put her small cool hands on Perrine's.
"I hope you're not angry with me."
"Why would I be angry with you?"
"For the tea. I'm sorry it got so loud. I know you hate to be looked at." Aurelie's thumb moved gently over the callus at the base of Perrine's palm. "I'd never want anyone to say you were a thief. You know I'd never think it. Even for a moment."
"I know."
"You're my dearest friend," Aurelie said.
"I know that too."
"So I know you'll come on Saturday," Aurelie said, "and be sweet to Aunt Hortense, and we'll forget the whole business. And you'll let me help you with the debt."
Perrine looked down at the small hand holding hers.
It was warm.
It was perfectly steady.
"How kind," she said.
"Of course." Aurelie squeezed. "Oh, Perrine. Whatever would I do without you?"
She kissed her cheek, and left the baskets, and went out into the sun.
Garance lifted the cloth on the nearest basket.
Under it was a loaf of fine white bread and a note in Aurelie's round hand.
For the loft, with love.
"That's the same bakery the Tide children's loaf comes from," Garance said. "Or it's supposed to."
"Then why are they so thin?"
Neither of them answered.
Out on the quay the line of grey smocks had gone round the corner of the customs house.
Perrine took the note off the loaf and put it in her pocket.
It was a very pretty hand.
It was the same sweet hand, she thought, that would wave from the pier on the day the best friend went off it.
"Saturday," she said. "I'm going to need a witness."
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