The Chemickal Marriage

Still smiling, she opened the door and walked out, leaving Pfaff to collect Miss Temple. He hooked her arm with his, but paused at the side table where she’d set Roger’s notebook.
    ‘She’ll need a bag,’ he called. ‘It will look odd not to have one.’
    The Contessa snorted from the foyer – a judgement on such propriety or, more likely, Miss Temple’s taste in bags. Pfaff snatched up a handbag, deftly stuffed the notebook inside and shoved Miss Temple through the door. The Contessa rolled her eyes.
    ‘Jesus Lord.’
    Pfaff looked hurt. ‘It matches perfectly well.’
    ‘Like a headache matches nausea. Perhaps it will attract sympathy.’
    Marie had vanished, and, though Miss Temple considered shouting to the desk clerk for rescue, in the end she allowed herself to be swept into the street. The door to a shining coach was held by a footman in rich livery. Miss Temple climbed up first and took the instant of solitude to return the silk handkerchief to the bosom of her dress. Pfaff installed himself next to her and the Contessa opposite, flouncing her dress with a deliberate thoroughness. Though she carried a black clutch, large enough to keep her cigarette holder, it was of no size for a glass book. Once more Miss Temple wondered where the dark volume had been cached. She cleared her throat.
    ‘That footman’s uniform – I mean – are we truly –’
    ‘Celeste,’ sighed the Contessa, ‘if you can guess, must you
ask
?’
    Pfaff only smirked and tugged at the lapels of his coat. Miss Temple could not think what the man seriously hoped to attain. That he had shifted his banner to the Contessa made Pfaff’s character more clear – one might as well protest a bee being drawn to a more splendid flower. She recalled Mr Phelps insisting, so rudely, about society’s divisions. As deluded as she saw Pfaff to be, so the Contessa saw Miss Temple – and no doubt there were circles where the Contessa appeared a garish
parvenu
…
    The streets around them clattered with hoof beats. Their coach had attracted an escort of horsemen. Miss Temple stared at the Contessa.
    ‘What
is
it, Celeste?’
    ‘The Vandaariff crypt.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘You wanted me to see it.’
    ‘This
insistence
on confronting me with what I already know –’
    Miss Temple nodded to Pfaff. ‘Does
he
know?’
    ‘Why should I care?’
    Pfaff’s lips turned in a tolerant smile, as if he saw past the Contessa’s disdain. ‘I already told her – the tomb is isolated, easy to watch –’
    ‘How did you know I’d been taken?’ Miss Temple demanded. ‘Was it that Francesca Trapping never appeared with Doctor Svenson?’
    ‘If I cared for the child I should not have left her behind. She is nothing to me. No more than the Doctor.’
    ‘But you spared his life. And have gone to some effort to save mine.’
    ‘None of which, Celeste Temple, changes our
understanding
.’
    Despite the Contessa’s tone, Miss Temple sat back and grinned, showing her small white teeth. Both Vandaariff and the Contessa had preserved her life when she ought to have been slain, each to employ her against the other. They were fools.
    ‘That’s a repellent little smile,’ said the Contessa. ‘Like a weasel about to suck eggs.’
    ‘I cannot help it,’ said Miss Temple. ‘I am excited – though you have not told me what I am to do when we arrive.’
    ‘Nothing at all. Remain silent.’
    ‘And if I don’t?’
    ‘I will cut your throat and spoil everything. And
then
what will I tell Cardinal Chang?’
    The Contessa raised one eyebrow, waiting for her words to penetrate.
    ‘Cardinal Chang?’
    ‘How else do you think you were redeemed? For a chocolate cake?’
    ‘You gave Chang to Vandaariff?’
    ‘When a thing is already owned, one prefers the term “restoration” –’
    ‘But where was he – how did you – he would never –’
    ‘My goodness, we are here. Do try to honour the Cardinal’s sacrifice. Remember – respectful silence, humble grief, pliant nubility.’
    The Contessa pinched Miss Temple’s cheeks to give them colour, then swatted her out onto a walkway of red gravel. The Contessa joined her, taking Miss Temple’s hand. Pfaff remained in the coach. A richly uniformed man strode towards them, cradling an enormous busby, as if he’d come from beheading a bear. He clicked his heels and nodded to the Contessa, the gesture as sharp as a hatchet stroke.
    ‘Milady.’
    The Contessa sank into an elegant curtsy. ‘Colonel