a grand word for her skinny house on Taviton Street. The decor strikes her as shabbily old-fashioned, compared with Eccleston Square; how bare the little tables, how few bibelots for her visitor's eyes to rest on. "Such a difference?" she repeats, confused.
"To how one feels. You've such an independent spirit."
"If I do, you think I owe it to these four walls?" asks Fido, amused.
A graceful shrug. "Don't discount bricks and mortar. You can't imagine what it's like to live out one's days encompassed by a gloomy, ageing husband, my dear. I live between his four walls, wearing clothes he must pay for, obeying his minutest orders..."
"From what I recall, you ignore quite a few of Harry's orders," Fido can't resist saying.
Helen purses her coral lips. "Whether or no—they have a suffocating effect. I signed myself away at twenty-one," she adds, "as carelessly as a girl fills in her dance card at a ball!"
"Your letter—" Fido feels it's time to address the subject on both their minds, "it moved me very much."
Helen's smile irradiates her cheekbones, like a candle in a lantern. "Is Anderson—" His name comes out rather gruff.
"He took the train to Scotland for a couple of nights; he's only just come back," Helen tells her.
"It's really not fair to leave any doubt in his mind—"
"That was my thought exactly; that's why I've invited him here."
Fido stares at her. "Here?"
But in comes Johnson, her narrow shoulders hunched over the tray that bears the steaming urn, pot, caddies and all. (More than once, over the years, Fido has had a quiet word with her maid about posture and health, but it does no good.) It takes several minutes for Johnson to unload everything.
When they're alone, Fido brews the tea. "You might have asked me before making free with my house," she says under her breath.
"But I knew you'd say yes." Helen grins at her, rather wanly. "I can hardly speak to him at Eccleston Square, can I?"
Something occurs to Fido. "I thought you told me your husband didn't mind Anderson's squiring you all over town."
"I don't think I said that."
Fido tries to remember; perhaps she'd just assumed that the admiral, toiling away in his study, had no objections. "Don't tell me he ... suspects the colonel of having feelings for you?"
"Feelings? I doubt it. Since Harry hasn't found me desirable in years, he can't imagine anyone else would," Helen says acidly. "But you see, I'd rather he didn't know that Anderson's back. It may seem rather coincidence, I mean," she says, rising to look out the window, "that the colonel's home leave should happen to overlap with the very month of our return."
Fido finds herself breathless. "Oh Helen! You mean to say that Anderson took leave in order to pursue you to London, and Harry believes him still in
Malta, all this time?"
"I knew nothing of it myself till the man's letter turned up on my tray," mutters Helen, eyes on the glaring street.
"But—"
"Don't fuss and fret," she says mildly, "I'm going to set it all to rights. But now you see that I can't invite him into my own house, and I can hardly begin such a speech on the street, or in a carriage: what if he were to make a scene?"
Fido frowns. "Surely he's too much of a gentleman—"
"Yes, but he's a desperate man too." Helen turns, speaking in a thrilled murmur. "The things he's said, in the past few weeks—threats against his own life..."
Fido clamps her teeth together. Vulgar, vulgar. "Very well, let it be here: if it were done when 'tis done, 'twere well it were done quickly," she quotes. "On what day am I to expect the colonel?"
Helen glances at the clock on the mantel. "He should be here any minute."
Fido recoils.
"Four, I said in my note."
"I don't want to be a party to such a scene!"
"Dearest, I wouldn't ask that of you," Helen assures her, coming over to press Fido's hands between her own surprisingly cool ones. "Simply make some excuse and leave the room for half an hour."
"But—"
The doorbell chimes below. A pause, then Fido hears Johnson's heavy footsteps cross the hall. "You're a force of chaos," she growls. "My life has been infinitely calmer without you in it."
Helen's eyes are glittering. "Don't be hard on me just now; I don't believe I can bear it. I'll need all my courage for this interview."
"Bless you, then," says Fido, giving her a crushing hug, and a kiss on her bright hair.
"Won't you go to