An Impossible Deception

Chapter Four: An Embarrassment of Riches

Because of the noise, Isabella did not at first notice the knocker banging on the front door. By the time she realized what it was, servants' footsteps were already pattering towards it. Isabella crept to the sitting room door and cracked it open, peering through just in time to see the butler open the front door.

Isabella's first instinct had told her that the man waiting on the doorstep was Mr Locke, but as her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw that it was no man at all but a woman. A friend of Arabella's? But White had his hand firmly on the door handle, as though about to close it.

"I'd like to speak to the lady of the house," said the woman on the doorstep.

"I will see if she is at home."

"I can see she's at home. She's skulking in the doorway behind you." The woman's voice rose. "Mrs Locke, how are you enjoying that dress? Not getting threadbare?"

Isabella looked down at her dress in confusion. It was a very pretty dress, quite new, and it must have caused Arabella some pain to have to leave it behind her when she ran off with Mr Haythorn.

"I mean it has been nearly a year since I made it for you," the woman continued, insinuating herself against the door frame as the butler tried to shut the door. "I'd be happy to make another one, you know... once you have paid for the first."

Comprehension dawned upon Isabella. She blushed, remembered Arabella would not, and stepped back into the shadow of the sitting room.

"Now don't you run away, Mrs Locke," the woman said, warding White off with the point of her umbrella as he tried to shoo her back off the doorstep. "I want to know when I'm going to receive my due."

"I'm not running away." Isabella tried to think of what Arabella would say. She would no doubt have a clever way of getting rid of this woman. It would definitely not be in Arabella's character to pay a debt merely because it was demanded of her.

It was, however, in Isabella's.

"I'll pay you today," she said.

A look of surprise crossed the woman's face, then she slipped past the butler's arm and positioned herself very firmly against the grandfather clock.

"I'll wait here," she said.

"Mrs Mercier—" White began.

"I'll wait," she repeated.

It occurred to Isabella now that she had no idea where Arabella kept her money. She did not even know how much the bill was. She stepped back into Arabella's sitting room and opened the top drawer of the desk. Within was a clutter of papers, ribbons, ink bottles, and wax sticks. Isabella sighed and shoved the drawer shut again.

There was a footstep behind her and she turned to see White in the doorway.

"Should I get rid of Mrs Mercier, madame?" he asked. "I can call upon the footman to assist me."

"No, no." Isabella anxiously smoothed back the locks of hair falling over her brow, remembered that was not how Arabella wore her hair, and rumpled them loose again. "Where does— where does one ever find anything in this house? My money. Find it for me and I'll get rid of her."

That seemed like a suitably Arabella thing to say. At any rate, White nodded and turned aside. Isabella went back into the hall where Mrs Mercier gave her a superior smile.

"I had sent you so many letters about the bill that I had begun to think you couldn't read," she said.

"I'm sorry," Isabella said, before she could stop herself.

Mrs Mercier blinked. "Are you quite well, Mrs Locke?"

"Quite well."

Uncertainty flitted across Mrs Mercier's face. "I do enjoy your custom, you know, but business is business."