The Sealed Letter Read Online Free PDF Page A

narrow waist as if she's guessed that Fido has no idea which is which, "and very sensitive with a watercolour brush. As for Nell—"
    "I'm much less accomplished," volunteers the younger girl.
    "—but far more moral," adds her sister.
    Fido laughs. "You share your sentences, the way you used to share your toys."
    "Oh, they share everything, even their faults," Helen tells her. "They're a perfect conspiracy."
    Fido scrabbles for a memory. "You both had a craze for spinning tops."
    "We have a collection of thirty-four—" Nell confides.
    "—but we don't play with them anymore, it's beneath our dignity," says Nan.
    This makes their mother yelp with amusement. "These days it's all stereoscope, stereoscope," she says, gesturing to a mahogany and brass device on a tiny table. "Every time I turn around I find them attached to the contraption, which can't be good for their eyes."
    "But it's marvellous, Mama. Things seem so very real."
    "It's so much better than the old magic lantern at the Allens'."
    "When I look at the Stereo View from a Precipice, I feel as though I'm going to topple in," adds Nan.
    "Topple off to the schoolroom now, if you please, so Mama can talk to her friend."
    Nan leans into the visitor's ear on her way out. "Are you going to live upstairs again, Aunt Fido?"
    She jumps. "No, my dear," she says, too heartily, "but we'll see a great deal of each other, I hope."
    The girls sketch a simultaneous curtsy, and the maid closes the doors behind them.
    It's oddly difficult to be alone with Helen, Fido finds. She hears herself swallow.
    Helen's smile is tight. "When I spotted you on Farringdon Street, yesterday, you looked so—so changed, I hardly dared hail you."
    "Older and fatter, you mean."
    "No, no. I believe it's that you don't curl your hair anymore, and it's cut to your shoulders. And the shorter skirts."
    Dowdy, Fido translates. "Yes, we working women tend to follow the country style," she says. "Nothing that will catch in machinery or trail in the dirt."
    "Harry would never stand for an uncorseted wife," remarks Helen.
    Is there a little envy in her tone? A pause. It's harder to keep the conversational plates spinning here than it was on the street. The pouring of tea takes up half a minute, then Fido launches into an enthusiastic précis of The Notting Hill Mystery.
    "Well," says Helen, leaning back on the cushions, "I'm relieved you still have at least two relaxing habits in your ever-so-strenuous way of life. Novels and cigarettes."
    "How did you—"
    A giggle. "Yesterday, when I held your hand in the Underground, my fingers smelled of Turkish tobacco afterward."
    "Mock all you like," says Fido, sheepish. There's no rational reason why a woman shouldn't smoke, especially if she finds it beneficial to her health—but somehow Fido prefers to do it in the privacy of her bedroom. "As for my strenuous way of life, I must tell you, work has been a revelation to me. What is it Mrs. Browning says?" She strains to remember. "Yes, that work is worth more in itself than whatever we work to get."
    One slim eyebrow soars. "Hadn't you ever worked hard before you started going in for your rights?"
    "Oh, Latin lessons with my father, sewing clothes for parish children," says Fido with a wave of the hand, "but nothing meaningful. When I happened across a copy of the English Woman's Journal and discovered the Cause..." She pronounces the word with an odd bashfulness. "I marched into 19 Langham Place, introduced myself to Miss Bessie Parkes, said 'Put me to any use at all.' Oh, the thrill of spending one's energies on something that really matters—" She breaks off, belatedly aware of the insult.
    Helen's smile is feline.
    Fido almost stammers. "What I meant is—for those of us without pressing duties, children to educate, and households to run, and—"
    "Come, come, don't we know each other too well for cant? Mrs. Lawless gives the girls their lessons, and I handed my keys to Mrs. Nichols years ago. I pass my days