Read Online The Dark Volume by Gordon Dahlquist - Free Book Online Page A

cigarette stub—that Miss Temple noticed the tears brimming about the woman's eyes. She saw in an instant that Elöise was right, that anything could have happened, that Chang and Svenson could have been killed.
    “No no,” she began with a dutiful cheer. “I'm sure our friends are quite safe—”
    But Elöise cried out quite sharply, even as twin lines of tears broke forth down her cheeks.
    “Who are you to know anything, Celeste Temple? You are a willful thing who has been happily asleep these past cruel days—who has money and confident ease, who has been rescued from your brazen presumption time and again by these very men who may now be dead or who knows where? Who I have watched over night after night, watched alone, only to have you abandon me at every adventuresome whim that pops into your spoiled-brat's brain!”
    Miss Temple's first impulse was to slap the other woman's face quite hard, but she was so taken aback by this outburst that her only response was a certain cold loathing. It settled behind her grey eyes and imbued their formerly eager expression with the watchful, heartless gaze of an ambivalent cat.
    Just as immediately Elöise placed a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.
    “O Celeste, I am sorry—I did not mean it, forgive me—”
    But Miss Temple had heard such words before, throughout the whole of her life, from her imperious father to the lowest kitchen maid, so often that she divided the persons she knew into those who had voiced—or, she suspected, harbored—such criticisms, and those, like Chang, Svenson, and up to this very instant Elöise, who had not. She was routinely obliged to retain regular contact with those in the former category, but future dealings were irrevocably changed—and as she stared coolly at Mrs. Dujong, Miss Temple ignored what a less forceful person might have recognized on the woman's face as evident regret. Instead, taking care and interest as things once more to bury fully within her own heart, Miss Temple shifted her attention, as if it were a heavy case on a train platform, to the very real and pressing tasks at hand, next to which any intimate misunderstandings must be insignificant.
    “We shall not speak of it,” she said quietly.
    “No no, it was horrid, I am so sorry—” here Elöise stifled an actual, presumptuous sob “—I am merely frightened! And after my quarrel with the Doctor, our foolish, foolish quarrel—”
    “It is surely no matter to me either way.” Miss Temple took the opportunity to rise and straighten her dress, stepping deftly beyond the reach of any guilt-driven comforting hand. “My only concern is to confound and defeat this party of murdering villains—and learn who is responsible for these crimes—and whether anyone else survived the airship. Lives are at stake—it is imperative we find answers , Elöise.”
    “Of course—Celeste—”
    “Which brings me to ask, as it was impossible to do so downstairs, whether in your search you glimpsed any other figure in the village streets?”
    “Was there someone we ought to have seen?”
    Miss Temple shrugged. Elöise watched her closely, obviously on the point of apologizing once more. Miss Temple smiled as graciously as she could.
    “It is only this morning that I have been from my bed. Suddenly I should like nothing more than to shut my eyes.”
    “Of course. I will tell Mrs. Daube that we shall be some minutes more—you must take all the time you like.”
    “That is most kind,” said Miss Temple. “If you would take the lantern with you and close the door.”
    AS SHE lay in the dark, facing the pine plank wall, holding Chang's volume of poetry between her hands, Miss Temple told herself that in all truth it was simpler this way—and who knew, perhaps Elöise's quarrel with Doctor Svenson had been similarly impulsive and shortsighted, the outburst of an unreliable, skittish woman who had, quite frankly, always been something of a bother. She took in a deep breath and