“What a jolly bunch,” Mrs. Hewitt-Cook said brightly. “You must have a famously good time, being a new woman—tell us, what is it like?”
Too many answers at once rushed at her, none of them appropriate. The pet rat she had contemplated keeping in order to appear sufficiently eccentric in her new student role came to mind, and how just before the term began, she had learned that another female student already kept a rat, a white one that sat on her shoulder …. She felt the weight of Mr. Blackstone’s gaze on her profile. Her reply came out in a mumble: “It’s very diverting,” she said, and touched her hair. “Being a new woman, it’s diverting.”
“I imagine,” said Mrs. Hewitt-Cook. “Such terribly colorful characters among the bluestockings, surely.”
Hattie saw her mother’s back stiffen at the veiled barb. “Perhaps one or two,” she said. “Most of us, however, are still perfectly monochrome.”
Mrs. Hewitt-Cook laughed softly. “Why, she’s charming, Mrs. Greenfield.”
“A lot of excitement surrounds the matter of women in higher education,” Adele said with a cool undertone. “The truth is the young women are more rigorously supervised at university than they would be in any other place. Harriet, for example, is never without Mrs. Greenfield-Carruther”—and here she nodded at Aunty—“and of course she is always under the watchful eye of her protection officer.”
At this, Mr. Blackstone’s left brow rose very slightly. Help.
“It’s lovely to see female talent fostered,” young Mrs. Astorp said. “We were admiring your painting earlier, you see.”
Worse and worse. Everyone turned to look at the practice piece she had so haphazardly chosen during her crisis over Persephone. There was the bowl, the wood-grain texture of it poorly done. Therein followed the uninspiring assortment of fruit and some vegetables.
Mr. Blackstone looked her in the eye. “You painted this?”
She thought of how his reception room alone was overflowing with artistic masterpieces.
“I did, yes.” And I can do so much better.
“Remarkable,” Mrs. Hewitt-Cook said politely.
It wasn’t remarkable and she was well aware of the fact, but of course she must not say so, and so she smiled and said, “Thank you, ma’am.”
“What is the symbolism behind it?” Mrs. Hewitt-Cook asked. “I was wondering about it.”
She gave the woman a baffled glance. “I had no particular symbolism in mind.”
“But the gourd.” Mrs. Hewitt-Cook was pointing at it with a thin finger. “It doesn’t share the season with any of the other vegetables, nor the fruit. Why did you include it?”
Now they were all studying the gourd, which looked more obscenely bulbous and flesh-colored by the moment.
“I suppose it provided the best complementary shape for the composition?” Hattie’s voice was a little shrill.
“Ah,” Mrs. Hewitt-Cook said. “Such a creative solution.”
“Our Harriet is very talented,” Aunty said loudly. “I tell Mr. Greenfield that not everyone is required to excel at mastering figures and investments—I know I had no talents lying that way, either, when I was Harriet’s age, and yet I thrived. Some of us are meant to beautify the world with a brush or needle, not make it more profitable by way of a rational brain.”
She stood in silence, feeling her head glow a beaming red. Her mother was speechless, too. Mrs. Hewitt-Cook appeared to take pity. “Mr. Blackstone,” she said, turning to the man. “I understand you do have a head for profitable investments.”
Mr. Blackstone countered Mrs. Hewitt-Cook’s inviting smile with a bland expression. “Often enough, yes.”
“Then you must share some of your insights,” Mrs. Hewitt-Cook said. “I should like nothing more than to surprise Mr. Hewitt-Cook with an accurate market prediction.”
His lip curled with faint derision. “I don’t want to bore you with business talk, ma’am.”
“How about an invention or two that shall unleash the next industrial revolution?” With true American tenacity, Mrs. Hewitt-Cook refused to be deterred by his rudeness. “At least give us hapless females some clues about exciting new technologies—wouldn’t that be amusing?” She cast a glance around the small group that demanded approval.
“Very amusing,” Mrs. Astorp murmured.
“Hear, hear,” Adele said with faint reluctance.
Mr. Blackstone’s expression softened only when Hattie gave a tiny nod.
“Electricity,” he said.
A pause ensued while all eyes were on him. Mr. Blackstone’s gaze furtively flickered across the room, perhaps in search of staff bearing stiff drinks, perhaps attempting to locate the quickest exit route.
“Electricity,” Mrs. Hewitt-Cook said, and waved at a waiter to pick up a glass with pink champagne. “We should invest in electric lightbulb stock is what you say?”
Mr. Blackstone chose a tumbler with an amber liquid from the tray. In profile, one could see his brushed-back hair curl at his nape, winning the rebellion against the pomade.
“Invest in stock,” he said. “Also, invest in a company that has patented the process for the serial production of high-temperature-enduring boiler feed pumps.”
Mrs. Astorp blinked. Hattie wagered her own face looked just as perplexed.
“Boiler feed pumps,” Mrs. Hewitt-Cook enunciated. “I’m so intrigued because I don’t understand a word.”
Any normal man would have smiled and retorted a few bons mots, but Mr. Blackstone was unable or unwilling to follow procedure. “Boiler feed pumps are an essential part of electric generators,” he said, “necessary for converting steam into electricity. In ten years’ time, we’ll have hundreds of power plants working across Britain and the continent—the moment we can safely use electricity to light a home, it will be used for other things, too,” and, noting Mrs. Hewitt-Cook’s eager expression, he added, “A byproduct of electricity is heat, so electricity should replace current ways of heating household devices—stoves and the like.”
His aloofness was rare in a man of business—Hattie knew many, and they inevitably used the topic at hand to relate messages about their own cleverness rather than the subject matter, and they more or less subtly imparted the expectation that their female audience nod along with large, impressed eyes. Mr. Blackstone, however, appeared wholly self-contained and kept his gravelly voice low; he wasn’t desiring their admiration in the slightest. Alarming. A man immune to female charm was a dangerous creature when charm was one’s chief line of defense. It certainly intrigued Mrs. Hewitt-Cook; she was observing Mr. Blackstone as though he were some exotic specimen requiring urgent classification. “Riveting,” she murmured. “The feed pumps have been noted. But I’m afraid my appetite’s been whetted—tell us more?”
Again, Hattie had the unnerving feeling that Mr. Blackstone was waiting for her acquiescence. When she nodded, he emptied his drink and said, “Two-way mirrors.”
“What’s that?” Aunty demanded. “Two-ways?”
“It’s a mirror you can see through as though it were a window.”