The Magicians and Mrs. Quent

by Galen Beckett

  As a man he had known the fear of losing, the fear of discovery, and the fear of not getting everything he wished. But this new dread that owned him now was different from all those. There was no threat of any harm to himself, yet his hands trembled as they had on the day he had shrunk against the stable wall as the slavering hound prowled toward him. His father’s stablemaster had brought the dog down with a rifle shot. It had collapsed at his feet, dead. Only this time there was nothing to shoot at, and it was not for himself that he was afraid.

  And that was what was so different about it. Even as he realized this, his shaking ceased. An urgency rose in him, a desire to make himself useful.

  “Are you well, Mr. Rafferdy?” Mrs. Baydon said, for she had returned from upstairs. “Your color is very high.”

  “I must see if I can be of aid,” he said, leaping to his feet.

  He made as if for the stairs, but she held him back. “Only her mother and Dr. Mercham can be with her now. If you wish to be a help, then stay here and give us the benefit of your conversation, so that we do not all sit here and stare and become morose. There is nothing we can do except wait, and the more lively we can make the hours, the more swiftly they will pass.”

  He gripped his hat in his hands. “I should have been here last night.”

  “I agree. You are awful for not having come. Yet you can hardly think what happened is your fault. While I have no doubt your presence has at times caused some to feel discomfort, I am equally certain it has never been the case that your absence has caused anyone to fall ill. Besides, I can assure you that she had a wonderful time.”

  Rafferdy looked at her. “Did she really?” The thought of her there, moving about Lady Marsdel’s parlor, brightening it with her presence in a way mere candles could not, gave him cause to smile. “I am certain she was the prettiest creature in the room.”

  Mrs. Baydon arched an eyebrow. “Well, one of the prettiest, I might presume to think. Though I begin to think that some glances, had they been in attendance, would have been only for her.”

  Despite Mrs. Baydon’s hopes that Rafferdy would entertain them, they made for a dreary party. Lady Marsdel continued to expound upon the evils of current fashion, while her brother offered every belief that it was no more than a trifle of a cold and that Miss Lockwell would be down at any moment, wanting a ball to dance at, for that was all any young woman ever wanted.

  “My father-in-law can always be counted upon for optimism,” Mrs. Baydon whispered to Rafferdy.

  “Indeed,” he said, flipping the pages of a book he was not reading, “Lord Baydon is remarkable in that quality. If confronted with the loss of all his worldly fortune, he would profess his belief that he would surely stumble upon a halfpenny in the street before long, so there could be no cause for worry.”

  Mrs. Baydon began to laugh but stifled the sound at a snap of Lady Marsdel’s fan.

  At last, as the middle of that middling but interminable-seeming lumenal approached, the doctor and Mrs. Lockwell came down. She leaned upon his arm and, despite her plumpness, appeared somehow thin, or rather, faded.

  Rafferdy was the first to his feet. “How is she?”

  “There is little change,” Mercham said. “The fever has not broken.”

  “I dread I must impose upon your hospitality further, your ladyship,” Mrs. Lockwell said to Lady Marsdel in a faint tone. “It is terrible that I must ask such a thing of you, but she must be allowed to stay.”

  The doctor agreed. “Her situation is precarious. She cannot be moved. However, for the present I would suggest everyone keep from that part of the house to avoid any risk of contagion.”

  This advice was readily agreed upon.

  “Lily and Rose!” Mrs. Lockwell exclaimed, becoming suddenly animated. “What if they are not well? I must go to them. Only I dare not leave my poor Ivy.”

  Rafferdy tossed down his book. “I will fetch them here, madam. My carriage is outside. That is, if that is acceptable to you, your ladyship.” He added this last belatedly, with a nod toward Lady Marsdel.

  “Far be it from me to decree to you how things should go in my own house, Mr. Rafferdy. It seems doctors and sons of cousins can do quite well at ordering my affairs.” She fed a bit of cake to the puff of dog beside her, a thing as fringed and frilled as the pillow on which it sat. “But of course you must go. We cannot expect Mrs. Lockwell’s motherly attentions to endure being so divided for long.” She hesitated. “There are only the two of them, didn’t you say?”

  “Indeed, your ladyship, only two,” Mrs. Lockwell said, brightening. “And each as sweet and pretty as their eldest sister, I am sure you will agree!”

  “I will reserve my judgment of their sweetness and prettiness until I meet them.” She looked at Rafferdy. “Go then, and be back within an hour, or I shall be vexed. We will suffer all manner of tedium while you are gone.”

  Rafferdy was certain he had added little if any amusement to the proceedings; however, he was forced to revise his appraisal of this. For upon his return an hour later, the two younger Miss Lockwells in tow, he found the party in the sitting room even more dour than when he left it.

  Lily and Rose were presented to Lady Marsdel. It was an experience that left Rose bereft of the capacity for any sort of expression, while Lily bestowed a theatrical curtsy upon her ladyship.

  “Well, you are neither of you so pretty as your sister,” Lady Marsdel pronounced after examining them both, “but your height is good, and your complexions. You are both tolerably pretty girls.”

  Rose at last managed a curtsy and hurried to a corner of the room, but Lily appeared aghast as she slouched off. Rafferdy could not help trading a smile with Mrs. Baydon.

  “I suspect,” he murmured to her, “that being merely tolerably pretty is something the youngest Miss Lockwell finds quite intolerable.”

  Mrs. Baydon agreed. “However, while my aunt’s words might be unwelcome, they aren’t untrue. Both are handsome girls, in that plain, solid way of the gentry. No doubt they will each do fine, in their own way. But they do not compare to Miss Ivoleyn Lockwell.”

  “You have my agreement on that!” Rafferdy said.

  Mrs. Baydon regarded him. “Yes, I suspected I would.”

  DUSK CAME, AND still there was no change in the patient’s condition. Lord Baydon had returned to Vallant Street with Mr. Baydon, and Lady Marsdel had retired to her chambers. Lily had occupied the afternoon by playing the pianoforte, and the dreary airs she pounded out had done little to lift the atmosphere of gloom. At some point Rafferdy heard the doctor and Mrs. Baydon whispering; Mercham had asked if she knew a priest who might be summoned if there was need.

  These words brought a kind of madness over Rafferdy. He could not stop pacing; he felt if he ceased moving, the darkness that nipped at his heels would overtake him, like the hound that had chased him so long ago. As he paced, he twisted the ring on his right hand. His visit yesterday to Mr. Mundy’s shop off Greenly Circle had been pointless. The little toad of a man had only cackled with glee when Rafferdy demanded that he remove the ring.

  It was not within any power of his to remove it, the wretched fellow had said. If the ring had no present owner, it might be tried on and removed at will, but once the thing was bought and claimed—or in this case, once it was bestowed and accepted—it could be removed only by the most powerful enchantments. Or by the death of the owner. And, Mr. Mundy assured him, the former often resulted in the latter.

  When Rafferdy demanded to know who had bought the ring, Mundy repeated that his customers received the utmost discretion. Not that Rafferdy needed confirmation; that Mr. Bennick had bought it and sent it to him he could not have been more certain.

  But why? That was a mystery that was not as easily answered. Had Bennick really done it to punish him for following that day? It seemed an elaborate and expensive way to torment someone so little known to him, and for so small a slight.

  He had stayed up all night, drinking whiskey until his he
ad ached, tormented. Each time he looked at the ring, the blue gem seemed to stare back at him like a hideous, mocking eye.

  A commotion on the stairs brought him out of this miserable reverie. It was the doctor; he had come down and was speaking to Mrs. Baydon. Rafferdy hurried toward them.

  “It has passed,” Mrs. Baydon said with a smile. “Her fever has broken.”

  “The worst is over now,” Mercham said, “but she is still very weak. I must return to her.”

  The doctor left them, and Rafferdy sagged against the newel post.

  “But what is wrong, Mr. Rafferdy?” Mrs. Baydon said as the doctor left them. “By your expression, I would hardly think you glad at the news.”

  Rafferdy could only shake his head. Sometimes relief was more unbearable than worry.

  “Come, let us tell the others,” Mrs. Baydon said. She took his hand, then frowned as she lifted it. “But what’s this awful ring you’re wearing? I can hardly bear to look at it.”

  “It’s the latest fashion,” he said, and before she could inquire more, he led her to the parlor to deliver the glad news.

  MISS LOCKWELL REMAINED at the house on Fairhall Street for the next quarter month. While her fever had passed, Dr. Mercham would not permit her removal until her strength was sufficiently restored.

  Mrs. Baydon spent many hours with Miss Lockwell, amusing her with talk and bringing flowers from the garden, for her charge wanted greatly for being out of doors. For his part, Rafferdy visited her every day—twice on long lumenals—and read to her from a book of Tharosian epics during one particularly long umbral.

  “For a man who reads so little, you read very well,” she told him as he turned a page. She sat in a chair by the fireplace, wrapped in a shawl. “I don’t know why you don’t read more often.”

  “What use is there in doing something one is already good at? The practice can bring no possible improvement.”

  “It is said there is pleasure in doing something one excels at.”

  “Which is precisely why you will so often find me doing nothing at all.”

  She laughed, the action bringing color to her cheeks. By then she was spending much of her time in an upstairs parlor that was favored with afternoon sun; it was there he paid her his visits. He liked to imagine her condition always improved in those first few minutes after he entered the room. It was a vanity, perhaps, though hardly his only one.

  “You are very dutiful in your charge, Mr. Rafferdy,” Lady Marsdel told him one evening at supper. “It is admirable of you. But you seem to think we are incapable of seeing to the needs of one rather smallish young woman.”

  It took him a moment to formulate a reply. It was just that he felt a responsibility, he said, having been the one to invite her. What sort of proper gentleman would he be if he abandoned her?

  “But she is in no way abandoned!” Mrs. Baydon protested. “That she could be looked after with more concern is not possible were she in her own home. Besides, I think I have earned a claim to Miss Lockwell myself. She is my friend, you know. I am sure I have spent more time with her than you. And,” she added with an arch look, “since when was it a very particular concern of yours to be a proper gentleman?”

  That was a question, Rafferdy was forced to admit, for which he had no answer.

  THE NEXT DAY Miss Lockwell was deemed fit enough to come downstairs for a few hours and engage in the society of the household.

  “But I cannot possibly,” she said when Mrs. Baydon brought her the news. “I have already imposed upon the hospitality of her ladyship in the most unimaginable way.”

  “It is my aunt herself who said you should come down,” Mrs. Baydon said. “So there can be no imposition, and you can have no reason not to come. If your spirits allow, that is.”

  “Of course they do,” Rafferdy said, taking her arm and leading her to the stairs before she could mount any further protest.

  It was soon clear the change in scenery was just what she needed. Her eyes were clear, and she smiled often. Despite this improvement, she seemed determined to do no more than sit quietly and listen to the conversation of the others. Rafferdy made several attempts to provoke her participation, but she resisted all such efforts.

  “I’ve heard that Viscount Argendy is to give another masque,” Mrs. Baydon said. “Though I cannot imagine I shall be allowed to attend.”

  “You cannot imagine it, yet you have brought it up,” Mr. Baydon said over his broadsheet. “What a curious situation. I would have thought it impossible to speak of something one cannot even imagine. How about you, Rafferdy? Can you perform such a singular feat?”

  “I cannot imagine you will ever smile while reading an issue of The Comet,” he said, at which Mrs. Baydon clapped her hands.

  “You see, Mr. Baydon?” she said to her husband. “It is not so impossible a thing, after all. Though I suppose it is impossible I will ever go to a masque. And by all reports the last was such a success! It was said they made the interior of his house to look like a garden, with fountains and trees and fauns running about. Next time he promises to have twice the number of illusionists.”

  This news sent Lady Marsdel’s fan into a fit of fluttering. “It is bad enough that those with no sense of propriety or shame slink down to Durrow Street to view the work of those indecent illusionists. But to invite them into the very homes of superior society to work their mischief—it is intolerable!”

  “But it’s not indecent,” Mrs. Baydon protested. “How can it be, when it’s the fashion? Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Lockwell?”

  Ivy looked up from the book in her lap, her expression startled. With everyone looking to her, she was at last forced to speak. “I am sure my opinion on the subject cannot matter.”

  “You seem a sensible girl, Miss Lockwell,” Lady Marsdel said. “Why should your thoughts not be heard? I demand you speak them aloud!”

  Ivy hesitated, then shut her book. “I do not disagree there might be pleasure in seeing something so novel as a performance by illusionists.” She smiled at Mrs. Baydon. “I cannot believe exposure to such things, for a mind that is truly good, could really cause lasting harm. However, for me, any enjoyment that might be derived from such a spectacle would be outweighed by the knowledge that my actions have brought discredit to myself and thereby to those to whom I am most intimately attached—that is, my father, mother, and sisters, whom I admire and love. So I could not go. Any wish I might have for myself, however enticing, cannot be indulged if it brings about something I would not wish for them.”

  “Very well spoken, Miss Lockwell!” Lord Baydon proclaimed. “I could not have said it better myself.”

  Indeed, it was difficult for Rafferdy to imagine Lord Baydon could have said it at all.

  “Really, Miss Lockwell,” Mrs. Baydon said, “had I known that you would so eloquently remove all chances of my gambit succeeding, I would have thought twice before seeking your opinion.”

  Ivy’s expression was one of dismay. “It was in no way my intention to cause you any distress, Mrs. Baydon. If I have done so, please forgive me. My opinion was asked, and I gave it as truthfully as I could. In no way did I mean it as any sort of comparison with yourself.”

  “Now, Mrs. Baydon, you’ve given her a fright,” Rafferdy said, keeping his voice light but feeling a note of real concern. Ivy’s color had gone pale again. “She cannot know what a teasing thing you are, not as I do.”

  “But of course I’m teasing!” Mrs. Baydon said, and hurried over to Miss Lockwell, taking her hand and assuring her that she was in no way upset or affronted. At last Miss Lockwell was forced to concede that she was as sincere now as she had been satirical before.

  “You have to know that we say outrageous things sometimes, but you mustn’t think anything of it.” Mrs. Baydon smiled. “Besides, no one could ever think it your intention to cause harm. I am sure you are incapable of it.”

  “Now you will make a saint of me!” Miss Lockwell protested. “I am not sure this is in any
way less teasing. Indeed, I think it more so. I would rather be wrongly accused of doing ill than be thought to never do ill at all. For when I topple from that high pedestal, as I inevitably must, it will make the fall all that much further.”

  “Nonsense, Miss Lockwell,” Rafferdy said seriously, “for in that case you have only to spread your wings and fly like any angel.”

  “Here, here!” Lord Baydon said, and clapped his hands.

  Mrs. Baydon returned to the initial subject. “Well, I will do what is right. I won’t attend Viscount Argendy’s masque. I wish I could feel so virtuous a resignation as you display, Miss Lockwell. However, I warrant I am bound to be peevish. I allow that it would bring discredit for me to go, and so I must not. Yet I cannot help but think that going should not bring discredit at all.”

  “On that point I can offer no disagreement,” Miss Lockwell said. “However, one cannot alter the world, so I suppose one is left with no choice but to alter oneself.”

  “We must give up our wishes, you mean.”

  “That may be so. Or perhaps…” She seemed to think about this. “Perhaps it simply means we must seek them in a different manner, or in another place. If one door is closed to you, then look among all that are open. It may be that what you seek is through one.”

  “I doubt any of them will lead to a masque.”

  Miss Lockwell smiled. “No, I suppose not. But ask yourself: what is it that made you wish to attend the affair at the viscount’s? Was it the performance itself? Or was it something else—the newness of it, or the chance to see something beautiful? Surely there are sights of beauty and novelty that are within your power to witness.”

  Once again Mrs. Baydon sighed, only this time it was an expression of amazement. “Miss Lockwell, I believe you are right. I will seek out such things—beautiful things. I feel hopeful of a sudden. You have quite deprived me of my peevishness and want for complaining.”