And it was enormous. Easily three times the size of the school.
Nan looked around her, and so did the rest of the children, eyes as wide as they could stretch—at manicured parkland that could easily hold three Hyde Parks and then some—at the huge pile of a building, that promised endless opportunities for exploration—at the glimpse of gardens in the rear, and beyond that, a hint of water. And for the first time they all understood that all of this was, within reason, theirs for the month, to run in, play in, explore, hide, make up stories in and act them out—
And it was Nan who summed up all their feelings in a single word.
A word which burst out of her like a cannonball out of a gun.
“Cor!” she shouted in glee.
Mem’sab, being handed down out of the charabanc, merely looked up and smiled.
8
MUCH as he admired and depended upon Lady Cordelia, there was some relief for David Alderscroft in being in a place to which she could not go. Here in his club, surrounded by men and the things of men, with not even a hint of women about (the few maidservants kept themselves discreetly out of sight as best they could), there was a sense that one could let down one’s guard and relax.
Not that Cordelia was like most women, but still… here, one didn’t have to be so terribly careful of manners and speech, and if one made a faux pas, a man would simply wave it off, where a woman would stew about it for hours. Women were grand ornaments to life, but even the best of them forgot that a man needed to be a man among men on a regular basis.
Small wonder that many men all but lived at their clubs even when they did not have rooms there. Even working men knew the pressure of too-attentive female companionship, and had their pubs and their coffeehouses. He never felt quite so comfortable as when he was at the club, with women restricted to the Visitors’ Parlor and Visitors’ Dining Room—and if there were females in a resident member’s rooms, well, that was his business and had nothing to do with the rest of the members. One could have sisters and a mother, after all. And aunts. And if they were deuced attractive sisters and aunts, who might or might not have careers on the stage, well, such things happened. So long as they did not intrude on anyone else, it was none of his business. Here, not only were the members incurious about who came in and out, so long as it was discreet, they were incurious about what came in and out, and a phenomenal number of them were Elemental Mages, occultists, or had had brushes with the uncanny. Here, they knew how to keep secret and silent when odd things happened. And here he had chosen to make the headquarters of his new incarnation of a much older Elemental Masters’ Master’s Circle.
The Master’s Circle, or White Lodge, was an ancient magical tradition, created for the purpose of self-policing one’s own kind, as it were. Originally intended to hunt down and destroy the enemies of the members, it had evolved to the more civilized function of ensuring that no Elemental Master within its jurisdiction attacked another, or attacked those not blessed with magic.
It had been at its most active during the Regency, when the notorious Hellfire Club (which actually had very little in the way of true Magical power) and those modeled after it (some of which did) had flourished. Since that time, it had declined to little more than a social group that occasionally did some investigative and disciplinary work. One of the most recent had been the ill-fated, though ultimately successful, attempt to track down and bring to heel a wayward Fire Master—the attempt that had cost David’s own father so much. It had been David’s idea, not Cordelia’s, to revitalize the lodge and make it more effective. In this, he flattered himself, he had been quite successful—enough so that he heard that he was being called the “Wizard of London” now.
Truth to tell, Cordelia did not much like the Circle. He suspected that she resented the fact that she was not permitted inside the club and had not been invited to join, but really, a woman had no real place in a Master’s Circle—
Well, most women. There were a few, a very few, who like the few neck-or-nothing riders in his Hunt Club, could keep up in terms of energy and sheer instinct for the kill with the best of the men, but they were rare indeed. He could not imagine Lady Cordelia in such a position, with her cool, calm demeanor and immaculate manners. She would regard much of what the Circle did with distaste, as “dirtying her hands.” For heaven’s sake, he couldn’t even imagine her on the back of a horse in hunting dress, much less traipsing across the countryside in search of a rogue magician!
So he ignored her obvious disdain for the work of the Circle, as he ignored nothing else she said or did, and went early to the meetings of the Circle so he could enjoy the masculine ambience of the club before he picked up his arcane duties.
This particular Master’s Circle had been the one to which his father had belonged, and it had been when his father had been unable to muster an adequate hunting party and had been injured that had made David take notice. He had decided then that the situation simply would not do, and began rectifying it.
Now it was a matter of sending a few messages across the city to muster a full-strength hunting party within the hour, and within three, a Circle of Initiates could be assembled.
There were, in fact, enough Mages and Masters in the group to gather a Circle Trine if the need arose, and that had not been the case since the Circle had first been formed. Possibly the fact that the Circle had been moved to London, where most of the members at least had town homes, had made the difference. Perhaps it was because in London there simply were so many people it was not at all difficult to find enough Mages. Perhaps it was because it was in a men’s club; it was easy to give the wife the excuse that one was going to one’s club in order to slip out. Granted, Mages usually married Mages, but women with the Talent were still women, and inclined to favor commitments to dinner parties over commitments to the Master’s Circle—and were equally inclined to be both far too curious and far too suspicious when a gentleman had to be evasive about where he was going and what he was doing.
Nor could they manage to keep the secrets secret.
But a man could say, “I’m going to the club,” and a woman would nod and think nothing more of it.
And perhaps that was the main reason for the success of the Master’s Circle. A man could come here, do the Work of the Circle, and return home late, and the spouse would ask why so late a return, and a man could say “Oh, Lytton went off on one of his shooting stories and we lost all track of time,” or “A billiard game turned into a match, you know how it is,” and if there were no signs of inebriation or the presence of floozies, there would be no further questions.
Yes, that might be the best reason for success of all.
Tonight would be routine, a follow-up meeting of the key members of the Circle to find out the disposition of a little problem Nigel Lytton had reported, a matter of an Elemental Magician gone wrong in London itself. It was fairly trivial as such things went, and a preliminary report had stated that the miscreant in question had already passed the jurisdiction of mortal justice, but Alderscroft liked to have things properly neatened up in the wake of the resolution of any situation.
And besides, it was as good an excuse as any to take supper here.
Although his cook—his chef, rather—was good, he was also French, and it was a secondary relief to enjoy simple English fare once in a while as well. It had occurred to David, and more than once, that perhaps he ought to sell or close up his town home, take up residence here, and a great many aspects of his life would be improved. There would be no more servants’ crises, for instance; those details were taken care of invisibly by the club staff. Normally such things were handled with equal invisibility by one’s wife or mother, but David had neither, and had to deal with staff upheavals himself.
But no, Cordelia would not be able to go past the Visitors’ Parlor room, which would mean that to get further lessons from her, he would have to come to her home, and something about that made him feel rebellious. Silly, perhaps, but nevertheless such
a feeling would be counterproductive to actually learning anything.
He took the steps of the club briskly and nodded to Stewart, the doorman, as that worthy held the portal open for him. The familiar and comforting aroma of tobacco and brandy, books, and newspaper struck him as he entered, and he headed straight for the Members’ Dining Room without a pause. The savory scent of good roast beef met his nose as he entered, which cemented what his selection would be in his mind before he even sat down.
Scotch broth, to begin, and oysters, then roast beef and potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, new peas, and an apple tart… wonderful. He savored his brandy and a cigar afterward, and wondered why his expensive chef could not understand that plain food was just as good as, if not superior to, the fancy sauces of French cooking. And it made him think, fleetingly, of their good old cook, back at the manor, who had made it very clear that she would not be moving to London.
But no. The disadvantages of life there so far outweighed the advantages that there was no comparison. He was not, and never had been, the sort to enjoy country life. Nor was Cordelia, really. Now Isabelle—
With a faint oath, he forced the thought of Isabelle from his mind. What was wrong with him anyway? Time and time again, he found himself thinking of the silly girl, someone he had given no thought to whatsoever for years!
It was enough to put him right off enjoying his brandy and cigar, and with irritation he extinguished the latter and left the table to go up to the top floor of the club, where the rooms reserved for the Master’s Circle were located.
The top floor was called the Founder’s Suite, and had once been the residence of the founder of the club who had himself been an Elemental Master. It had been vacant for years; no one had the temerity to consider taking over the space that had once housed so formidable a personality. But a good half the space was taken up by a Meeting Room and a Working Room, and when David had brought the Master’s Circle to his club, it had been with the idea in mind of using these rooms.
That Founding Member in question had been an Air Master, and the light blues and whites with which the area was decorated had not fared well over the years. By the time he got permission to use the rooms, the whites had yellowed and the blues gone to muddy blue-gray. The net effect was of ingrained grime. At his own expense, David had arranged for it all to be redone in Turkey red, ocher, and other colors he found comfortable. No one seemed to object, though he suspected one or two of the others found it amusing that the place was clearly a haven for a Fire Master. But he consoled himself with the knowledge that the colors were practical, unlike lighter tones that honestly would not survive a winter of soot and pea soupers.
There should be no work tonight, so he went straight to the Meeting Room. Deliberately, with the vague idea that King Arthur’s Round Table was a good idea to establish equality among peers, there was no “head” or “foot” to the square table in the middle of the room, and no difference in the quite comfortable chairs. As he had requested, the gaslights had already been lit; he brought in a newspaper and settled down to read it until the rest arrived.
It would not be a full meeting tonight by any stretch of the imagination, so as the others trickled in, they all clustered at the end of the table where he was. When they were all assembled, he rang for the servant, who brought the decanters of port and brandy and glasses, and left. As was their custom, they served themselves; the brandy had been supplied by David from his father’s private stock, the port by Atherton Crey. Both liquors were over a hundred years old. The pouring of the drink signaled the start of business.
“So, Nigel,” David said, cradling his snifter in his left hand to warm the contents and release the aroma. “Give us the full report on that anarchist incident.”
Nigel, Lord Lytton, was an Earth Master, and as such acutely uncomfortable in London, where so much of the soil was covered over, poisoned, or both. He always looked half-choked whenever he came into town, and today was no exception. His long, solemn face looked even longer than usual, and was certainly several shades paler than it ought to be. “If you don’t mind, I’ll begin this where I think it ought to start, and not with that rogue Talent, Connor O’Brian,” he said, passing his hand over his thinning, nondescript brown hair. “And that is with a little girl. Two of them actually, since they seem to be inseparable, but the one that concerns us is already a powerful medium, and she’s barely ten.”
David, who knew some of this already, merely nodded, but the others looked variously surprised or impressed, depending on their natures.
“There’s a lady and her husband who have a school for the Gifted children of expatriates mostly posted in India,” Nigel continued. “Not all the children are Gifted, of course, but this is where they’re sent if their parents know of the place. Harton School. Isabelle and Frederick Harton; she met him in India, where they picked up some more Gifted servants from among the natives there. My wife knows the woman; old school friend of hers that went off to India once her school days were over.”
The name “Isabelle” had struck David Alderscroft with the force of a blow, and to hear that the woman was a school friend of Nigel’s wife only made it worse. To sit there and listen to a description of a woman that he was more convinced with every word was “his” Isabelle took all his strength of will. It took a great deal of effort to wrench himself out of his numb shock to listen, even with half an ear, as Nigel explained how the little girls had been lured to the building in question and shut in, while an Earth Wight specially conjured and bound to an existing spirit that already haunted the place there was loosed on them. He wasn’t the least interested in two little girls, no matter what their plight had been—
He managed to get his attention back on the subject as Nigel described capturing the creature, then interrogating it as to who had brought it there, then banishing it. It was a strong Elemental; it had taken Nigel and three friends to do the job.
“It didn’t know the Master’s real name, of course, but what it knew led us to O’Brian who was, by that time, dead,” Nigel concluded. “The problem with all of this is that those little girls, obscure little girls, with no enemies, were without any shadow of a doubt, the real targets of the attack. Alderscroft, that makes no sense. Killing them would accomplish nothing, get no notoriety for his cause. Unless—”
“Unless what?” asked Crey.
“Unless he—or someone using him—wanted to be rid of that specific little girl.” Nigel pinched the bridge of his nose, probably to relieve a headache. “That she is already a powerful medium could make her dangerous to someone.”
“Who?” demanded old Scathwaite—old in years and experience, but keen in mind and as agile in body as some of David’s contemporaries.
“I would say, ask that of those in psychical circles,” David said slowly, slowly getting control back over his runaway emotions. “Especially those who claim mediumistic powers and have none. They have the most to lose, and are the most threatened by a real medium. And if you wanted to hide what you were in order to prevent being caught by your own kind, what better than to hide behind an Elemental Master?”
“By heaven, David, you may be right!” Nigel sounded surprised and relieved at the same time. “It’s the psychical ones who knew about the girl in the first place. All right, I’ll go back to Mrs.Harton and suggest that if she hasn’t checked her friends and acquaintances for someone willing to use anyone and anything to further his own ambitions, she ought to. Then see if any of them can be traced back to a contact with O’Brian.”
“The simplest solution is often the right one,” David replied, and shrugged. “Of course the simplest solution is usually something not very palatable.”
He had managed, by dint of great effort, to shove his emotional reactions off to the side, and cool masculine logic had reasserted itself.
“The point is, our involvement in this distasteful incident is fundamentally closed,” agreed Thomas Markham, a viscount. “It seems clear to me at least that it is w
ildly unlikely that the instigator is one of ours. The Harton woman should definitely be encouraged to look among her own kind for the enemy. Heaven knows there are more than enough unstable types in psychical circles to account for an attack on those poor little children.”
“And Bea has made sure that the children and school are protected from all sorts,” Nigel put in eagerly—no doubt thinking with relief that now he would be able to go back to his country estate and escape the miasma of London again. “I think everything has probably been done now.”
Nods all around the table. David smiled. “Good!” he said. “Now, I would like to discuss some of our tentative plans for becoming more involved with those in political office who are at the moment unaware we even exist…”
***
Nan had decided that if heaven was anything like Highleigh Park, she was going to have to put a lot more effort into being good so she could end up there.
There had been some initial reserve on the part of the servants about a horde of strange children running loose; not that Nan blamed them, no, not at all. They all got rooms in the area that held the nursery, which also held the rooms for the servants of visiting guests.
That was not at all bad; the rooms were plain and they had to share, but the rooms at the school were also fairly plain and they had to share. The littlest children, too young for lessons yet, got the best of it, Nan thought, because the nursery and schoolroom were both enormous, and the nursery was full of old, worn, but perfectly good toys from previous generations or left by visiting children. All the toys were new to the Harton School toddlers, of course, so they were very happy.
The first of the children to get into trouble was, predictably, Tommy, who seemed to gravitate toward trouble the way a moth was attracted to flame. They had all had their luncheon and most of them had gone off in little groups to explore the parkland, except for Tommy, who had gone off by himself.
Nan and Sarah were—with Grey and Neville’s assistance—investigating a charming but neglected little stone building, when suddenly there was a great crash from the direction of the manor house, followed by a veritable chorus of barks and howls. Sarah and Nan exchanged a glance.
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