Magic by Daylight

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  “Probably the maid tidied it away. They’re forever doing it to me. Can never find a thing after they’ve been through.”

  Clarice knew better than to let the good doctor start one of his favorite hobbyhorses. She stood up to take him to the door. “Morgain will be well by morning, do you think?”

  “Keep him on a low diet tomorrow and don’t let that nurse of yours quack him. He’ll be all right and tight by dinnertime tomorrow.”

  “You relieve my mind. He should hate to be kept cooped up for long. He wishes to accompany Mr. Knight on some of his expeditions up the moor.”

  “I see no harm in that, if Collie Camber goes along to haul him out of whatever trouble he’s bound to find. Mind you, this Knight fellow seems capable enough. Indeed, does it not seem to you that he is a thought muscular for a man who lives by his pen?”

  Clarice hid a smile behind her hand, turning her face away as though to glance at one of the pictures hung along the upper hall. Doctor Danby sometimes did her the honor of forgetting that she was female, and unmarried as well. Others might ask her opinion of a horse; only the doctor would dare ask her about a man’s physique.

  “No,” she said, lying, “I hadn’t noticed particularly. Perhaps he has some hobby that would account for it.”

  “Hmm, ‘tis possible. I understand that pugilism is increasingly popular among the young bloods though this fellow hasn’t the look of one of those wastrels.”

  “I don’t know about boxing,” Clarice admitted.

  “No, of course not. How should you? I dare say that Mr. Knight rides and walks a great deal which would naturally improve his health.”

  “No doubt. After all, he must trek over hill and dale to find the subjects he writes of. Viking relics and such don’t come calling on a man.”

  The doctor nodded yet still he frowned. Clarice said, “You are quite sure that I have not done wrong in permitting Mr. Knight to remain at Hamdry?”

  “I—no, not wrong. Imprudent, perhaps. But you may rely on me, m’dear. Once I tell my good wife that I find Mr. Knight unexceptionable, I’m sure the county will follow my lead.”

  This was true. Mrs. Danby never gossiped about her husband’s patients’ ailments. The rest of their histories proved not only fair but irresistible game. If she could be persuaded to take a lenient view of Mr. Knight, her attitude would color all her tales and thus influence her hearers. “Do bring her to luncheon tomorrow. I don’t believe that we have met since Melissa’s wedding.”

  “She would like it above all things. Only not tomorrow, my dear. She’s making an expedition in to Exeter to buy a wedding present for her niece.” They passed a few moments talking about the prospects for happiness of the doctor’s wife’s niece until Camber appeared with the doctor’s greatcoat and stick. “Your gig is at the door, sir.”

  “Thank you, Camber. Good night, m’dear.” Pausing on the threshold, the doctor took two or three deep breaths of the warm summer air. “Wonder if any of us will keep our engagements for tomorrow. I smell fog in the air.”

  “Does fog have a scent?” Clarice asked, diverted.

  “Aye. So does rain and snow if you stop a minute to think. I’ve lived on the edge of the great moor longer even than your ladyship. I may have learned a thing or two in that time. There will be fog tomorrow, sure as a gun.”

  “Do you come anyway, if it should prove not too thick,” Clarice urged.

  The doctor only waved his stick noncommittally as he heaved himself into the gig. Clarice stood in the lamplight, waving, as he drove away down the drive. When she breathed in, there was a definite scent, misty and ill-defined but undeniable. “Can you smell fog, Camber?”

  “No, my lady. But my grandfather could.”

  She cast a look around, half-considering a short stroll before retiring. A trifle of exercise often kept her from a restless night. Then Clarice remembered the shadowy figure of a cloaked man watching the house. She wondered if he were out there now.

  The evening air suddenly seemed much cooler. Clarice shivered and retreated into the house, letting the butler close the door. “I mustn’t neglect my guest,” she said. “Where is Mr. Knight?”

  “I believe you will find him in the Red Chamber, my lady. He desired me to inform him whether there were any antique weapons in the house.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.”

  “My lady?” Camber spoke just as she was turning toward the stairs. “Will the gentleman be staying?”

  “Yes, Camber. Doctor Danby sees nothing amiss in his staying on, nor do I. You exceeded your duties when you sent for Doctor Danby, you know.”

  “I thought it wise, my lady. We know nothing of this Mr. Knight.”

  “Never mind. Camber. I’m not angry.”

  She knocked on the door before she went in. The Red Chamber was undoubtedly the most formal room at the Manor. It had been her father’s room and his father’s before him. It was hung with dark red silk wallpaper with openwork paneling in a vaguely Chinese style. The black oak bed that occupied the center of the room was large enough for four people to lie down side by side. The other furniture was not nearly so massive, having been in the best of taste of sixty years previously.

  The thing that had most interested her father was what held Mr. Knight in fascination now. He stood before the outer wall, looking with awe at an interlocking pattern of swords, daggers, and knives that filled in the space between the windows.

  “My grandfather collected them,” she said, coming to stand beside him. He’d given no sign that he’d heard her tap at the door, yet neither did he start in surprise when she spoke. “He was a great traveler. I don’t know what they all are. My father told me once. I only wish he’d written it all down.”

  “This one is Arabian,” Mr. Knight said, lifting his lamp higher and reaching out to trace the shape of one curved blade. “You see the writing?”

  The letters seemed as sharp and warlike as the sword itself. “I thought that was just decorative.”

  “No, it’s Arabic. It says, “ The lamp of heaven is fueled by the blood of my enemies.”

  “My goodness! You read Arabic?”

  Ignoring the questions, he turned to point out another blade, shining with a pattern of gold inset in the silver. “This one is from Spain. See the crowns? Andrea Ferria, greatest of the European swordsmiths. And that one, with the black and gold cords traversing the hilt? The Japanese have their own methods and their blades are all but unbreakable.”

  “You are an enthusiast, Mr. Knight.”

  “I have studied. Do they come down from the wall?”

  “I suppose they must. May I beg a favor?” She felt vaguely piqued that he did not turn to her when she spoke. “As I say, I have no catalog of these weapons. Perhaps during your visit, if you’d be so good, you could list those that you know. If we number each sword and write down the corresponding number in a book, then I would have at least a partial listing. It’s a great shame when knowledge is lost irretrievably, don’t you think?”

  He turned toward her then, the lamplight shining on his face. There was a smile on his lips and a warmth in his eyes that quite transformed him from the arrogant man she’d seen earlier into someone entirely delightful. His enthusiasm was as warming as a fire. “I should be delighted, Lady Stavely. And honored. It’s an excellent collection. Your grandfather had a discerning eye.”

  “Not too discerning,” she said, responding to his warmth. “He also chose all the furnishings for this room.”

  Mr. Knight held up his lamp to survey the bed. “He must have had a great many friends come to slay.”

  “I doubt they all shared that bed, Mr. Knight.”

  “They could have done. Easily. And stabled a few horses as well.”

  She couldn’t help being amused by the picture conjured in her mind of a bed crowded with her grandfather’s haughty and noble acquaintances and their livestock. She fought down a giggle and the urge to continue in this humorous vein by adding a few elephants. />
  Instead she said prosaically. ‘The maids hate this room. All this dark wood makes it so gloomy and the deep carving on the bed is very difficult to dust. I daresay they’re right and yet I don’t believe I ever shall change it. It has been in that spot since the house was built and came out of the manor that was here before that.”

  “It’s a good room and the bed is the key,” Mr. Knight said, responding to her sober judgment. “I imagine it would be easy to look upon it and feel as though one were part of something greater than oneself. I am sorry I made a foolish jest about it.”

  Clarice glanced at him. She’d hardly seen enough of him to know whether he was a man of deep feeling or no feeling at all. Yet there’d been understanding and more, a kind of empathy that she’d never met with before, in his voice.

  “That is precisely how I feel. When I come in here, I think of all the other Stavelys who have slept there or, for that matter, who have dusted it. I am part of them, just as they are part of me. Is there anything in your home that gives you just that feeling?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m sure there must be, ‘else how could you know?”

  He shook his head gravely, his dark hair catching the light and sending it back with a faint red glow. “My home is far away by any reckoning. I have not been there in many years.”

  “Are your parents still living?”

  “No. They are long-since gone.”

  “I am sorry. I lost both parents myself when I was but sixteen.”

  “I was younger even than that. Shall we go out? I feel certain your doctor would not think it proper for us to be discussing beds, however old and venerable.” This was delivered with no hint of humor, rather as a mere commonplace.

  “Safe” in the hall, Clarice said, “Usually at this time I spend an hour or so with the account books. I am, however, more than willing—nay, eager!—to put them off if you would care for a game of chess.”

  “Are your accounts so trying?”

  “I confess I do not love mathematics. I can do it, but I do not enjoy it.”

  “I enjoy chess. However, I don’t wish to keep you from your duties and the day has been long. Perhaps we can play a match tomorrow?”

  “Yes, tomorrow.”

  It was the first time since Melissa’s wedding that Clarice looked forward to the day ahead. After paying a brief visit to Morgain and Pringle to be certain all was well, she retired to her own room. There, she sat before the mirror, brushing out her hair, while her maid, Rose, bustled about, putting away gown, fichu, and stays.

  “Who is tending to Mr. Knight?” Clarice asked.

  “Mr. Camber himself, ma’am.”

  “I had no idea Camber knew anything about valeting!”

  “Oh, yes, my lady. When the fine gentlemen would come to visit yer father, he’d always be takin’ time to speak with them haughty fellows as what come to tend ‘em. Learned more’n a little ‘bout them things.”

  “He never confessed a yearning to be a gentleman’s gentleman to me. I always thought the height of his ambition was to fill Mr. Varley’s shoes, which I must say he does better than Varley ever did.”

  Rose gave a delightful giggle, quite at odds with her matronly appearance. ‘‘I was niver zo glad in all my borned laife as when he took hisself off. Gloomy as church in the rain, he was. We all below stairs like Mr. Camber ever zo much more, even if he was just a footman afore.”

  Clarice laid her brush down and removed her combing mantle. With a stretch, she said, “I shall sleep well tonight!”

  “I’m zhure you is worn to the nubbin. You’m must be ever zo feart when your horse run away with you, my lady.”

  “Who told you that?” Rose gave her only a blank look and a shrug. Clarice knew it was impossible to keep anything from her servants. What they weren’t told they discovered by other means or invented. Unlike some other tales which she’d only laughed at, this one rankled. She hadn’t been run away with since she mounted her first saddle.

  “Good night. Rose,” Clarice said, knowing any explanation would only make matters worse. Her reputation for horsemanship would just have to suffer this one backcast.

  “Sleep well, my lady.” The maid dipped a curtsy and left, carrying away my lady’s shoes to be cleaned. One beeswax candle burned away behind a screen, the sweet honey scent delicately perfuming the air. The night was still, without even the sighing of a breeze sweeping down from the moor. Clarice realized she had not looked out of her window to see if the doctor’s prophecy of fog had come true. If she were not lying in the most deliciously comfortable position, she would have instantly thrown off the bedclothes to find out. Before she was well-launched into a rebuke of herself for being so lazy, she was asleep.

  Not until she had awakened the next morning did she realize that she had not, after all, sat by her window looking out for the mysterious watcher.

  She rose earlier than was her usual practice. Dawn had just begun to lighten the gray of the night. On the rare occasions that she did awaken early, she usually lay about in bed. trying to recapture sleep, for there was little point in getting up before any of the house servants accomplished their morning rituals. It would discommode them in their daily duties to have her underfoot.

  This morning, however, she felt as if someone had called her name. The moment her eyes opened, she tossed aside the confining counterpane and all but leapt from the low white bed. She dressed herself in the same light blue silk gown she’d worn yesterday, lacing her short overjacket rather more loosely than Rose or Pringle would have thought seemly. All the while she dressed, she felt an inner urgency.

  While she pulled back the curtains, she realized that she’d not thought about the watcher in the garden after she’d met Mr. Knight in her father’s room. Suddenly she felt no doubts of the wisdom of having offered him hospitality. If there were housebreakers or dangerous persons about, it would be protection to have a gentleman in the house. Dominic Knight could quell a housebreaker with a cold glance and a few disdainful words.

  She tied a lace-trimmed cloth over her free-flowing hair and opened the door. It was the work of a moment to slip her feet into her newly cleaned shoes and trot down the hall. As she reached the top step, she heard the gentle bong of the tall-case clock in the entryway. It sounded only once.

  “Half-past what?” Clarice wondered. When she reached the ground, she wished very much for her spectacles. She went close to the clock to be certain. “Half-past five? Heavens, the last time I was up so early, I’d been out all night.”

  She hardly had time to marvel before some inner compulsion drove her out of doors. The big front door had several locks. Camber held the master keys, while Clarice had a set of her own that jangled on the end of her chatelaine. She rarely wore the heavy silver chain and always became confused among the many tiny implements a proper lady carried. She’d pull out her toothpicks when a tweezer was wanted and find her corkscrew when she needed thread. The belt and the keys were in her room. Clarice felt too restless to hurry back for them.

  Instead she opened one of the tall windows and slipped out onto the grass. Her shoes were instantly wet with dew. Her hems were not in much better condition. It had either rained heavily in the night or Doctor Danby was a better weather prophet than she’d ever guessed. As she came around the corner of the house, she knew Doctor Danby’s reputation was secured.

  Veils and shreds of fog lingered in corners where the newborn sun did not yet reach. Festoons of vapor still ensnared the trees and lay in wait in treacherous low spots. For the most part, however, the fog had cleared. She would not have gone on if it had remained thick on the ground, for that was a sure way to wind up confused, lost on the moor.

  Her sense of summoning remained as she hurried into the garden, turning down the center path. The sun rose a little higher, gilding the mist. Like faery gold, it vanished as soon as Clarice came near, turning cold and gray when it seemed she had it within her grasp.

  She’d come to a blind
corner among the green yew hedges when she understood that the deep rhythmic sounds she’d been half-consciously hearing for some time were the breaths of someone laboring hard. She looked around the corner just as the sun lifted above the low-lying clouds and sent shimmering beams into the dark places. She caught her breath at the sight before her.

  Dominic Knight stood there, naked to the waist, his broad chest gleaming with sweat. In his left hand, he held a sabre, a two-and-a-half-foot long swath of brutal steel. Each wrist was bound with white bandages, crisscrossing their way around his wrists.

  Yet it wasn’t the sword or the bandages that enthralled her and kept her so still that she could not have spoken for her life. It was the sight of his magnificent body. She’d been raised to appreciate the arts of the sculpture above all others, though she’d always felt that no one could live up to the fabulous likeness in stone. Now she saw a man who surpassed the images.

  He did not bulge in any vulgar way. He resembled in no way the overdeveloped brute of the tawdry traveling fairs. Dominic’s body was all sleek circles and defined planes. Every muscle seemed to flow into the next in a manner exceptionally pleasing to her eyes. She wanted to stare endlessly, noticing the ridges of his stomach and the light furring of dark hair on his chest.

  Clarice closed her eyes and told herself she was a fool. She who always hated being stared at and judged on her face alone now did the same thing to this poor man. This severity did her little good when she could see Dominic nearly as well with her eyes closed as with them open. The sight of him would not soon be forgotten.

  She looked again, quite against her better judgment, and gasped.

  He had picked up another sword from the ground, which had been lying there unnoticed by Clarice. It was a scimitar, equal in size to the sabre, though with a more pronounced curve to its shining blade. Now without a moment’s hesitation he began to swing the two swords around his body.

  His bare feet were set wide apart, as though anchoring him to the earth. He began quite slowly, moving the two blades in a simple pattern. With each repetition he moved more and more quickly and added complications to the basics. Soon, his arms and hands moved so fast that the sword-blades soon seemed little more than flashing silver wings. He slashed them about his sides and appeared to spin them from hand to hand far too quickly for her to be certain that a switch had been made.