by Zen Cho
“That was very impulsive of you, Prunella,” said Mrs. Daubeney chidingly. “But I suppose it was understandable. Goodness knows I have longed to know more of Gentleman’s history! He never gave me a hint of what he had endured. He was not a man to complain.”
“By the time I had answered Miss Gentleman’s questions, it was so late I was reluctant to turn the coachman out of bed to return her to you,” said Zacharias. “Fortunately Mrs. Headey was able to make up a bed for her at the inn.”
“Well, Mrs. Headey is a mother, and ought to know what she is about,” said Mrs. Daubeney. “But it looked very bad—you cannot deny it looked very bad, Mr. Wythe. A man of the world will understand these things. I beg you will recollect that Prunella has not a soul in the world to depend upon, except for me!”
Her eyes welled up with tears. Zacharias looked at Prunella in desperation, but this display of sentiment did not seem to affect her one whit.
“You forget, ma’am, that I have myself,” she said. “Should you like the smelling salts?”
“I assure you I am as anxious as anyone could be that Miss Gentleman should come to no harm,” said Zacharias. “I wish only to assist her, and would like to accompany her to town, if you will permit it. Lady Wythe will be pleased to receive her there, and we can make such arrangements as Sir Stephen would have wished.”
Zacharias had decided upon this course the night before, when he and Prunella had fabricated this tale of Sir Stephen’s connection with her father. He could not inform a woman so opposed to women’s magic that he was removing her charge so that she could learn precisely that. Besides, his plan to reform women’s magical education must remain secret for now, until his position was stronger, and he had marshalled support for his scheme among his colleagues. As for what Lady Wythe would think of her part in the proceedings, that was a complication Zacharias left for the future.
“Lady Wythe!” cried Mrs. Daubeney. “But she is the daughter of a baronet!”
Though she herself had ascended rapidly in her fancy to the heights of intimacy with the current and former Sorcerers Royal, she could not so quickly adapt her view of Prunella. After all, only the day before she had resolved to evict Prunella from her bedchamber in the east wing: some of the schoolgirls slept there, and Prunella would do better in the servants’ quarters.
It required a rapid readjustment of her notions for Mrs. Daubeney to absorb the idea of Prunella as the honoured guest of Lady Maria Wythe. In justice to Mrs. Daubeney’s heart, however—a genuine living, beating article, even if it was on occasion shouted down by her head—not two minutes had passed before she had assimilated the idea, and began to think it an excellent thing for dear Prunella. There was no doubt it was to Mrs. Daubeney’s credit that it had happened, and Prunella ought to be grateful to her for this sudden elevation.
Though Mrs. Daubeney did not admit it to herself, she was conscious of a sneaking sensation of relief, for it was certainly true that Prunella was growing too magical for the school. It was not inconvenient for her to be removed at this juncture, and ideal that it should be done in such a manner as to enable Mrs. Daubeney henceforth to claim a connection with the Sorcerer Royal.
“She is that,” said Zacharias. “What is more, she is very kind, and will do her best to make Miss Gentleman comfortable.”
“Well, Prunella, it shall never be said that I stood in the way of your advancement,” said Mrs. Daubeney. “I always knew you were meant for better things. One does not often meet such men as your dear father.”
“I hope to leave today, ma’am, if that does not cause too much disruption in your arrangements,” said Zacharias. “I have been delayed longer than I should like, and need to get on as soon as I can.”
Mrs. Daubeney looked dazed. “Certainly—that is to say, Prunella will need time to pack.”
“I shall not need long,” said Prunella. “I have just enough as will fill a small valise.”
“I suppose you will have a maid to accompany you,” said Mrs. Daubeney, pulling herself together, and assuming the stern countenance of a guardian. “I am afraid I can spare no one at such short notice.”
Zacharias opened his mouth, then closed it, feeling foolish. Mrs. Daubeney had overestimated his worldliness: he had very little to do with women on the whole, and it had not occurred to him that Mrs. Daubeney might expect a chaperone for Prunella.
Prunella was not disconcerted, however. She sat up on her heels, brightening.
“Of course,” she said. “Lady Wythe sent her maid down. She is waiting outside the door, I think, Mr. Wythe?”
“Is she?” said Zacharias, thoroughly confused.
“Cawley,” said Prunella, raising her voice. “Pray come in.”
Into the room lurched a nightmarish vision wearing a human form, but neither human nor alive.
Zacharias blinked. No, it was only a woman of about forty. A solid, sensible-looking female, such as any anxious duenna might be reassured to have as her charge’s companion. Her hair was brown—no, grey—no, chintz—
“Good morning, ma’am,” said the woman, but she had no voice. The words simply appeared inside Zacharias’s head.
Zacharias shut his eyes deliberately. When he opened them again, his mind was focused on the effort of sight, and he observed what he had been missing.
Prunella had constructed a chaperone out of cloth. The body was made of linen sheets, rolled and bound together. The head was a yard of chintz, shaped into an approximate sphere. At the bottom of the swaying, bobbing figure was a pair of men’s shoes.
It was really very difficult to keep the image clear. Zacharias’s mind urgently desired to return to what it was sure was the truth: that before him stood a woman of flesh and blood, who was bobbing and answering Mrs. Daubeney’s questions in a voice that was her own, not Prunella’s.
This was leagues beyond the invisibility spell Prunella had wrought the evening before. In its subtlety it was even more impressive than the ward she had thrown up against the fire. Zacharias could not have so deceived another magician until he had nearly completed his education, after years of study and practise.
“Thank you, Cawley,” said Mrs. Daubeney. When the woman had curtseyed and excused herself, she said:
“That is a good sort of woman. Lady Wythe possesses excellent judgment of character, I am sure. I shall feel quite comfortable leaving you in her care, Prunella. Perhaps”—her voice faltered—“perhaps it is all for the best. You will know what to do for her, Mr. Wythe, as I have never done.”
• • •
ZACHARIAS,” hissed Sir Stephen in Zacharias’s ear, “that girl is a humbug!”
Only the strictest habits of self-discipline enabled Zacharias to continue walking towards the door as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Mrs. Daubeney and Prunella had vanished into the upper reaches of the building, to pack what little Prunella planned to bring with her, but it was approaching mid-day, and there was no saying that Zacharias might not meet a maidservant or schoolgirl on his way. Sir Stephen usually exercised more discretion than this.
His importunate spectre continued to hover at Zacharias’s shoulder, however, so that Zacharias was compelled to duck into the kitchen garden, and hope anyone who saw him assumed he was addressing a zephyr.
“Sir, much as I am honoured by the privilege of your visits—”
“Call them visitations, rather! For that is what you think ’em, I know,” said Sir Stephen briskly. “But I cannot hold back when a timely word might avert folly. I know better than anyone that when you have got a maggot in your head you will rush on regardless, but it ought to be obvious even to you, Zacharias, that that chit has no more idea of studying thaumaturgy than I have of being crowned the Queen of Fairyland.”
Zacharias stiffened. “Indeed, sir? And what do you say is her purpose in bearding a strange gentleman in his rooms, and abandoning everyth
ing she has known?”
“I do not deny she is a bold-faced hussy,” though Sir Stephen spoke more admiringly than not. “I will not pretend to know her purpose. But it is not difficult to see that a pretty, artful baggage like that might desire to go to town for any number of reasons, none of which is likely to include becoming a thaumaturgess.”
“Miss Gentleman seems to me a pleasant, unaffected young lady,” said Zacharias with dignity. “In any case, whatever might be said of her manners or morals, it is impossible to fault her reflexes. I am in her debt, and I have agreed to instruct her. I cannot very well go back on my word now.”
“From the way you go on, no one would think your hearth-fire had attempted to murder you,” said Sir Stephen testily. “Have not you better things to be thinking of than the education of gentlewitches?”
“A Sorcerer Royal must take assassination attempts in his stride,” said Zacharias. “I had thought something of the sort would happen ever since I succeeded you. We both knew what widespread displeasure my becoming Sorcerer Royal was likely to occasion. What is more natural than that someone should seek to curtail my term of service?”
This observation did not improve Sir Stephen’s spirits. He glared at an artichoke as though it had offended him personally. “Did Leofric say whether your enemy was a thaumaturge?”
“It is scarcely likely to be a strolling magician or a cunning man,” said Zacharias, evading the question. “What reason does anyone but a Fellow of the Society have to desire my extinction?”
“I should have thought your colleagues would at least submit to the constraints of the Charter of the Society.”
“Did you? I was not so sanguine,” said Zacharias. “It is just as well they have acted, though unfortunate that they should have struck when Miss Gentleman was present. Yet who knows? She reacted first, before I had even discerned the peril. We might not be speaking now if she had not been there.”
“That is another thing,” cried Sir Stephen. “That your complaint should have incapacitated you at the crucial moment is another shocking thing. How are you to defend yourself from assassins if you grow regularly faint and aguish? That is contrary to the very principle of the Exchange.”
Zacharias hated any reference to his illness, as Sir Stephen ought to have known. Sir Stephen had scarcely begun to say, “I beg you will tell Leofric he must restrain himself,” when Zacharias turned away.
“The chaise will be waiting,” he said. “I had best have a word with Turrill.”
“Zacharias!”
“It will not happen again,” said Zacharias, in a voice iced over with a thin layer of frost. “Of that you may be certain.”
• • •
AS Zacharias approached his conveyance, the scope of the undertaking to which he had agreed began to dawn upon him.
The chaise that was to bear him and Prunella to Fobdown Purlieu was indeed waiting. It was doubtful whether it was capable of doing anything else.
Turrill was a good-humoured man on the whole, whose anxieties about driving the Sorcerer Royal had been eased by Mr. Wythe’s being as pleasant-spoken and openhanded a gentleman as he had ever met (“Even if he is black as coal, I am sure that is none of his fault, and it would be a dull world if God had cut us all from the same pattern”). It was no wonder he felt hardly used upon this occasion, however, and Zacharias was not surprised to be addressed in terms of reproach.
“You hadn’t ought to have done it, sir,” said the coachman. “You may turn me into a frog for it, but I must speak my mind, and I say you hadn’t ought to have done it. If I had not given satisfaction, you had only to say the word and I should have hopped to it, not wishing to offend any gentleman of such a liberal disposition as yourself, and not being such a fool as to desire to vex a sorcerer besides. There was no call to go a-magicking the chaise—and where you got the squashes for it out of season, I am sure I don’t know.”
“Neither do I,” said Zacharias, bending down to examine what had previously been a wheel, and was now an enormous squash.
All four wheels of the chaise had suffered this curious fate. The body of the carriage rested precariously upon its new bearings.
“Good gracious!” said Prunella behind him, in a peculiar throbbing voice. “Is that what has happened?”
Her face worked convulsively, and Zacharias saw that in a moment she would burst into laughter. He glanced at the irate Turrill, who was in no mood to deal with giggling females, and pulled Prunella aside for a conference.
“May I ask what possessed you to wreak such wanton destruction upon my conveyance?” he said in an indignant whisper. “I cannot conceive how you think I will contrive to take you to London in a chaise that has no wheels.”
Prunella tried to look solemn, but her delight would keep breaking out. Her countenance was so bright that Zacharias caught a smile tugging at his own lips. He made up for the lapse with a disapproving frown.
“I beg your pardon!” said Prunella. “I did not mean to at all! It was only that I thought I ought to guard against your running off without me, so I cast a spell to secure our conveyance till I had stepped into it. I had no notion it would have such a conspicuous effect. I wonder where the squashes did come from, out of season!”
She was about to tip over into laughter, but Zacharias fixed her with a penetrating glower until she sobered up.
“Pray do not look so cross!” she begged. “Does not it divert you even a little? I have never seen anything so ridiculous in my life! I am glad the spell took effect before we started, for it would have been unfortunate if it had seized upon the chaise when we were coasting along, would it not?”
“I cannot see that we are in a better position to have our chaise put out of action before we have begun,” said Zacharias. He hardly knew what to make of such whimsical conduct. Sir Stephen’s warning seemed now to assume an ominous significance. Could an anxiety for learning really be the motivation for such pains as Miss Gentleman had taken?
“Of course we are. If it had happened later, we would be sure to be upset, and our horses would have fled, and highwaymen would have set upon us, and we should have been very uncomfortable,” argued Prunella. “Whereas now it will take but the work of a moment to reverse it.”
She was determined to show not the least uncertainty as she strode up to the chaise. In fact Prunella had no notion whether her spell would comply with the strictures she had imposed upon it. She had thought merely to freeze the chaise in place for a time, as a precaution. She did not really think Mr. Wythe would abandon her, but Prunella had lost a great deal of her faith in humanity over the past few days, and she meant to leave nothing to chance.
The squashes were a piece of absurdity she had not calculated upon. Magic had never been so refractory before. She had always found it biddable, and in any case she would never have conceived that she had sufficient magic to transform matter in such a dramatic fashion. As she clambered into the chaise, helped by a sullen Turrill, it occurred to Prunella to wonder whether this unexpected turn had anything to do with the seven blue stones nestled in the depths of her valise.
“Well! If it was to be fixed so easily I do not know why he did not just say so, instead of putting me all in a pucker,” grumbled Turrill’s voice by the door. “A sorcerer likes his joke as well as the next fellow, I suppose. I can’t say as it amuses me, but it ain’t my chaise.”
Raising his voice, he addressed Zacharias:
“Seems the wheels have been set aright, sir, so we can be on our way as soon as suits you.”
Prunella poked her head out of the window. She was nearly as relieved as the coachman to see that there was nothing of the vegetable about the wheels now.
Zacharias boarded the chaise in foreboding silence, but fortunately they had not enough time to be awkward. Mrs. Daubeney emerged from the building, approaching the chaise at a run.
“You never
meant to go away without a fare-thee-well?” she cried.
“Mr. Wythe is in a terrible hurry,” said Prunella. Zacharias, who had been opening his mouth to say something civil, cast a look of outrage at her. “We waited quite as long as we could. Did you persuade Cook not to give notice?”
“Oh, she is beyond anything! I am sure the kitchen chimneys are vastly trying, but there is nothing to be done about their smoking, for we simply cannot support any further expenditure after”—after the expense of the Sorcerer Royal’s visit, Mrs. Daubeney meant, but she stopped herself just in time. “If we are not all poisoned at our dinners it will be a miracle. What shall I do without you, Prunella? Cook would never attend to me, and now she will be worse than ever, for she knows I will be wholly dependent upon her when you are gone.”
“You will do perfectly well,” said Prunella, not unkindly. She could afford to be generous, now that she was so close to departure. Her wrongs began to recede into the distance, with the prospect of her escape so comfortably imminent.
To her surprise Prunella found that she was still attached to Mrs. Daubeney. She would never trust her again—no! But one could nonetheless be very fond of someone in whom one had no confidence whatsoever.
“As well as you did before you ever thought to burden yourself with me,” she said. “Or my father.”
She looked wistfully in Mrs. Daubeney’s face, wondering if Mrs. Daubeney might finally impart some insight regarding her father—betray an old tenderness, or reveal a hidden connection—which would give Prunella some clue to her origins.
But Mrs. Daubeney only said:
“I never regarded it in the least, my dear! Remember you are to write to me every day, and pray give my regards to dear Lady Wythe, and thank her for her care of you. And if you should find an opportunity to send me the latest fashions, Prunella, I might find the time to look at them. Not that I am one to peacock myself, but it is just as well not to appear a laughingstock in the parents’ eyes. We see some very modish mothers at the school, you know, Mr. Wythe. Oh! You have not forgotten Cawley?”
