by Zen Cho
“It does, indeed,” said Lady Throgmorton. She had not the least idea who Mrs. Gray was referring to, but Mrs. Gray nodded and winked so, it would be too embarrassing to admit ignorance in the face of such knowingness. She would get the truth of the matter from her lady’s maid, Lady Throgmorton resolved.
“She is his natural child, of course,” said Mrs. Gray. “They are being very close about who the mother was. Of course, what she was anyone can see from the girl’s complexion—but he is not the first gentleman to contract an undesirable connection with a native! The indiscretion is years old now, and he has no wish for such an ancient scandal to be dug up again.”
“Quite,” said Lady Throgmorton, her mind racing through the list of noble gentlemen who could possibly be meant by Mrs. Gray’s mysterious allusions.
“Poor child! I can find it in my heart to pity her!” sighed Mrs. Gray. “To know nothing of her own mother! And in the circumstances, she could not wish to know more. Her father has not been ungenerous, however. I am told he has settled upon her—”
She named to Lady Throgmorton such a sum as made that estimable woman nearly spill her tea.
“That is generosity indeed! I suppose he has no other children?”
“Oh, it would be a mere trifle to such a one as he!” said Mrs. Gray.
In truth she could not have said if Miss Gentleman’s father had one child or five: she knew no better than Lady Throgmorton who he was. From her enquiries, however, she was confident that neither did anyone else. The risk that her ignorance would be discovered was as low as the rewards of appearing to know the truth were high—and after all, Mrs. Gray reflected, she was bound to discover the truth sooner or later. She always did.
“Little wonder the men are all madly in love with her! She could be black as coal, and still have every gentleman in London at her feet with that fortune,” said Lady Throgmorton, who cultivated a bluntness that her friends described as stimulating, and her detractors as vulgar tactlessness. “Is she a nice sort of girl, would you say, the mother aside?”
“Quite unspoilt,” Mrs. Gray assured her. “I do not think she is so very brown—you would hardly know she was not English by candlelight. And her manners cannot be faulted. She showed me every attention, and seemed scarcely to regard the gentlemen, though some of them were very desperate to be noticed.”
“I have no notion of such affectation,” sniffed Lady Throgmorton. “The girl has simply concluded that the best way of holding a gentleman’s attention is to pretend not to value it, you may be certain.”
Despite her skepticism, Lady Throgmorton was not disinclined to take an interest in Miss Gentleman. She had a nephew who was getting to the age for marriage—a nephew whose conduct might be restrained if he had a wife, and whose numerous creditors would be pacified by the sum Mrs. Gray had named as being the extent of Miss Gentleman’s patrimony.
“Still, if she is a pretty-spoken sort of girl, she might do for Percy,” continued Lady Throgmorton. “You may introduce her to me, Alethea. Catherine longs to see Percy settled. He is not in want of a fortune, of course, but a pretty, modest, dutiful sort of girl would make just the wife for him.”
“I will certainly introduce her to you. What an excellent thing it would be for the girl!” cried Mrs. Gray, though not without an inward observation that Percy’s previous inamoratas had not been remarkable for either modesty or dutifulness. “You will be delighted with her.”
“With all of London in ecstasies, I could hardly be so contrary as to disagree,” said Lady Throgmorton drily.
• • •
FOR Damerell had acted according to his word, and brought out Prunella with éclat. The great thing about the rumours he had spread abroad, said Damerell, was how easily they might be denied.
“I may have suggested that her noble father had not left Miss Gentleman a prey to want, but I never breathed a word about who he might be, or how much he had given her,” he said to a disapproving Zacharias. “Every such detail is a vulgar addition, made after the story left my hands. However, as no one has named her parents, it will be difficult for anyone to explode the tale, and even if it is discredited, Miss Gentleman can always disclaim any knowledge of it.”
Zacharias could not like this. “Surely it can only cause her embarrassment once it is discovered there is not a shred of truth in the tale.”
But Prunella thought Damerell’s scheme a capital one.
“All that is needed is for a gentlemanlike creature of independent means to fall violently in love with me,” she declared. “Then he will not give a fig if I have a duke for a father, or no father at all. And I do not see why I should not persuade at least one gentleman to fall in love with me—indeed, I hope to persuade several!”
She was a protégé after Damerell’s own heart. Prunella took to the ballrooms of London in the spirit of ruthless calculation of a general entering a battlefield. Within a week she had marked out the Lady Jerseys and Countess Esterházys of the world, who wielded the most influence among the ton, and she laid herself out to please them. She took no notice of the numerous gentlemen who promptly lost their hearts to her.
“I shall not soon stop being pretty and saucy,” she explained, “so I need not worry about losing the interest of the gentlemen. But I must have the good opinion of the women, for their word is all the capital I have, and I am lost if they take it into their heads to disapprove of me.”
Zacharias might tut, and Lady Wythe look anxious, but Prunella was in her element. She was a complete success, and had never enjoyed herself so thoroughly. As Damerell said complacently, she paid for dressing: the drab serge dresses and absurd pink satin of the past were banished, and Prunella was attired in diaphanous muslin and jewel-hued silks instead. The simple style of gown in fashion set her off to admiration, and her dark colouring meant she could support the most vivid hues. There was a crimson velvet pelisse in particular, trimmed with white fur and worn with a white beaver hat crowned with a nodding plume of ostrich feathers, which filled Damerell with solemn pride.
“If I am remembered for nothing else, I shall die content,” he said to Zacharias. “I should say Miss Gentleman was in a fair way to gaining a proper understanding of dress, save that her eye is not quite unerring. She has conceived an inexplicable affection for a wicked green bonnet in particular, that makes her look as though she were expiring of the yellow fever. I wish you would advise her to burn it.”
“If I had any belief that Miss Gentleman would attend to anything I said, I would not talk of hats,” said Zacharias. “She ought to pay less attention to frivolity, and more to her studies.”
Zacharias was far from pleased with the whole business. Though he was busier than ever with his duties, he appointed a time every day when he visited Lady Wythe’s house, and sat with Prunella at her lessons. She remembered everything he taught her, and he had no complaint to make of her practical ability. Still, he could not help but take offence when she started nodding off over her books, and he was almost cross when this occurred a second time at one of their sessions.
“Though I should not presume to advise upon your conduct in society, I could wish you would not stay out so late,” he said. “Surely it would not injure your matrimonial prospects to leave a ball at ten, instead of half past one?”
Prunella started awake.
“Oh, I am sorry! Did I doze off again?” she said, stifling a yawn. “How shockingly uncivil of me. But to leave a party so early would not be civil either, you know. It is likely to offend one’s hostess, and then one could not be sure that one had met all the eligible gentlemen, for some of them arrive quite late. Mr. Damerell says he never arrives at a ball before eleven.”
“I should not recommend modelling yourself upon Damerell,” said Zacharias, frowning. “He is an excellent fellow, but I never knew a sorcerer that did less magic. Indeed, Prunella, neither your familiars nor your studies are rec
eiving the attention they merit. There is a great deal for you to learn, to know how best to serve both your familiars and yourself, and what with all your distractions you are in danger of neglecting them.”
“I am sure they do not think so,” said Prunella indignantly. “Do you, my darlings?” The familiars were slumbering in a pile at her feet, and showed no sign of hearing her. “They are with me all the time, and they understand me perfectly. After all, there is little purpose in forgoing balls for books if I must conceal my abilities, and pretend I know nothing of magic, and was never taught the difference between a witch bottle and a hag stone. If I am only going to be married at the end of it, I may as well devote my energies to ensuring I dance the best quadrille at every ball.”
Zacharias felt the reproach in this, and said gravely:
“I can see that your education may seem purposeless to you, since it must be kept secret for now. That is not to say you shall never use it, however, and indeed it is my aim that you will use it, for your own benefit and others’. Magicians are obstinate creatures, but they can be persuaded, and they esteem power above all things. Three familiars are as effective an argument for feminine magic as they will ever have heard.”
“You have the staff of the Sorcerer Royal, which is just as good an argument, and they still do not like you,” pointed out Prunella.
Zacharias felt suddenly weary. His complaint disrupted his sleep, and he was so busy with the duties of his office that he had scarcely had time to think of what was to be done about Midsomer’s schemes and Fairyland’s block on magic. He had proposed to John Edgeworth a meeting to discuss the Janda Baik affair, but Edgeworth had supplied one excuse after another to avoid him. Zacharias doubted the same excuses were offered to Geoffrey Midsomer.
Lady Wythe’s servants had built the fire conscientiously high, and the room was too close and hot for thought. Zacharias rose to open a window and, looking out, saw London sharply delineated in a thin golden light. It was a day of clear blue skies and crisp air, mingling winter and spring in equal parts.
“What do you say to a walk?” he said abruptly. “We will have to practise certain spells outdoors, in time, and I have prepared a space in the Park for the purpose. It is hidden from view by an enchantment, which only I can unlock. Let us see if you are able to find it. That will be a useful test of my magic, and a practical lesson for you.”
Prunella brightened. “Certainly! Let me put away my familiars”—they had agreed the familiars should be hidden in her valise when she was out, to avoid their detection—“and I shall be with you directly.”
• • •
IT was unfashionably early to be visiting Hyde Park, and there was no one to be seen. As Zacharias and Prunella trod along the path, it was as though they were the only two people in the world.
“I see you have a new hat,” said Zacharias.
Even to Zacharias’s untutored eye Prunella’s dress was an improvement on the plain attire in which she had first appeared to him. This particular bonnet was curiously unbecoming, however: it was a bright pea green, and seemed to draw out from her dusky cheek some of its glow.
“It is my favourite hat,” said Prunella. “Damerell will have it that it is unbecoming, but one does grow curiously attached to such things sometimes, does not one?”
“Indeed,” said Zacharias. Now that he thought of it, had not Damerell said something to him about hats? There was something peculiar about this one, as well—something he did not at first identify, and then could scarcely believe when he saw it.
His hand flashed out, but he was just a second too late. The bonnet lifted off Prunella’s head, morphing into a green-feathered bird with a wide-eyed face—the face of a human child, save for the golden beak in place of the nose and mouth. The simurgh sought refuge on Prunella’s shoulder, chirping in alarm.
“Appear as you are not!” snapped Zacharias. As the glamour dropped over the simurgh, the child’s face vanished, replaced by an ordinary bird’s head. A vivid-hued parrot on the popular Miss Gentleman’s shoulder would draw attention, but not nearly so much as the simurgh would have done.
“How could you tell?” cried Prunella.
“Your reticule is the unicorn, and as for your pelisse—”
“It is I,” piped a tiny voice. The elvet was the only one of Prunella’s familiars that had learnt to speak in a human tongue. The unicorn and simurgh spoke only their own languages, and communicated with Prunella in thought.
“What are you doing?” said Zacharias. His spirits had begun to improve the moment they were out of doors, but now his voice sharpened, though he strove to keep it even. “Did not we agree upon the importance of keeping your familiars hidden?”
Prunella tried desperately to look solemn, but a smile would keep breaking through her gravity. The elvet’s high-pitched giggle could be heard in the vicinity of her pelisse.
“But that is the clever thing about it! They are completely hidden,” she said. “They have been so longing to see the world, and I could not think of a way to contrive it, till Nidget hit upon the notion. Nidget is the one who understands shape-shifting, for unicorns and phoenixes do not as a rule, but it taught the others as a favour to me. They have learnt remarkably quickly, though the bonnet is not quite right. Tjandra refuses to be red, though it would be so much more becoming. He likes being a hat very well, however—it gives him an excellent vantage point for looking about himself.”
“Is it not possible to make you aware of the danger,” said Zacharias, “the terrible danger, of the familiars’ being detected? I have explained what public outrage it would cause if it were to be discovered that you possessed these familiars. Every effort would be made to separate you from them. And if you will not consider yourself or your familiars, consider me. My position would be untenable if it was revealed that I knew of your familiars, and did nothing to prevent their attachment to you.”
Prunella’s face grew stormy. “As if you could prevent it!”
Zacharias held her gaze until the colour rose in her cheeks, and she dropped her eyes.
“I know I could not. That would not signify to the Society,” said Zacharias. “They would consider the responsibility for the disaster mine. And it would be a disaster, Prunella—a disaster for which I would be called to account.”
Prunella rolled her shoulders as though she sought to shrug off the burden he had placed upon them. She said ungraciously:
“I am sorry.”
Zacharias looked at the small head still held defiantly high. He was shaken by a pang of he knew not what emotion—whether it were pity or admiration, he could not tell. His anger dissipated.
“It is my first concern that you—all of you—should be safe,” he said gently.
Prunella nodded, though she refused to look at him. In a low voice shorn of bravado, sounding quite unlike herself, she said:
“I like to have them by me. One feels less out of place.”
This took Zacharias aback. “Do you feel out of place?”
“Why, of course,” said Prunella. She paused. “I have never been among my own people, you know. At Mrs. Daubeney’s I did not quite belong with the girls, and the servants would not have me. I was not even Mrs. D’s, though I was there on her sufferance. Even now, when I am received with such cordiality, and scarcely go anywhere in London without meeting someone of my acquaintance . . . it is strange to know you would be cast off by the people who greet you so warmly, if they knew the whole truth about you.”
“There are advantages to being outcast,” said Zacharias. “One is set at liberty from many anxieties. There is no call to worry about what others will think, when it is clear that they already think the worst.”
“I suppose you ought to know,” said Prunella. “But you do not seem to benefit much from your liberty. Damerell says you are the most nice-conscienced, duty-bound fellow he knows.”
&nbs
p; Zacharias smiled without mirth. His chief aim had always been that he should stand beyond reproach in word and deed, since his colour seemed to prove a ground for any allegation. He was content—or at least resigned—but he needed no reminder of how he was circumscribed.
“I am held by bonds of gratitude,” he said. The words were bitter on his tongue. “I was born a slave, you know, and should have passed my days in backbreaking labour if Sir Stephen had not taken notice of me. It was by the merest chance that we met. He was travelling on the Minerva in the West Indies, conducting a study of maritime magic levels. He purchased me from the captain, brought me home to England, manumitted and educated me. He was persuaded that with instruction I would be capable of attaining the highest peaks of thaumaturgical achievement—that I might, in time, even become Sorcerer Royal myself.”
A curious sympathy had existed between Zacharias and Prunella since the day they had first met, despite their differences in temperament and disposition, but there had also been constraint. Prunella was always on her guard, and Zacharias could not be completely easy around her—for more reasons than one, not all of which he wished to articulate to himself.
But today the restless energy that usually animated Prunella was tempered; the tension in her quick movements and ready speech was blunted. Zacharias realised that he had seen her calm and collected, speaking audacities with composure, but he had not seen her truly at ease. Perhaps she began finally to trust him.
“You must have been very young when you met Sir Stephen, for Lady Wythe is always talking of what you were like as a boy,” said Prunella.
