So she concealed her distaste as best she could and did not try to draw her hand back again, not until the Jarl (he was a long time in the process) had finished kissing it.
"My dear Jarl, " said the Duchess, "shall you tell Elsie of that excellent scheme we have devised between us, or shall I?"
Skogsrå released Sera's hand and possessed himself of Elsie's a second time. "With the Gracious Lady's permission. My dear sweet child, it is only this: you do not care for the doctor's treatments, considering them far too public—and you are right, you are very right—they do very well for the others who have not your sensitivity, your exquisite delicacy. But see: I am a disciple of the doctor, I am conversant with all his arts. I can come to you at your own home and administer the treatment privately.
"No, no, I assure you. There will be nothing like the convulsions you have seen at the doctor's establishment," he hastened to add, as Elsie blanched and averted her face. "These violent reactions, as the body seeks to rid itself of disease, these are not common in cases like your own. For you, I promise, there will only be healthful sleep and sweet dreams—and perhaps a little medicine which I shall prescribe for you, very pleasant to the taste. Now what do you say to that?"
Elsie hesitated. "But my dear sir, you are too kind!" said her mother. "Elsie can have no objection, no objection at all."
"But what does Elsie herself say?" insisted the Jarl, holding her cold little hand to his heart and leaning forward to listen, in that way he had, as if every word she deigned to speak were of shattering importance.
Yet still Elsie hesitated. She looked to her father for advice, but that large gentleman had allowed his attention to wander elsewhere and was staring at the sky. And when she applied to Sera, the older girl only shook her head, indicating that the decision was for Elsie alone to make.
In truth, Sera liked this scheme no better than she liked the Jarl, yet she could not explain her objection to the one without first explaining her dislike of the other, and that she could not do. Moreover, she knew that however vigorously she argued against this proposal, Cousin Clothilde and the Duchess would argue just as vigorously in favor of it, and then poor Elsie would be caught in the middle. Her recent disagreement with her mother had already cost Elsie so dearly, in terms of her peace of mind, it seemed as though any treatment which the Jarl might devise would be preferable to continued discord in the Vorder household.
"Well . . ." said Elsie, bestowing a tremulous smile on the Jail, "it does not sound so very bad, after all. I think I would like it a good deal better than some of the other treatments I have had."
Everyone except Sera was plainly delighted. "You are a wise child and have made a wise decision," exclaimed the Duchess, giving Elsie another kiss.
But Sera thought she saw something, a glance and a slight pressure of the hand, pass between Elsie and the Jarl, and something in that gesture disturbed her. As the doctor took his obsequious leave, and the others began to stroll in the direction of the cathedral, Sera kept Elsie back and whispered in her ear:
"Dear Elsie . . . you are not falling in love with Jarl Skogsrå?"
"No, I am not," said Elsie, so emphatically and with such a decided nod of her head that Sera could not doubt her. "I own that I find him very attractive, but there is nothing more to it than that. And yet he looks to be a man who has seen and experienced much suffering. and I find him utterly fascinating."
He has the look of a man who has been the cause of much suffering. That was how Sera wanted to reply, but she had resolved not to malign the Jarl unjustly. "He is clearly a man of exceptional parts," she admitted.
"But don't you think that his manners have improved?" Elsie said, as they hurried to catch up with the others. "He spoke to you yesterday so kindly and so considerately, that I began to wonder whether we might not have been wrong in supposing him so very rude in the first place."
Arm in arm, they climbed the broad stone steps to the cathedral and entered the dark vastness of the ancient church. They were not—as Clothilde Vorder had feared—late for the service, so they had no trouble finding an empty box pew near the front of the church.
Elsie's father took a seat at the end of the stall and promptly fell asleep under the carven figure of an owl-eyed gargoyle. Jarl Skogsrå folded his arms with the look of a man who was preparing to be bored, and Mistress Vorder and the Duchess (with the indigo ape in her lap) arranged their skirts, took out their fans, and entered into an animated conversation. But Elsie and Sera knelt down on the green plush prayer stools, folded their hands dutifully, and proceeded to pray.
Even with her head bowed and her eyes closed, Sera was acutely aware of the beauty of the cathedral. As a child, she had accompanied her grandfather to the Church of All Seasons, a lovely old church that would always hold a special place in her memory. On her first visit to the cathedral, the huge building struck her as cold and rather daunting. By now, however, the cathedral and its splendid architecture had long since captured her heart and her imagination: the great stone pillars soaring upward to support a magnificent vaulted ceiling, the wonderful rose windows depicting the Seven Fates, or planetary intelligences, as glorious winged figures glowing in jewel-like colors . . . these never failed to inspire Sera to higher and better thoughts. Perhaps best of all she loved to hear the deep voice of the ancient organ competing with the joyous clamor of the bells.
When the music of the bells finally faded, the organist struck a particularly thunderous chord, and the entire congregation rose. There was a brief rustling of paper as everyone opened hymnals and leafed through them in search of the proper page. Then, with one voice, the congregation burst into song.
As they sang, the bishop approached the altar, followed by a long procession of black-robed clerics and white-robed choir boys, water sprinklers and thurifers, and solemn little acolytes carrying embroidered banners. When the hymn ended the congregation fell silent again. Then the bishop raised his hands and began to recite the litany:
Then the Father of All created the Heavens and the Earth . . . and the Creator assigned the Days of the week and the Ordering of the Planets to the Seven Fates; and to the Nine Powers he assigned the Ordering of the Year and the population of the Earth . . .
And the Nine Powers (or Seasons) brought forth all the Creatures of the Earth and all the races of Rational Beings, each according to his or her own Nature . . .
When the service ended, Sera and Elsie closed their hymnals, took up their prayerbooks, and followed Mistress Vorder and the Duchess back up the aisle. "Do look, Sera," said Elsie, pausing just inside the great oak doors and touching her cousin lightly on the arm. "That boy looks exactly like Jedidiah Braun."
Sera looked where Elsie indicated. In a low pew near the back of the church sat a party of dwarves, decent and prosperous in appearance. The only Man among them was a tall youth in a plain suit of brown wool and a cherry-colored waistcoat. His hair was lightly powdered, making it impossible to guess the exact shade, but he had a good face, adorned by a pair of earnest dark eyes, and his shoulders were broad and capable-looking.
Sera was amused by the resemblance. "The features are very like, and the pigtail, too, but—" Catching Sera staring at him, the boy turned pink with embarrassment. "May the Fates preserve us, it is Jed! But how came he here, dressed so fine, and in such unexpected company?"
"He—he looks very well," said Elsie, turning nearly as pink as Jed himself.
"Indeed he does . . . so brown and healthy . I expect that his new occupation—whatever it may be—suits him very well," Sera replied.
But Elsie shook her head. "I meant," she said, in a breathless little voice, "that he appears quite the gentleman."
Sera looked at her sharply, detecting something in Elsie's face and manner now which had not been there earlier when she spoke of her attraction to Jarl Skogsrå.
Heavens above, thought Sera, this will never do! That Jed admired Elsie was no secret. It was all perfectly harmless, for Jed was a good boy who k
new his place (if anything, he was at times a little too conscious): he would never fall prey to unrealistic hopes, or make improper advances. But if Elsie were to fall in love with Jed, nothing could come of that but heartbreak and disappointment for everyone concerned.
"Do you think—do you not think it would be a nice show of courtesy if we were to stop and speak to him?" asked Elsie.
"I certainly do not," replied Sera very decidedly. "We have not been introduced to any of his friends, you know, and perhaps they are not people with whom we ought to be acquainted." And, determined to do all in her power to avert disaster, she took Elsie by the arm and whisked her out of the church and down the steps.
So hastily and so heedlessly did they descend that, at the foot of the steps, Sera collided with a slender gentleman in apricot satin and gold lace. Blushing furiously, she disentangled herself.
"L-Lord Skelbrooke. I do beg your pardon."
Francis Skelbrooke bent to pick up the fan and the prayerbook which had fallen out of her hands during their collision. "Pray do not apologize. I can assure you that it was entirely a pleasure," he replied gently, and Sera blushed more painfully than before.
He handed over the fan and the prayerbook, and then turned his attention to Elsie. "And you, Miss Vorder, how do you do, this fine day?"
Elsie, still pink and breathless from the sight of Jed in all his splendor, replied faintly that she did very well.
"Indeed?" said Lord Skelbrooke, looking from one flushed and excited face to the other, and raising an eyebrow in well-bred astonishment. "It must have been . . . a most remarkable sermon. I regret that I was not present to hear it. Yet it is no more than I deserve, for arriving so late."
Sera tried desperately to remember the text of the sermon and failed. With an heroic effort, she struggled to compose herself. "The sermon was not particularly inspired, but the music—the organ and the choir—"
"Ah, yes, the music," said Lord Skelbrooke, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. "I had forgotten, madam, that you and your cousin were musically inclined. The grand old organ and the heavenly choir . . . you must tell me all about them, indeed you must."
When Jed came home that night, carrying two thick cloth-bound books under his arm, he found Uncle Caleb waiting up for him, sitting in the little rocking chair by the fire.
"You look mighty fine . . . hair powder and all," the old man said, with a snort. "I see you brung home more books. Geography and mathematics! Does that bottlemaker of yours imagine he's educating you for a gentleman?"
"He imagines that he's educating me to be of some use to him," said Jed. "He's expanding his business outside of Marstadtt, and I'm to be in charge of the foreign accounts. As for the hair powder, I been to church, and I didn't want to put Master Ule and his family to no—to any shame, that's all."
"Been to church?" said Caleb. "I been to church a time or two in my life, and I never heard yet there was any shame in a man appearing there in his own natural hair."
Jed kicked off his shoes, sat down on the edge of the lower bunk. "Well then, there isn't. But we had dinner afterwards, at Master Ule's, and he gave me a hint afore—before time, his old mother is awful fine and she don't sit down to the table with anyone who don't—who doesn't dress for it."
"Had dinner at home with dwarves?" Caleb sat up a little straighter and began to look interested. "Your Master Ule . . . he lives in one of thern dwarf mansions, does he?"
In his time, Caleb had been acquainted with very few dwarves, but it was no secret they were a luxurious race. Even dwarves of modest means lived in grand houses, sometimes pooling the resources of several families to erect their lofty mansions of stone, as ornate on the inside (it was said) as they were on the outside, with elaborate pillars and pediments and balustrades, fountains of porphyry, onyx, and white marble, and cavernous high-ceilinged chambers which reminded them of their origins in the caverns of the north. Caleb had never set foot inside one, but he knew (or thought that he knew) what the mansions of the dwarves were like. "Don't hold out on me, lad—tell me everything you seen."
Jed stood up, stripped off his coat, and hung it carefully on a peg on the wall. He knew all the same tales that Caleb knew and while it was true that Master Ule's home was very old, very beautiful, and filled with fine things, there was nothing on the scale that Caleb was obviously expecting.
"It was, the grandest home I ever been in," he allowed at last. "We must of climbed fifty stairs just to reach the second floor and old Madam Ule's parlor. There wasn't no shortage of velvet draperies, or painted china, or crystal goblets, or silver teapots—most of it real old, and been in the family for hundreds of years, I guess. Them dwarves take real good care of their things."
He pulled up one of the unreliable chairs and sat down by the fire. "It was old Madam Ule as lent me them books—they set a great store by education, all the Ules—and if you got something against book-learning, then all I got to say: you chose a d----d strange occupation for yourself when you left the river!" Jed proclaimed defiantly.
"Aye . . . Well, I ain't got nothing against books—most books," Caleb was forced to allow. "And I guess you won't take no harm from geography and mathematics, nor working in no import house, neither. Come to think on it," he added thoughtfully, sitting back in his rocking chair, "you may rise in this world by and by—and not by any efforts of your wichtel bottlemaker." Caleb nodded emphatically. "Learn all you can while you can, that suits me just fine."
Jed, who had been in the process of poking up the fire, stopped what he was doing and glared at Caleb suspiciously. "What do you mean by that? Just what do you and Gottfried Jenk think you are doing there at the bookshop?" he said, unconsciously brandishing the poker as he spoke.
"Here, now . . . you ain't lost your wits entirely and gone for to transmute lead into gold again? I thought you put all that alchemical nonsense—no use scowling at me, for you called it nonsense yourself!—I thought you put all that behind you a long time since."
"Never you mind what we think we're doing, old Gottfried Jenk and me. We know what we're doing, never you fear," said Caleb, folding his hands piously and continuing to rock, with such a smug expression generally that a more violent man than Jed might have been tempted to use the poker in earnest. "Don't you trouble your head at all. Just do your job and please your master, and leave me to do the same."
CHAPTER 13
In which the Duchess entertains Visitors.
The Duke of Zar-Wildungen's town residence was a crumbling edifice built of white stone, all but concealed by a tangle of creeping vines: ivy, owl-flower, and wild rose. Its halls and corridors were floored with cracked tiles, its windows draped with faded and fragile velvets and satins, and all its furnishings were dark, heavy, and out of date. Thus it had stood for many years, and thus it seemed likely to stand, at least during the lifetime of the present Duke, who even as a young man had displayed an absolute passion for the antique—old books, old art, old buildings—and for manners, customs, and usages hallowed by time, which as the years passed had grown to the point of obsession.
Only in a handful of stylish rooms done in gold and ivory could anything new be seen, and in these rooms was everything new to be seen, for these chambers were allotted to the Duchess, and there she indulged her own taste for the fashionable, the faddish, and the fanciful. Perhaps some spark of rebellion against the mustiness of her mate, the dreary, time-worn splendor of his house, had first engendered in the Duchess this passion for all that was fresh and original. Whatever the cause, she, too, had grown obsessive with the passing years. Her gowns and her carriages, her hats, gloves, shoes, and fans, were the height of fashion—and sometimes preceded it. She redecorated her rooms on an average of twice a year. Any man with a new invention, a new philosophy, a new cure for the ills that afflict mankind; any poet, novelist, musician, or painter with a talent so progressive as to be misunderstood found in the Duchess an eager and generous patroness. Nor was she any less generous with her personal f
avors: her love affairs were various, passionate, and brief, and her lovers invariably many years her junior.
Like other women of fashion, she habitually slept until noon, drank chocolate with her breakfast, spent an hour in the expert hands of her hairdresser, and then—elegantly coiffeured, perfumed, and powdered, but otherwise in charming dishabille—repaired to the salon off her bedchamber, to read the letters, invitations, and calling cards that arrived daily; answer those that appealed to her; and receive early callers.
So Jarl Skogsrå found her one afternoon, sitting on a little gilt and satin sofa, sorting through a lapful of invitations with one hand, while, with the other, she absent-mindedly fed candied apricots and sugared violets to her tiny indigo ape.
"My dear Jarl," she said, impulsively rising to greet him, in a shower of scented note-paper. "I have expected you these three hours." This was not strictly true, for it was only half past two. "How wicked of you to keep me waiting."
Murmuring his apologies, he helped her gather up her correspondence, then accepted her invitation to take a seat on the sofa beside her. He looked exceedingly debonair this afternoon, in a coat of green velvet and buff smallclothes, with an emerald brooch in the lace at his throat.
"And so . . ." she said, smoothing the creamy satin folds of her dressing gown, rearranging the wide collar of blond lace which was already quite low on her shoulders, "I understand that you are to see my godchild again today. But you never told me of your last visit. In what manner did Elsie receive you?"
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