Chapter 1 #5
“The banns are to be read on Sunday,” she said. “This is the gazebo, Mr. Young. It is much prettier in summer. After that we need wait three months. Though perhaps a special license could be procured. Father is against it, but my darling Chomondley and I would prefer a shorter engagement.”
“No need for that,” James said hastily. “There are your clothes and so on to prepare, aren’t there? You wouldn’t want to rush that.”
“My trousseau, yes.” Flora looked at Irene, who was walking a demure three paces behind the party, wearing a coat that Flora had cast off three winters ago.
For reasons James could not quite articulate, he did not like to see Irene in this passed-on garb.
“Irene, you’re ever so clever with your needle.
Couldn’t you make my things faster? I don’t need so very much, you know. ”
“Perhaps, my lady.”
“Here is the French garden, Mr. Young. Past it, we will find the orangerie. Irene, does The Book not have any advice on hasty sewing?”
Irene hesitated, her wide mouth pinching at the corners. “The Book’s philosophy is largely that haste makes waste, my lady,” she said, and met James’ eye over Flora’s shoulder, while Flora made a disappointed moue.
“But really, Jamie, I do want to wed my darling Chomondley as soon as may be. I cannot wait three months! I would simply die.”
James and Irene took this pronouncement calmly, but Simon made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. “Lady Flora,” he said, “if your mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars…”
“Why, that’s from Romeo and Juliet!” Flora said, turning to Simon with startled interest.
“Er, yes.”
“How very singular. I was reading the play last night.” The smooth brow creased. “I can’t recall why… Surely I should have chosen some happier tale.” Her hands crept to her throat and clutched the pretty lace of her high collar.
“Are you cold, my lady?” Irene asked, her eyes intent on Flora’s hands. “Shall we go on into the orangerie?”
“Yes,” Flora said faintly, then, “no… No, I had better get back to the house.”
“Come on, old girl, it’s just a little further,” James said heartily.
Simon drew closer, his gaze intent upon Flora’s face, where the eyes were clearing and clouding over in rapid succession. She looked like a child waking from a bad dream, not yet sure whether the dream or the world was real.
“No, I shouldn’t—” Flora said, and then, when her brother took her hand, meaning to urge her forward: “Jamie, no! I must get back!”
James was on the verge of throwing his sister over his shoulder and running for it, and was stayed only by Simon’s hand on his shoulder.
“Steady, man,” Simon said, as Flora drew away with an inarticulate cry and dashed back towards the house. “He’s added some sort of leash. To take her away without untangling the spell could be fatal.”
“Fatal!” James exclaimed. “But he plans to marry Flora, not kill her.”
“If I may, my lord,” Irene said. She was biting her lower lip with her small, white teeth.
“I was considering the matter again last night, and it occurred to me that… Well, that the Marquess cannot really hope to conceal Lady Flora’s enchantment forever.
After a wedding there is a honeymoon, which would allow him to keep her secluded for some time, but if Lady Flora is not in Town after Easter, questions will certainly be asked. ”
“I don’t propose to let there be a wedding, Irene!”
“Nor I, my lord, but I have been wondering if the Marquess’s goal is not solely your sister’s person. Forgive me for speaking of it, but the understanding Downstairs is that you both inherited a great deal of property from your mother, the Countess.”
“Er, yes,” James said, in some embarrassment. “Mater was rather modern, as such things go. Split her family jewels between us. Flora’s part is in trust until she comes of age or marries.”
Simon inhaled sharply. “And upon their marriage, Lady Flora’s property becomes the Marquess’s.”
“Oh,” James said blankly, and then, “Oh. I see. He plans to marry Flora, then kill her.”
If the Marquess of Chomondley had been nearby at that moment, it is not to be doubted that James would cheerfully have embraced violence as a solution.
As it was, he turned towards the house in a blind fury, and it took both of his companions to stop his charge.
When the red mist faded, James found that Simon had bundled his arms behind his back, and Irene’s determined face gazing up at him from chest height, where she had thrown her strong arms around him in a grappling embrace.
She stepped back upon the moment, but James was left with a peculiar sensation not wholly owed to embarrassment or wrath.
Simon did not release his grip as immediately.
“Think,” he said, his voice low and urgent.
“Our sole advantage is that the Marquess does not know that we suspect him of foul magick. He is amused by your personal dislike, James, but if he knew that Miss Crawford could testify to the white aura, he would do what he could to cover up his traces.”
“And murder Flora.”
“Yes. Tonight we must meet, and tonight cast the spell. And I’m afraid it will have to be a combined working after all. Chomondley is obviously uncommonly strong, and it will take two magicians to stop him. Miss Crawford, James tells me you have some talent?”
"I suppose so, sir."
Simon smiled at her. "Suppose you recite Faulkner's Apprehension of Skill for me?"
Irene obeyed, and Simon whistled as the golden bar solidified in the air, until it seemed nearly tangible. "A talent indeed, Miss Crawford!”
James stared at the golden bar, and then at his sister’s maid.
“My lord, I must go,” Irene said urgently. “If Lady Flora should need me—”
“Yes, stick to her like glue, Miss Crawford. Tonight, then. And—thank you.”
That evening, Irene saw her lady into bed and sleeping before she took her own leave, taking the precaution of locking the bedroom door from the inside and withdrawing through the dressing room.
By habit, she was carrying The Book as she stole through the quiet halls of the ancient house, imagining herself unobserved.
And indeed, she nearly was, but for little Elsie, working late with her scuttle and hearth brush. But Elsie saw her, and saw who opened the library door for her, and vowed she would not speak a word, no, not to anybody. Elsie greatly admired Miss Irene, who was so clever, and knew so many things.
Inside the library, Mr. Young was seated at the large reading table, his fair hair ruffled and his fingertips marked with ink where his pen had sputtered. He was surrounded by a battlement of books, marked with scraps of paper, but looked up from the tome in front of him with an eager air.
“Miss Crawford! Wonderful. I am not able to make a firm determination on our course without your intercession. Do you follow the Fisher school or the Bradley?”
Irene drew closer. “I am not certain, sir. My father, who taught me, largely followed Bradley, but made allowance for Fisher under certain phases of the moon.”
“Ah, a realist. Well, come look at this and tell me what you think of it.”
Irene looked over his shoulder, very aware that she was in a room late at night with two gentlemen, but his lordship was leaning against the mantle, some distance away, and this scholarly Mr. Young surely had no harm in him.
To her dismay, however, the cantrip to which Simon pointed was all in Greek letters. "I cannot read this, sir," she said.
"Oh, of course. Well, let's see, in the Roman alphabet, it would be something like this.
" He began to sketch out the transliteration on another paper scrap, and Irene watched with interest. "Now, as to the meaning…
This piece is unclear, but I think the author meant the fourth aspect, and this must mean "by moonshine", although the quarter of the moon is not defined.
And neither Bradley nor Fisher have anything useful to say about it, and we dare not risk an excess of sanguine humour on such an undertaking. "
"Mrs. Beeton says that for cleaning a room befouled with magic of ill intent, the full moon is best," Irene ventured. "Would that apply in this case?"
"You know, I believe that agrees with Solomon's Scroll," Simon said, checking a reference and scribbling something else on the translation.
"Hah! And if we factor that in… There! Much better balanced among the humours.
I think this incantation ought to do. Who is this Mrs. Beeton?
I have not read her work, but she seems like a sensible scholar. "
Even when Irene admitted that Mrs. Beeton was merely a writing woman who had made a collection of household magicks, Simon would brook no delay until Irene handed over The Book for his perusal.
"This is a most wonderful work!" he exclaimed. "See here, James, where the ingredients are listed aforehand? And the language is most clear and accurate. I wish that all magickal works were organized upon such principles."
"Perhaps we can apply them to the spell to save my sister?" James suggested, and was, despite the circumstances, highly amused when both of his companions turned identical startled faces towards him.
"An excellent thought, my lord," Irene murmured, and she and Simon fell into a discussion of what herbs could best be substituted for those that had not been available in the Rabton Hall stillroom.
James, seeing that Irene sat down at last, allowed himself to fall into a chair by the fire and watch the dying embers fade, one by one.
“Miss Crawford, I must say that you have the makings of a first-rate scholar,” Simon said after half an hour’s solid work, when the spell was worked out in every particular.
“It’s very kind of you to say, Mr. Young.”
“It is not in the least bit kind,” James said, roused from his contemplation of the fire. “Simon proceeds from an unsentimental judgment of fact. He couldn't be kind if you held his feet to this flame.”
“Oh, I say,” Simon protested.