Chapter 16
ZACHARIAS’S TRIALS HAD revealed within him an unsuspected core of unflappability. He passed almost immediately from shock to applying himself to practicalities.
“We shall have to take Lady Wythe into our confidence,” he said.
“It will make everything easier, for she will be able to prepare a space for our lessons, and get the servants out of our way. We must be discreet. No one else can know. The Society is no more kindly disposed towards female magic than Mrs. Daubeney, and I shall need time to change its mind regarding your education.”
Prunella was not really attending, she was so blissfully absorbed in her familiars. She looked up with the start of someone waking out of a lovely dream.
“My education?” she said. “Need I any instruction now? Surely my familiars will teach me all I need to know.”
“Your familiars know scarcely more than you about the operation of magic—certainly not the principles of mortal thaumaturgy,” said Zacharias.
“Recall that they are newborn, and will have forgotten much of their former lives in Fairyland. They will rely upon you for guidance and restraint—and you will pay dearly for any lapse. Even under Mrs. Daubeney’s scheme of instruction you must have heard of the perils of excessive magic ungoverned by learning. ”
“Say, rather, especially under Mrs. Daubeney’s scheme of instruction,” said Prunella.
The infusion of potent magic had had much the same effect upon her spirits as a bottle of champagne, and Zacharias’s sobriety could not dampen her.
“If she had her way the girls would hardly have been taught anything else. Miss Jellicoe used to have to pretend she was lecturing them on the evils of magic, when they were only conning their figures. Poor thing! I believe algebra was all she ever thought of.”
Zacharias paid this diversion little regard. Giddiness was to be expected in a new sorceress.
“There is no time to lose,” he said. “Your familiars are young: it will be some time before they reach the peak of their powers, and for the time being they are pliant. We ought to start right away.”
He had expected that the prospect of beginning her studies would delight Prunella, but to his surprise she said doubtfully:
“Oh, if you think we must! I should not like to take you from your work. You must have a great deal on your hands now that Mak Genggang has flown, and that wicked Society is rampaging about demanding your head on a plate. I am sure you ought not to concern yourself with my instruction when matters of such importance require your attention.”
“Your instruction is a matter of great importance,” said Zacharias severely.
“The education of Miss Prunella Gentleman may have been of concern only to herself before. Now that she has acquired three familiars, her education is rightly a matter of concern to the entire nation, little though it knows it!”
“Why should that be?” said Prunella, bemused.
“Miss Gentleman, you represent what English magic has been seeking for half a century,” said Zacharias.
“With three familiars, you need do nothing else but learn enough to avoid either destroying them, or being destroyed by them, to ensure the whole kingdom’s advantage.
Three familiars will bring with them magic enough to supply a generation of thaumaturges.
The better you understand them, the better for all of us. ”
“Good gracious,” said Prunella. A gleam of naked ambition lit her eye. “But that means I am terribly important!”
“And you will have a great deal of work to do in consequence,” said Zacharias.
“We will start tomorrow, once you are settled with Lady Wythe. I suppose your introduction will take up the whole morning—she will need to find you a room, and instruct the servants—but we may begin in the afternoon. There should be no obstacle to your devoting all your days to study.”
Though Zacharias had much to worry him, he could not contemplate the prospect of weeks of devotion to the study of unnatural philosophy with indifference.
Even if he lacked the time to engage in such delightful work himself, to superintend the studies of another was nearly as good, and he looked forward to it with every expectation of pleasure.
If he had not been so pleased himself he might have noticed the perceptible lengthening of Prunella’s face. As it was, he was taken aback by her response.
“It all sounds most improving, I am sure, and I am obliged to you for your pains,” said Prunella awkwardly. “But I do not know that I will have time for such a very comprehensive course of study. How shall I achieve anything if I am forever at my books?”
“What else can you wish to achieve?” said Zacharias. “You are a sorceress three times over! That is an achievement no other woman in history can equal.”
“Which is delightful, I am sure, and I intend to take full advantage of it,” said Prunella eagerly.
“We may feel perfectly comfortable now, for Nidget and Youko and Tjandra will see to it that your wicked assassin is thwarted in any further attempts upon your life. But do you see, Mr. Wythe, I hatched them to save trouble, not to make it. I could scarcely establish myself if I was running about after my familiars all day!”
“But what more do you require to establish yourself?” said Zacharias, bewildered. “Any of my colleagues would say they could do no more if they had but accomplished what you have done.”
“But all of your colleagues are men, and have some means of getting a living,” said Prunella. She felt Zacharias was being obtuse. “What shall I live on while I am cultivating my familiars as you desire me to do?”
The question had occurred to Zacharias already. He said:
“While you are my apprentice you need not be concerned about finding a living. We could not of course apply for the bursaries to which a gentleman in your circumstances would be entitled; yet I am so positioned that we may contrive very comfortably without.” Sir Stephen had approached the getting of a fortune with all his usual enterprise, and fortunately he had no nearer relations to dispute the will in which he had left a considerable portion of that fortune to Zacharias.
“And after I have completed my apprenticeship, what then?” said Prunella.
Zacharias hesitated. A gentleman thaumaturge in need of funds might tutor the sons of the wealthy, serve the Society, or advise the Government on magical affairs.
A gentleman sorcerer would hardly need to seek opportunities, but could wait at his leisure to be sought out.
It was a puzzle to know what a female in the same position could do, however, since history offered no precedent.
“You understand the difficulty,” said Prunella.
“I could hardly be beholden to your charity forever. That would not do at all! Since I have neither connections nor money, the only means I have of acquiring either is to marry.” She paused, but she could not continue to mislead Zacharias if she was to have his help in achieving her purpose.
“To own the truth,” she said, “that was my chief aim in coming to London. I should never have met anyone who would do if I had stopped at the school.”
Prunella’s assertion would have scandalised neither Mrs. Daubeney nor Lady Wythe, though they might have thought her rather bold to set out her aim so plainly. Zacharias was not accustomed to thinking of marriage in such mercenary terms, and he was shocked.
“Surely you do not mean to tell me that your purpose in coming to London was to marry a wealthy lord?” he said.
“Oh no! What can have given you that notion?” said Prunella.
“I should be happy with a tradesman, provided he had a respectable competence. Though of course, a fortune would be even better, and you know, I am so pretty that really I think I ought not to settle for anything less! But you see why I could not devote myself to the course of study you propose. If I am to marry, and marry well, I shall have to enter society, and spend a portion of my days being introduced to gentlemen, and dancing with them, and affecting to take a great interest in what they say, and all that sort of thing.”
“And what of your familiars? Are they to languish away? Does magic mean so little to you?”
Prunella flushed in indignation. “No, indeed! Of course I will give my familiars all the care they need. But neither they nor magic can feed me. What has magic done for anyone at Mrs. Daubeney’s school, save in the suppression of it?”
“You could not be more concerned than I regarding the injustices perpetrated against your schoolfellows,” Zacharias began, but Prunella, feeling her candour had been ill rewarded, shot back:
“I think you will find that I can! What might not I do for feminine magic, with wealth and position? But I cannot do anything useful until I have established myself. Else I could be a sorceress seven times over, and still only hope to be some afflicted girl’s governess, tasked with scolding her out of her magic! ”
It was impossible for Zacharias to refute this.
His own example showed how little magical talent alone could do to secure one’s position in society.
His colleagues could deny his ability, and indeed often did, but Sir Stephen’s influence, his wealth and position, were harder to ignore, even after his death.
Little as Zacharias liked it, he knew well enough that these were the most potent argument for civility among his peers, and had often moderated their treatment of him.
“If you truly had any concern for Miss Liddiard and Henrietta and all the rest of them, you would help me,” said Prunella into a tense silence. “All I need is to be introduced into society upon a respectable footing. The rest I could contrive myself.”
Zacharias sighed.
“Miss Gentleman,” he said, “I beg you will look here.” He rolled up his sleeve, holding his arm out.
“It is your arm,” observed Prunella, after a moment’s puzzled contemplation.