Chapter 4
TWO DAYS BEFORE the Sorcerer Royal was due to arrive at Mrs. Daubeney’s School for Gentlewitches, Prunella Gentleman was shaken awake at four in the morning. Mrs. Daubeney stood over her, holding a taper aloft and looking like Lady Macbeth in a lace cap.
“Prunella, the worst has come to pass!” she said in a tragical whisper. “He is come!”
A zephyr had knocked upon Mrs. Daubeney’s window to inform her that the Sorcerer Royal’s journey had proceeded more swiftly than expected. He would be upon them, not in two days, but—that very morning!
“I do not see that it makes any great odds,” said Prunella, in no very complaisant spirit.
She was no lark in any event, and Mrs. Daubeney had woken her at an unpropitious time.
The night before the schoolgirls had fallen to talking of the parties and balls they had been to, or glimpsed through the banisters, at home.
As a result Prunella had been dreaming of improbable glories: herself, dressed enchantingly, wafting around a glittering ballroom upon the arm of a faceless gallant.
Waking brought with it the reminder that she had been up till midnight the night before, not dancing, but polishing the silver at Mrs. Daubeney’s insistence.
The cold dark of early morning scored into Prunella’s bones how unlikely it was that she would ever see a ballroom or go to a dance, save in her dreams.
Only her affection for Mrs. Daubeney enabled her to suppress her impatience and moderate her impulse to snap.
She said mildly, “I am sure the school has never been so clean, and all the girls have been told what they must say and how they must look, and Clara has practised her curtsey a thousand times, and told she must not lisp when she gives Mr. Wythe his posey. There is scarcely anything more to be done, and Cook will be sure to have something to set on the table—she has been deep in preparations for weeks.”
“But Prunella, think of the state of the attics!” said Mrs. Daubeney. “You know I said we should be sorry if we did not make haste to clear out the attics, and now here we are, with the Sorcerer Royal nearly upon us, and the attics uncleared!”
It was a curious contradiction that even as the rest of England languished for want of magic, the school was afflicted with more than it knew what to do with.
Being a school for gentlewitches, it did not, of course, instruct its students in practical thaumaturgy.
Mrs. Daubeney knew just what parents desired her to inculcate in their inconveniently magical daughters: pretty manners, a moderate measure of education and, above all, a habit of restraint.
But despite the mistresses’ vigilance, they could not prevent forty high-spirited girls from breaking out in spells on occasion, and the garrets, tucked away beneath the roof and rarely visited, were an ideal location for mischief.
A scent of leftover chantments lingered always about the attics, making the more susceptible servants sneeze as they passed.
“I am sure no one has looked in the attics for years, and there is bound to be some dreadful spell or talisman hidden there by one of the girls,” Mrs. Daubeney continued. “That is just what I should do if I were a careless girl, with no notion of the trouble I was likely to cause.”
“But I do not see why it should cause any trouble, even if it were true,” Prunella objected. “The Sorcerer Royal is only here for half a day, and he will hardly wish to see our attics.”
“Prunella, I am surprised at you!” cried Mrs. Daubeney.
“Do not you realise the Sorcerer Royal’s visit may be the making of this establishment?
He is acquainted with every thaumaturge in England, and need only say a word to persuade them that they should send their daughters to this school.
Only consider what Mr. Wythe would think of us if he smelt magic from the attics!
Like as not he would insist on going up to see them, and stumble upon some magical hoard left by an old girl!
Then he will accuse us of harbouring witches, and the girls’ parents will take them away, and we shall have to sell the building and send away the servants, and we will end our days in the poorhouse! ”
Prunella flung off her sheet. “If that is to be the consequence, I suppose I had better clean the attics!”
“Blessed girl!” said Mrs. Daubeney, brightening. “I don’t know what I would do without you. You will know just what to do to rid us of these emanations. I need not worry about you, I know, where magic is concerned.”
Prunella was accustomed to Mrs. Daubeney’s swiftly changing moods.
Still, it is provoking to be told you must clean an attic within half a day, to which you had intended to devote a week.
When Henrietta Stapleton found her in the attic, Prunella was too hot and vexed to receive with patience the news that Miss Liddiard had retreated to bed, felled by an illness.
Miss Liddiard taught the eldest class, and it was inconsiderate of her to be poorly on this of all days.
“A plague on all Miss Liddiards, and all Sorcerers Royal!” said Prunella.
“I am sure Miss Liddiard would rather not be ill, Prunella,” said Henrietta in a tone of mild reproof.
“She has a horror of giving trouble.” At seventeen Henrietta was as good as out, and really too old for the school, but she had been sent back for another term by her mamma, who fretted about her continuing tendency to levitate in her sleep.
“But that is just what she is doing,” said Prunella.
She had stubbed her toe twice already, and been alarmed by the appearance of the largest rat she had ever seen.
She would not mind a return to bed—not that anyone would offer her the opportunity!
“A female may be poor or delicate or a spinster, but it does seem ill-advised of Miss Liddiard to combine all three.”
This was an indelicate way for a young female to talk, but Henrietta was accustomed to the wild things Prunella said.
It seemed to the schoolgirls that Prunella had been with the school forever: darting from Mrs. Daubeney’s boudoir to the kitchen, chivvying the little ones through their baths, and substituting for the mistresses at times.
They were puzzled to describe her position whenever their parents took notice of the pretty, well-spoken girl who was Mrs. Daubeney’s shadow.
Prunella was not quite a servant, though she was as likely to be sent out to buy a black pudding for Mrs. Daubeney’s dinner as to take a cup of tea with the headmistress.
Nor did she seem to be any relation of Mrs. Daubeney’s, for though they were both dark, Mrs. Daubeney’s was a thoroughly English darkness, while Prunella’s clear brown skin spoke of foreign antecedents.
When questioned Mrs. Daubeney only said, “Oh, her father was a friend of the family. Poor Gentleman, he died when she was still a babe, and entrusted her to my care.” But she would not be drawn any further, and Prunella was as ignorant of her own origins as any of the girls.
That there was a special connection between the headmistress and Prunella everyone knew, however, and Henrietta looked at her hopefully.
“Could not you speak to Mrs. Daubeney? She is so busy with the Sorcerer Royal I do not like to trouble her, but I know she intends to show us to him, and it will look so bad for us to lack an instructress.”
“Show you to him? What does she mean to show?”
“We are to demonstrate the Seven Shackles,” explained Henrietta.
“Mrs. Daubeney thinks the exercise will make a remarkable impression upon the Sorcerer Royal. She says no other school makes its girls perform it.” Henrietta made a face.
“I wish we did not have to! It makes one feel so cotton-woollish and good for nothing.”
Prunella shook her head.
“I am under strict orders to keep out of the Sorcerer Royal’s way,” she said.
“I could not speak to Mrs. D without attracting Mr. Wythe’s attention—that is, I suppose I could make myself invisible, but likely he would see through that, and Mrs. Daubeney wishes me to stay away precisely because I am too magical!
The class will simply have to amuse itself, Henny, and demonstrate its Shackles without Miss Liddiard’s guidance.
The girls are all old enough to know how to behave themselves. ”
“I would not be so sure,” said Henrietta darkly, but she rose to leave. “I hope Mrs. Daubeney may not scold Miss Liddiard. She was dreadfully cut up, and kept insisting she would stay, but she was so pale we were all afraid she would do herself an injury.”
“If good nature were all that were needed, no one could object to Miss Liddiard,” said Prunella. “But a female making her own way in the world requires more than that to get on!”
This exchange with Henrietta left Prunella rather solemn.
Despite her cross words she liked Miss Liddiard, and her position struck Prunella as pitiable in the extreme.
Miss Liddiard was not strong, and the solitary life of a schoolmistress, with its tedious routine and its innumerable little snubs, did not suit her.
But her father had bequeathed her nothing but his own uncertain constitution upon his death; it was necessary for her to earn her own bread.
If she were a man she might be a thaumaturge, and employ her magical abilities to good purpose.
Since she was a female of gentle birth, however, she could not, in propriety, employ her magical talent to any purpose.
If she could not marry, her best hope of establishing herself lay in teaching other females afflicted with magical ability how best to avoid using it.