“Less than you deserve!” snapped Mrs. Daubeney. “I ought to send you away, but I could not bring myself to do it when I thought of your poor father. In truth, if you have ideas above your station, I must take some of the blame, for it was I who indulged you, and gave you a greater sense of consequence than your position can support. But that will certainly change, and I do not think Mr. and Mrs. Midsomer can object to my penalty. You ought to be grateful, Prunella. It is not such a great alteration, after all. You have done such work all along.”
“What do you mean?” said Prunella. Her hands, folded in her lap, tightened their grasp until the knuckles were white, but her voice was steady.
Despite Mrs. Daubeney’s anger, she was not so composed, and she fidgeted with her bracelets as she spoke:
“Henceforth I must ask you to conduct yourself in accordance with your station. You may not teach any more classes, not even the infants, and you must not take your dinner with the girls, or address them by their Christian names. It does not do to be so familiar with girls whosestation in life is so far above yours. I have told the servants, and they will expect you in the kitchen this evening. I think it best to begin today as we mean to go on.”
Prunella was stunned. It was one thing to clean out an attic or two, or to help with the dinners, to oblige Mrs. Daubeney. Mrs. Daubeney had been known herself to scrub a floor or make a bed, especially in the earlier days of the school.
But it was another thing altogether to be told she must have her meals in the kitchen, and call the girls “miss.” Prunella was on cordial terms with the servants, but she had no wish to be counted among them.
Her silence discomfited Mrs. Daubeney. She was genuinely fond of Prunella, and felt she had been forbearing. Any other woman in her position would have conceded to the Midsomers’ demands, rather than offering them a compromise with which they were only half-satisfied. No doubt Prunella was put out, but she was really very fortunate, and must be taught to take the correct view of the affair.
“I know it is not what you expected,” said Mrs. Daubeney, more gently. “But there is nothing else to be done, Prunella. I had thought, before, that you might teach the girls when you were older, but it would not have answered. The parents expect our mistresses to be of a certain quality, you know, and poor Gentleman! Who knows what indiscretions he might have committed in his youth? No one knows anything of your mother. She might be anyone.”
She did not add that it was clear, at least, what Prunella’s mother couldnothave been—an Englishwoman. Prunella was as conscious of this as anyone could be, and though she flushed, she said nothing.
“What is more,” said Mrs. Daubeney, “and indeed what is worse, you aretoo magical, which is what of all things an instructress of gentlewitches must not be. For you work spells before the girls, Prunella—you know you do.”
At this Prunella’s shame receded, anger taking its place. Mrs.Daubeney did not reproach her for working magic when the results suited Mrs. Daubeney. Why scold Prunella when her magic made polishing the silver or scrubbing the stairs or hustling the little ones through their breakfasts easier and quicker? There was a great deal Prunella did for the school with the judicious application of magic, and both of them knew it.
“I should not have done it if I had known you disliked it,” she said, in a cold fury.
“I am sure there is a great deal we would both change, if we could,” said Mrs. Daubeney, dabbing at her eyes. “If your father were alive...! He is not, however, and we must do the best we can. You will not mind it so much, Prunella, once you have grown accustomed to the change.”
•••
PRUNELLAwas not weeping as she flung herself into her room. She never indulged in tears, and she would have disdained to give way to them for such a trifle.
She dropped to her knees, drawing out the valise from underneath the narrow white bed.Hervalise, containinghertreasures. Mrs. Daubeney could lay no claim to them now. She had lost all right to them when she forfeited Prunella’s confidence and affection.
Prunella laid out the seven blue stones, and opened her father’s journal. She read again the hastily scribbled fragment of text that had transfixed her before.
Endure: it is only a brief suffering. With what great reward! I have won a king’s ransom, and once I have learnt to unlock it, my fortune, my name and my place in history are assured. What will not the Society do for even the mere travelling magician, Hilary Gentleman, now that he possesses riches beyond its conception—now that he calls himself master of seven familiars’ eggs?
Prunella had been surrounded by the daughters of thaumaturges all her life, and she knew how highly even one egg was likely to be valued by the Society. Seven eggs were a king’s ransom.
She had had no thought of hoarding such wealth to herself. She had hoped Mrs. Daubeney would speak to the Sorcerer Royal, and obtain his advice as to how they might best profit from her discovery. But nothing could be hoped from Mrs. Daubeney now, or ever again.
So much for her foolish belief that she might be named Mrs. Daubeney’s heiress! Mrs. Daubeney would scarcely consider doing so much for a half-caste female whom she believed better placed in the servants’ hall. Prunella would be fortunate to receive a servant’s legacy if she stayed—and that only if she were patient; if she did what was required of her without complaint; if she suppressed all heart-burnings and swallowed her resentment and never showed a sign if it sat like a live coal within her.
It could not be borne. It would not be borne. Prunella had in her father’s treasure the key to free herself. What would not society do for Prunella Gentleman, when she was able to supply such a reason for generosity?
She must leave the school, it was clear. As for where she would go, where better to learn about familiars’ eggs than the seat of English thaumaturgy—the greatest city in the world—London?
Even amid her revulsion from Mrs. Daubeney and all she stood for, Prunella did not think of attempting to hatch the eggs and employing their power for her own ends. It was a matter of orthodoxy that a woman’s weak frame could not support an excess of magic. Prunella would have supposed, if she had considered it, that the power supplied by a familiar would certainly exceed any female’s limits.
Besides, she had witnessed how little magic counted for in a female. Her life at the school had been a thorough education in the snubs magical women received, and the mortifying shifts to which theywere put to suppress their abilities. Prunella was aware of what little worth society ascribed a Miss Liddiard, and she had no intention that Miss Gentleman should share her fate. There was no place for a magical woman in the world, unless she learnt to conceal her magic. After all, what had Prunella’s own magic done for her, save to persuade Mrs. Daubeney that she ought to be a servant?
A woman possessed of a key to magic, however—a woman who might at her pleasure grant or withhold men’s access to power—that was a different matter! Such a woman need never worry about poverty or obscurity. With such leverage Prunella did not doubt she would gain all she desired—position, influence, security—provided she were canny and careful.
She closed her hands over the stones, her decision made. She could not go to the Society with her treasures till she understood them better, but once she did, ah, then! She would know how to employ them to gain all she desired, and all she desired lay in that bustling metropolis, of which the girls had told such dazzling stories.
Everything might be accomplished in London. After all, if Emmy Villiers’s cousin was so foolish as to marry a grocer’s daughter, who was to say there were not more susceptible lords in London, rich enough to please themselves, and willing to be pleased by such a one as Prunella Gentleman?
7
SILENCEPREVAILEDWITHINthe carriage as it trundled back to the Blue Boar, where Zacharias would pass the night before travelling to Fobdown Purlieu the next day. Sir Stephen broke this finally with an encouraging:
