The idea diverted her, but she dismissed it to return to the crucial question:But how shall I get myself any sort of husband if everyone thinks me a strumpet?A poor orphaned female—a native, if you please! and inconveniently magical to boot—had little hope of accomplishing her aim, even if she managed to preserve her reputation.
Prunella lingered a while in the dining parlour in hope that she might benefit from Mr. Wythe’s appearance to the tune of a mutton joint or cold souse. But when it became clear that he would not return soon from his mysterious errand, she retired to her bedchamber. The Lales’ delay in giving her the room was now explained.
They thought I would be sharing his, I suppose!Prunella was glad no one else was there to see her blush.I ought to have flown into a passion directly when they did not give me my own room; that would have persuaded them of my virtue. My being meek and believing the best of everyone has led them to think me a low trollop. I shall not run into that error again!
She rummaged in her valise and brought out the treasures, scattering them upon the bed. It was now nearly dark, and the fitful light of the taper lent uncertain illumination to the room, but the blue stones seemed to glow like gems. They were hard as gems as well, nothing of the eggshell about them.
She must persuade Mr. Wythe to teach her about familiars’ eggs as soon as she could, thought Prunella. Her interest in the subject could not draw suspicion, for who would suspect such an absurdity as her possessing seven eggs? She must take great care to ensure no one ever did suspect: doubtless Jezebels were not permitted to keep familiars’ eggs, even if the eggs were their fathers’ by the ancient right of treasure-seekers.
“I suppose I must resurrect Cawley, so that she can lend me countenance,” Prunella said to the eggs. “But she is so tiresome, and such a drain on one’s magic! I am knocked up from keeping her going for a mere day, and I shall need a chaperone for a great many more days.”
It felt natural to be addressing the eggs. Prunella had a hazy notion that the spirits locked within the eggs had thoughts and feelings of their own, dormant as they seemed—that in some way they were awake to all that passed in the outside world. She was sure the squashes were their doing.
If only she could puzzle out the dratted spell that kept them locked in slumber! It was true that Prunella had as yet no clear notion what she would do with the familiars’ eggs if she could hatch them, but that they were the key to everything she desired she did not doubt. She knew she should be able to turn them to account once she fathomed the secret of them.
“WhatcanI do to awaken you? Could I ask Mr. Wythe when hereturns from the border? Perhaps I could pretend I’d read about a similar circumstance in a book.”
But even as she spoke, the idea presented itself to her, so simple and obvious that she wondered that she had not thought of it before.
The eggs and the familiars within them were from Fairy—and the border with Fairyland was almost on the doorstep of the inn. Why should not she take the eggs there, and see how they responded to proximity to their place of origin? She might kill two birds with one stone, for where better to find magic than the Fairy border, that ultimate source of England’s magic? There would surely be enough resource there to animate a thousand Cawleys.
Mr. Wythe would not like it, of course. Zacharias had held forth at length on the instability of the border, and the delicacy of his proposed experiment, by way of explaining why he did not think it suitable to bring his new student with him on his errand. But if Mrs. Daubeney’s school had taught Prunella anything, it was that magical affairs must be conducted in secret. There was no reason Mr. Wythe need ever know of her excursion. She would go that evening, telling no one, and bring the treasures with her.
She tied the velvet pouch containing the eggs under her skirts. Then, on a whim, she drew out from her valise a chain Mrs. Daubeney had given her when she was a little girl, and the carved silver ball that was her only other legacy from her parents. She would wear the orb on her neck, she decided, in remembrance of her poor father.
11
ZACHARIASSUFFEREDANOTHERattack of his complaint that evening—an acute paroxysm, all the fiercer for the fact that the previous fit had been interrupted by the attempt on his life at the Blue Boar. It was late when the spasm released its hold upon him, permitting him to sleep. It seemed an outrageous cruelty on the part of an unfeeling world to wake him two hours later.
“I am sorry, Zacharias; I should not have woken you if I could have avoided it,” said Sir Stephen. “But if you will pick up runaway orphans, you must expect never to have a moment’s rest.” The humorous tenor of Sir Stephen’s words was belied by the anxiety on his face.
“What is it?” said Zacharias.
“Miss Gentleman is going to the border,” said Sir Stephen. “And if we do not catch her, I fear she will do herself a mischief.”
The fields were eerily still in the moonlight. No villager in Fobdown Purlieu would be abroad at this time for love or money. The witching hour might mean little elsewhere, but next to Fairyland, only a fool did not tread carefully at this most magical time of the night.
“She left the inn with that wicked old case under her arm,” said Sir Stephen. “She cannot mean to run away to Fairyland, surely? She seems too modish a young lady for such an old-fashioned yearning.”
A doomed longing for Fairy was a magician’s affliction—no female had ever been known to suffer it. Even among thaumaturges it was an outdated passion. To the modern thaumaturge magic was too prosaic a thing to move him to indulge in such irrationality.
“It may not be surprising in a young female who has learnt all her magic from old books,” said Zacharias. He would certainly arrange a donation to Mrs. Daubeney’s library, he reflected.
“There she is!” cried Sir Stephen.
The shimmering light of the border could be glimpsed above the dark mass of the hedgerow. Silhouetted against the light was the form of a young woman. Sir Stephen vanished into the night. Zacharias started forward.
“Miss Gentleman!”
•••
PRUNELLAhad begun to regret going to the border.
It had not been difficult to find Fairy. The moment she had stepped out of the inn, magic had gathered like an itch along the bridge of her nose, growing stronger as she neared the source of England’s magic.
When she saw the unmistakable glow above the hedge, the stones in the pouch tied to her skirts had suddenly taken on an extraordinary weight, as though they would drag her to the ground if they could.
After that first promising response, however, Prunella’s encounter with the border had proved disappointing. She arranged the eggs upon the sward so that they reflected the light of Fairy, in case that might provoke some reaction, but this had no effect whatsoever. She chanted a spell or two—a growing charm all the girls secretly used ontheir plots in the kitchen garden (a quiet but ferocious competition obtained among the girls as to who might produce the finest carrots), and then an awakening spell she had often employed for her sluggish charges at the school. But the eggs regarded this not at all.
