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“The dress I had to put on for visiting Count Saint-Germain is in my wardrobe at home,” I said. “I’ll give it to you if you like. You could wear it to Cynthia’s next fancy-dress party—I bet you’d bowl everyone over!”
“That dress isn’t yours to give away,” said Charlotte brusquely. “It’s the property of the Guardians. And it has no business being in your wardrobe at home.” She went back to looking out of the window.
“Grouse, grouse, grouse,” said Xemerius.
Charlotte really didn’t make it easy for you to like her. She never had. All the same, I hated this frosty atmosphere. I tried again. “Charlotte—”
“We’re nearly there,” she interrupted me. “I can’t wait to see if we’ll meet any of the Inner Circle.” Her grumpy face suddenly brightened. “I mean apart from those we know already. It’s so exciting! Over the next few days the Temple will be teeming with living legends. Famous politicians, Nobel Prize winners, highly decorated scientists will be in its hallowed halls, and the rest of the world will never know. Koppe Jötland will be here, oh, and Jonathan Reeves-Haviland … how I’d love to shake hands with him.” For her, Charlotte sounded really enthusiastic.
I had no idea who she was talking about. I looked hopefully at Xemerius, but he simply shrugged his shoulders. “Never heard of any of those stuffed shirts, sorry,” he said.
“No one can know everything,” I said with an understanding smile.
Charlotte sighed. “No, but it doesn’t hurt to read a serious newspaper now and then, or look at a news magazine to inform yourself about international political events. Of course, you have to switch your brain into gear for that … always supposing you have one.”
Like I said, she really didn’t make it easy.
The limousine had stopped, and Mr. Marley opened the car door. On Charlotte’s side, I noticed.
“Mr. Giordano is expecting you in the Old Refectory,” said Mr. Marley, and I had a feeling he’d almost added “ma’am.” He continued, “I’m to take you there.”
“There’s something about you that makes everyone want to order you around,” observed Xemerius. “Like me to come with you?”
“Yes, please,” I said, as we made our way along the narrow alleyways of the Temple district. “I’d feel better with you there.”
“Will you buy me a dog?”
“No!”
“But you do like me, don’t you? I think I’ll have to make myself scarce more often.”
“Or make yourself useful,” I said, remembering what Lesley had said. You could have an ace up your sleeve with Xemerius. She was right. Who else had a friend who could walk through walls?
“Don’t dawdle like that,” said Charlotte. She and Mr. Marley were a few feet in front of us, walking side by side, and only now did it strike me how like each other they were.
“Yes, Miss Manners,” I said.
Let’s withdraw; And meet the time as it seeks us.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE TRAGEDY OF CYMBELINE
FIVE
TO CUT A LONG story short, coaching by Charlotte and Mr. Giordano was even worse than I’d expected. That was mainly because they were trying to teach me everything at the same time. While I was struggling to learn the steps of the minuet (rigged out in a hooped skirt with cherry-red stripes, not very chic worn with my school uniform blouse, which was the color of mashed potato), I was also supposed to be learning how greatly the political opinions of the Whigs and the Tories differed, how to hold a fan, and the difference between “Your Highness,” “Your Royal Highness,” “Your Serene Highness,” and even “Your Illustrious Highness.” After only an hour plus seventeen different ways of opening a fan, I had a splitting headache, and I couldn’t tell left from right. My attempt to lighten the atmosphere with a little joke—“Couldn’t we stop for a rest? I’m totally, serenely, illustriously exhausted”—went down like a lead balloon.
“This is not funny,” said Giordano in nasal tones. “Stupid girl.”
The Old Refectory was a large room on the ground floor, with tall windows looking out on an inner courtyard. There was no furniture except for a grand piano and a few chairs pushed back against the wall. Xemerius was dangling head down from a chandelier, as so often, with his wings tidily folded on his back.
Mr. Giordano had introduced himself with the words, “Just Giordano, if you please. Qualified historian, famous fashion designer, Reiki master, creative jewelry designer, well-known choreographer, Adept Third Degree, expert on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.”
“Oh, wow,” said Xemerius. “Someone must have dropped him on his head when he was a baby.”
I could only agree with him, if in silence. Mr. Giordano—sorry, just Giordano—bore a most unfortunate resemblance to one of those demented presenters on the TV shopping channels, always talking as if they had clothes-pegs on their noses and there was a miniature pinscher dog under the table snapping at their calves. I was just waiting for him to twist his plump lips (had they been Botoxed?) into a smile and say, “And now, viewers, take a look at our indoor water feature, the Bridget model, top quality, a little oasis of happiness, only twenty-seven pounds, a real snip at the price, you can’t do without one of these, I have two at home myself.…”
y looked at me sympathetically. “She has no idea,” she whispered to me. “Really, you can only feel sorry for her.”
“Yes, right,” I whispered back. But in fact I was sorry for no one but myself. I could see that an afternoon in Charlotte’s company was going to be a whole load of fun.
