“But I do not know why there should be any objection,” said Mrs. Daubeney, in tears. “It is only a little inconvenience—nothing to speak of—and in consequence the girls are preserved from magic, and magic preserved for thaumaturgy. Why, I wrote of the Seven Shackles to Lord Burrow, and he commended the practise. He said it is just what the country needs!”
“She is waking up!” exclaimed Prunella. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Olivia. You have frightened everyone out of their wits. Let us get you to bed, and never worry about the plum pudding, for you may be sure Cook will save you a piece.”
Zacharias reined in his indignation. He had no wish to distract attention from the girl.
“You are quite right,” he said, his voice as even as he could make it. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Daubeney. It is an excellent innovation, I am sure. I was only a little taken aback. But if the Society approves it...” He allowed his voice to trail off.
He was still simmering at what struck him as a reprehensible breach in an institution with so many young lives in its care, but a lifetime’s practise of self-control enabled him to conceal this. Mrs. Daubeney curtseyed, smiling graciously (if a trifle wetly). Zacharias would have had no doubt that he had brought it off—if not for the sardonic light in Miss Gentleman’s eye.
•••
AFTERthe extraordinary interruption to the Sorcerer Royal’s speech Mrs. Daubeney retired to her boudoir. The mistresses were tasked with entertaining Mr. Wythe while she recovered her spirits—and told Prunella off.
Prunella was not overly exercised by the summons. Mrs. Daubeney would scold her for the morning’s work, no doubt, but her trespasses must have been thrown in the shade by Olivia’s display. Besides, though Mrs. Daubeney did not know it, Prunella now possessed a potent weapon—such intelligence as would make Mrs. Daubeney forget all her complaints.
Prunella might have concealed her discovery of her father’s valise if there had been nothing in it but the journal and the trinket, for those could be of no value to anyone but herself. Now that she knew what she possessed, however, it was clear that the good fortune must be shared with Mrs. Daubeney.
Mrs. Daubeney was reclining upon an ottoman when Prunella entered the room, her eyes fixed on some dreadful invisible sight. She looked like the lead actress in a tragedy, but this accorded with Prunella’s expectations. Mrs. Daubeney would enact her theatricals—alternate between tears and vapours, and rain down voluble reproaches upon Prunella’s head—but she would feel all the better for it, and there would be an end to the matter. Mrs. Daubeney never held a grudge.
“This morning’s scene in the eldest class, Prunella!” she exclaimed. “How could you have permitted the girls to run so wild? For the Sorcerer Royal to have witnessed such brazen indulgence in magic at my school, when magic is the one thing I have set my face against—oh, it is beyond anything!”
Prunella had resolved to wait out Mrs. Daubeney’s complaints, but she was full of her news, and she could not resist the opportunity to introduce the subject.
“But you must not be too prejudiced against magic, you know, Mrs. Daubeney,” said Prunella. “Why, only consider, if it were not for magic you would not have a school at all.”
“I should be pleased to give up the school if it meant no girl in England was afflicted with magical ability,” said Mrs. Daubeney mendaciously. “But pray, Prunella, do not seek to change the subject. I amnot sure you have a proper consciousness of what you have done. You ought to have considered me, but no one ever does, and it puts me in an impossible position!”
Mrs. Daubeney dissolved into tears. This might have dismayed anyone who knew her less well, but not Prunella. She rose and searched in a pretty japanned cabinet, unearthing a handkerchief, and thrust this into Mrs. Daubeney’s unresisting hand.
“I am sure I have done my best for you,” wept Mrs. Daubeney. “Indeed, no one expected that I should do so much. When your dear father died, my friends advised me to send you away. Why should I burden myself with the care of an infant unconnected to me, they said? But I ignored their counsel.”
Prunella was properly grateful, and said so, but she added, “My father did leave some money for my upbringing, ma’am. You know he left enough to feed and house me, till I turned eighteen.”
“But you are now nineteen,” pointed out Mrs. Daubeney between sobs. “Not that I begrudge the care I have given you, but money does not go as far as it did when dear Gentleman died, and all he left is spent.”
Mrs. Daubeney had nonetheless suffered very little from permitting Prunella to continue at the school. Prunella had started teaching the littlest girls when she was fourteen, and she had run errands and helped with the work of the household even before then. She did not remind Mrs. Daubeney of this, but for the first time it occurred to Prunella to wonder whether it really was the best course to tell Mrs. Daubeney of her discovery.
“You know the one wish of my heart has been to help England’s magical womanhood,” said Mrs. Daubeney. “There are not so many magical schools for young ladies, and with a little effort we might easily become the first among them. The Sorcerer Royal’s visit was the answer to all my prayers, and to have such an opportunity squandered is what I will not stand for.”
“Was the Sorcerer Royal very cross?” Prunella ventured. “He did not seem excessively put out this morning.”
Mr. Wythe had seemed far more vexed by the Seven Shackles, she thought. If Mrs. Daubeney had observed this herself, however, she did not mention it. In common with most of humanity, she possessed a convenient capacity for forgetting anything that might cause her discomfort.
“Why, what could he do but disapprove of an establishment that allows its girls such latitude?” said Mrs. Daubeney. “But he is not the only one whose opinion must be considered. Clarissa Midsomer has told her family of what passed. It seems her brother taught the wretched girl to pass messages by zephyr, which is the worst possible thing he could have done. Why the family sent her to us if they were only going to spoil our work by teaching her spells, I’m sure I don’t know! The result is that Mr. and Mrs. Midsomer have said that I must send you away, or they will ruin me. And they are perfectly capable of it, Prunella! All they need do is tell their friends what happened today, and everyone is bound to take their daughters out of the school, for who would educate their girls at an institution where they were permitted to brawl like prizefighters?”
“Good gracious!” said Prunella in dismay. “What a shabby thing to have done!”
Even then it did not occur to her to be alarmed. She could not conceive that Mrs. Daubeney would really send her away for such a trifle as a spat between the girls. But Mrs. Daubeney said, in a voice trembling with passion:
“That is to understate the matter altogether! You have no notion of how very little stands between us and disaster. How could you, indeed? You have never known what it is to be at the mercy of a mortgage!” Mrs. Daubeney shuddered at the hideous word.
“I have laboured for years to establish this school, and if the Midsomers choose to set everyone against us, it will all be for nothing,”she said. “Just when I have contrived to pay off poor Daubeney’s debts, and am nearly able to put us out of the reach of want forever! If our credit with the world is not to be destroyed—if I am to preserve all I have worked for—I must be seen to take every possible step to prevent a recurrence of this morning’s incident.”
The bottom seemed to drop out of Prunella’s insides, letting in a draught that chilled her to the heart. Mrs. Daubeney had never before spoken to her in this manner, with this combination of trepidation and self-righteous resentment.
“What will you do?” said Prunella. She was so determined she should not sound frightened that her voice was toneless, lending her words an insolence she did not intend.
Mrs. Daubeney bridled. Prunella was never ingratiating at the best of times, but it seemed outrageous to Mrs. Daubeney that she should be so unconciliating just now.
