“I cannot think necromancy a suitable subject for girls,” said Zacharias.
“This is what comes of being acquainted only with missish London females,” said Sir Stephen, who had, not an hour ago, been inveighing against teaching women any magic, for fear it should be too much for them. “Childbirth is no very delicate process, and it is women who lay out the dead, so pray include the study of necromancy, and let us haveno more argument. If you insist on instructing females it must be a comprehensive education, and no magical education can be complete without imparting a proper understanding of the darker arts.”
“I wonder whether necromancy ought not to be followed by the study of household magics,” said Zacharias musingly. “That might serve as a capital counterbalance to spirit-speaking.”
“I thought you wished to train serious practitioners,” exclaimed Sir Stephen. “If your desire is to turn out a phalanx of magical cooks, there is no need for reform. Your magical females can apprentice themselves to any village witch or wise woman—there are scores of the creatures, however hard the Society may try to pretend they do not exist. But I cannot see that their lore has any earthly relevance to a thaumaturgical education.”
“Why, as to that, the low magics may produce spells as intricate and exacting as anything by the name of thaumaturgy,” said Zacharias. “One witch, a Mrs. Hudson, showed me a spell which ensured her cooking never burnt, the principle of which was as philosophical as any thaumaturge could wish. The spell bound together time and the ideal, compelling both to meet at the desired point. An ingenious receipt, one she learnt at her grandmother’s knee. I took a copy of it.”
He rose to look for the receipt among his journals, but it was not among the books he had spread out upon the table and floor. Zacharias reached for his luggage, which sat in a dark corner of the coffee-room, but as he did so he stumbled over an obstacle he had not perceived before.
“Pray do not step on my case,” said a small, clear voice.
Zacharias realised three things:
Sir Stephen had vanished.
At his feet was a worn old valise, which was not his.
On the floor sat a young woman. She rose, moving stiffly, as if she had been sitting for a considerable time.
The room, lit by the dwindling fire in the grate, was full of softdark shadows, and the lamp on Zacharias’s desk threw only a small circle of light. But his visitor had not relied upon the dimness of the room to conceal her presence. She still wore the rags of an invisibility enchantment, that Zacharias had torn by treading upon it.
It was a cleverly worked spell, surprisingly original in design, but it would not have so practised upon Zacharias’s senses if he had not been tired and taken up with his thoughts. He had not expected to see anything other than shadows in the corners of the room, and so he had seen no more.
Even so, he was horrified at his lapse. He gazed openmouthed at the young woman, and this was when Zacharias arrived at a fourth realisation: it was Miss Gentleman, whom he had seen that morning fending off hexes.
“Now you have seen me, please may I sleep on the chaise longue?” she said. She seemed perfectly collected, as though it were an everyday matter to her to intrude upon the most prominent magician of his generation. “It is late, and I should like to rest for the journey tomorrow.”
Zacharias was so perplexed by the situation that he let this pass without comment. “How did you contrive to enter this room?”
“I turned left before the stairs, and opened the second door,” said Prunella. “The maid’s directions were clear enough, and there are not so many rooms that one is easily lost.”
It briefly occurred to Zacharias to wonder whether the young woman was speaking a foreign language, and he had simply failed to notice it. He did not seem to be following her meaning at all.
“There must be some mistake,” he said. “How did you persuade the landlord to let you in?”
“Oh, that was no trouble at all,” said Prunella. “The Headeys have a new maid, who does not know the village. I told her I was a courtier from Fairyland disguised as a mortal female, and that I had an appointment to confer with the Sorcerer Royal. She is a superstitious creature and let me in directly, so I came up here to wait for you.”
“How long were you sitting here in the dark?” said Zacharias. He undertook a hasty mental review of his conversation. How fortunate it was that he had been engaged in a discussion of educational reform. As explosive as the Society would find his plans, they were not nearly so great a secret as the Government’s negotiations with Janda Baik, or the manoeuvrings of the Fairy Court.
“I came when everyone had sat down to dinner,” said Prunella. “I slept a while, so I was not very bored. The floor was excessively uncomfortable, however. I should much prefer the chaise longue, if you have no objection.”
Another man, surprised by a female so abandoned to all considerations of propriety as to saunter unasked into his room and demand the use of his chaise longue, might have so forgotten his manners as either to eject her without further ado, or to grow offensively familiar. Not so Zacharias. The latter course would never have occurred to him, and if the former presented any appeal, it was banished by the chatter of Prunella’s teeth as she spoke, and the trembling of her hands.
The instinct of hospitality Lady Wythe had instilled in Zacharias came to the fore. The girl must be returned to the school, it was clear, but first she must be looked to.
“Pray sit,” he said, handing her to a chair by the fire. “I will ring the landlord for tea. May I ask why I have been honoured with this visit?”
Prunella seated herself, holding the battered old valise on her knee.
“Of course,” she said. “I am coming with you to London.”
8
PRUNELLA’SFIRSTTHOUGHThad been to board the stagecoach to London at the Blue Boar, but the difficulties inherent in this scheme soon made themselves obvious. Chief of these was expense: she had taken sufficient funds to supply her wants for a period, but the longer she could preserve that amount untouched, the better.
If only Mrs. Daubeney were going to London! Not that Mrs. Daubeney would take Prunella along, since she was in disgrace. But if only Mrs. Daubeney had a friend who was going there, who might permit Prunella to accompany him; if only she knew anyone travelling in that direction...
