The harm was not much worse than the cuts and scalds Prunella had received in the school kitchens, but she was not about to admit that. She drew herself up and looked haughty.
“I call it a disgrace!” she said. “My wrist hurts very much, and I should think it will need a great deal of time and care to heal. I don’t suppose it will have either, since I must return to Mrs. Daubeney, who doesn’t care whether I live or die!”
This was a wholly speculative play on Prunella’s part, for she had given up on Mr. Wythe’s doing as she desired. It took the wind out of her sails when he replied:
“Of course you cannot go back to that finishing school. Your talentwould be thrown away there. I shall take you to London. If I am to reform the magical education of women, why should not the reform begin with you?”
“Oh!” said Prunella. After a moment she rallied, and tried to look as though this were only what she had expected. “Yes! That is what I have been trying to tell you all along.”
Mr. Wythe nodded, but he did not look at her.
“Besides,” he said, “I am in your debt, and will do what I can to make a return. I should likely have died if not for you. You saved my life.”
“Why, so I did,” said Prunella, charmed.
9
ZACHARIASMANAGEDTOprevail upon Miss Gentleman to return to the school the next morning: whatever had passed between them, she still owed Mrs. Daubeney a farewell, and if she returned, no one need know she had passed the night at the inn.
He had been thinking of his own reputation as well as Miss Gentleman’s. He had no wish for it to be bruited abroad that the Sorcerer Royal was in the habit of abstracting maidens from girls’ schools and entertaining them in his rooms. “It is quite enough for them to call me a murderer and an ingrate, without adding the ravishing of innocents to my trespasses!”
But Zacharias was tempted to regret his discretion when he was shown into Mrs. Daubeney’s drawing room in the morning. The lady herself was cast down upon an ottoman, weeping stormily into a handkerchief. Prunella hovered nearby with a bottle of smelling salts. She had the air of one to whom such displays were commonplace, but the apprehension in her eyes belied her appearance of composure.
“I am sorry to intrude,” said Zacharias. “Shall I return at a more opportune time?”
Mrs. Daubeney dabbed at her eyes and sat up. “What time can be opportune now that my poor Prunella is ruined?”
“I met Mrs. Daubeney as I was returning to my room,” explained Prunella.
Mrs. Daubeney had had every intention of snubbing Mr. Wythe when she saw him again. She considered he had behaved very shabbily in failing to be impressed by the Seven Shackles, which she regarded as a prime feather in her cap. And he had been a shocking dinner companion, speaking once in ten minutes if he spoke at all. No, the Sorcerer Royal was quite exploded in Mrs. Daubeney’s eyes. She would not be surprised if he had murdered poor dear Sir Stephen after all, and that faithful old dragon of his!
Her plan to treat him with silent dignity was forgotten in her distress over Prunella, however. Mrs. Daubeney’s affection might fail so far as to lead her to demote Prunella at her convenience, but Prunella’s disgrace was a catastrophe she had neither conceived nor desired, and she was all the more dismayed for that she felt she was in part to blame. Prunella would never have been so reckless if she had not been distressed by the little scolding Mrs. Daubeney had given her. Clearly she had run away in a fit of temper, and thereby come to her downfall.
But Mr. Wythe’s was the guilt, and he need not think he would escape it. Any notion of silent dignity was cast aside, and Mrs. Daubeney harangued Zacharias quite as though he were an old acquaintance.
“If you had a heart, you might imagine my feelings when I saw Prunella’s bed unslept in!” she said. “My own child, whom I raised ever since her poor father walked into the river! I do not claim my care was a substitute for the affection of her parents. I daresay it was not, but I challenge you to name anyone who would have shown a penniless female such devotion as I gave!”
“You have been very good, Mrs. Daubeney,” said Prunella. “To a mere penniless female!”
There was an undertone in her voice that made Zacharias glance warily at her, but Prunella knew her audience. Mrs. Daubeney was too wound up to take any notice of her interjections.
“And then to learn she had fled my roof for yours!” lamented Mrs. Daubeney. “The world may call you a great man, Mr. Wythe, but I say you are the veriest blackguard for preying upon a young female, reared in retirement, and innocent of the ways of the world!”
“Pray do not distress yourself, Mrs. Daubeney,” said Prunella. “Even if anything untoward had happened—and Mr. Wythe will vouch that it did not—I haven’t got any reputation worth speaking of, you know.” Her eyes glittered. “After all, it is not as though I were one of the young ladies.”
Mrs. Daubeney drew herself to her full height, the picture of affronted hauteur.
“Prunella, you forget yourself,” she said. “Remember your father was a gentleman!”
“But if he drowned himself and left his infant daughter with the landlady, he cannot have been very respectable,” argued Prunella.
“Ah! Poor Gentleman,” said Mrs. Daubeney, shading her eyes as though she were looking down sunlit avenues into the depths of her past. “He had had a hard time of it, indeed.”
Zacharias saw his chance.
“I gather Mr. Gentleman contrived at his own demise?” he said.
“He left a note,” said Mrs. Daubeney. “Otherwise I could never have believed it of him. Such a prettily written note! ‘Miranda’—we were such friends, we never stood on ceremony with each other—‘Miranda, I know your generosity will forgive this final trespass, despite the trouble I have caused you.’ Even then, in his anguish of mind, so considerate!”
