Zacharias nodded sagely. “It sounds like him.”
Mrs. Daubeney’s eyes widened. “Did you know him?”
“I owe you my apologies, ma’am. I ought to have told you yesterday, but I did not wish to speak until I had confirmed Miss Gentleman was the object of my search,” said Zacharias. He sat down across from Mrs. Daubeney, though she had not invited him to take a chair. He must conduct himself with the utmost confidence, or the game was up. “Mr. Gentleman was a particular friend of my guardian, Sir Stephen Wythe. I saw him often.”
“Why, you cannot have been very old then,” said Mrs. Daubeney. “Gentleman came here the instant he returned from India. He told me he had no relations and no friends he cared to see in England. If you knew Mr. Gentleman before he left for India, you cannot have been very old.”
“Certainly I was not very old, but Sir Stephen told me so much about him, that I feel as though I knew him myself,” said Zacharias, inventing wildly. “He—he was not such a man as one easily forgets!”
In Mr. Gentleman Zacharias had hit upon the one subject in respect of which Mrs. Daubeney would swallow nearly anything. Her eyes dimmed. “Yes. You knew him, I can see!”
“Unfortunately Sir Stephen did not hear from him for many years after they parted,” said Zacharias, suppressing a pang of guilt. “He then discovered that Mr. Gentleman’s fortunes had taken an adverse turn; that he had passed on, and left a daughter in straitened circumstances. My guardian had only sufficient time to discover so much before his own death, and he was not able to help his friend’s daughter as he desired. It was his wish that I should locate her, and offer her what assistance I could. It was in accordance with that wish that I came to your school.”
“That explains why Georgiana’s nephew did not come!” cried Mrs. Daubeney.
Zacharias paused to cast a glowering thought in the general direction of Rollo Threlfall, who was doubtless strolling along Bond Streetat that very moment, blissfully unaware of the predicament in which he had landed his friend.
“Yes, I proposed that I should take Mr. Threlfall’s place,” said Zacharias. “I had heard a rumour that Mr. Gentleman had passed his last days in these parts, and I wondered whether his daughter might not be among the gentlewitches at your school.”
“I had wondered! The Sorcerer Royal was never concerned with the education of gentlewitches before,” said Mrs. Daubeney. She was enchanted by this vision of her beloved Gentleman as an intimate of the Sorcerer Royal, fondly remembered even upon Sir Stephen’s deathbed, and herself the friend who in her nobility of character had preserved his daughter from the workhouse. “But this accounts for all!”
Zacharias nodded, though he felt wretchedly uncomfortable. Having set his hand to the plough, however, he could hardly turn back.
“I was soon certain that Miss Gentleman was the young lady I sought, but I had only time to inform her of the bare fact of my guardian’s connection with her father,” he said. “Anxious to learn more, she came to the inn yesterday to speak with me. She ought to have consulted you, ma’am, before undertaking such a visit alone, but we will forgive Miss Gentleman her eagerness to understand more of her origins.”
“That was very impulsive of you, Prunella,” said Mrs. Daubeney chidingly. “But I suppose it was understandable. Goodness knows I have longed to know more of Gentleman’s history! He never gave me a hint of what he had endured. He was not a man to complain.”
“By the time I had answered Miss Gentleman’s questions, it was so late I was reluctant to turn the coachman out of bed to return her to you,” said Zacharias. “Fortunately Mrs. Headey was able to make up a bed for her at the inn.”
“Well, Mrs. Headey is a mother, and ought to know what she is about,” said Mrs. Daubeney. “But it looked very bad—you cannot deny it looked very bad, Mr. Wythe. A man of the world will understandthese things. I beg you will recollect that Prunella has not a soul in the world to depend upon, except for me!”
Her eyes welled up with tears. Zacharias looked at Prunella in desperation, but this display of sentiment did not seem to affect her one whit.
“You forget, ma’am, that I have myself,” she said. “Should you like the smelling salts?”
“I assure you I am as anxious as anyone could be that Miss Gentleman should come to no harm,” said Zacharias. “I wish only to assist her, and would like to accompany her to town, if you will permit it. Lady Wythe will be pleased to receive her there, and we can make such arrangements as Sir Stephen would have wished.”
Zacharias had decided upon this course the night before, when he and Prunella had fabricated this tale of Sir Stephen’s connection with her father. He could not inform a woman so opposed to women’s magic that he was removing her charge so that she could learn precisely that. Besides, his plan to reform women’s magical education must remain secret for now, until his position was stronger, and he had marshalled support for his scheme among his colleagues. As for what Lady Wythe would think of her part in the proceedings, that was a complication Zacharias left for the future.
“Lady Wythe!” cried Mrs. Daubeney. “But she is the daughter of a baronet!”
Though she herself had ascended rapidly in her fancy to the heights of intimacy with the current and former Sorcerers Royal, she could not so quickly adapt her view of Prunella. After all, only the day before she had resolved to evict Prunella from her bedchamber in the east wing: some of the schoolgirls slept there, and Prunella would do better in the servants’ quarters.
It required a rapid readjustment of her notions for Mrs. Daubeney to absorb the idea of Prunella as the honoured guest of Lady Maria Wythe. In justice to Mrs. Daubeney’s heart, however—a genuineliving, beating article, even if it was on occasion shouted down by her head—not two minutes had passed before she had assimilated the idea, and began to think it an excellent thing for dear Prunella. There was no doubt it was to Mrs. Daubeney’s credit that it had happened, and Prunella ought to be grateful to her for this sudden elevation.
Though Mrs. Daubeney did not admit it to herself, she was conscious of a sneaking sensation of relief, for it was certainly true that Prunella was growing too magical for the school. It was not inconvenient for her to be removed at this juncture, and ideal that it should be done in such a manner as to enable Mrs. Daubeney henceforth to claim a connection with the Sorcerer Royal.
“She is that,” said Zacharias. “What is more, she is very kind, and will do her best to make Miss Gentleman comfortable.”
“Well, Prunella, it shall never be said that I stood in the way of your advancement,” said Mrs. Daubeney. “I always knew you were meant for better things. One does not often meet such men as your dear father.”
“I hope to leave today, ma’am, if that does not cause too much disruption in your arrangements,” said Zacharias. “I have been delayed longer than I should like, and need to get on as soon as I can.”
Mrs. Daubeney looked dazed. “Certainly—that is to say, Prunella will need time to pack.”
“I shall not need long,” said Prunella. “I have just enough as will fill a small valise.”
“I suppose you will have a maid to accompany you,” said Mrs. Daubeney, pulling herself together, and assuming the stern countenance of a guardian. “I am afraid I can spare no one at such short notice.”
