He sighed. The enchantments he had prepared were intended to address a natural decline in England’s magic, not this unnatural stoppage. With the former his spells would have been chancy. With the latter, they were of no use whatsoever. He might as well have stayed in London for all the good his trip had done—and the Spring Ball was in two days’ time.
“There is nothing for it, then,” said Sir Stephen. “You must seek an audience with the Fairy Queen.”
•••
ATFobdown Purlieu’s only inn, Prunella was encountering her own difficulties. The innkeeper and his lady seemed curiously inattentive to their business, though they had welcomed Zacharias with warmth when they observed the sorcerer’s silver star pinned to his coat. Mr. Lale had led Prunella and Cawley to a room and abandoned her there with Zacharias’s possessions. It was only when Prunella ventured out to remind her hosts that no provision had been made for her, that she was given a little room of her own.
“Did the Lales strike you as being a trifle eccentric, Cawley?” said Prunella as she unpacked. Cawley, of course, did not answer: Prunella had not quite divined the secret of imparting the spark of life to her creation. “She seemed preoccupied, I thought, and he was scarcely civil! They are an unfriendly people in this part of the country.”Prunella had never travelled so far abroad in her life—at least as far as she could recall—and she was enjoying the novelty of being a visitor in regions unexplored.
“I suppose people will be even worse in London!” she continued. “Everyone is vastly more agreeable in the country than in town, Henrietta says. Yet she longs to be in London, and talks of nothing else when she has left it. The metropolis must lend even the bearishness of one’s neighbours a peculiar charm. Now, let us put you away, Cawley. There is hardly enough room here for two.”
In truth, the effort of maintaining Cawley for the duration of their journey had taken more out of Prunella than she had expected. She had never been compelled to maintain such a sustained outpouring of magic before, and she was glad to leave the folded bundle of linens on her bed when she slipped away to seek her dinner.
There was no one in the dining parlour, and no fire either. Though Prunella rang the bell several times, it seemed a long while that she waited, shivering in a dimming room, before the landlady entered—and then Mrs. Lale started and frowned, as though she were offended by the very sight of Prunella.
“Oh!” said the landlady. Mrs. Lale was a sonsy, comfortable-looking creature, and it seemed as though a smile would better fit her countenance than its angular look of disapprobation. “I had thought perhaps Mr. Wythe had returned.”
“No, it is only me,” said Prunella pleasantly. “But I am just as capable of feeling cold as Mr. Wythe, so I should be obliged if you would send someone to light the fire. There is the matter of dinner, as well. I should very much like some dinner. I fancy Mr. Wythe will require something hearty when he returns, for magic is tiring work, you know.”
She gave Mrs. Lale her best smile, but this enjoyed less success than Prunella was accustomed to having with her smiles. Indeed, it seemed positively to displease Mrs. Lale that Prunella should make so bold as to smile at her.
“And the woman you came with, will she be wanting her dinner as well?” said Mrs. Lale.
“Oh no,” said Prunella, eager to be helpful. They were the only guests at the inn. Perhaps Mrs. Lale had hoped for a peaceful evening, and was put out at having customers to tend to. “Cawley is a little indisposed, and has retired for the evening. She won’t want any dinner.”
“Well, miss, if your companion has retired I think you cannot do better than to join her,” said Mrs. Lale. “We shall have Mr. Wythe’s dinner ready when he comes. But it would look better, and put everyone at their ease, if you did not wait up for him, and I am happy to tell Mr. Wythe I said so.”
Mrs. Lale exited the room while Prunella gaped. She left the door ajar behind her, however, and her voice echoed down the passage, telling a servant to light a fire in the dining parlour.
“But you need not speak to the young female, Mary,” said Mrs. Lale. “To think of Mr. Wythe bringing the creature here! Such a thing would never have happened in Sir Stephen’s day. They do say as Moors are more liable to be inflamed than ordinary men, and I suppose it’s to be preferred to his preying on innocent girls. But it’s not what one likes to see in a decent establishment. If it were any other gentleman but young Mr. Wythe I shouldn’t have stood for it, but Lale begged me to bear it, for Sir Stephen’s sake.”
Mary was evidently tenderhearted. She could be heard suggesting that it was hard on Prunella to be denied her dinner. After all, the poor thing had a mother.
“One that could not be decent, or she would be ashamed to see her now!” said Mrs. Lale. “No, you will not have me feeling sorry for her, Mary. You never will persuade me that the creatures do not like it, for if they were decent women they should have done anything rather than come to such a pass.”
An indistinct protest from Mary was followed by Mrs. Lale’s saying sharply:
“Even if natives feel differently on these points, she ought to have learnt to conduct herself properly if she means to live in England. I do not propose to put myself out on her account, I assure you. We shall see if Mr. Wythe has the boldness to complain on his strumpet’s behalf!”
Entering the dining parlour, Mary found Prunella sitting as though she had been turned to stone. The maid was no fool—the door had given way before her hand so easily that it could not have been shut—and she lit the fire in a silence that concealed great agitation of spirits.
The young lady was so very young! What a pity if such a pretty creature were really as wicked as Mrs. Lale said! Mary was sure she saw the poor girl’s lip tremble. Of a certainty she had heard every word.
Mary need not have worried. To Prunella, bred in a setting as near a nunnery as any English establishment could be, the notion that she could be mistaken for a fallen woman was so extraordinary that it could hardly offend. In these matters she was almost as innocent as Mrs. Daubeney had alleged, and the loss of her reputation for virtue—a weighty matter for any female who had any part in society—seemed so unreal as to occasion, at first, no concern.
After her first internal exclamation (“Why, that woman thinks me some sort of Jezebel!”), she had been struck by the humour of the situation. While Mary knelt by the fireplace with her tinder, pitying the poor young lady, Prunella had been fighting down giggles:
If I sit here shrieking with laughter, they will pass from thinking me a fallen woman to believing me a lunatic, and it will end in my having to sleep in the stables!
After Mary left, however, hunger began to have its effect in sobering Prunella. Once the first amusement was over she began to see what a shocking position she was in. What a landlady of a village inn believed of her was of little account, but Prunella could not afford such misunderstandings once she reached London.Thatwould ruin everything she planned for.
It had not occurred to her before that her olive skin and dark eyes would seem to many an argument for the laxness of her morals. Had she but known it, she might have given serious thought to how odd it would look that she was travelling alone with Mr. Wythe, even accompanied by Cawley.
It is a pity we do not look more alike, or we could have told everyone we were long-lost siblings, and no one could complain of impropriety,reflected Prunella.How absurd it all is! No one would dream of maligning me so if I were a man. I might go anywhere and do any magic I pleased if I were Peter, not Prunella. Mr. Wythe could present me to the world as his apprentice without occasioning the least remark. Why, there would be nothing to preventmysetting up as a sorcerer, once I had contrived to hatch the eggs!
She spent a full half-minute considering whether she might pass herself off as a man: it would be so very convenient! But she gave up the notion with a sigh.
It might serve for a time, but I could not sustain it for long; indeed, I would not wish to. I must make as good a fist of being female as I can, and secure my position by the means permitted to my sex. What could not I accomplish with the support of an indulgent and monied husband? I fancy I should like patronising a girls’ school. I could set up as a rival to Mrs. D, and hire poor Miss Liddiard and the rest, and let the girls work as many enchantments as they desired.
