“You have not proposed any alternative!” exclaimed Prunella.
“But,” continued Zacharias, “I can hardly proclaim myself an expert in this regard. Lady Wythe will know better. Shall we ask her if she will do as you desire, and see how she replies?”
Prunella blinked, taken aback. Then she rallied, saying with a businesslike air:
“Do you mean to say you accept my offer of an egg?”
“If you agree to training,” said Zacharias. “And I should very much like to see all the remaining eggs, if you have no objection.”
“Perhaps you may,” said Prunella. “Since we are friends.”
•••
BEFOREanything could be asked of Lady Wythe, Prunella must first be accounted for to her, and Zacharias found this as difficult as he had feared. In Lady Wythe’s sitting room the next day, he attempted to explain that the girl he had produced was not his mistress, without ever lapsing into such indecorousness as to say the word.
“I am conscious of how this must appear,” he said. “But I assure you, I should never seek to—should never involve you in any sort of— I hope you believe I should never require you to countenance anything approaching impropriety.”
“Zacharias,” said Lady Wythe, “I am not a schoolgirl, that you should stammer so. I was married thirty years, and have hardly led a sheltered life. I beg you will tell me your trouble.”
“You are very good, ma’am,” said Zacharias, but he still looked worried. “I scarcely know where to begin.”
Though she had sworn she would let Zacharias manage the affair, Prunella had been growing rather restless, and at this she could no longer contain herself. She interjected:
“Mr. Wythe means, ma’am, that I am not a courtesan, but what is even worse—a witch!”
This elicited a forbidding look from Zacharias.
“Say, rather, a thaumaturgess,” he said. “Or perhaps we might call you amagicienne. Witches practise a type of petty or folk magic, very different from our thaumaturgy, and your village witch is just as likely to be a man as a woman. It is a loose usage to describe every female who practises magic as a witch, much to be decried.”
“Mr. Wythe has been so good as to offer to teach me, ma’am,” said Prunella, ignoring him. “I used to be at a school for gentlewitches, where of course they taught no thaumaturgy, and it seems it is a very shocking thing to be magical and taught nothing but how to restrain it.”
Lady Wythe looked bewildered.
“Age must be scattering my wits,” she said, looking to Zacharias. “I had thought the teaching of restraint was precisely what must be done with women who are afflicted by magic. I do not, you know, refer to the household magics the servants do—there is no harm in enchanting a pot to prevent its boiling over, or a broom to sweep a floor, but is not unnatural philosophy a different matter altogether? I had always understood it was forbidden to our sex.”
“So it is,” said Zacharias. “But if you had seen what I witnessed at that school, ma’am, you would agree that far more harm is done in preventing the natural exertion by women of their abilities than could ever be done by training them up as thaumaturgesses. I believe a thorough reform is required.”
He inclined his head towards Prunella. “Miss Gentleman has kindly acceded to my testing the principle upon her. If all goes as we hope, we shall have in Miss Gentleman an example of success to present to the Society when I propose my reform. But my scheme requires your participation, ma’am. Miss Gentleman knows no one in London. I should be grateful if you would take her in. I would provide for her expenses, and her stay need not be of long duration.”
Lady Wythe looked from Zacharias to Prunella. Such quixoticism from Zacharias was not wholly unexpected to Lady Wythe—she was accustomed to his fits and starts—but it was clear she was concerned about the young stranger. She leant over to Prunella and took her hand, to Prunella’s alarm.
“I hope you will forgive me, Miss Gentleman, but do you truly grasp the scale of the undertaking to which you have agreed?” she said. “Magic is a perilous practise, you know—strenuous for men, and it must exact an even greater toll upon a woman’s frame.”
“Miss Gentleman is—” began Zacharias, but Lady Wythe forestalled him.
“My question was addressed to the young lady,” she said firmly. “You need not be afraid to tell the truth, my dear. Simply say what your wishes are regarding yourself, and I shall see that they are respected.”
Prunella hesitated, glancing at Zacharias, but he had retreated into his chair at Lady Wythe’s reproof, and looked haughtily unconscious.
“I am obliged to you for your solicitude, ma’am,” said Prunella slowly. “But I have been devising spells and cantions since I was quite a little thing, and was never the worse for it. It was never part of myplan to become a thaumaturge, but—” She paused, and looked at Zacharias again.
Lady Wythe looked anxious.
“You must not let him persuade you to do anything you dislike,” she said.
An extraordinary noise issued from the long-suffering Zacharias. “I, compel Miss Gentleman to do what she would not like to do!”
“You are very kind, ma’am,” said Prunella earnestly. “But indeed, I am happy to submit to Mr. Wythe’s instruction. Mr. Wythe and I understand one another, I believe.”
