Nettleblack, page 15
I was quick with the uniform, before my vigorous colleagues could glimpse the holes patching my chemise, and out into the streets with Septimus just as the church-bells throbbed six-thirty. I didn’t dare another conversation with Gertie, beyond a smattering of stammered apologies for the jug. The smart in my feet I was ready for, although it was still plain agony keeping up with Septimus through that horrible heaving press of the market square, with its vegetable stench and the sellers’ shoves. I’d not been able to manage my corset again, and my waist felt weak as damp rags. Between that, and my exhaustion, and quite how much my teeth were gritted to keep the various pains away from a cumulative scream, I was almost glad we didn’t indulge in much by way of conversation.
Pomegranates, and this was the respite!
We were back at the Division by luncheon, back to Cassandra scribbling in her marbled notebook, fingerless gloves in and out of a thick wooden bowl. Apricots – truly, apricots, in the bowl, full to the brim – and wherever had she managed to get hold of apricots in October? She barely glanced up from her prose and her feast, just twisted about on her stool and spat another stone into the wood-burner. The Director’s keys were heaped beside her book, the ring looped about her wrist, presumably as some quiet gloat regarding the continued unavailability of the bicycle-shed.
“Septimus! Hyssop!”
Gertie Skull. Popping up from behind the desk, still in her knitted cardigan, ash smudging her cheek, a sliver of apricot juice snagged at the corner of her mouth. “A word?”
Septimus glared at her. “What? Is it Property? They can’t not come, not – ”
“Not Property,” Gertie interrupted, edging her way round to us, fidgeting with a frayed woollen cuff. It was the closest to nervous I’d ever seen her. “It’s – it’s just – and you’d better promise you won’t explode – ”
Septimus’s glare darkened. Partially for Gertie’s ominous cringing, partly for Cassandra’s apricot-devouring obliviousness. The younger Ballestas’s pen scratched uninterrupted across the page, swift and strident, without even a tremor for the room’s unease.
“Why?”
Gertie swallowed. “The head. The head in the morgue. It – ”
“Yes?”
“It – it’s kind of – sort of – not in the morgue anymore.”
The colour went skidding up Septimus’s forehead, knocked itself out on the perfect line of her chignon, tumbled down to catch in her cheeks.
“What?”
Finally, Cassandra glanced up. She had a mouthful of apricot, ink flecked amidst her freckles, and there was the strangest glint in her eyes – as if she were a rushlight, and Septimus’s impending fury had lit her like a match.
“It went missing in the night. Maybe, Javert, if you’d not been so set on sweet-talking my mother, you’d have had the sense to stand guard over it. And don’t you practically sleep in the morgue anyway?”
Septimus’s jaw quite dropped. “But – who – who’d take a head – ?”
“Who, indeed!” Cassandra grimaced, twirling her pen with a mocking frown. “Not great for your case to have lost the evidence on day one, though, is it? I’m afraid it’ll have to go in the Director’s Record – ”
“It ain’t lost!” Septimus snarled. “It can’t just creep off on its own – someone’s stolen it! For all we know, you’ve stolen it – and you’ve done it to spite me, you – !”
She smarted to a halt, inches off her expletives. Cassandra’s grimace widened a few teeth as she struggled.
“You – ? Finish your sentence, Javert, go on! I’m sure you had a brace of oaths to hand when you bungled everything last time!”
Gertie – she was rather practiced at placating remarks, wasn’t she? – was across reception in three bounds, one sturdy hand on Septimus’s arm as the latter started forward. “You two! Not the time! Look, steal’s a bit of a strong word. It’s not improbable someone’s just moved it. Let’s have another check, shall we? Cass – you’ve got the keys, right?”
Before either of the Division Sergeants could snarl a protest, Gertie had a pincer-hold on both of them, marching them off down the narrow corridor in a clatter of boot-heels. Cassandra grabbed wildly for her notebook as the apprentice yanked her away, stuffing it wrist-deep in her jacket pocket. I naturally assumed Gertie meant for me to follow – and it hardly seemed gallant of me to leave Septimus alone – but the latter’s voice came ricocheting back into reception not two steps into my pursuit, furious and spluttering –
“Stay at the desk, Henry! We can’t leave it empty!”
I could quite picture her as she yelled it, taut against Gertie’s grip, jostling with Cassandra, crushed at the sides in that tiny hallway. Limes, but her rationale made sense. With the desk unattended, Property could quite easily have dropped in, dropped straight back out, and innocently claimed there’d been no one to speak to.
(At which chary observation, I had to blink. Thinking like that did make me sound rather wonderfully like Septimus.)
The corridor was quiet now, the ruckus shuttered behind the morgue door. The ticking of the wall-clock sprang out of the sudden hush. Without the Division Sergeants’ sparring, and with the other apprentices roaming the streets, the building was almost peaceful. There was – what was there? – a faint skim of rain down the windowpanes, and the guttural gasps of logs collapsing in the wood-burner, and a muffled murmur which must have been the market outside, as if the market had been dropped into one of those glass fern-cases on the Pole Place windowsill. I could hear my very breaths, deeper than I was used to them, right down to my stomach without a corset to pinch them shallower.
I confess it, though it must hardly come as a surprise – I was scared. Nervous. No – anxious – for, aside from the head’s inexplicable disappearance, nothing had happened to terrify me as yet. I just – plums, if Pip Property was coming – I just quite entirely knew that it would! And here I was, far too small for the room, with its elbow-high desk and great double doors – the last and only bastion of Division left to greet the most perturbing living legend two days of delirious work could conjure! It was all I could do to edge behind the desk, to scrabble up onto Cassandra’s high stool – crab-apples, as if it would make me taller – and notch my eyes to the doors, in some vague approximation of readiness. The heat of the wood-burner scratched at my stockings. I ought to have been glad of the warmth, but I was far too close to it, and it only made the ache in my legs throb more.
And – when those doors opened – what would come through them? After last night’s debacle at the stage door, my mind was bent on conjuring up keelingly horrific visions. I pictured, garish-coloured and fantastical on the wrong side of my eyes, a viciously elegant creature of Lady Miltonwaters’s breed – or, perhaps, a close cousin to Hector the disdainful tenor – all glimmering jewellery, sumptuous fabrics and tiny waist – sneering and cream-complexioned – with a frill of venomous shirtfront, trailing like the ring of a death cap – or a pert feathered hat topping a cascade of hair. Then, of course, I could only imagine this shifting nightmare as wearing my hair, the plait Maggie and her accomplice had chopped off to sell – and, inevitably, arranging it far more exquisitely than I’d ever managed, in a padded chignon or a gushing hero’s queue. And the vision would look at me just as Lady Miltonwaters and Hector had done, just as lofty and just as scornful, until that stare alone had withered me through the floor, and there wasn’t a soul left to hear any testimonies –
The door twitched. I could hardly swallow my shriek.
But this slender silhouette couldn’t have been the fiend of my nightmare, because there wasn’t a feathered hat or gush of hair in sight. It was a gentleman, slim and wiry as a wrought-iron railing, his murky blue suit cut perfectly down his legs, his dandyish greatcoat darkened at the shoulders from the rain. His jet-black hair was sleek, cropped close to his olive skin, and arched back at the front – the sort of jaunty pomade-manipulation that Mr. Adelstein, with his finicky precision, could never have countenanced. He sauntered in, let the doors slump shut behind him, quite as if he’d weakened their substance with a nudge of his kid-gloves, and left them swooning in his wake.
“Gracious. And there I was, fearing I’d have to fend off Septimus – isn’t this the most intriguing little alternative!”
Then I gaped. Between the voice, with its arrogant clarinet drawl – and the ever-hastening descent on the desk – he – she? – had shrugged off the mannishness of the initial impression like a second greatcoat. Now she – or he – or – pears, I could only presume, though it felt presumptuous even to presume, and it seemed with every new gesture the dandy would change my mind again – was at the desk, and leaning against it, one elbow notched on the wood.
I thought of Septimus, her refusal to call Pip Property anything but they. The explanation, it seemed, was lounging before me.
Wait. Did that mean I was allowed to do the same – or was this some special privilege reserved for the two of them?
“This ain’t funny, Cassandra!”
Property – it must have been Property – twitched up a dark eyebrow. Pomegranates, but those eyebrows were positively calligraphic, sardonic rather than scornful. “And we have inimitable lavish-haired fury, hollered in from the wings, doubtless in the grip of another shattering difficulty. To think that poor roaring delight used to be the pride of the Division! Well – is this a bad time?”
I barely heard a word. My gaze – as it was inevitably going to – had dropped, down Property’s sharp cheekbones with their foxing of freckles, to a starched collar knotted with the most marvellous paisley cravat. The better part of it was burgundy, with the pattern starting out in cold greyish blues – but the silk leant it a gleam that made the dark colours bright, and turned the grey silver, and – oh, cherries! – right in the midst of it, there was a stud of real silver, the shining head of a cravat-pin. I would, I confess, have cheerfully handed over quite as much of my hair as Maggie and her accomplice wanted, if the price were a cravat like that. I – persimmons – how it glimmered, even in the wan rainy light, even scraped by the garish gaslights, even twinged with the paltry glow of the wood-burner –
“Poor child, I fear it would be far beyond your wages.”
I blushed, then – of course I did! – for Property had noticed my staring, and curled into a smirk. “Although, with your hair, I might just be willing to let you pay in instalments. Not these colours for you, though. Amber, perhaps, and a few slivers of green to bring out your eyes.”
Sweet spinning figs, I wanted to wail, please make it! I’ll commission you! I’m a Nettleblack! We’re the richest family in Dallyangle! I –
But the thoughts snicked between my eyes, drew the blush out. I’d grown, in the last few days, accustomed to thinking of fancy things as something of an active threat to my continued existence. The fineness of my chemise was precisely what had worn the holes into it, and my rich clothes had been the draw for the Sweetings. Yet this cravat-wielder’s arrival, and attire, and the studied elegance of that deliriously desirable neckwear – all of it had trembled my old sartorial zeal back into me, driven me halfway towards picturing the amber-green cravat at my throat before I could calm myself down.
Now I saw myself properly, how insane I must have looked – gawping at Property’s neck like a debutante with a fashion-plate – and it sobered me in a horrible rush. And wasn’t this magnificent sartorial beacon – entirely the most stylish dresser I’d ever seen! – the inexplicable plague of Septimus’s existence?
“I – erm – can I help you?”
After the aforementioned hysteria, my voice hardly seemed to exist. My cravat-muse blinked – there was something almost disappointed in those heady brown eyes – but it was gone before I could squint for it, and the cool sardonicism was back in its place.
“And I thought I was to be the one helping you.”
“What?”
“That’s why I came here. To help you.”
Figs, but this was accurate! And now – what were we supposed to do? Show our witness the empty morgue, and ask whether Property might be remotely proficient in locating severed heads?
“I – well – ma’am? – sir? – erm – we – ”
Property waved a gloved hand, as if flicking a moth out of the air. “Sweet creature. It isn’t ma’am, though it isn’t really sir either. My name is Property – I haven’t quite decided whether I shall let you call me Pip – and I’ve been summoned by the indomitable Keturah Ballestas to assist yet another investigation. The investigation, I presume, the one that’s had the whole of Dallyangle on decapitated tenterhooks.”
“Oh – excellent! Good to – confirm – that you are – in fact – erm – him – her – or – is it – sorry – ”
“Quite alright,” Property assured me wryly, curling a hand under a sharp olive chin. If it put a wall of kid-glove between me and that cravat – ! “Fancy something a little more accurate?”
“I – what?”
A keen stare, intent enough to choke my breaths in my throat. If my disposition weren’t evidently the more nervous by a sprawling country mile, I would almost have called that look fearful, wavering beneath the bravado.
“Well. You may think me fanciful in the extreme, but I confess I rather prefer it when my interlocutors don’t resolve too firmly on either he or she. Can you stagger in sweet Shakespeare’s footsteps and manage they?”
I blinked. Here was my answer! The aptness of the request – in light of the outfit, the demeanour, the very essence of the figure in question – was indisputable. After the whiplash chaos of their first appearance, it was rather a relief to settle us down on quite the only discernible gender the cravat designer seemed to be.
“Oh – I – certainly – ”
Property grinned. Of course their teeth were immaculate, neat-edged as collar-studs. “Infinitely obliged. Now, I don’t remember your face – are you new?”
I managed a dazed nod. “I – I don’t look – erm – out of place – do I?”
“Out of place – not at all. Distinctive – quite unpardonably, I’m afraid.” Their eyes darted to the apricot-bowl, narrowing as their smirk returned. “Gracious, the Division gets more decadent by the day! You don’t mind?”
They had their glove off and their fingers knuckle-deep in the bowl before I could so much as splutter a sanction. Once they’d extricated the ripest of the fruits, they glanced back to me, eyebrows aloft. “Wait. Dearest Septimus hasn’t poisoned these, has she?”
Passionfruit, they weren’t serious. Were they? “I – no! – ”
“Ah, but you hesitated!” They twirled their hand until the apricot tipped towards me – until I could smell it, sharp and sweet and incongruous (and me hardly having eaten a thing beyond bread since I left Catfish Crescent!). “Mouth where your money is, dear child. If she will have us play-acting the Borgias in the midst of Surrey, we simply must have a pretty androgyne to expire at my feet.”
“I – I can’t – ”
“Not even if I threw in that cravat for good measure?”
And I hadn’t the faintest what I could possibly say to this – or do, in the face of this – in the face of their smile, and the tang of the apricot under my nose, and the most inexplicable conversation I’d been whirled through since discussing ferrets with Gertie Skull – other than gape at them, quite as confounded as they seemed to want me. They were waiting for an answer, all the same, though it must have been obvious I was hardly up to summoning one –
“Pip Property!”
In the instant before my scream slung me off the stool, I caught Property’s eyes curling heavenwards. “Ah, maledizione! Here we are again.”
Septimus was – quite simply – hellfire incarnate. The chignon was still defiantly impeccable, but beneath it she was glowering, her knuckles bone-pale against the corridor walls, her stare fast rivalling Mr. Adelstein’s for sheer incisive dismemberment. Cassandra and Gertie and the Director – why had they all disappeared? And what – what was I supposed to do – expected to do – plums, able to do – in their absence?
“Leave her alone!”
I scrambled to Septimus’s side, though she’d addressed herself to Property, heard the spitting hiss as my damp skirt brushed the wood-burner. Property sighed, drew their glove off the desk and slid their fingers back into it, dipping their gaze – and how Septimus would seethe for that! – to the buttons at their wrist.
“Afternoon, darling. You seem to be doing astonishingly well for yourself, I must say, with the mild exception of whatever Divisionary mishap you’ve committed this afternoon. Oh, don’t twitch so – your little recruit’s perfectly safe, and I promise I’m in no mood to upset you again – ”
“Shut up!” Septimus cried, quite beyond the Director’s enforced etiquette. In one stabbing stride, she’d launched herself across the room and snatched Property’s wrist, tugged all the glove-buttons clean open with the movement. “And stop it with your damn fiddling!”
Property snorted, rather inexplicably, for the remark – figs, but then their voice iced over. “Take your hands off me, dear, unless you want another complaint on that pin-perfect chignon of yours.”
“No – I – I need to question you!”
A wry groan. “Gracious. Do tell what I’m supposed to know this time. Given that the new crime-shaped chimera haunting Dallyangle is a decapitatory debacle for which I have an alibi, am I to conclude that my unconventionality has finally pushed you over the edge?”
“It’s nothing to do with your bloody unconventionality, and you know it ain’t!” Septimus blurted, the flush creeping up her neck. “And how’ve you got an alibi? Ticket register says you were alone!”
“How very sentient of it. Ticket Register will have a habit of saying that, if one’s companion requests not to be written down. Never you fear, sweet sergeant, she’ll be my witness if you actually want to accuse me.”
