Nettleblack, page 18
“Ain’t they!”
She jolted as she growled it, somewhere between incredulous and furious, and the motion nudged her clean across the distance I’d been so wary of. The sharp line of her nose, the scald of her cheek, the grim set of her mouth – all straight through my fringe and against my forehead – like a sting, like a burn, like heaven knows what – enough to leave a mark –
Enough to make me gasp. Enough to make me blush. Enough to jerk up my chin, swifter than a breath, to get my face a fraction closer to hers –
“Stay here,” she blurted suddenly, lashing about to fumble with the door. “You’ll be safe. I’ll sort ’em out. Trust the Sweetings to start slandering us. Lorrie – look after her.”
“What? No! – wait – you’re in uniform – you can’t go out there – ”
But she was gone already, and the door was rattling into its locks again –
And there was Lorrie. In the weird shadows of his improvised turnip-lantern, his face was a very vignette of omniscient doom.
It was quite all I could do to splutter at him. “You – you have to go after her! She – they – she can’t – they’ll – ”
“There’s no stopping her,” he snapped. “Never is. She’s too damned reckless for her own good, and she won’t listen to you or me say otherwise.”
“But – what if – ”
He glowered me silent. “Upstairs. Now.”
I felt positively in custody. He’d not even brushed my shoulder as we trudged up the stairs and along the thin corridor, but he’d directed – voice and eyes alone – until I was over his threshold, into his sagging easy-chair with its worn crochet blanket, and grasping a tin mug of weak tea in my filthy hands. He clambered about the cramped parlour, balancing a mossy log atop his tiny grate, setting the turnip on a three-legged stool, dragging a brittle wooden chair out from the shadows.
The whole room seemed to cluster, every piece of it another moth to the fire’s feeble flame. Its rough stone walls were puckered with cheap prints, and the floor was piled with drooping heaps of sheet music and fabric. What few bits of furniture there were looked uniformly rickety: a skinny Singer sewing-machine, tottering on a coltish table – and, of all things, a battered little piano, spilling songbooks from its lid, squeezed between the narrow walls.
He plucked a cracked bottle of my family tincture from a shelf, balanced it beside the turnip on the stool. As far as I knew, the recipe of Nettleblack’s Tincture was little more than nettle tea left to cool, but it didn’t feel entirely polite to hurl this insight into his neighbourly gesture. I tipped a drop into my mug, as ostentatiously as I could, as if casual use of my family’s fortune-making medicine was something to which I was wholeheartedly accustomed.
At least (paltry mercies) there was nowhere in this musician’s cave which could have hidden a head, no surface strong enough to support the weight that had filled my hat, no gap into which it could have been thrust – not even inside that piano. Not that I thought – plums, of course not – he quite couldn’t have been responsible! He loved The Pirates of Penzance far too much! He was more attached to his little moment with the props than I’d known it possible for a man to be – he wouldn’t scupper it! He was horrified when he saw the head at the stage door! He was – he was – he was Septimus’s brother!
He could be as innocent as he liked, but in that moment he was still utterly terrifying for rather different reasons. He was darting about, holding the room in precarious balance like the scraps of twine that bound his posies – and his current expression was more than enough to stiffen one’s veins. Whether he was glancing in my direction, or stoking the fire, or folding himself into the other chair – he was frowning, and the frown was for me. I could imagine it in words, even if he was far too polite to snarl them: what are you playing at?
As if I knew how to answer him!
And as if – with the outside world tenfold more fearsome – as if I had any means of escape!
“Visiting Sept out of hours, are you?” he managed eventually, insouciance straining at the edges, hands taut on his knees.
“I – ”
“Ain’t as if the other Divisioners’ve extended her that courtesy.”
I noticed the pies then, half-opened at the fireplace’s edge, still sputtering webs of steam. The fire might just about keep Septimus’s hot, but even so – I’d hardly meant to interrupt her at dinner. And now – now she was out in that horrible burning darkness, under the twisted shadows of the magic lanterns, facing down heaven knows what – and it was entirely my fault.
“I – well – ”
“And none of ’em,” Lorrie added, “’ve ever tried to kiss her before.”
My mouth fell quite open.
Figs, as well it might!
“I – oh – I – ”
He sighed, settled into a glare. “So if you’d think to make another game of her – if Cassandra Ballestas’s put you up to it – or Pip Property’s said something – Sept don’t deserve it, and I ain’t going to let it happen again – ”
“I – I – I – wait! I wasn’t!”
Lukewarm tea slopped over my knuckles. My head felt quite entirely on fire. All the while, he was still glowering at me, the eerie light driving his eyebrows sharper and sharper up his forehead.
“I – erm – I didn’t – I mean – I wasn’t – not consciously – nobody’s put me up to anything – I – I didn’t even know she was here – I just – saw you – with the pies – and – ”
“Not consciously?” he echoed incredulously. “If you weren’t following her here, what on earth’ve you been doing instead?”
“I – I was trying to – I was teaching myself – erm – to ride a bicycle – but – but I lost the bicycle – ”
It was his turn to gape at me. The paltry remnants of my sentence blazed in my face, set me squirming right to the edge of the chair.
“I – I fear – the Division Sergeant will be rather – fighting off a mob – to get the bicycle back – and – I – I can only profoundly apologise – erm – for the inconvenience – ”
My wretched surrender wrong-footed him. “I thought the Director’d taken Sept and you off the cycles?”
“She – she has,” I admitted feebly. “But – it – it’s only because I can’t – erm – so if I can pick up the knack of it – ”
He frowned. It didn’t seem a warning anymore. “You’ve ragged yourself into this state just so Sept can get back to her cycling?”
“Plums! Yes! And – ” (it would have been far more impressive, had I not been crimson-faced and stammering quite so much as I was) “ – I – I think you can surmise from that – just how little I have – erm – sinister designs on your sister’s existence – even if I – I keep inadvertently scuppering bits of it!”
At which, hopelessly beyond thoughts more strenuous than simply imploring my heart to remain docile in my ribcage, I tipped two inches of tea down my throat – choked – and coughed half of it straight back up again. The chair’s arms rose around me like the sides of a bath, cupped me as I sank into panicky silence. I hardly dared look him in the eye.
He cleared his throat. “How d’you mean, scuppering bits of it? And – here – throw me your jacket, I’ll see to the shoulder.”
Now I had to stare at him, awkwardness or otherwise. “I – really?”
His face – figs, how to read it? – it wasn’t one thing or the other, flickering somewhere between bemusement and wariness. He didn’t entirely trust me, but the state of me rather spoke for itself.
“Really.” He extended a hand across the fireplace, fingers flinting together. “Toss it.”
I could only hope he’d not make out my lack of corset in that dingy firelight. If he did notice anything, he ignored it, for which I was weakly grateful. As soon as he had my jacket he was patting along the nearest shelf for a web of thread, a thimble, a bent needle. He was quick with his stitches, faster than I’d ever been, and he flicked me a wry smile when he noticed me gawping for it.
“Tailor, remember? Made all the Div uniforms, I did. And those cycling-skirts were far too much faff for you not to use ’em properly – you bear that in mind, alright? Now. Why’re you scuppering Sept’s life? From what I hear, you’ve already got a walkabout head busy with that job.”
His tone had softened, more sardonic than accusatory. It was enough to confirm my faltering suspicions. Clearly no one, not even Septimus, had told him what Property had said of his proximity to the head – and I quite wasn’t inclined to disrupt the pattern.
“Well – erm – I just – the Director wants her to show me how to – exist – and I don’t know anything – and – I can’t really do anything – and it all reflects on her – ”
“Look.” He leant down, tugged a stitch taut, squinting along the seam. “If the Director wants Sept in on your Div training, that can only be a good thing for both of you. The Director definitely don’t think badly of my sister, no matter what you do. Made Sept a Division Sergeant in the first place, didn’t she?”
“Well – yes – fair point – ”
“Mrs. Ballestas – that’s the kind of patron you want, that is.” He grimaced. “Not like dear Lady Miltonwaters, whose idea of a mid-show pick-me-up’s to send me a chocolate-pot. Chocolate – right before I’ve got to be on and doing here’s a first-rate opportunity to get married with impunity!”
He was singing again. I could only assume the lyric was some further reference to the opera, and not a direct reiteration of Lady Miltonwaters’s sentiments over the chocolate-pot. “What – what does she want? I – erm – ”
“With me?” He bit his lip – and then, the thread, as he reached the end of the tear. “Don’t know. But I wish Sept hadn’t had to see it.”
I swallowed. “Don’t let her – I mean – just – be careful – she’s – she could be dangerous – you heard her last night – ”
A wretched sigh. “And what’m I meant to do? Stand up to her? She’s patron of the theatre – the whole town might as well be her playground. And I ain’t exactly good at – well, let’s say, Sept got all the recklessness. But it’ll be fine. I’ve got a sweetheart, and Miltonwaters won’t risk her reputation. She’ll lose interest in me, just like she did with Hector, and then she’s out of my life again.”
He glanced up, wary and solemn. “I’m sorry she hurt you, though.”
I dipped a hasty nod. I quite couldn’t tell him, but he’d solidified my conviction tenfold. Had I actually accompanied the noblewoman in question to that infernal pheasant-shoot, there would have been no escape – there had barely been enough of an escape last night.
“I – erm – I’m sorry too – for you – ”
He shrugged, heavy with unconvincing bravado. “’S not all bad. I’ve – ah – friends who’ve got practice dealing with Miltonwaters. And she ain’t always awful – she said she’ll get me a Frederic audition!”
“Frederic?”
He flashed a sudden grin. “The lead tenor in Pirates. Hector won’t let go of the part ’til someone wrestles him out, never mind that he can’t do the time change in Beautifully Blue. And Sept – she’d love it if I got cast – she ain’t been able to see the show yet – if her first time had me singing the solos – ”
All in a precarious whirl, he was on his feet, flinging the mended jacket at my collarbone. He grabbed the piano lid and wrenched it up, struck a spidery chord, hummed his way into the midst of it. One stripy-socked foot sprang up onto the chair, notching him into an odd heroic pose, his hand scrabbling over his heart in euphoric dismay. It was quite the marvel he didn’t knock anything over.
“Away, away! Ere I expire! I find my duty hard to do today! My heart is filled with anguish dire – it strikes me to the core! Away, away!”
He was beaming at me now. His voice had a marvellous way with the high notes. Even so (and this was very much a private thought), I still found myself rather more interested in discovering whether his sister shared his talents in this respect. Though the sentiments of that particular song might not be to her taste, the idea of her reinterpreting the brisk little excerpt Lorrie had just tossed down to me – of hearing her sing, with that same grin she’d struck up for the theatrical anecdotes – and if her brother was this good, there was more than a chance she’d be even better –
Passionfruit – Septimus!
“Your sister! – she’s not yet returned – ”
I believe we would have physically grappled to beat the other down the staircase, had the very voice I’d just been pondering not ricocheted up from the entrance hallway, heedless of the late hour. I gasped, and Lorrie did too: she was back. She was alright. Unharmed by that horrendous gathering outside, and clearly not perturbed by any spontaneous gesture I may have inadvertently hurled at her.
“Lorrie! I can leave a cycle in your hallway, can’t I?”
She’d done as much before he could retort. A brisk volley of boots on the stairs, and then she was crashing through the doorway, flushed and only half-simmered down from a ferocious snarl –
It wasn’t a flush. Dark over her skin, along the ridge of her cheekbone, there was a bruise, blotching purple in the hearth-light.
So much for unharmed.
Lorrie sprang out of his chair. “Sept!”
She swatted him away, wrenched the snarl into her wolfish smile. “Don’t you fuss. Weren’t as bad as you’re imagining.”
“You don’t know what I’m imagining! I don’t care if you’re the best the Div’s got – you can’t keep sprinting straight into the worst of the fights!”
“Was I supposed to leave ’em to it?” she retorted. “Millicent and Oliver’d sorted most of it already. One drunk gent panicked and swung a fist, that’s all. And the Sweetings’d already scarpered.”
“Good,” he muttered tersely. “I’ve had just about enough of those two. Look – are you sure you’re alright? D’you need something cold on it?”
She swiped the bottle of tincture from the stool, tipped a fingernail’s-width into the lid and downed it, in a sharp-elbowed swoop of defiance. “I’m fine. My face ain’t the problem, anyway. All that out there – yelling at Divisioners in the street – I’ll have to tell the Director. It’s that head’s fault. Word’s out that we’ve lost it.”
He frowned. “Thought you said it got stolen?”
“It was! Obviously! But those idiots out there won’t hear of any telling that don’t make the Div look useless.”
“But – I mean – even if it is gone – it ain’t an end-all for the case, right? Or – ” – and he hesitated, gulped a nervous breath – “ – for the Div?”
Figs. I’d not even thought it until he voiced it. The Dallyangle Division were quite everything my previous life hadn’t been. They were competent, and capable, and purposeful – as formidable as their Director. Surely they’d continue to thrive, even without the head? Surely my sheer presence hadn’t cursed them?
“’Course it ain’t!” Septimus declared. “The Div ain’t what those louts would’ve made out. And they thought they’d swipe one of our cycles, as if that’d help anything! God knows how they got it. Not a jack of ’em knew how to ride it!”
Lorrie sighed, flicked me a quick glance. He may not have given me his unalloyed trust, but he didn’t seem inclined to parade my bicycle-based incompetence before his sister at this obvious juncture. I could be forlornly grateful for that, at least. I’d meant the whole endeavour as a surprise, after all, before it went so disastrously wrong. I wondered whether he’d ever seen the like before – whether anyone had ever planned Septimus a surprise, had ever dropped something delightful into her hands and cried this is for you!
Or – whether someone had – possibly Nick Fitzdegu – and my morbid fixation with her loneliness was just that: morbidity. The Division weren’t well-disposed towards her, and those strangers tonight hadn’t known her, but this surely didn’t prohibit her from having some friends. Property, dapper hurricane though they may have been, hardly spoke for the whole of Dallyangle when they derided Septimus across reception. Perhaps – more likely – I was the solitary one, netted off in my terror and my lies.
Septimus blinked at me, the last of her account sputtering out. She seemed startled, as if she’d forgotten I was there. I quite couldn’t blame her – without my Nettleblackishness to make me interesting, it’s easily done.
“Ah – Henry – I – ”
She hesitated, then caught herself, brisked up her usual brusqueness. “I assume you’ll be wanting an escort back to the Div? Might be the safest thing.”
I swallowed. She didn’t want me to stay with them – of course she didn’t! And why should she? They had unwrapped pies going cold, and there were only two chairs, and she’d done more than enough Divisionary dogsbodying tonight –
“And then you’re coming back?” Lorrie added – to her.
That settled the matter. I scrambled back into my mended jacket. He gave me a wary smile, but not another word. Once we were out in the streets, wheeling the battered bicycle between us, the shrieks and the festivities were far too feral to allow for any conversation. There was just chaos, and apple-bobbing, and a few raucous yells that she made us ignore – and then the garish gaslight of the Division, where Gertie carved turnips behind the desk, and pouted jokingly when I didn’t join her. At Septimus’s insistence, Gertie tossed me an apricot – then another one – and then, eventually, a whole cracked plate of bread and cheese, produced by some camembert alchemy from behind the desk: “Cass’s not yet back – so leave some for her, alright?”
