Nettleblack, page 6
“Anyway,” she declared briskly. “You have a name, I presume?”
I could only blink at her.
“Answer the Director,” Cassandra hissed, with a stare that plainly threatened to make me eat my enlisting form in the event of non-compliance.
Words. Coherency. Please?
“Oh – well – I – it’s actually – just – Henry – erm – Hyssop – yes – quite – so do call me that – ”
“Henry Hyssop,” the Director finished dryly, fastening off my insanity like a French knot. “Well, Miss Hyssop, we have all manner of idiosyncratic names here, so I suppose in that respect you are a perfect fit. And, as Cassandra says, you are precisely what the Division has been hoping for – a new recruit from beyond our usual circle, evidence of broader neighbourly engagement with our cause.”
I nodded as wildly as my penny-collar would permit me. “Quite – exactly – erm – yes – ”
“Excellent. I am Keturah St. Clare Ballestas, Director and founder of the Dallyangle Division – although I imagine you know that.”
Ballestas?
She caught my bewilderment, the startled stares I was now skeining between her and Cassandra, and sighed. “Cassandra is my daughter, Miss Hyssop. She is also one of my two Division Sergeants – that’s what we call our senior authorities now, you see. Cassandra keeps track of the paperwork and runs the desk, and Septimus takes the lead in our practical work.”
Septimus jerked an irritable nod at me. “Miss Hyssop.”
“Practical work,” Cassandra muttered wryly. “Does it still count as practical if she’s at the crime, but looking the other way?”
Of course it struck her colleague like a match. “One more snipe, Cassandra – ”
“Enough!”
The pair snapped to silence – Cassandra wide-eyed, Septimus with a mutinous glare. The Director looked halfway to another steely reprimand, until some unexpected thought yanked it back, left a sudden shrewd smile in its place.
“Septimus. Cassandra is right. You require a new focus.”
Cassandra grinned, a little bemusedly. “I – yes, that’s what I said – ”
“Miss Hyssop might have a privileged education, if not the degree to show for it – but she won’t know where to start with working for the Division. You, Septimus, will be training her. She can assist you – the present task is certainly difficult enough to merit it.”
Figs. Septimus looked ready to smite. For my own part, I fear my expression was quite as horrified as hers.
“But – I ain’t – you can’t – !”
“Think you’ll find she can,” Cassandra cut in. Her spare hand scuttled up my back, locked on my collar, waved me about like a handkerchief. “Surely you’ve always wanted an assistant? Someone to follow you round and point out any obvious crimes you might not otherwise notice?”
And weigh you down, she may as well have said. “I don’t need an assistant! She’ll only get – ”
“I think you do,” the Director interrupted sharply. “You’ll take her out with you tomorrow. Tonight, you’ll sort her uniform and her space in the dormitory.”
“Why so furious, Javert? She’s got practical hair, she’ll make you look tall – ”
“I am tall!”
“Do your best, Septimus.” The Director held her gaze, let the smile drop centimetre by centimetre, until everything of her face was a keen warning stare. “Don’t let me down this time.”
Septimus blanched. “But – ”
The hand at my neck shoved, and I went skidding headlong into the thunderstruck Division Sergeant, squeaking apologies into her jacket. Cassandra’s voice sauntered after me, sharp with triumph: “Best of luck, you two!”
Before anyone could stammer forth a shred of audible reason, Cassandra had waltzed off in the direction of the reception-room, and the Director was marching back to her office with all the studied care of a grenadier guardsman. She left her door open, doubtless to ensure that her eavesdropping would be noted, and that her subordinate would be rendered unable to dismiss me. The narrow strip of gaslight penned Septimus in with me like – oh, figs, is a caged lion too wantonly hyperbolic?
I swallowed, clung to my elbows. It was the closest I could manage by way of a heat source. The wood-burner’s tendrils hadn’t curled out this far, and the corridor was draughtier than Cassandra’s ramshackle office, enough to press the clammy shoulders of my shirtwaist tight to my skin. I wanted quite nothing more than to dash into the reception-room and snatch up my greatcoat, though I doubted the poor sodden garment would be of any use whilst the drips from its hem were still audible. More to the point, I’d no idea whether I was allowed to get the coat – or wander off – or do anything, in short, until Septimus had summoned some words for me. She’d turned away, her fingers drumming on the pocket where she kept her notebook, staring out the damp-printed floorboards with enough fervour to poke a hole in them. I’d quite no idea how to draw her back out – and, by the look of it, she hadn’t the faintest how to even look at me. For a long moment, nothing spoke but the Director’s pen, scratching over paper in her office.
Even so. For all the quiet, my head was a veritable cacophony. Full-fledged panic was back in earnest and hollering at my temples. If I left it much longer – if I committed to this ruse – my absence would be noted. Edwina would be sure to wake me early tomorrow – today? – before Lady Miltonwaters’s arrival, anxious to choose some gleaming green-and-black outfit for me. She would have my bedroom door open the instant I didn’t answer – to all the stark hollowness of the empty bed, the undrawn curtains – and the moment she struck a match to investigate further – the moment she realised there wasn’t a shred of Henrietta left to meet Lady Miltonwaters on the front steps – she’d surely do as anyone would in a town with no police – and enlist the Dallyangle Division to hunt me down –
“Right!”
It was all I could do not to topple out of my skin.
“Oh – yes – Sept– erm – I mean – Division Sergeant?”
“Measurements.”
I stared at her. It took her a firm blink to get her eyes up from the floor, but when they struck mine it was with the same fixed scrutiny as before. As stares went, I was used to Rosamond’s languid bloodshot glances, and Edwina’s rigid determination not to look anyone in the eyes at all – of course I could only snatch for the feeblest words in the face of Septimus’s look.
“I – I’m sorry?”
“Your measurements. For your clothes.” She glared. “’Less you expect me to measure you.”
Limes. I’d never even seen my measurements written down before Edwina whisked them off to the family tailor. “I – I don’t – erm – I just – forgive me – I – ”
She gritted her teeth. “Well. I’ll see what we’ve got. Probably won’t fit perfect, but you can take it up yourself.”
Oh – quite – aside from my heretical inability to sew anything larger than a sampler being a good part of the reason why we have a family tailor –
“What? What’s wrong?”
Contrition was my best option. “I – erm – I’m sorry, it – it’s just – very new – ”
“What is?”
Wait. The Director’s door was still open.
“I – I mean – it’s not – not that I – I do – want to – ” (sweet nectarines, what had she said?) “ – broader – you know – neighbouring – and whatnot – of course – ”
A sharp frown. “You sure you know what you’re getting into?”
It was quite all I could do to shake my head and brace for the worst. She regarded me a moment, trembling and pallid and more than ready to slide through the floorboard-cracks with the shame of it – and then, astonishingly, she just sighed.
“Well. Fair enough, given we’re making it up as we go.”
I gaped at her. I had had nothing since I entered the building but impeccable advertisements and strident sentences, assurances of confidence and capability and absolute conviction, passed down from the Director to her strange squabbling deputies. Figs – even their matching attire sang of established certainty, with its thick sensible fabrics and stylish red collars. The only thing vaguely improvisatory about the group, as far as I could presently tell, was its peculiar lodgings – and that I had simply assumed to be idiosyncratic eccentricity!
Septimus spotted my bewilderment, cleared her throat and plunged into a hasty addendum. “I mean – not everything. Just the recruitment bit. The proper organisation stuff. Used to chase up pig-stealers, we did – country crimes – case by case. The Director and me and Cassandra and Mr. Adelstein. And we were – we are – good at it. So now we’ve got a building, and new recruits, and job titles – still not sure about ’em, but there you go – and a town council who don’t want rid of us. And as for what we do – my part’ll be your part, I reckon – so – right. Look at this.”
She yanked her notebook out, snapped the cover back on itself and held it up. I’d seen enough of her interactions with it to deduce that she had no intention of actually handing it to me, and as duly expected she was the one turning the pages, driving on with her elucidation all the while. I’d barely the space to keep any focus on the latter, and my perusal of the book came in wild glimpses. Some pages were thick with words, sharp-pencilled letters broken with slashes and symbols, whilst others had been given over entirely to lists or diagrams, strings of numbers and stiff sketches of what appeared to be housefronts, or more likely house-backs. A two-page spread revealed what must have been an improvised map of Dallyangle itself, complete with terse annotations. There were less architectural drawings too, though clearly meant for some practical purpose: a rough outline of the same heavy scissors the Sweetings had wielded, hemmed in by a thicket of notes. A general errands list ran a few pages long at the book’s centre – one of its most ominous recent entries being sell scythe – and she had a page blank but for the words Pip Property, outlined like a frontispiece, the sharp lines scored beneath snicking holes in the paper.
“Mostly Sweetings stuff now,” Septimus was explaining. “They’re my main job. No one knows who they are or where they came from, but they’ve been causing trouble for – coming up on two and a half months. So what I’m doing – what you’d be doing – it’s following any hints on where they’ve been, where they might go next – looks like that’s Weeping Alley, if that’s where they jumped you. Trying to find where they live – they’ve done too damned well keeping that secret.”
She snapped the book shut. “So. That’s what it is. With me. And it ain’t easy. You might get mocked for it – longer it goes on, most like – but it ain’t about us and our comfort, it’s about protecting the town. Still – ”
Sweet bergamots, but she actually smiled at me – truly smiled, half-grin half-snarl, a sudden flash of sharp teeth. “That’s not to say there ain’t a comfort in it. Our lives – the Div – it ain’t like anything anyone’d expect. I didn’t expect it. I’ve never had anything like it. The chances you get here are – something else.”
She had real quiet to cup her words by the end of it – even the scratching of the pen had stopped. Her grin was fading, back into solemnity, though it was quite impossible to decide which of the extremes looked the more striking on her.
“I’ve got to warn you, though – it ain’t without its dangers. You’ve met the Sweetings, you’ll know about that. And the weather won’t get any better. And the town’s a bit twitchy right now. But – there ain’t a dull edge to it, and the Director’s got plans for us yet.”
Her stare had become almost wary, the set of her jaw defiant. “Well. There you go. Now you know. That what you’re after?”
Even with the dangers, and the sheer mercurial menace of her and the others, and the fact that I was undeniably the most delicate thing under this rickety roof, the prospects she thrust at me struck chords I wasn’t in the least inclined to silence. Her terrifyingly unfrivolous gaze was pinching nervously at my face, trying to prise out my rationale without waiting for me to explain it – as if I knew how to explain! It was the longest someone had ever held my gaze in real earnest, without a shred of sarcasm or scorn or pity –
And perhaps it was that. Or perhaps it was the idea of what she’d described – of an existence that spiralled beyond one roof, and one stifling family, and one narrow trajectory from there to the nearest nuptials. Perhaps it was simply the sheer thrill of shaping my life to the rhythms and purposes of persons who – however much they still had to work out – were most certainly not Edwina and Rosamond.
“Oh – figs – yes!”
She nodded. It was almost approval! “Great. Well. That’s a start.”
Her encouragement set me rattling off like a music-box. “I – the whole scenario – it – it sounds – well – marvellous! So – if our work is to be essentially – erm – tracing the Sweetings through the streets – the streets in which – erm – some of Dallyangle’s more affluent inhabitants – rarely venture – that would – presumably – limit the amount of time we – erm – spend in this building – receiving voluntary clients – cases – missing persons – and – whatnot?”
This time, to my unhinged delight, I got an actual grin. “Exactly! The Sweetings ain’t going to leave us a visitor’s card – we’ve got to find ’em!”
I was grinning myself, before I could bite it back. Surely this model would allow me to dodge the sisterly brigade? Surely it would prise me enough time to survive here for – at least a week?
Surely – if all I did during that week was follow Division Sergeant Septimus and frantically agree with everything she said – she wouldn’t dismember me? Perhaps the fierce fervent woman with the fantastic chignon – and her colleague, who had trusted me enough to let me join – and the Director, with her formidable plans – perhaps they might all become amicable acquaintances – or – ?
Friends was too much to hope. I’d never had a friend, not since Rosamond decided to give up fulfilling that function. To have the Divisioners not utterly despise me would be enough.
“Yes! Quite! I – I can’t possibly articulate how grateful I – well – I am – now – erm – I’ll just fetch my greatcoat – ”
Wait. My greatcoat. With the pockets.
“Pomegranates – Mordred!”
Septimus’s smile vanished. “What?”
“Mordred!” I gasped again – as if this resembled a sensible explanation! “I mean – erm – nothing – nothing important – ”
“Mordred?” She was frowning at me once more. “That your sweetheart?”
I flushed to my eartips. “No! Just my – erm – my pet – ”
And I would have spieled off the story of the ferret, purely out of terror that she’d continue in her sweetheart assumptions if I didn’t, had it not occurred to me that to mark myself out as the owner of a ferret called Mordred was to effectively carve Nettleblack heiress into my forehead for future reference. I spluttered to a halt, lost for any more fictitious excuses – a crimson-faced defeat which, judging by her curt nod, only seemed to confirm her suspicions.
“Well. That’s fine. We ain’t the police – no rules against having a sweetheart. Some of us do. The Director’s got a husband.”
Figs, I wanted to shriek at her, but I’ve never had a sweetheart in my life! Do I look as if I’d ever manage anything of the sort?
“I – I – erm – anyway – might I be excused – just – for my coat?”
She nodded again, quite as stiffly. “Once you’ve got it, we’ll see about a uniform – and a bed. Six o’clock’s the wake-up call tomorrow. It won’t be light outside, mind. I – look, I’ll just come and get you.”
Six o’clock – and Lady Miltonwaters would be preparing to descend on the house, anxious to scoop me into her carriage and begin the journey to pheasant-based perdition – oh, a fig for it! A fig for all of it!
“I – quite – ”
I’d almost dashed off – Septimus clearly thought me some sort of Arthurian socialite, what more was there to say? – but she caught my arm before I could disappear. She was quite as strong as she looked.
“Your name’s Hyssop, ain’t it?”
By this point, I couldn’t entirely remember. “Oh! Me! Yes – quite – Hyssop – Henry Hyssop – ”
She notched up an eyebrow. “Henry?”
I blurted the inevitable rejoinder full breaths before I could stop myself. “Well – erm – if Septimus is yours – ”
A startled blink – and then she twitched an awkward smile, conceding the point. “Well. Yes. It’s my only name. Came up with it myself. Now. I’ll call you Henry, if you don’t mind, and you’ll call me what you like – so, Septimus – yes – obviously – and we’ll start making you a Divisioner.”
In that strange half-lit instant, much to my amazement, there was entirely nothing I wanted more. I suppose, with a second longer, I would have stammered out that very sentiment, in whatever words my nerves would let me manage –
But words of any variety were promptly thwarted by a yell from the reception-room, at a distinctly Cassandra-shaped pitch, to the flabbergasted tune of cat – stoat – ferret – what? The Director hurtled past us, dashing in the direction of her daughter’s exclamations, the shaky floorboards trembling under the thwack of her boots. There was quite nothing I could do but let the fates – and Mordred – sprint out their terrible course.
“Whatever it is,” Septimus muttered at my side, scowlingly mutinous to my pallid hysteria, “Absolutely no one can blame me for it.”
It is now two-thirty in the morning, as the reception-room clock is eager to inform me, even through the otherwise sturdy wall separating it from the dormitory. I am almost – almost – too petrified to sleep. Mordred escaped disapproving scrutiny by scuttling inches, whiplashing into my greatcoat pocket just as I staggered in to witness his victory-lap. To my infinite relief, Cassandra hadn’t traced the full extent of his path – and the Director apparently missed him altogether, judging from her reluctance to credit her daughter’s descriptions. The younger Ballestas has since sloped away to a bed in the family home. Mordred, meanwhile, has made his own bed of my pillow – and, as he possesses the capacity to sleep for full twenty hours at a stretch, I shall invariably have to make do with the mattress beside it, which feels alarmingly reminiscent of cold porridge. The smallest variation on the inexplicable uniform is being fished out for me tomorrow. Today.
