Gate Sinister, page 4
Flavia could not get caught up in wondering about the secrets of Gloucester Worth. On All Hallows Eve, she would be finally reunited with her mother and her friend, and she could be green, and green, and green. No more pretence. No more loneliness. No more humans.
Home. It was so close she could nearly taste it.
If Flavia felt guilt at all, it came in tiny pangs, easily squashed and ignored.
Dash took to the new books with relish, especially the storybooks. The fairy tales had an unfortunate side effect in that they introduced him to the concept of dragons. It was only quick thinking on Flavia’s part and the judicious application of a bucket of bathwater that saved the curtains from his flaming breath. She had to move several rugs around to disguise what had been done to the schoolroom floorboards once Dash returned to being a shamefaced but secretly delighted young human boy.
Flavia visited the library several times more to abduct works by Mr Robert Louis Stevenson, Mr Rudyard Kipling, Mr L. Rider Haggard and Mr. Aesop, in order to fuel the boy’s interest in reading as well as to encourage him to practice the shapes of animals other than monsters.
Queenie scorned all fiction. Nor was she remotely interested in factual texts concerning mythology, history or magic, unless they referred to the brewing of philtres and other sciences. “I don’t have time for fripperies,” she said, tossing her braids.
“Some people read for pleasure as well as information,” Flavia suggested.
“Some people don’t need to make a scientific breakthrough before they are old enough to come out in society,” Queenie retorted, and returned to her test tubes.
A GENTLEWOMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE PHILTRES
It is known that a young lady of attractive face and substantial dowry must constantly guard against fortune-hunters armed with love philtres. Be alert! One drop in your tea can make you lose every ounce of good sense or self-preservation.
Guard your virtue and your dowry, young gentlewomen, by following these simple steps:
1) Never accept a drink from a gentleman, even if he is known to your family. Likewise, be cautious about cups presented to you by sisters of impoverished gentlemen, or servants who might be vulnerable to bribes. The current fashion for ladies to serve themselves punch from a shared bowl exists for a reason — make use of it!
2) Be cautious of any gentleman seeking to share refreshment with you alone. Love philtres depend on whom you first see after consumption. It is unlikely that a true fortune-hunter should offer you a dose in mixed company, for fear you might fall in love with the footman.
3) We are all gentlewomen here, and so I would be remiss in not confessing an uncommonly-discussed fact about love philtres: should you take one by accident, it is not only gentlemen who are like to become the apple of your eye. Do not assume you are safe in the company of your fellow ladies.
4) Thanks to our hero Mr Richard Gloucester: toast of the ton, alchemist extraordinaire and soon (it is rumoured) to be made Britannia’s newest Earl, it is possible for any lady to equip herself with an invaluable tonic known as ‘Love-Me-Not.’ This is not a preventative for involuntary affection, but can be used to cure a love philtre after the fact.
5) Upon consuming a love philtre, you are the person least likely to notice. This is where our companions and sisters are essential to our survival. If a young marriageable lady of your acquaintance becomes overwrought or is rendered insensible by an unexpected romantic attachment, be prepared to share your vial of Love-Me-Not — and make sure that other young women of your acquaintance are prepared to do the same.
6) A single drop of Love-Me-Not can be discreetly administered via a cup of tea or upon a lump of sugar, if the subject is recalcitrant. Check with a doctor or alchemist within twelve hours if symptoms persist.
Instructional pamphlet distributed to young ladies of Society, Britannia (1817). Reprinted due to high demand in 1819, 1820, 1823, 1824 and four times in 1827.
Chapter 4
In Which the Empress of Catapults is Formally Introduced to Mr Orlando Device, Esquire
Flavia spent her half-day in the village, purchasing pen wipers for herself and writing paper for Queenie, who had a birthday coming up and many thank you notes ahead of her. There was a small budget allowed for schoolroom expenses, but Flavia had already spent it replacing items destroyed by Dash during his transformations.
When the family headed to London, she might finally be able to acquire a new Latin dictionary for the children, as the only one they had was illustrated and heavily abridged. Still, that would require a conversation with Lady Carolinge, and Flavia had not yet worked up the courage.
It was a ridiculous thought. The London trip was planned for after All Hallows, and she would no longer be here. Flavia could not afford to forget that this job was temporary.
Mavis, the under house parlourmaid, accompanied Flavia around the shops all morning with her cheery chatter. Now, she was supposed to meet her young man in the tea room. Mavis had become quite beside herself with worrying what people might say, and whether anyone might blab to Mrs Holloway that she had a follower. Flavia offered to sit at a nearby table, to keep the young couple company without being a complete gooseberry, but apparently that was not the done thing either.
Great Aunt Primula Millicent had taught Flavia a great many rules and behaviours concerning respectability, but when Flavia was sent away to school she learned that many of them were quite wrong, especially for a ‘big house’. What was acceptable for a schoolgirl and her unworldly maiden aunt in a rustic village was completely at odds with what was acceptable for a female servant. The rules concerning Young Ladies of Quality were different again.
No one seemed to have a complete handle on the rules of Appropriate Respectability for a governess, given their in-between status, but oh, everyone would notice if she got it wrong. It was like constantly standing on the edge of a cliff, balancing in a full corset and petticoats, waiting for someone to throw a book of Ladylike Behaviour at your head.
Life was so much easier for fairies. No one cared about respectable in the greenwood. Flavia’s long nights dreaming herself into their world, dancing the dances and laughing with the merry creatures had meant that by the time she was sent to the School of Good Wives and God’s Mercy, her Great Aunt’s teachings held little sway over her.
More than once, she would say something quite by accident that others thought was scandalous.
It was ridiculous, how humans thought you could police people’s ideas as easily as their bodies. Surely, the whole point of confining young unmarried ladies with stiffly corseted underthings was to prevent wickedness regardless of what went on in their heads.
After offering several sensible solutions to Mavis’ tea room conundrum, Flavia finally came to the conclusion that the fretting about getting into trouble was an essential ingredient of the romantic assignation. Relieved, she left Mavis in good conscience, promising to be back in an hour so they could walk back to the big house together, so no one (except, presumably, the entire village and anyone who travelled through it today) should be any the wiser.
Mortals were so very complicated.
As she crossed the square, Flavia noticed that a crowd had gathered, laughing and jeering at an entertainment. Many held tankards or half-eaten pies from the local beer house. Curious, Flavia joined them.
The first thing she noticed was a young Chinese gentleman kneeling in the stocks, his head and hands locked into the simple but ruthless device. He appeared to be entirely unbothered by his predicament, laughing and joking despite the crushed fruit smeared into his wild black hair.
Concerned, Flavia looked to the crowd, who were crowded around a young man who was also of Eastern appearance, possibly from Her Majesty’s Empire of India.
This Indian gentleman was in greater favour than the Chinese fellow in the stocks. The villagers fell over themselves to pat him on the back and shove all manner of items into his hands: metal mostly, old clocks, broken tools, the sort of detritus one might find behind a blacksmith’s hovel, or in cellars across the country. The gentleman, with great determination, set about assembling the broken pieces into something marvellous.
‘Spark’ was a slang term for any type of magic except the brewing of magical philtres, which were regarded as a separate and more scientific discipline. But this young man’s particular knack, Flavia realised, was for the magical field from which the term originated. He was a builder of extraordinary devices: a metallurmage.
Every piece of metal handed to the gentleman — every lever or clock hand or wheel spoke — he braided into an artful tangle that whirred and hummed beneath his touch as if it was already a working engine. His hands moved so fast that they blurred, and a contraption of great beauty emerged from his quick fingers amid the creak of metal and hum of power from his fingertips.
Flavia had always known that magic like this existed in the world, but fairies had a natural dislike of metal – of iron especially – and so she had never watched metallurmagic performed. The presence of so much iron made her skin itchy and uncomfortable, but there were other metals here (bronze and copper and brass) which did not bother her at all.
The work was fascinating, as the metallurmage formed levers and limbs with his hands. It was worth a little discomfort to see a miracle take shape so easily before her eyes. There was nothing Flavia liked so well as competence: to watch a master perform his skill with refined technique.
When the device was complete, the performer revealed it with a flourish. The crowd burst forth into great laughter. The Chinese gentleman in the stocks laughed along with them at the sight of such a splendid machine.
It was a catapult. A veritable empress of catapults. This beautiful device had no less than eight different arms, each of which could be loaded with a touch, and fired with a combination of sounds such as clicking fingers, a belch, or a clap of the hands. The villagers contributed the scraps of their luncheons with great enthusiasm and watched as the young metallurmage clapped, whistled and clicked the right combination to send every arm juddering into the air, showering the Chinese gentleman in the stocks with beer, pie crust, apricots and some rather soft-cooked turnip gruel.
Was this cruelty or entertainment? Flavia was not quite sure, but the villagers accepted it with joy. The local blacksmith slapped the metallurmage on the back, and shook the hand of the very sticky young man in the stocks. The blacksmith then took possession of the new catapult and wheeled it away, with most of the village following in an atmosphere of great merriment.
The two young gentlemen remained in the square with only Flavia watching. The metallurmage began to unlatch the stocks, allowing his messy compatriot to be released.
“Do you need any assistance?” she asked, feeling sympathetic to them. “I mean — in cleaning up, I suppose?”
The man from the stocks gave her a wide grin and the metallurmage promptly leaned over and stuck an apple in the fellow’s mouth, to stop him talking. “That’s nice of you, miss,” he said politely. “But my brother Orlando here can sluice himself off behind the pub. We’ve managed to keep our jobs pulling pints, at least. For now,” he added, with a stern look at the fellow he said was his brother.
Flavia should probably not be speaking to them like this, on a public street. It was one of those ‘not the done things’ that could earn her a scandalous reputation. Great Aunt Primula Millicent had never ventured an opinion on foreigners — did not even like to acknowledge that countries outside Britannia existed — and yet Flavia knew from her time in London that people of dark complexion were viewed with an undue amount of suspicion and ill feeling in some quarters. She had always taken this as a warning of how Britannians might respond to a green-skinned fairy walking among them.
Still, she only had a few more days before she would leave Gloucester Worth and the mortal world behind forever. Surely she could risk it, to have an intelligent conversation with a gentleman who created miracles.
“That device you built,” she said, a questioning tone in her voice.
“Payment for a debt of honour,” said the Indian metallurmage in a perfect, plummy London accent, more Upstairs than Downstairs. His smile was mostly in his eyes – kind eyes, Flavia thought. “Fast talking and bribery comes in handy with a reckless brother such as mine. That catapult is likely to fall apart within a month or so, but we should be well away from here by then.”
Flavia thought of Dash and his keen interest in sparks. “I have a young student who would love to see your work,” she said, before she could help herself.
The messy one, Orlando, spat out his apple and bowed at her with a charming smile that belied his food-strewn appearance. “We’ll be performing at the All Hallows fair, miss, if you’ve a mind to bring your lad along to see us.”
“Rinaldo Device,” said the other, holding out a hand quickly for Flavia to shake, as if he was afraid his brother might try to touch her and get onion pie all over her sleeves. “We’re, ah. The Extraordinary and Miraculous Device Brothers.” He had the grace to look mildly embarrassed by their grandiose title.
Out of the corner of her eye, Flavia saw Mavis staring at her through the tea shop window, eyes wide like saucers. Annoyed, Flavia took Mr Rinaldo Device’s hand and shook it with genteel restraint. “Miss Wednesday,” she said, returning his name with her own. The fair. She hadn’t thought about the All Hallows fair. The children would howl to attend, and it fitted in with what she needed to do later that night – rather too well, as it happened. “I’ll bring the children to see you at the fair.”
“Hope so,” Orlando Device said with a wicked grin, not helped by the layer of squashed turnip that still clung to his face. “Tell your friends.”
Flavia bobbed her head politely and hurried away from the two gentlemen before she could cause further scandal, according to the standards of maids and butlers.
Queenie’s thirteenth birthday was two days before All Hallows. Instead of breakfasting in the schoolroom, the children and Flavia were invited to join the Gloucester adults in the dining room. This involved a great deal of stilted and awkward conversation.
Lady Carolinge, besotted as ever with her husband, fussed around him endlessly at the breakfast. The Honourable Perrault Gloucester, Lord Salisbury’s younger brother, lounged in his chair and looked bored, after coming up trumps with a telescope for Queenie’s birthday present.
Queenie also received a string of pearls from her father, a family brooch from her mother, and a fur muff from her unseen Aunt Elspeth in London. Dash had conspired with Flavia to provide a set of new glass test tubes that were received with a more genuine smile than all the other gifts put together.
After the gentlemen excused themselves from the table, Lady Carolinge clapped her hands and insisted that Queenie (or Petronella, rather, as she was to her family) come upstairs to see her final birthday surprise. Flavia trailed along with Dash, both of them practicing quietness. After several years of causing noisy disruptions, young Dashmond had gleefully taken to the idea that he could get away with far more if no one saw or heard his mischief. He often begged Flavia to help him practice the art of what she called ‘reasonable discretion’ and he called ‘spying’.
Dash’s attempts at spying/discretion were all for naught today, as he fell about in fits of noisy laughter when he saw his mother’s surprise for Queenie. No number of humbugs from Flavia’s pockets would shut him up.
Queenie stood frozen in shock.
It was a bedroom. A lady’s bedroom designed by someone who did not have the least idea as to Queenie’s character. Lady Carolinge had ordered the best; that was clear. Quite why ‘the best’ had to all be in those particular shades of rose and peach, with quite so many ruffles, was a question for another day.
It was a china shepherdess of a bedroom. Everything flounced, from the curtains on the four-poster bed to the skirts of every leg belonging to the chairs, dressing table or lampshade. For each flounce, there was a ribbon in rose or peach, tied in a self-satisfied bow. Where there were ribbons, there were also tiny bells that caught the breeze and filled the air with a girlish tinkling sound.
“You’re a young lady now,” said Lady Carolinge, assuming her daughter’s stunned silence to be gratitude. “Time you had a room of your own, while we consider your future.”
Queenie’s mouth snapped shut at that. “Am I to leave the nursery?”
Dash stopped laughing instantly. “You’re taking Queenie away?”
“Only one floor up,” said his mother, flustered by their rebellion. Flavia had no idea what reaction she had expected. “You’re quite old enough to sleep on your own, Dashmond.”
“I’m only seven,” he said, and burst into tears.
Lady Carolinge looked from one child to the other. Queenie did not cry, but she looked thunderstruck. There would be no more creeping out first thing in the morning to check on her brewing philtres, or waking herself at midnight to capture exactly the right type of dew from the grass in the back garden. This room was on the same floor as her parents and uncle, hemming her in on all sides.
“Well,” said Lady Carolinge finally. “I thought you would be pleased, Petronella. You’re growing up.”
“Yes,” said Queenie in a soft voice. “I know I am.”
“Not fair,” Dash howled, and Flavia hauled him away by his ear. It seemed unlikely that he would calm down in the presence of all those ruffles.
As she left, she caught sight of Queenie kissing her mother’s cheek, doing her best to look pleased. Clever chicken, Flavia thought silently. You never get what you want by making a fuss.
If Queenie really did want to escape all this, well. That made Flavia’s job easier.
“But have you seen Fairy Tiptoe?” asked Shenanigan the leprechaun, taking a dainty bite out of his speckled toadstool. “None of us may proceed without her advice, begorrah.”
