Part 17 (1/2)
”You seem a sensible girl, Miss Lockwell,” Lady Marsdel said. ”Why should your thoughts not be heard? I demand you speak them aloud!”
Ivy hesitated, then shut her book. ”I do not disagree there might be pleasure in seeing something so novel as a performance by illusionists.” She smiled at Mrs. Baydon. ”I cannot believe exposure to such things, for a mind that is truly good, could really cause lasting harm. However, for me, any enjoyment that might be derived from such a spectacle would be outweighed by the knowledge that my actions have brought discredit to myself and thereby to those to whom I am most intimately attached-that is, my father, mother, and sisters, whom I admire and love. So I could not go. Any wish I might have for myself, however enticing, cannot be indulged if it brings about something I would not wish for them.”
”Very well spoken, Miss Lockwell!” Lord Baydon proclaimed. ”I could not have said it better myself.”
Indeed, it was difficult for Rafferdy to imagine Lord Baydon could have said it at all.
”Really, Miss Lockwell,” Mrs. Baydon said, ”had I known that you would so eloquently remove all chances of my gambit succeeding, I would have thought twice before seeking your opinion.”
Ivy's expression was one of dismay. ”It was in no way my intention to cause you any distress, Mrs. Baydon. If I have done so, please forgive me. My opinion was asked, and I gave it as truthfully as I could. In no way did I mean it as any sort of comparison with yourself.”
”Now, Mrs. Baydon, you've given her a fright,” Rafferdy said, keeping his voice light but feeling a note of real concern. Ivy's color had gone pale again. ”She cannot know what a teasing thing you are, not as I do.”
”But of course I'm teasing!” Mrs. Baydon said, and hurried over to Miss Lockwell, taking her hand and a.s.suring her that she was in no way upset or affronted. At last Miss Lockwell was forced to concede that she was as sincere now as she had been satirical before.
”You have to know that we say outrageous things sometimes, but you mustn't think anything of it.” Mrs. Baydon smiled. ”Besides, no one could ever think it your intention to cause harm. I am sure you are incapable of it.”
”Now you will make a saint of me!” Miss Lockwell protested. ”I am not sure this is in any way less teasing. Indeed, I think it more so. I would rather be wrongly accused of doing ill than be thought to never do ill at all. For when I topple from that high pedestal, as I inevitably must, it will make the fall all that much further.”
”Nonsense, Miss Lockwell,” Rafferdy said seriously, ”for in that case you have only to spread your wings and fly like any angel.”
”Here, here!” Lord Baydon said, and clapped his hands.
Mrs. Baydon returned to the initial subject. ”Well, I will do what is right. I won't attend Viscount Argendy's masque. I wish I could feel so virtuous a resignation as you display, Miss Lockwell. However, I warrant I am bound to be peevish. I allow that it would bring discredit for me to go, and so I must not. Yet I cannot help but think that going should not bring discredit at all.”
”On that point I can offer no disagreement,” Miss Lockwell said. ”However, one cannot alter the world, so I suppose one is left with no choice but to alter oneself.”
”We must give up our wishes, you mean.”
”That may be so. Or perhaps...” She seemed to think about this. ”Perhaps it simply means we must seek them in a different manner, or in another place. If one door is closed to you, then look among all that are open. It may be that what you seek is through one.”
”I doubt any of them will lead to a masque.”
Miss Lockwell smiled. ”No, I suppose not. But ask yourself: what is it that made you wish to attend the affair at the viscount's? Was it the performance itself? Or was it something else-the newness of it, or the chance to see something beautiful? Surely there are sights of beauty and novelty that are within your power to witness.”
Once again Mrs. Baydon sighed, only this time it was an expression of amazement. ”Miss Lockwell, I believe you are right. I will seek out such things-beautiful things. I feel hopeful of a sudden. You have quite deprived me of my peevishness and want for complaining.”
”And for that, Miss Lockwell,” Mr. Baydon said, folding down his broadsheet, ”you have my grat.i.tude.”
A peculiar feeling came over Rafferdy, a kind of agreeable agitation. He wanted to speak, but he didn't know what to say. He wanted to move, but he didn't know where. What she had said fascinated him, but he had no idea if it gave him hope or a kind of irresistible dread. One cannot alter the world, so one is left with no choice but to alter oneself. A compulsion came over him to make himself anew. But into what?
He turned to address her. However, before he could think of something to say, Lady Marsdel gave her fan a beckoning flutter.
”Do come over here, Miss Lockwell. You have positioned yourself too far away. I would have you sit closer so my old ears need not strain.”
The object of this speech dutifully rose. Rafferdy hurried forward to lend his arm.
”Is there something you wished to say to me, Mr. Rafferdy?” Miss Lockwell said softly as he led her across the parlor.
”Why do you ask?”
”You were treating me to a rather odd look just now.”
”You are a rather odd creature, Miss Lockwell. You claim you are not utterly good by nature, yet everything you do demonstrates otherwise. Your actions are at odds with your words.”
”I can only say that it is not my intention to confound. But I will also say that you equally confound me.”
”How can that be? I am sure I am the simplest thing in existence.”
”On the contrary. While you claim to be utterly thoughtless, everything you do indicates that the opposite is true. In fact, I doubt there is a man alive who thinks more than you, Mr. Rafferdy.”
She sat down beside Lady Marsdel, and for the next hour he could only watch her and wonder what she had meant by that.
O VER THE NEXT several days, Miss Lockwell's recovery continued apace. Indeed, her convalescence soon seemed a forgotten thing, and she was rarely given time to sit quietly in her room.
Her presence was needed at breakfast, for after listening just once to the specific proportions of lemon, milk, and honey, she was able to prepare Lady Marsdel's tea perfectly-something the servants had never been able to do properly despite repeated instruction. She was needed after breakfast as well to keep her ladys.h.i.+p company, because Mrs. Baydon could seldom be counted upon to offer interesting companions.h.i.+p at so early an hour. Mrs. Baydon in turn wanted Miss Lockwell on long afternoons to play cards, and on shorter lumenals there was increased compet.i.tion for her presence, as Lady Marsdel liked to have her read to her for an hour or two before they dined, her ladys.h.i.+p's eyes no longer being up to the task.
”You do read nicely, Miss Lockwell,” Lady Marsdel said one evening. ”You have no impulse to insert your own comments or observations. You are content to defer to the wisdom of the author at choosing the best words. Quite unlike Mr. Rafferdy, who turns everything into a comedy. You cannot trust him at all when he reads. He once tried to convince me that a book of famous members of a.s.sembly contained an entire chapter pertaining to monkeys.”
”Well, if it didn't, it should have,” Mr. Rafferdy said to Miss Lockwell in a conspiratorial tone.
”In fact, your ladys.h.i.+p,” she said when she no longer appeared in danger of laughing, ”I have found Mr. Rafferdy to be an excellent reader.”
A flock of peac.o.c.ks quivered in her ladys.h.i.+p's hand. ”Indeed! I find your words incredible, Miss Lockwell. But I know that, unlike some, what you say is to be trusted. Yet it is very curious.”
Evenings were the busiest time for Miss Lockwell; after dinner, in the parlor, everyone seemed to want her company and conversation-though the latter usually had to be coaxed from her, at least when she was the center of attention. However, Rafferdy found that if he could lead her aside to a secluded corner, she became talkative, even animated. He would spend as much time as he could conversing with her, until Lady Marsdel's complaints that she could not hear what they were saying became too forceful to ignore.
It was during one of these times, when they sat together at the far end of the parlor as a protracted twilight hung suspended outside the window, that she noticed the ring he wore. He grimaced, twisting the hideous thing on his finger, pulling at it out of habit; but of course it did not come off.
Rafferdy thought he would make up some story about it-how he had lost a bet with Eldyn Garritt, perhaps, and was forced to wear the ugly thing as a sort of punishment. Instead, he found the truth spilling out of him: how he had followed Mr. Bennick that day; how it was a magician's ring; how he could not remove it from his hand.
All the while he spoke, her eyes grew brighter, and finally she said, ”Then you are a magician, Mr. Rafferdy!”
He winced as if she had struck him or had called his coat very handsome for one of last year's styles. ”On the contrary, I deny it utterly. I have no wish to put on airs. Well, not that sort of air.”
”But it is not an air, Mr. Rafferdy. This cannot lie.” She gestured to the ring. ”I have read many-that is, I have read something about magicians, and they are always described as wearing rings that denote their House of descent. And at the party, Mr. Bennick told us that he knew you to be descended of one of the seven Old Houses.”
If Rafferdy had needed any further proof of who had sent him the ring, now he had it.
”Mr. Bennick, you say?” He looked at the ring. The blue gem caught the light, winking and leering at him. ”Well, I do not know his motives, but power is nothing I crave or seek. I have no wish to be any sort of magician.”
”My father was a magician,” she said.
He regarded her with a new understanding. That explained her interest in magick.
”I do not think it was power he sought. I believe, rather, that it was knowledge. He used to have a ring like that.”
”Used to, you say. But Mr. Mundy told me that, without a powerful enchantment, a ring like this does not come off while the magician lives.”
”My father is no longer a magician. He has not worn the ring since he became ill years ago.” She looked out the window, and he could see the rapid flutter of her pulse in her throat.