The Wizard of London (17 page)

***

She
felt the old bitterness creeping into her thoughts, and ruthlessly throttled it
down.
Don’t be a fool
, she scolded herself.
If you were to
ask most of them if they would trade places with you, if they were honest with
themselves, they would
. How many of those girls she had once called
“friend” were now shackled in loveless marriages to men whose sole
qualification for the position of husband was a pedigree, wealth, and the
interesting distinction of being an Elemental Mage? Half, surely. Among the
Elemental Masters, there was the commonly-held sentiment that if one was not
wedded for family or love by the time one reached the age of twenty-one, the
best one could do would be to at least marry someone appropriate, of the right
breeding, from whom one would not have to conceal one’s magic, even if
you scarcely knew the prospective spouse, and had less in common with her than
an Oxford don with an Irish bricklayer.

Yes.
And I was common as dust and without a penny to my name, and no Elemental
Magic. Small wonder
… She stifled the rest of the bitter thought.

It
had taken Isabelle part of the morning and a steady perusal of the present and
past editions of
Burke’s Peerage
to find out what had become of
Beatrice DeLancy. She was now Lady Beatrice—or rather, as etiquette would
have it, Lady
Nigel
. Lady Nigel Lytton, to be precise. And since
Lord
Nigel had figured nowhere in Bea’s adolescent daydreams, it was probably
safe to assume she could be counted among those who held with the philosophy of
“marry appropriately.”

Isabelle
mounted the steps of the elegant townhouse, after paying the cabbie, and was
let in by a faintly contemptuous butler.
I have faced down psychic
vampires, old haunts, and dacoits, my lad. You do not frighten me a bit
.
She sent in her card, with the added words,
nee Carpenter
neatly
printed after “Harton.” But she was damned if she was going to be
ashamed of the address of
Harton School for Boys and Girls
on it, nor
was she going to pretend she was anything other than what she was. She’d
tried to do that once… and look where it had gotten her. If this meant
she cooled her heels in the hallway, only to be told that “My Lady is not
at home,” so be it. One snub was not going to kill her, and Beatrice was
by no means the only name on her list.

In
fact, she had gotten herself so completely prepared for rejection, that when
Bea came flying down the stairs in her soft pink morning wrapper (much to the
horror of the supercilious butler) her hands outstretched in greeting, it took
her so much by surprise that for a moment she simply gawked at her old friend,
dumbfounded.

Fortunately
the moment didn’t last; she was too used, after all these years, to
thinking on her feet.

So
it was to her feet that she jumped, and the two of them met in an embrace which
wiped out all of the years in between their last meeting and this one, after
which Beatrice drew her up the stairs and into her dressing room.

“The
Harton School! Now that is the last place I would have expected to find you, so
no wonder I had no idea you were in London! Who is this mysterious
Harton?” Bea asked in teasing tones, as she settled Isabelle in a
comfortable chair and handed her a plate of sugar biscuits. “He must be
something remarkable to have turned you into a schoolmistress! I thought you
were going to go become some sort of female
guru
amongst the
Hindus!”

“Frederick
is rather more than remarkable,” she replied, noting with amusement,
that, aside from a slight fading of the yellow-gold of her hair and a slightly
plumper figure, Bea hadn’t changed a bit. “I could equally ask you
who Lord Nigel is.”

Bea
shrugged, dismissed her maid with a little wave of her hand, and picked up the
teapot. “Nigel isn’t the love of my life, but he doesn’t bore
me to death either. We both had to marry or our families would have nagged us
to death about it, and at least we were friends. But you, Belle—who
is
this Harton fellow? Did you meet him in India? Tell, tell, tell!”

“There
isn’t that much to tell,” she replied. “He was with the Army;
he’s common as clay, God bless him, and straight from the streets of this
very city, but a very kind and childless gentleman recognized him for what he
was, saw to his education and bought him his commission—”

“Ah,
another paranormal like you, then?” Bea asked shrewdly.

“Something
like, though his Talent lies in clairvoyance and clairaudience rather than
telepathy and psychometry,” she admitted with a slight smile.

“Well,
being able to see what was going on over the next hill would be quite useful
for a soldier, I would think!” Bea chuckled, pouring her a cup of tea.
“A good thing he had a mentor, though!”

“A
very good thing. His mentor owned a bookshop here in London specializing in
rare and Esoteric volumes as you might expect—and I am sure you will be
unsurprised to learn that I frequented the place. By that time, Frederick was
already in India and had earned his way up the ranks. When this gentleman discovered
I was determined to go to India, he sent me with introductions to some teachers
of his acquaintance, and that was where I met Frederick.” All perfectly
true so far as it went—though her explanation did not go nearly far
enough—

“And
you are leaving out all the good parts, I am sure,” Beatrice retorted,
wagging a finger at her. “Curses and dacoits, phantoms and secret
societies, and all manner of dreadful menaces that the two of you faced, which
you are sworn not to tell anyone because it all involves occult oaths.”

She
had to laugh, because Bea was actually far too close to the truth!
“Something like that, yes. With the one detail that I
can
tell
you, that it was love at first sight for the two of us and when he was
discharged, we—and some fellow native occultists—decided to come
back here to put up the school, so that children with psychical talents would
have somewhere to go to learn how to manage themselves.” She sighed.
“And a school that would care properly for the poor little dears who
might not have such Talents, but who still were being shipped back to England.
There are more bad schools than good, I fear. And it is useful for anyone
dealing with even ordinary children to have some occult talent.”

“Fellow
occultists!” Beatrice’s eyes sparkled. “This becomes more
interesting all the time! Hindus?”

“One
Gurkha, one Sikh, and one Moslem,” she replied. “And a motley
assortment of our old servants from India, so we do have
some
Hindus
among us. And Buddhists.” She thought for a moment. “I am
reasonably sure there are no Sufis, Jainists, or Farsi, but I would not be
willing to swear to that.”

“Good
heavens, Belle, you brought back the entire cross-section of the
subcontinent!” Bea seemed delighted. “At some point I am going to
have to visit—and now that I know your school exists, I have somewhere to
refer children who are Talented rather than Magicians. That is exceedingly
useful. I know I can count on you to be practical and caring, and too many of
these people
mean
well, but haven’t the common sense of my canary.”

“Your
canary has rather more common sense than some of them,” Isabelle said
dryly. “At least the Elemental Mages are more-or-less levelheaded and
disciplined, which brings me to the reason I wanted to talk to you. If I were
going to find the person who was the closest thing to a leader in your Esoteric
circle, who would that be?”

And
Beatrice hesitated.

That
was distinctly peculiar, and not at all like Beatrice.

“In
terms of being a leader, in virtually all ways,” she said slowly,
“I would have said Alderscroft.
Lord
Alderscroft, now; his
father died two years ago, poor man. He’s immensely skilled, and quite
eclipses most of the other Elemental Masters hereabouts. They’re calling
him the Wizard of London, now, and the Young Lion.”

Isabelle
managed a slight smile, although it gave her a pang to think of how well that
name suited him. “I can see how that would please him,” she said,
in as neutral a tone as possible. “He always did enjoy being the
recipient of accolades if he thought he had earned them.”

Bea
nodded. “Don’t men always? Nigel is just as susceptible. But
Alderscroft does have power and skill, and it’s not just Esoteric power
either; he’s gotten political, and he has connections. He’s talking
about finding a sympathetic Minister, revealing what we can do to him, and
making the Elemental Masters into an adjunct arm of the War Department. He says
that we will have to reveal our powers to someone eventually, so it ought to be
on our terms, so that we are the ones negotiating from a place of strength…
but…”

“But?”
Isabelle prompted.

“But—he’s
just so cold. Which is an odd thing to say of a Fire Master, I know, but he
is
and he gets worse every time I meet with him. Even Nigel remarked on it, and
when it comes to commenting on the foibles of his fellow man, Nigel simply
doesn’t.” She smiled, slightly, “He has a terribly sweet
temper, does my Nigel, which I thought was a decent reason to marry him. Earth,
of course, which is why I am here and he is not, he cannot abide even this
little clean area of London for more than a week at a time. But at any rate,
Alderscroft began getting distant just before you left, and he would be a
hermit, I think, if he didn’t have to interact socially with the rest of
us to herd us in the direction he wants. Or—” She wrinkled her
brow—“He wouldn’t exactly be a hermit, because he is
everywhere, socially. One can’t go to a party without seeing him. But he
might as well have an invisible barrier about him.” She shook her head.
“I’m doing a very bad job of explaining myself. I suppose you would
have to see it for yourself.”

That’s
hardly likely
. Isabelle hesitated a moment, then asked the loaded
question. “Is Lady Cordelia still his mentor?”

“Oh,
Her Ladyship is very much present in his life, I assure you.” Bea pursed
her lips and looked wise. “If she weren’t such a pillar of dignity,
chastity, and sanctity, one would assume all manner of goings-on, but I cannot
imagine Her Ladyship removing so much as a glove in the presence of a
man.” She sighed. “One
wants
to like her. After all, it
isn’t as if there were that many female Elemental Magicians in London,
much less another Air Mage. But that off-putting manner… it’s as
bad or worse than that barrier Alderscroft has about him.”

Isabelle
nodded, understanding all too well. She was more than halfway convinced that
Lady Cordelia BryceColl was at least partially, if not fully responsible for
that final snub on Alderscroft’s part that had sent Isabelle off in
tears. But, of course, the woman had been as sweet and smooth as honeyed cream
in public, and had even sent a little bon voyage gift, so there was no way to
prove anything. Lady Cordelia never gossiped, never said an unpleasant word
about anyone in public. Back in her girlhood, Isabelle and her friends had
formed the habit of referring to Cordelia as “the nun,” both from
her penchant for dressing all in ice-blue or white, and her demeanor. Even
thinking
improper thoughts about her was impossible. To this day Isabelle, who had spent
so many years in the sensuous East and been exposed to things that would send
most English women reeling back in a dead faint if even
hinted
at,
could not imagine Cordelia BryceColl in any state other than fully clothed,
ramrod straight, and cool and calm as the marble image of a saint.

“You
know,” Bea said thoughtfully. “I always thought it was her fault
that Alderscroft snubbed you.”

Isabelle
gazed at her friend in astonishment. “Whatever makes you say that?”
she asked.

“Well,
who else would it have been? After that incident at Vesuvius, his father
wasn’t capable of putting two sentences together, and besides, the old
lord
liked
you. If his mother had been alive, there might have been
trouble, but I can’t think of anyone else who would have wanted to
meddle.” Bea shook her head. “No, it was Delia, I would stake my
diamonds on it.”

Isabelle
made herself shrug with feigned indifference and sipped her tea. “It
doesn’t matter, really, now does it? It’s all in the past. But I
think I would rather not consult with Alderscroft about this, especially not if
she
is still hanging about him.”

“Well,”
Bea said slowly, winding a strand of hair around her finger. “You might
tell me what this is all about. I know practically everyone in Elemental
circles, at least in London, these days. I might be able to help.”

Since
Isabelle could not imagine anyone she would rather talk to, she launched into
her narrative with a will. She began all the way back at the point when little
Sarah and Nan joined the school—because Sarah and Nan were so integral to
the story—

“Though
I can’t in all honesty call Nan a charity case, when she more than pays
for her way with all of the hard work she does—”

Then
she went on to the phony medium, Sarah’s true mediumistic abilities, all
the inquiries about the girls—and went from that to the incident in Berkeley
Square. Bea listened intently to every word.

“Well,
I must say, I wish Nigel was here. That
sounds
like an Earth Elemental
to be sure, but I don’t know enough to make an identification.” She
frowned. “And I don’t imagine that an Earth Master gone wrong is
going to identify himself to the rest of us.”

“Probably
not,” Isabelle agreed, and sighed. “Still, if one of you could look
into the situation—”

“That,
my dear, is a given,” Bea told her, raising her head with a determined
set to her chin. “We simply can’t have something like that loose,
even if it
is
confined to a single building. Someone could be hurt. If
we haven’t dealt with it by the time Nigel returns, I’m sure
he’ll banish it, but I suspect I can find a Water Master to get rid of
the vicious thing.”