The Wizard of London (25 page)

“It
didn’t know the Master’s real name, of course, but what it knew led
us to O’Brian who was, by that time, dead,” Nigel concluded.
“The problem with all of this is that those little girls,
obscure
little girls, with no enemies, were without any shadow of a doubt, the real
targets of the attack. Alderscroft, that makes no sense. Killing them would
accomplish nothing, get no notoriety for his cause. Unless—”

“Unless
what?” asked Crey.

“Unless
he—or someone using him—wanted to be rid of that specific little
girl.” Nigel pinched the bridge of his nose, probably to relieve a
headache. “That she is already a powerful medium could make her dangerous
to someone.”

“Who?”
demanded old Scathwaite—old in years and experience, but keen in mind and
as agile in body as some of David’s contemporaries.

“I
would say, ask that of those in psychical circles,” David said slowly,
slowly getting control back over his runaway emotions. “Especially those
who claim mediumistic powers and have none. They have the most to lose, and are
the most threatened by a real medium. And if you wanted to hide what you were
in order to prevent being caught by your own kind, what better than to hide
behind an Elemental Master?”

“By
heaven, David, you may be right!” Nigel sounded surprised and relieved at
the same time. “It’s the psychical ones who knew about the girl in
the first place. All right, I’ll go back to Mrs.Harton and suggest that
if she hasn’t checked her friends and acquaintances for someone willing
to use anyone and anything to further his own ambitions, she ought to. Then see
if any of
them
can be traced back to a contact with
O’Brian.”

“The
simplest solution is often the right one,” David replied, and shrugged.
“Of course the simplest solution is usually something not very palatable.”

He
had managed, by dint of great effort, to shove his emotional reactions off to
the side, and cool masculine logic had reasserted itself.

“The
point is,
our
involvement in this distasteful incident is
fundamentally closed,” agreed Thomas Markham, a viscount. “It seems
clear to me at least that it is wildly unlikely that the instigator is one of
ours. The Harton woman should definitely be encouraged to look among her own
kind for the enemy. Heaven knows there are more than enough unstable types in
psychical circles to account for an attack on those poor little
children.”

“And
Bea has made sure that the children and school are protected from all
sorts,” Nigel put in eagerly—no doubt thinking with relief that now
he would be able to go back to his country estate and escape the miasma of
London again. “I think everything has probably been done now.”

Nods
all around the table. David smiled. “Good!” he said. “Now, I
would like to discuss some of our tentative plans for becoming more involved
with those in political office who are at the moment unaware we even
exist…”

***

Nan
had decided that if heaven was anything like Highleigh Park, she was going to
have to put a lot more effort into being good so she could end up there.

There
had been some initial reserve on the part of the servants about a horde of
strange children running loose; not that Nan blamed them, no, not at all. They
all got rooms in the area that held the nursery, which also held the rooms for
the servants of visiting guests.

That
was not at all bad; the rooms were plain and they had to share, but the rooms
at the school were also fairly plain and they had to share. The littlest
children, too young for lessons yet, got the best of it, Nan thought, because
the nursery and schoolroom were both enormous, and the nursery was full of old,
worn, but perfectly good toys from previous generations or left by visiting
children. All the toys were new to the Harton School toddlers, of course, so
they were very happy.

The
first of the children to get into trouble was, predictably, Tommy, who seemed
to gravitate toward trouble the way a moth was attracted to flame. They had all
had their luncheon and most of them had gone off in little groups to explore
the parkland, except for Tommy, who had gone off by himself.

Nan
and Sarah were—with Grey and Neville’s
assistance—investigating a charming but neglected little stone building,
when suddenly there was a great crash from the direction of the manor house,
followed by a veritable chorus of barks and howls. Sarah and Nan exchanged a
glance.

“Tommy,”
they said as one, as Grey and Neville exchanged a glance of their own, then
flew in the direction of the noise.

By
the time they all got there, the howling and barking had subsided, and Tommy
was in the custody of the Master of the Hounds, for it appeared that Highleigh
Court was home to a foxhound pack, and Tommy had decided the half-grown pups
were irresistible. Unable to get into the locked kennel, he had climbed the
fence around the pens, fallen off, and landed among the hounds, who reacted
with confusion and startlement. Once he had fished Tommy out of the pen and
ascertained he was not seriously hurt, the Master of the Hounds was pink with
anger.

By
this time, most of the children from the school had arrived, and so had most of
the servants who could spare a moment. The Master had Tommy by one ear and
looked as if he was going to haul the boy up in front of some authority but
hadn’t yet figured out who that was.

As
Nan and Sarah hid, Mem’sab appeared, and the stormy expression she wore
did not bode well for Tommy. The Master of the Hounds misinterpreted it,
however.

“Now
see here, Missus!” he began to bluster. “This boy of
yours—”

“Has
been getting into where he had no business being,” Mem’sab said,
interrupting, her voice stern. “I know this because your master told me
that the kennels are kept locked. Tommy knows this because he was told not to
attempt any place that was locked up. So what do you suggest his punishment
should be? On the whole, I am against whipping or caning, but a good spanking
would not go amiss.”

For
one long moment the Master of the Hounds stared at her, mouth agape, as Tommy
hung limp with resignation in his grasp. “Ah—” the man began.
“Don’t much care for beating a boy myself. Beating never helped boy
nor dog to my knowledge.”

Mem’sab
raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps, then, you could put him to some useful work
instead? Since he seems so determined to see the dogs, he could help your
underlings clean the kennels?”

Now
taken even more aback by the suggestion that Tommy should do manual labor
reserved for menials, the Master began to stammer.
“Ah—Missus—what would his parents—”

“His
parents have left his discipline in my hands,” Mem’sab replied,
“And I think he will come to far less harm having a set down to his
dignity by learning how much work a servant must do, than he would by a caning.
Perhaps afterward he will be more considerate of his servants when he is
grown.”

With
a silent and astonished audience of manor servants listening raptly, the Master
and Mem’sab worked out a compromise that kept Tommy in the kennels,
helping to water and feed the dogs and other chores with the hawks and horses
until just before suppertime, giving him just enough time for a bath and a
change of clothing. Nan couldn’t help but grin; not because Tommy was one
of the few who would have been inclined to play Little Sahib over the manor
servants, but at the reaction of those servants themselves.

“They’re
all on Mem’sab’s side now, aren’t they?” Sarah
whispered, as a chastened Tommy was shooed into the precinct which he had but a
few moments ago so much desired to get into. Nan nodded, feeling gleeful.
She’d known she could count on Tommy to get into something that would put
him at odds with the manor staff, but she hadn’t thought he’d do so
that quickly.

And
Mem’sab cemented that, by turning to her audience—an audience which
others in her position might have ignored—and addressing them. “If
any of the children get into mischief that discommodes you or violates one of
the house rules, I would appreciate it if you would bring your complaint and
the child in question directly to me, at once,” she said. “Thank
you.”

The
servants went back to their work, and the rest of the children went back to
their explorations, and Tommy put in a much-scrubbed appearance at dinner in an
interesting mood—chastened by the amount of hard work he’d had to
put in, but very full of information about foxhounds, rat terriers, and the
huge mastiffs that the caretaker and gamekeeper used to help them guard the
place.

The
next day, and the day after that, passed with only minor incidents—the
head cook found three of the boys investigating the cellars looking for a
dungeon, and one of the housemaids discovered a toddler who was supposed to be
napping running gleefully naked down the portrait gallery.

But
the next incident, alas, was all Nan’s doing.

She
was passing the kitchen door, when a heady aroma seized her and dragged her
inside. It was a scent she had whiffed only once before, and then she’d
had no possibility of trying the product, and furthermore, on that occasion she
had been literally starving and the aroma had nearly driven her out of her head
with longing and despair.

Strawberry
tarts
. Fresh strawberry tarts. Her mouth watered and the hunger of that
long-past day came back quite as strongly as if she had not been eating well
and steadily for the past several months.

Perhaps
if anyone had been in the kitchen, she would simply have begged a tart from the
first servant that looked kind. But the kitchen was momentarily empty, and the
tarts were all set out in rows on the big table to cool, and the temptation was
too much to resist. She seized as many as she could carry and scurried out with
them, to hide (she thought) in a little nook and share them with Neville.

But
an alert kitchen maid not only saw that the tarts were missing, but thought to
look in the kitchen garden and spotted Neville with half a tart in his beak,
and traced his path back to Nan’s hiding place. Found with crumbs on her
face and surrounded by empty tins, her guilt had been clear.

Hauled
up to Mem’sab with a full belly and just a twinge of regret, she found it
hard to look completely repentant.

Mem’sab
shook her head and sighed. Without even asking Nan if she was
guilty—though of course the sticky fingers were mute evidence of
that—she turned to the kitchen maid.

“Who
of the kitchen-staff did the preparations for the tarts?” she asked,
surprising the maid. “The cleaning and hulling and so forth.”

“Ah,
that’d be me, Ma’am,” the maid stammered.

“Then
you have charge of her. She’s no stranger to hard work, though you might
have to show her what to do. She is yours for the remainder of the day, only
see that she gets luncheon and is free in time to clean herself for
dinner.” And with that, Mem’sab consigned her to her fate.

So
she suffered through the hard work of a day in the kitchen under the direct
supervision of the kitchen maid, who took immense and vindictive satisfaction
in giving Nan all the most tedious jobs, and Nan discovered at firsthand how
much work went into feeding a vast, and now augmented household like the one at
Highleigh Park. Worst, probably, had been that she had been denied
Neville’s company the entire afternoon of her incarceration, only getting
free to scamper outside and try to explain it to him at luncheon. Neville did
not entirely understand how doing something so natural as raiding a ready food
supply of delicious treats was a bad thing. Nan got the feeling that he
comprehended that
people
thought it was a bad thing, but he still didn’t
grasp the reasoning behind that attitude. However, though Nan was incarcerated
for the day, there was plenty for
him
to do, and he simply accepted it
phlegmatically.

Two
days later, Nan was still debating whether or not the pleasure of stuffing herself
with strawberry tarts had been worth the pain of kitchen duty.

By
that time the half holiday here was enough to make her giddy with happiness.
She could have spent days merely exploring and observing the little lives in
the brook that ran through the grounds. The home farm was near enough to run
over to, and lambs were just as delicious to pet as she had imagined. There
were half a dozen orphaned or rejected little things and extra hands to help
bottle nurse them were always welcome.

This
was when Tommy, who was now on good enough terms with the Master of Hounds to
be allowed inside the kennel to play with puppies, discovered the home farm.
Now, he had been utterly forbidden to even consider trying to ride any of the
great high-bred horses in the stable, even though the grooms, who were not a
great deal older than he, did so regularly to exercise them. There were no
ponies there, as there were no children in the household, and he was mad to try
and ride something.

And
there, lord of the flock of sheep in the pasture nearest the manor, was a great
big ram, relatively placid in nature and inclined to accept graciously any
tidbits and scratches that came his way.

The
combination was as irresistible for Tommy as strawberry tarts had been for Nan.

Nan
and Sarah had been bottle-feeding lambs when shouts from the pasture made them
and the farm manager come running. By that time, so she later learned, Tommy
had already climbed the fence, jumped aboard, and had managed to stay on the
ram’s back long enough to get halfway across the pasture before the
offended animal bucked him off.

They
arrived just in time to see Tommy trying to run—then see Tommy flying
through the air when the ram administered his own form of punishment.

He
picked himself up again, and the ram repeated the procedure. One more time as
he tried to scramble over the fence that divided the pasture from the goose
pond sent him sailing into the midst of the geese, who had half-grown goslings
with them and were not inclined at all to take this interloper lightly.