Emerald Green (22 page)

Only Aunt Glenda, who had red blotches on her throat, wasn’t taking anything that reflected badly on her daughter. She couldn’t help saying, “I’d have thought we ought to be grateful to Charlotte for retaining a sense of responsibility and keeping her eyes open, instead of saying she was wrong. But there we are, ingratitude is only too widespread. I am sure that—”

However, we never found out
what Aunt Glenda was sure of, because Lady Arista said, in icy tones, “If you don’t want to change the subject, Glenda, you are of course at liberty to leave the table.” Which Aunt Glenda did, along with Charlotte, who said she wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Everything all right?” Mr. George, who was sitting opposite me—or diagonally opposite me, because my skirts were so huge that they filled half
the car—and so far had left me to my thoughts, was smiling at me. “Did Dr. White give you something to help with your stage fright?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I was too scared of seeing double in the eighteenth century.” Or worse, but I wasn’t going to say so to Mr. George. At the soirée last Sunday, I had needed Lady Brompton’s special punch to help me keep calm—and it was the same punch
that had made me perform “Memory” from
Cats
to the astonished guests, about two hundred years before Andrew Lloyd Webber composed it. I’d also had a conversation out loud with a ghost in front of everyone, which I certainly wouldn’t have done entirely sober.

I’d hoped I could have at least a few minutes alone with Dr. White, so that I could ask why he had helped me out, but he had examined me
in front of Falk de Villiers and pronounced me better, to everyone’s delight. When I gave him a conspiratorial wink as we parted, Dr. White only frowned and asked whether I had something in my eye. Remembering that, I sighed.

“Don’t worry,” said Mr. George sympathetically. “It won’t last long, and you’ll soon be back. You’ll be through with the whole occasion before supper.”

“But I can do all
sorts of things wrong in that time. I might even cause an international crisis. Just ask Giordano. The wrong sort of smile, the wrong sort of curtsey, saying the wrong thing—and wow! The whole eighteenth century goes up in flames.”

Mr. George laughed. “Oh, Giordano is just envious. He’d commit murder for a chance to travel in time.”

I stroked the soft silk of my skirts, running my fingers over
the embroidered outlines of the pattern. “Seriously, I still don’t understand why the ball is so important. And what I have to do there.”

“You mean as well as dancing and amusing yourself and enjoying the privilege of meeting the famous Duchess of Devonshire in person?” When I didn’t smile back, Mr. George suddenly turned serious, took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket, and dabbed his forehead
with it. “My dear girl, the day is of the utmost importance, because at that ball it will be discovered which of the Guardians of the time is the traitor who has been passing on information to the Florentine Alliance. Through your presence, the count hopes to induce both Lord Alastair and the traitor to give themselves away.”

Ah. Well, at least that was more specific than the mysterious stuff
in the middle of
Anna Karenina.

“So strictly speaking, we’re decoys?” I frowned. “But … er … wouldn’t you have found out ages ago whether the plan worked? And who the traitor was? I mean, it all happened two hundred and thirty years ago.”

“Yes and no,” replied Mr. George. “For some reason, the reports on those days and weeks in the
Annals
are extremely vague. In addition, a whole section is
missing. There are several references to the traitor who has been dismissed from his high office, but his name is never given. Four weeks later, there is a brief mention, almost by the way, saying that no one honored the traitor by attending his last rites, because he had earned no honor.”

I had goose bumps again. “You mean the traitor was dead four weeks after being thrown out of the Lodge?
How … practical.”

Mr. George wasn’t listening to me anymore. He tapped on the window between us and the driver. “I’m afraid the gateway will be too narrow for the limousine. You’d better drive into the school yard through the side entrance.” He smiled at me. “Here we are! And you look lovely—I’ve been wanting to say so all this time. As if you’d stepped straight out of an old painting.”

The
car stopped in front of the steps up to the school building.

“Only much, much more beautiful,” said Mr. George.

“Thank you.” I felt so embarrassed that I quite forgot what Madame Rossini had said—
Always ze ’ead first, sweet’eart!
—and I made the mistake of trying to get out of the car in the same way as usual, with the result that I got hopelessly entangled in my skirts and felt like an angry
little bee caught in a spider’s web. As I cursed and Mr. George had a fit of helpless giggles, two hands were reached out to me, and since I had no other option, I took them both and let them pull me out and set me on my feet.

One hand belonged to Gideon; the other to Mr. Whitman. I dropped them as if I’d burnt myself.

“Oh … thanks,” I murmured, hastily smoothing down my dress and trying to
calm my racing pulse. Then I took a closer look at Gideon—and grinned. I just couldn’t help it. Although Madame Rossini was right about the beautiful sea-green fabric, and the magnificent coat fitted Gideon’s broad shoulders perfectly, and he was a truly dazzling sight down to his buckled shoes, the white wig destroyed the whole effect.

“And I thought I was the only one who had to look like an
idiot in a wig,” I said.

His eyes sparkled with amusement. “At least I convinced Giordano that he could leave out the face powder and beauty spots.”

Well, he was pale enough anyway. For a second or so, I reveled in the sight of the finely traced lines of his chin and lips, then I pulled myself together and looked at him as darkly as I could.

“The others are waiting downstairs. We’d better hurry
before there are too many people around,” said Mr. Whitman, glancing at the pavement, where two ladies walking their dogs had stopped and were looking curiously our way. If they didn’t want to attract attention, I thought, the Guardians oughtn’t to drive such flashy cars. Or drive people in peculiar historical costumes about London. Gideon put out his hand, but at that moment I heard a dull thud
behind me and looked around. Xemerius had landed on the car roof and lay there on the metal for a moment, flat as a flounder.

“Ouf!” he gasped. “Couldn’t you have waited for me?” He’d missed the moment when we left the Temple because of a cat, if I understood him correctly. “I had to fly the whole way! But I did want to say good-bye to you.” He scrambled up and hopped onto my shoulder, and I
felt something like a cold, wet hug.

“Right, Grand Mistress of the Order of the Crochet Pigs,” he said. “When you’re dancing with Him Whose Name We Don’t Mention,” he added, giving Gideon a nasty look, “don’t forget to give him a good kick. And watch out for that count.” There was genuine concern in his voice. I swallowed, but next moment he added, “If you mess things up, you’ll have to see how
you get by without me in future. I’ll be looking for a new human.” He gave me a cheeky grin and flew toward the dogs, who tore free of their leashes a moment later and ran in panic, with their tails between their legs.

“Asleep and dreaming, Gwyneth?” Gideon gave me his arm. “Sorry, of course I mean Miss Gray! Would you be kind enough to follow me to the year 1782?”

“Oh, forget it—you can leave
out the playacting until we arrive,” I said in an undertone, so that Mr. George and Mr. Whitman, going ahead of us, couldn’t hear it. “And for now, I’d like to keep physical contact with you to an absolute minimum, if you don’t mind. What’s more, I know my way around here. After all, this building is my school.”

It was as good as deserted that early Friday evening. In the foyer we met Mr. Gilles
the principal, pulling a golf bag along behind him. He’d already changed his suit for a pair of check trousers and a polo shirt. However, he politely welcomed “our esteemed Mr. Whitman’s amateur dramatics society.” Then he shook hands with us all. “I’m very keen on art. It’s a pleasure to make the school available for rehearsals while you can’t use your usual rehearsal room. What delightful costumes!”
When he got to shaking hands with me, he stopped in surprise. “Well, well, I know that face. You’re one of those naughty frog girls, aren’t you?”

I forced a smile. “Yes, Mr. Gilles,” I said.

“I’m glad you’ve found such a nice hobby. I’m sure it will keep you from thinking up any more stupid ideas like that frog.” He beamed jovially at everyone. “Good luck to you all, then—or what is it you say
in the theater, ‘break a leg’?” He waved cheerfully to us again, and then disappeared through the doorway with his golf clubs, off to enjoy the weekend. I watched him go, feeling a little envious. For once I’d happily have changed places with him, even if it meant turning into a middle-aged baldie in check trousers.

“Naughty frog girl?” inquired Gideon on the way down to the art room in the cellars,
and looking curiously at me sideways.

I was concentrating on holding my rustling skirts far enough up not to trip over them. “A couple of years ago, my friend Lesley and I had to put a squashed frog into another girl’s soup—Mr. Gilles still holds it against us.”

“You
had
to put a frog in another girl’s soup?”

“Yes,” I said, giving him a haughty look. “For educational reasons, one sometimes
has to do things that may seem odd to outsiders.”

Down in the cellar, right under the quote from Edgar Degas painted on the wall—
A picture should be painted with the same care that a criminal puts into carrying out his crime—
the usual suspects were already gathered around the chronograph: Falk de Villiers, Mr. Marley, and Dr. White, who was setting out surgical instruments and bandages on one
of the tables. I was glad that at least we’d left Giordano behind at the Temple. He was probably still standing at the top of the steps up to the entrance, wringing his hands.

Mr. George winked at me. “I’ve just had a bright idea,” he whispered. “If you find yourself at a loss, you can simply faint—ladies were always fainting in those days. No one knows for sure whether it was because their corsets
were laced so tightly, or because of the bad air, or because fainting came in useful.”

“I’ll keep that at the back of my mind,” I said. In fact, I was tempted to try out Mr. George’s idea right away. Unfortunately Gideon seemed to have seen through me, because he took my arm with a slight smile.

And then Falk unwrapped the chronograph, and when he beckoned me over, I resigned myself to my fate,
not without putting up a fervent prayer to heaven that Lady Brompton had passed on the recipe for her special punch to her good friend Lady Pympoole-Bothame.

*   *   *

MY IDEAS
of a ball were vague. My ideas of a ball in past history were zero. So it was probably not surprising that, after Aunt Maddy’s vision and my dreams that morning, I expected something between
Gone with the Wind
and the
glittering parties in
Marie Antoinette.
The good part of my dream had been that I’d looked amazingly like Kirsten Dunst.

But before I could check my ideas against the real thing, we had to come up from the cellar. (Again! I only hoped that my calves wouldn’t suffer long-term damage from all that climbing up and down stairs.)

Though I might moan about it, however, I had to admit that this time
the Guardians had fixed things very neatly. Falk had set the chronograph so that we arrived when the ball in the house up above us had been in progress for hours.

I was enormously relieved not to have to file past our hosts. Secretly I’d been terrified that there’d be a master of the ceremonies banging his stick on the floor and announcing our false names in a loud voice. Or even worse, announcing
the truth: “Ladies and gentlemen!”
Knock, knock.
“Gideon de Villiers and Gwyneth Shepherd, confidence tricksters from the twenty-first century. Kindly notice that the young woman’s corset, as well as the hoops of her skirt, are made not of whalebone but of high-tech carbon fiber! Furthermore, the pair entered the house surreptitiously by way of the cellar!”

And this was a particularly dark cellar,
so that unfortunately there was no alternative to taking Gideon’s hand, or my dress and I would never have made it to the top of the stairs intact. Only at the front of the cellar were there torches in holders, casting a flickering light on the walls where you turned off into the media rooms in the time when this building was my school. It looked as if now there were larders and pantries for
provisions down here, probably a good idea, because the place was freezing cold. Out of sheer curiosity, I glanced into one of the rooms, and was rooted to the spot with amazement. I’d never seen so much food all at once! There was obviously going to be some kind of banquet after the ball, because countless platters, dishes, and large basins lavishly piled high with things to eat were sitting around
on tables and the floor. Much of it was artistically arranged and surrounded by wobbly transparent aspic. I saw large quantities of meat—it smelled much too strong for my liking—and there was a breathtaking amount of confectionery in all shapes and sizes, plus an amazingly lifelike gilded figure of a swan.

“Hey, look, they even have to chill their table decorations,” I whispered.

Gideon made
me go on. “It’s not a table decoration; it’s a real swan. What they call a centerpiece,” he whispered back, but at almost the same moment, he jumped, and I’m afraid I have to admit that I let out a screech.

Because a figure was emerging from the shadows, right behind a cake with about nineteen layers and two dead nightingales on top of it, and was coming toward us in silence with a drawn sword.

It was Rakoczy, the count’s right-hand man, and he could have walked straight into a job in a haunted house with his dramatic appearances. He welcomed us in a husky voice and then whispered, “Follow me.”

As I tried to get over my fright, Gideon asked him impatiently, “Shouldn’t you have been here to meet us?”