Phoenix and Ashes (50 page)

July 15, 1917
Broom, Warwickshire

SUNSHINE AND FRESH
AIR FLOODED the kitchen, and The Arrows was very peaceful without the Robinsons
and Howse present. So peaceful, that Eleanor wondered what it would be like to
live here like this forever—if somehow, the Robinsons would just never
return.

“I’ve
thought and I’ve reasoned, and I’ve looked,” Sarah said
aloud, startling Eleanor as she concentrated on a particularly obtuse paragraph
about the Hanged Man card. “And much as I hate to admit that I’m
wrong—well, I’m wrong.”

Eleanor
blinked, and stared at her mentor. Sarah was sitting cross-legged on the floor
of the kitchen, staring down at a pile of stones with markings on them.
Rune-stones
,
she called them, and she used them not only to try and give her some direction
for the future, but to try and learn what was going on around her that might be
hidden from her. If, for instance, someone was sick enough that he needed to
see the medical doctor and not just depend on her herbal remedies. There were
many country folk who still were suspicious of the doctor and veterinarian, and
sometimes it took Sarah a deal of convincing to get them to go to either
gentleman.

“Wrong
about what?” Eleanor asked. It took a lot to get Sarah to admit she was
wrong about
anything
. She was dreadfully stubborn that way.

Then
again, she had every right to be.

“I’ve
always said that the big house and the village haven’t got much of
anything to say to each other,” Sarah replied sourly, still staring down
at her stones. “Still, I knew it was an Air Master that chased off the
revenants; I knew it couldn’t be a local witch, no matter how powerful,
when you told me about it, and I was right. It turns out she’s a guest up
there at Longacre, though, and it seems that she’s staying the summer.
And that changes everything.”

“An
Air Master?” Eleanor said, catching her breath. Oh, granted, it
wasn’t her Element, but
any
Master could help her—

More
to the point, unlike, say, a constable or any other authority figure, any
Elemental Master would know she was telling the truth about Alison and what
Alison had done to her. She wouldn’t have to try and convince an
Elemental Master that she wasn’t mad because she was talking about magic.

“That’s
what we’ve needed, what you’ve needed, to see if you can’t
get cut free of your stepmother and her wicked magic. And now, I’ve asked
the cards, the bones, and the stones, and they’re
all
saying you
need to go up there and meet with that Air Master. In fact, they say if you
don’t, well—” she shook her head. “It’ll be bad,
that’s all. Not just bad for you, either. The stones reckon
Alison’s got some wicked mischief going that’s going to be a
trouble no matter what steps are taken to stop her, but horrible bad if she
isn’t stopped.” Sarah looked up, her face full of fear. “I
can’t tell what it is, but at a guess, she’s let loose some kind of
sickness; she’s Earth, and that’s the sort of thing they do when
they go to the bad. Pestilence and plague.” Sarah bit her lip.
“Well, the stones say that if you work with that Air Master and get
yourself cut free, Alison will fall, but if you don’t, she’ll use
you somehow and put more power into whatever it is she’s done, and the
stones don’t say how
much
worse it will be, but they’re
all showing their bad sides.”

She
felt as if hope and fear were at war inside her. Hope, because here was exactly
what she needed. Fear, because how could she ever
get
what she needed
with Alison’s hearth-binding still holding her? “But—I
can’t get as far as Longacre,” she protested. “And even if I
could, I can’t just stroll up to even the tradesman’s entrance and
ask to be introduced to the Air Master!” Even if she knew the Air
Master’s real name. Especially not looking like a servant. She knew
better than to go to the front door—she’d be turned away in a
heartbeat.

“Well,
now, that’s not necessarily true… because you only need to get
inside those walls
once
and talk to her. After that, if she’s
worth anything, and the stones say she is, she’ll come to you.”
Sarah gathered up the stones and poured them into a little leather bag.
“And there
is
one night, coming up, when you can walk in the
front door and be presented like you were to the manor born. Provided
you’re wearing a fancy dress.” She tilted her head to one side.
“Think about it. The night of that fancy dress ball. If your stepsisters
are good enough to be invited, you surely are as well.”

Eleanor’s
hand flew to her mouth. “Good gad!” she cried. “You’re
right, you’re exactly right! But—” As quickly as her hopes
rose, they dropped again. “Where am I going to get an invitation? Or a
costume? Especially one that will look as if it belongs among people like
that?”

“Ah,
now, what about that attic of yours?” Sarah replied, with a lift of her
brow. “I think we ought to take a look up there, first, before we think
about any other possibilities. As for the invitation, you leave that up to me.
I’ll find a way to get you invited.”

Eleanor
wanted to protest that she’d been through all of the chests and had
salvaged the only usable garments up there, but Sarah was already on her feet
and marching towards the steps. With a sigh of resignation, Eleanor followed.

It
was easier to move the chests with two of them, but it was rather disheartening
to see what the moths and time had done to some of the once-beautiful gowns
that had been inside them. Silk shattered and tore like wet tissue as they
lifted gowns out; the satins had mostly discolored, beadwork fell off the
bodices. But just as Eleanor turned away, even though there were older chests
and clothes-presses waiting, certain that they had completely eliminated any
possibility of finding anything, Sarah let out an exclamation of satisfaction.

“What?”
Eleanor blurted, turning back.

Sarah
held up a froth of flounces and lace. “I knew there should be one of
these still good!” she exclaimed with satisfaction. “It’s
still a tale in the village, how the three girls from Broom went up to London
and were the belles of the ball. The fellow who owned The Arrows before your
father bought it was just as well-off; the wool-trade, d’ye see, that and
The Arrows had been in his family since Great Harry’s day. This is a
ball-gown from the time of Victoria’s coronation; all three of the
daughters here went down to London on account of some aunt married a title got
them all manner of invitations. She got them into all the right circles and
chaperoned them about for three weeks. It must have worked, since two of them
got husbands out of the journey, and but the third never could settle on
anyone, and ended up back here, taking care of her parents when they got old.
That’s who your father bought the house of, the daughter who never
married.”

Curious
now, Eleanor made her way back to where Sarah was unpacking the petticoats that
went with the gown. They, remarkably, were also still sound. The gown was
stupefying to one used to the current narrow skirts and minimal (or in
Eleanor’s case, nonexistent) corseting. She couldn’t imagine how
much Venice lace had gone into trimming the row after row of flounces on the
skirt. Twenty yards? Thirty? The neckline was low enough to make her blush; the
puffy little flounced sleeves were as tiny as the skirt was huge. It was made
of some sort of flounces of netting or gauzy stuff in a dark ivory tone over a
slightly heavier skirt. Maybe it had once been pure white, and had aged to this
color, but if so, it had done so uniformly.

“You’ll
look a rare treat,” Sarah said, giving the gown a good shake. “This
is Indian cotton, from back in the day when it was dearer than silk.”

“I’ll
look a rare Guy—” Eleanor retorted. But she reached out to touch
the delicate lace, anyway, wondering wistfully if she really could fit into it.

A
moment later, she found out, at Sarah’s insistence. She was surprised to
find that it fit her very well indeed.

“A
good thing that they didn’t reckon young girls should wear much but
flowers or feathers, back in the day,” Sarah said, looking very pleased.
“ ‘Cause how I should manage jewels, I haven’t a clue. We’ll
say you’re little Princess Victoria herself. Here, I’ve got a nice
rose-colored sash off that silk that went to bits, that’ll take the place
of the old one that’s gone, a bit of cleaning, some flowers and a
domino-mask—you leave it to me. Put your hair up, and a bit of glamourie,
even Alison won’t recognize you.”

Eleanor
looked down at herself, feeling a thrill of excitement. And it wasn’t
because she would finally find a possible mentor, or because this might be the
chance to plead her case to an Elemental Master. No, there was only one thought
in her head at the moment.

Reggie
will be there. And he’ll see me like this—not shabby
.

“But
how am I going to get there?” she asked, as it occurred to her that
trying to walk up to Longacre in that dress was going to be an impossible
proposition.

“I’ll
borrow a cart and horse and put a glamorie on them, too,” Sarah said
dismissively. “Make them look like a carriage. Wouldn’t pass in
daylight, but this will be after dark. I’ll be your coachman, I’ll
hand you out, so nobody gets close enough to see through the glamorie.”

“But—I
still
can’t get as far as the manor!” she objected weakly.
“Alison’s bindings—I’ve tried stretching them, and they
still only go as far as the meadow.”

“You
will be able to. Alison will have her hands full with her girls. She’ll
be trying to hide her nature from that Air Master, you can count on it.
She’ll be distracted by the ball. For an hour or two, and working
together, we’ll be able to stretch those bindings just far enough that
night.” Sarah sounded quite sure of herself, and Eleanor just gave in.

She
had to be right. This was Eleanor’s only chance to get some outside help.

She
wanted to see Reggie, even if he didn’t recognize her. Maybe
because
he wouldn’t recognize her. Just once, she wanted to talk to him, and see
him look at her the way he would look at any other girl that was his social
equal.

She
wanted—a memory. No matter what happened to her after that night, she
wanted to have a memory of being a princess at a ball, dancing with a handsome
knight, and allow herself to be just that little bit in love with him.

“You’re
right,” she said, with a nod. “If we don’t seize this
opportunity, there may never be another one; we
have
to make it work.”

July 11, 1917
London

Thanks to her
friendship with Lady Devlin, the Savoy had put the Robinsons up in a better
suite than usual; the girls didn’t even have to share a room, which made
for a little more peace and quiet. It certainly impressed Warrick Locke when he
arrived on Alison’s summons.

Alison
saw no need to trouble herself with secrecy today; what could be more natural
than a meeting with her solicitor since they both “happened” to be
in London? The girls were at fittings for their costumes; nothing could be more
respectable than having him come to her hotel suite in broad daylight with a
briefcase full of papers. Howse was right in the next room, though she could
have been in this one, if Alison had wished, and neither seen nor heard
anything but her book. It had taken more than a year, but now Howse was nicely
obedient to Alison’s will and directions, yet still had enough freedom of
thought that she performed all of her duties properly.

Just
for the sake of verisimilitude, Locke had a stack of papers on the table. The
fact that none of those papers concerned
her
was something no one else
would ever find out. Some of them, however, concerned Eleanor, who was the
central topic of their conversation. Eleanor was a loose end that Alison very
much wanted tidied up before there was a wedding in the offing. It would be
harder to dispose of her quietly when one was connected to the Fenyxes of
Longacre Park.

But
Locke still had no better plan than the old one, even though he’d had
weeks to think of alternatives. Alison was extremely disappointed in him;
normally he was full of ideas, but he seemed terribly fixated on this one.
Perhaps it was because of his own personal obsessions, but if that was indeed
the case, the sooner he got them under control, the better.

“I
tell you, Warrick, no matter how much you like your plan to break that wretched
girl’s mind, it is too complicated,” Alison objected.
“What’s more, it relies too much on that man of yours, as well as
bringing in possible confederates. I know you trust him, but every time you add
a person to a plan you double the chances of something being said or done at
the wrong time and either ruining the whole thing or giving the plan away. Or
worse still, you’ve added the danger of having your confederate decide to
betray you.”

Warrick
Locke frowned. “Robbie has been working with me for a very long time now.
Frankly, if you are concerned about him doing something other than what he has
been ordered to do, I can tell you that in all the time that I have known him, he
has never once had an original idea for himself.”

“It’s
too complicated a plan,” Alison countered, throttling down her rising
irritation with him. “There are too many things that can go wrong,
including
that the wretched child just might be tougher-minded than you think. The closer
I come to reaching my goals, the less I like complicated plans. I find that the
more I have to lose, the less inclined I am to take chances on something that
might
work. And the whole house of cards you wish to construct has far too many
points of possible failure for my comfort.”