Sorcery & Cecelia: Or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot (6 page)

The Marquis glanced from me to Oliver and said, almost too solicitously, “Are you feeling quite well, Mr. Rushton?”

“Oh—quite well, thank you,” replied Oliver, coloring up. “Only—I was admiring the way you tie your cravat. What do you call that fashion?”

The Marquis regarded Oliver with bland composure. “I call it ‘the way I tie my cravat.’ ”

Already blushing fiercely, Oliver began a soft, incoherent gobble of apology.

The Marquis took his leave of us with automatic civility and crossed the bridge, leaving me with divided emotions. On the one hand, he was shockingly rude to Oliver. On the other, I have often been shockingly rude to Oliver myself, and I understand the impulse. Certainly I have been bored time out of mind by his discourses on hair
à la Brutus, à la Sappho,
and
à la Penthesilee,
and on neckcloths twisted in styles called the Waterfall, the Corinthian, and the Nonsuch. Often he has corrected me with great severity when I got the names wrong. But pleased as I am that the Marquis seems to have no more patience for such fripperies than I, it was wrong of him to make his feelings so plain. Still, I imagine that when a man is born to a title, it is only to be expected that he assumes lesser folks’ feelings to be of little importance in comparison to his own.

Then, two nights ago, I went in to dinner at Lady Muker’s with Michael Aubrey and George and Alice Grenville. When we were seated, I glanced up to see that the Marquis was across the table from me. He saw me see him and gave me a brilliant smile, which caused Lady Muker to nudge Lady Grenville and lift her eyebrows. I gave the Marquis an awkward little nod of recognition and fixed my attention on the lobster bisque and George Grenville’s conversation.

George was telling me about a particularly interesting horse race he happened to see in Derbyshire once. During the final furlongs my mind wandered and I glanced up. The Marquis was attending to the conversation of Mrs. Talbot, the lady to his right, and so presented only his profile to me. As George crossed the finish line, I allowed myself to study that profile.

It is curious how the least amiable people are sometimes the most interesting in appearance. The odious Marquis has regular enough features, but his appearance is set quite out of the common way by two things. First, his nose, which is not disfiguringly large, but aquiline, giving him the look of an Italian despot on one of the Renaissance coins your Papa showed us last year. Second, his eyes, which are dark and bright and altogether too knowing. But don’t think I was staring at him. I promise you I was taking my soup in a perfectly unexceptionable way when he glanced up at me and gave me another brilliant smile. I nodded again, even more awkwardly, and devoted myself to soup and steeplechasing until the soup plates were removed.

I think his thanks to me were in the nature of a warning, but I would give a great deal to know how he learned so precisely what passed in that very odd garden and whether, should I go back to the hall, I would find that little door again.

James Tarleton’s behavior is wretched, of course, but I’m sure you’ll keep a close watch on him at the maze. There is something particularly infuriating about seeing a man behave rudely out of spite and a desire to amuse himself.

Please tell me if Dorothea’s mother can possibly be the white-haired lady the Marquis referred to as Miranda. If I had her for a mother, I would burst into tears, too. Despite the hair, which she could not wear powdered without attracting a great deal of remark, she ought to be recognizable, if only for those eyes, the blackest, coldest, hardest eyes I’ve ever beheld. And if it should be the same Miranda, Cecelia,
beware.
More than ever, I find I wish you were here in London, if only to prevent you from meeting that woman. Or that I were home in Rushton, where things never used to be so lively unless we made them so ourselves.

It is curious you should have remembered that Hollydean boy. He is seventeen now and just as horrid as ever. We met him at tea at Lady Haseltine’s. He’s been sent down from university already (something to do with gaming debts), and now he and his dreadful tutor, Mr. Strangle, are on the Town, at least to the extent of coming to tea at the most unlikely houses. I was seated between them and had to listen to them in counterpoint, prosing on in a very boastful manner about the Grand Tour of the continent they mean to make one day when they find a ship fine enough to meet their exacting standards. Mr. Strangle is as tall as the Reverend Fitzwilliam and about half as wide. He kept leaning across me to see what sandwiches were left on the plate, and pressing his bony knee against my skirt. Really, he is just the sort of tutor one would expect Frederick Hollydean to have. (And if Frederick construes one more Latin tag for me, breathing crumbs into my ear as he does so, I shall bite him myself.
Dear
Canniba.)

As ever,

Kate

P.S.
I’ve just remembered. Didn’t Mrs. Foley (the gamekeeper’s wife) sew a charm-bag for Martin De Lacey when he was afraid he had yellow fever and wouldn’t be able to ride in his first hunt? Of course, it turned out to be chicken pox instead, but maybe she’d know about things???

P.P.S.
Who do you suppose was leaving Lady Haseltine’s just as we arrived? Sir Hilary Bedrick, who sends his best regards to Aunt Elizabeth and your Papa. Investiture in the Royal College of Wizards is attended by a mighty social schedule, so his time in London is much taken up. But he was perfectly charming to us and regretted he had not time to pay a call upon “such near neighbors” as we have been. Sometimes London has the feel of a very small town indeed.

8 May 1817

Rushton Manor, Essex

Dearest Kate,

If you found
my
letter disturbing, only think how I felt about yours! I had not considered that your Miranda and Dorothea’s mother might be the same woman—your Miranda does not sound at all like a Mrs. Griscomb, or even like a Lady Griscomb. But then, I suppose people do not have to look like their names. Also, I
cannot
be easy in my mind about Oliver, despite the fact that, from his behavior with the odious Marquis, I conclude that the charm-bag I found in his bed has not had the slightest effect on him.

I did manage to talk to Mrs. Foley about charm-bags, in a very general sort of way. She was not much help, as she seems to have the impression that I was interested in making up a love charm to retrieve one of the boys who has fallen under Dorothea’s spell. (As if I would! Robert Penwood is the only one who is worth a farthing, and frankly I think he would be far better suited with Dorothea than with me. If, of course, he were thinking of being suited, which I doubt.) Anyway, she gave me a good deal of advice on making up a love charm, and even mentioned that some of the “great folk” have written books about such things. That gave me a perfectly splendid idea, so I thanked her very kindly indeed and went home to cogitate.

By yesterday morning, I had worked out all the necessary details, for you must know, Kate, that yesterday was Robert Penwood’s excursion to Bedrick Hall. The weather was quite perfect, sunny and a little cool, which gave me the excuse to wear the shawl Aunt Charlotte gave me for my last birthday, the one with the pockets on the inside. It is, of course, blue, and so I had to wear one of the walking-dresses of Georgy’s that Aunt Elizabeth had made over for me when she was having that fit of economy last fall. I did not look anything like my best, but it was in a good cause, and besides, I was quite sure that all eyes would be on Dorothea rather than me.

Imagine my chagrin, therefore, when we arrived at Bedrick Hall to discover that James Tarleton had accepted Robert’s invitation after all, and was to make up one of the party! I suppose he felt that it would be easier to spy on us from inside the group, so to speak. It was the outside of enough! Not only was I going to have to deal with a thoroughly unprincipled, spying man, but I was going to have to do so knowing that I looked a complete dowd.

To make matters worse, it was Mr. Tarleton who handed me down from the carriage. He studied me the way Cook studies the joints the butcher sends, and I was quite sure that he could tell that my gown was made-over (and last season’s style into the bargain!). I found it most uncomfortable, and I did not even have the consolation of a properly cutting remark, for as I had not expected to see him, I had not thought anything out in advance. Next time, I promise you, Kate, I will not be so caught out.

I moved away from him as quickly as I could and paid my respects to Lady Tarleton. Then I went over to Dorothea, who did not look at all happy. I asked her what the matter was, and she whispered, “Mama is coming for me tomorrow! And, oh, Cecy, I do not want to go to London!”

“Not want to go to London!” I said in astonishment. “But I thought you told Lady Tarleton that you were anxious for your Season!”

“That was when Lady Tarleton was to bring me out, and I thought you would go with me,” Dorothea said sadly. “But now I shall be in London all alone.”

“Don’t be a peagoose,” I said. “The whole point of a Season in London is that one
cannot
be all alone.”

“You know what I mean!” Dorothea said. She was practically in tears. “I don’t know anyone in London!”

“You’ll meet people soon enough,” I said, and I forebore to add that with her looks she could hardly help it.

“You don’t understand about Mama,” Dorothea said.

We had walked a little away from the others, so I whisked her around the corner of the main house and found a bench. “All right, then, sit down and explain to me,” I said.

“Oh, I couldn’t!” Dorothea said, and turned quite white. “She’d find out.”

“How?” I said, “
I
certainly won’t tell her.”

But all Dorothea would say was that her Mama is horrid and hateful. Apparently she is determined that Dorothea will marry some specific but unnamed peer (whom Dorothea paints as a cold-blooded ogre). Dorothea appears to think that there is some sinister scheme behind this determination and that her Mama will call on a variety of unprincipled friends to assist in achieving her ends. I suspect that she thinks this solely because she has formed a
tendre
for someone else, but the whole conversation was so dreadfully confused that I could not be sure of anything. Finally, I told her to call on you when she reaches London (assuming, of course, that her Mama really will carry her off without any notice at all, as Dorothea appears to fear).

We were interrupted by Robert Penwood, come to collect us to begin the tour, and for the next hour or so we all made polite comments about the beauty of the gardens, the wonderful views, etc. James Tarleton behaved with excruciating correctness in spite of the insipid conversation, which I am sure must have bored him to tears. I think boredom only his due for foisting himself on us as he did.

Finally we reached the part of the tour I had been waiting for—the maze. Aunt Elizabeth and Lady Tarleton begged off, but the rest of us went cheerfully in, and in a very short time we were all lost among the hedges. I let the others get ahead of me, and as soon as they were out of sight I headed straight for the shortcut. (You remember, the little gap in the far corner that we always used to use to beat Jack Everslee to the center of the maze.) It was still there, and I used it to get out of the maze instead of going farther in.

So in no time at all I was standing at the far side of Sir Hilary’s maze, free to do as I pleased for at least an hour before anyone would come looking for me. I went up to the house at once (being careful to keep the hedges between me and the place where we had left Aunt Elizabeth and Lady Tarleton), and blushingly explained to the footman who answered the door that I would like to use the necessary. He was quite taken aback, poor man (I don’t think it had ever occurred to him that Young Ladies of Quality ever needed such plebeian artifacts). He called the housekeeper, a Mrs. Porter, who conducted me to the proper place. She was a motherly type who was quite receptive to my suggestion that a glass of lemonade would be more than welcome, after running about the gardens in the heat all day.

The point of this whole charade was, of course, to be left alone in Sir Hilary’s library. Mrs. Porter eventually did so, whereupon I made a rapid survey of Sir Hilary’s books, looking for something that appeared to have information on charm-bags. At first, I was a bit daunted by the sheer number of volumes; I had no notion that a wizard was required to do so very much reading! I soon realized, however, that most of the books were the ordinary sort that one would find in any well-kept library, and after a brief search I discovered the section I wanted. I was quite prepared to take several, if need be (the pockets in that shawl are quite spacious), but I discovered a slim red book titled
The Theory and Practice of Charms: Being an Inquiry into the Making of Bags, Boxes, and the Like by Country Witches and Their Ilk.
I tucked it into my shawl and was about to take the book beside it when I heard someone at the door. I straightened hastily, thinking it was Mrs. Porter with my lemonade, and turned to say something innocuous about the number of books Sir Hilary has.

It was, of course, not Mrs. Porter at all, but James Tarleton, who ought to have been safely lost in the maze with Robert, Dorothea, Patience, and Jack. “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

“I believe I am the one who should ask you that,” Mr. Tarleton said. His eyes were very hard and suspicious, and he looked exceedingly angry.

“That is none of your affair,” I said.

“Indeed.” He strolled over to the bookcase and began studying the section I had been looking at. I backed away as he came forward, not wanting to stand at all close to him. I was very glad I had done so, for he took one look at the books and turned to me, looking more thunderous than ever. “Just what is your game, young woman?”

“I do not have the slightest idea what you are talking about,” I said with dignity.

“No? You take up with Dorothea Griscomb the moment she arrives, aid and abet her in all her schemes, and you expect me to believe you do it simply because she reminds you of some cousin of yours?”