by Emma Newman
It seems you have also impressed the Sorcerer, for he begged me to contact you and send the enclosed letter. I have not peeped, for to do so with a letter from a Sorcerer would be unwise indeed, so I cannot warn you or praise you for its contents. May it suffice to say the Sorcerer did seem to believe it was of the utmost importance that you receive it promptly and whilst alone.
I find it all rather thrilling, and trust that should I have occasion to visit Londinium, you will regale me with tales of intrigue and adventure, as long as it won’t damage your standing in society.
Needless to say, sweet niece, should you or your husband wish to return to Aquae Sulis at any time you will stay as my honoured guests.
With the greatest affection and eternal gratitude,
Your loving Uncle Lavandula
P.S. I’ve heard tell that some of the Rosas are evading capture by the Agency. Should that be true, you must take care, as I believe your husband is seen as the architect of their downfall (they never were fair nor reasonable).
P.P.S. Do not travel the Londinium Nether roads alone, under any circumstances.
P.P.P.S. Lemon is strictly out of fashion amongst the Londinium Ton, however I understand that honeyed shades of gold are most popular amongst the fashionable elite. Avoid ringlets and square-toed shoes. Ta ta!
It was the first letter Cathy had ever received from a member of her family that had made her smile and it was a strangely pleasant feeling. She laid it on the bed and opened the small envelope from the Sorcerer, half expecting it to emit a puff of smoke and creepy music. But it was just a small card and a piece of paper folded twice.
I will be available to speak to you at 7pm tomorrow evening. When alone and free to converse with me, unfold the enclosed piece of paper and press on an interior door, formulae against the wood. Until then, keep the paper folded and out of sight.
She turned it over to see if there was anything else, but it was blank. So her uncle had passed on a note from the Sorcerer. Was that a good or a bad thing? It certainly suggested a great deal of trust between the two of them, but then the Sorcerer had engineered his rescue, which counted for something. Cathy grinned. That solved one of her biggest problems: how to get in touch with him. She tucked the folded piece of paper into her bodice, slipping it between her corset and the dress so it didn’t touch her skin.
As she was opening the other letter, a fine smoke wafted up from the Sorcerer’s card and in seconds it had crumbled into ash. “Show-off,” she muttered and read Lucy’s letter.
Dear Catherine,
I hope you are well and settling in your new home. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the wedding day, I’m so sorry we didn’t have the opportunity to speak in private, so I thought I would write you instead.
I could see how hard it was for you and Tom was so upset when we got home. He misses you. I wanted you to know that I’m here for you, and to reassure you that married life can be better than you might think. The trick is to look for the best in him, and in doing that, he’ll find the best in you. This isn’t just Californian hokey, please believe me.
I would very much like to visit you as soon as you are receiving visitors—there’s so much for us to talk about. Let me know when it would be convenient. And I promise it will get easier.
With love,
Lucy x
Cathy laid it next to her uncle’s letter. Lucy was sweet but what on earth did they have to talk about? The only thing they had in common was being married off, and Lucy didn’t exactly share her feelings about that.
The door opened after a single knock and William came in with the bundle of letters still in his hand. She moved Lucy’s letter over the patch of ash.
“We’re having dinner at the Tulipas the night after tomorrow.” He held out the invitation.
She didn’t take it. “Who are they?”
“One of the most powerful families in Londinium. The man who has invited us is tipped to be the next Duke. No doubt there will be other important people there.”
“I’d prefer not to.”
William raised an eyebrow. “It wasn’t a request, Catherine, but a note for your diary.”
“I hate dinner parties.”
“Do you have something suitable to wear?”
“Didn’t you—”
He held up a hand. “Non-negotiable. We must attend as a couple, for goodness’ sake. It’s obvious.”
Cathy took a breath to argue, but where would it lead? “I’ll go if I can have tomorrow evening to myself.”
“There’s nothing planned for tomorrow,” he said irritably. “Though if you insist on negotiating every time an event comes up this simply won’t work.”
“My uncle tells me that lemon is strictly out of fashion,” she said with a sigh, knowing this wasn’t a fight to be won and looking back at the letter. “But ‘honeyed shades of gold’ are very popular. What’s that supposed to mean anyway? Honey isn’t a verb.”
William chuckled and she jumped at the unexpected noise. “It is if the Master of Ceremonies deems it to be so. That’s most useful, thank you.”
“It is? I thought it was drivel myself.”
William sighed and looked up as if hoping for divine intervention. “I’ll get a dressmaker onto it right away, shall I? Seeing as we have no one engaged here.”
“There’s no way they can make a dress in two days. Actually—” she held up her hands “—I don’t care. I’m sure your family has all kinds of clever ways to do stuff like that.”
“Indeed. Just don’t speak like that when we are in company, please,” William said. “And the chap from the Agency is waiting for you downstairs. Good grief, I feel like a butler, organising you like this.”
“You’d make a rubbish butler,” Cathy said, sweeping the letters off the bed in the hope that the worst of the ash would come with them. “They always bring tea with bad news.”
11
Cathy was shown to a sitting room in which two chairs and a table for tea had been placed. She wondered where the furniture had come from and whether she’d ever learn where all of the rooms were, before concluding that neither mattered in the grand scheme of things. If she had her way, she’d be gone before the house was fully decorated.
She had time to settle and smooth down her dress before the man from the Agency was shown in. She was struck by his lack of chin, giving his head the appearance of a partially inflated balloon held fast by his collar.
“Good morning, Mrs Reticulata-Iris.” He bowed with a gentle click of his heels. The dark-grey wool of his Edwardian-style suit matched his close-set eyes perfectly. “My name is Mr Bennet.”
“Good morning,” she said and realised he was waiting for an invitation to sit down. “Please take a seat. Would you like tea?”
“Yes, please.”
As he set down his briefcase Cathy felt like a child pretending to be her mother—something she’d never done in her actual childhood—making the experience all the more bizarre.
“On behalf of the Agency, may I offer our congratulations on your recent marriage, and welcome you to the fine city of Londinium.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I imagine you are extraordinarily busy, so I will endeavour to keep this as short and uncomplicated as possible.” He set the case on his lap, opened it and extracted a notebook and pen as the tea was brought in and served.
“There is a lot to do,” she said, taking the cup and saucer handed to her gratefully. “It’s not just recruiting staff, as you can see, most of the house needs to be redecorated and furniture bought.” Was that her talking? She was slipping into role. The tea and context were probably—hopefully—making her behave this way. She fidgeted, wondering whether she should say something desperately inappropriate, just to make sure she was still herself.
“I can help with all of these concerns, in fact, it is my pleasure and privilege to do so.” The more he talked, the less she liked him. Any minute he would rub his hands and give the oily
smile of a man thinking about money. “However, I suggest we begin with the staff. I understand that in addition to this, may I say, magnificent residence there are several anchor properties and their Nether reflections which pay a tithe to the estate, three carriages housed in outbuildings and a shortcut to stables owned in Bathurst Mews near Hyde Park.”
He knew more about the house than she did. A shortcut to mundane stables; that was something to note. Animals couldn’t cope with prolonged periods in the Nether. She’d be able to cut across town and into Mundanus with the easy excuse of seeing to a matter in the stables. It was better than her rudimentary plan of using the nursery wing to access Mundanus, which would have involved sneaking though the anchor property to get out. Her uncle’s warning about the Londinium Nether roads came back to mind; perhaps that was why the Rosas insisted on interconnecting their properties, to avoid the need to travel between them. Presumably the Iris cleaners had severed all those doorways. But where were Cornelius and Amelia being kept? Would the whereabouts of Will’s mistress qualify as an Iris secret? Cathy decided it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy Lord Poppy and, besides, there was still the tiniest chance that Will planned to be faithful.
“Ma’am?”
She blinked at him. “Sorry, I have a lot on my mind.”
He gave a weak smile. “I asked if you’ve brought any staff with you.”
“My husband brought his valet, that’s all.”
He made a note of that. “And do you have any plans to bring staff at a later point, or will the valet be the only one?”
“Just him,” she replied, wondering what the Sorcerer wanted. She had to remember to bargain hard; she might not get another chance to see him.
She focused back on Bennet. He was scribbling away at something and muttering a little as he did so. She sipped the tea and planned to write back to Lucy inviting her to visit. Being married into Albion Society, having been born in America, must be tough. Giving her sister-in-law a legitimate break from the social pressures of Aquae Sulis was the least she could do.
“I think that’s everything on the staff front.” Bennet finally looked up from his notes. “When would it be convenient for you to interview the candidates for the positions of steward, butler and housekeeper?”
Her mother would be pleased that her wayward daughter now had an estate large enough to merit more than just a head butler. “Haven’t we missed a bit out?” she asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t we need to discuss the other staff?”
“Generally our clients leave all the arrangements to us.” He closed the notebook. “There’s no need for you to concern yourself over the trifling details. Once you have chosen the right steward, butler and housekeeper for your household they will ensure the staff settle in and work according to your desires.”
Cathy set her cup down. Whilst she hated the thought of having to deal with running a household, she had to be careful that her family didn’t bribe the Agency to bring in staff to spy on her. Perhaps her family didn’t care about her now she was safely married off, but a bit of healthy paranoia wasn’t going to do any harm. “But I’m interested in the details.”
“It really isn’t—”
“Mr Bennet, I may be a new bride, but please, don’t make me feel like you’re trying to give me the brush-off.”
“Give you…? Of course not, madam, I simply assumed you’d like to make an appointment for our interior designer to visit and discuss your requirements.”
Cathy folded her arms and mustered a glare she’d learnt from her mother. “I want to know the details of the staff who will be sent to work in my house. It’s not an unreasonable request.”
He raised his eyebrows and looked down at the notebook, noisily sucking in a breath to convey his disapproval without openly offending her. “As you wish.” He flipped through the pages one by one until he came to the most recent. “For a household of this size and status, I calculate you’ll require just under one hundred servants in total, broken down into—”
“How on earth did you reach that number?”
Mr Bennet pursed his lips, making his non-chin recede even further. “Am I to understand you would like me to list every single one?”
“How about you just show me your workings-out?” She held out a hand for the notebook.
“This is highly irregular, I will contact you in writing and include a full list of staff to be sent.”
“Well, I’d prefer to know why we need so many before they arrive. That doesn’t seem irregular to me at all.”
Reluctantly he handed over the notebook. “I see the error,” she said as she scanned the list.
He coughed. “Error? I’ve been working in my capacity as procurement manager for over eighty years and I have never once made an error in my staff requirement calculations.”
“That makes today an interesting day for you then.” Cathy smiled at his discomfort. “You’ve assumed all of the bedrooms will be in use. Quite why fails me. Even if the small army of staff you propose were to live upstairs it would be less than half full.”
“But—”
“And you’ve calculated that we’ll be having huge banquets twice a week, which isn’t going to happen any time soon—we’ve just moved here. And I don’t see why we would have people assigned to clean the rental properties—surely the residents take care of that and we just maintain the building?” Living in Mundanus and paying attention to details to avoid scams that landlords and rental agencies employed to exploit students had prepared her surprisingly well. “I suggest we start with a basic assumption that, at any one time, somewhere between one and five per cent of the rooms need to be maintained for ready use. The rest can be left empty until needed. I can’t imagine us ever having enough guests to fill the house anyway. How ridiculous. I think that would take the entirety of Aquae Sulis Society and that’s never going to happen.”
“That is irrelevant,” Bennet flustered, “everyone will expect the house to be maintained as if it were full.”
“Everyone? Who?”
“Society. You wouldn’t wish them to think you were penny-pinching. Madam.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, I couldn’t care less what they think, and quite frankly it’s none of their business. So, based on a more realistic usage, that means instead of that absurd number of chambermaids and laundry staff, we’re likely to need this many.” She crossed out his number and replaced it with twenty-five. “That makes the salary bill too high, and that’s a crazy estimate for the cost of fuel and water…” After a few moments she handed it back to him and watched him pale.
“This is most irregular.” He slapped the notebook shut.
“That may be so, but I have more questions about how you break down the cost of the other expenses listed,” she said, amazed that this household management business was so much more satisfying than she’d ever imagined it could be. She pulled herself up, not wanting to be sucked totally into the role expected of her. No, the management wasn’t satisfying, it was the pleasure of catching Bennet out. The day she started to enjoy picking curtain fabric was one to be worried about, not this. “But first, perhaps you’d like more tea? And some cake too, I think. You are rather pale.”
As she poured, it occurred to Cathy that the Agency must have sent Miss Rainer to her parents’ household to be the governess. With a jolt she realised that she could find out where Miss Rainer was employed now and request that she be transferred to her household. A fantasy rolled out ahead of her, vivid and enthralling, of being able to debate and discuss books with her governess once more whilst they worked towards an escape. Then they could both flee to Mundanus and be free to pursue their own lives and ambitions and remain friends.
“Mr Bennet, I’d very much like to employ a member of staff formerly of my parents’ household. She was my governess, called Miss Rainer, but I don’t know where she’s working now. Could you find out for me?”
“Ah.” Bennet, having recovered his comp
osure, rested his notebook on his knees. “I took the liberty of looking up who your governess was before I came today. It’s a common request, you see, many clients like to have the same staff teach their own children.”
The look on his face made Cathy’s excitement curdle in her stomach. “Where is she now?”
“I’m afraid Miss Rainer passed away a couple of years ago.”
“How? She was young and healthy!”
Bennet cleared his throat. “I understand it was a complaint of the heart and there was no suffering. I am sorry. There are other excellent governesses who can be sent when you require one.”
He accepted his cup of tea as Cathy struggled to take it in. Miss Rainer died whilst she was at Cambridge. She never had the chance to tell her that she’d managed to break away and live a new life in Manchester, let alone give her freedom too.
A memory of a lesson about Aphra Behn returned with sudden brightness. “This is what Virginia Woolf wrote about her,” Miss Rainer had said as words appeared beneath the graceful turn of her fountain pen. With a smile she slid the small piece of paper across the table, like a conspirator sending a secret message.
Cathy, fifteen at the time, picked it up and read it aloud. “‘All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.’”
Even now Cathy could remember that glint in Miss Rainer’s eyes as Cathy returned her smile. “Have you done that, Miss Rainer?”
“Oh, yes,” her tutor replied. “And you will too. She has a gravestone in the east cloister of Westminster Abbey. It’s easy to find.”
And Cathy did. The first day she went into London to sneak to the Emporium and start work for the Shopkeeper, Cathy went to Westminster Abbey with a posy of sweet peas and laid them on Aphra Behn’s gravestone next to a bundle of tulips tied with blue ribbon. The fact there was someone else in Mundanus who felt moved to do the same made Cathy’s chest swell with happiness.