The Gates of Sleep em-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  But she was too tired to sustain an emotion like resentment for long, and anyway, she could be over-reacting to what was, after all, a kindly gesture.

  “Excellent,” was all she said, instead. “The more of my personal energies I can conserve, the longer I can spend on Ellen.”

  By this time, they had reached, not the front door, but the kitchen. “This way to the stables is shorter,” he said, hesitating on the threshold, as a red-cheeked woman bustled about a modern iron range set into a shockingly huge fireplace (what age was this part of the house? Tudor? It was big enough to roast the proverbial ox!) at the far end of the room, completely oblivious to anything but the food she was preparing for luncheon. “If you don’t mind—”

  “After all my railing on the foolishness of Madam’s society manners?” she retorted.

  He actually laughed. “Well struck,” was all he said, and escorted her across the expanse of spotless tile—the growling of her stomach at a whiff of something wonderful and meaty fortunately being swallowed up in the general clamor of pots, pans, and orders to the two kitchen-maids. Then they were out in the cold, crisp air and the stable was just in front of them.

  It turned out to be a good thing that Dr. Pike had escorted her when they reached the stall where she’d put Beau, she was feeling so faint with hunger and weariness that her fingers would have fumbled the bridle-buckles, and she would never have been able to lift the sidesaddle onto the gelding’s back. But he managed both without being asked, and then, without a word, put both hands around her waist and lifted her into place!

  She gaped down at him, once she’d hooked her leg over the horn and gotten her foot into the stirrup. He grinned back up at her. “I’m stronger than I appear,” he said.

  “I—should think so!” she managed.

  His grin broadened. “I’m glad to have surprised you for a change,” he told her, with a suspiciously merry look in his eyes. “Now, you’re near-perishing with hunger, so the sooner you can get back to Oakhurst, the better. I’ll look forward to seeing you at the vicarage; if not on Wednesday, then you’ll get an invitation from the vicar for something. Fair enough?”

  “Perfect,” she said, feeling that it was a great deal more than excellent. If the man was maddening, at least he was quickly learning not to assume too much about her! And she had the sense that he could be excellent company, when he chose. She finished arranging her skirts, and tapped Beau with her heel. “I’ll be looking forward to it, Doctor!” she called, as he moved out at a fast walk, evidently as ready for his own stable and manger full of hay as she was for her luncheon.

  “So will I!” she heard with pleasure, as she passed out of the yard and onto the drive. “That, I promise you!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  MARINA had thought that she could predict what Arachne was likely to say or do, but Madam was still able to surprise her. “I have ordered more riding habits for you,” Madam said over breakfast, the day after she and Reggie returned on the afternoon train.

  A telegraph to the house had warned of their coming yesterday morning, and gave orders to send the coach to the station, giving the entire household plenty of time to prepare for their return. Which was, sadly, before supper, so Marina had needed to go to the cook and ask her to prepare Madam’s usual supper. And she appeared at that meal dressed, trussed up, coiffed, and entirely up to Madam’s standards. But she had eaten supper alone; Madam had gone straight to her room and did not emerge that evening.

  She was summoned to a formal breakfast, though, and steeled herself for rebuke as she entered the dining room. Madam, however, was in a curious mood. She had a sated, yet unsatisfied air about her, The moment that Madam opened her mouth to speak, Marina had cringed, expecting a rebuke.

  Instead—just a comment. A gift, in fact! Marina wasn’t certain whether to thank Arachne or not, though.

  She decided to opt for muted appreciation.

  “Thank you, Madam,” she murmured.

  Arachne nodded, and made a vague, waving motion with on hand. She spoke very little after that initial statement; Reggie not at all, until finally Marina herself decided to break the silence.

  “I hope that you put things to rights in Exeter, Madam?” she said, tentatively. “I am sure that you and my cousin are able to cope with any difficulties.”

  Reggie smirked. Madam, however, turned her head and gave her a measuring look. “I believe that we have set things in order” she said, “And I trust you have kept yourself in good order as well.”

  “In absence of tasks, Madam, I went riding, for it is marvelous good exercise, and healthy,” she replied demurely. “And I read. Poetry, for the most part.”

  “Browning?” Reggie asked, between forkfuls of egg and grilled sausages. “Keats?”

  “Donne,” she replied demurely.

  “Mary Anne informed me of your rides,” Madam said. “And I fear that you will soon look shabby in the same habit day after day. This is why I have ordered more, and I believe we will try some different cuts. Perhaps Mrs. Langtry can become famous and admired for wearing the same dress over and over again, but I believe no one else could.”

  “Mrs. Langtry is a noted beauty, Madam. I should not presume to think that I could follow her example.” She applied herself to her breakfast plate, grateful that there was very little that Madam’s orders could do to ruin breakfast foods—and that, by its nature, breakfast was a meal in which there were no courses as such to be removed. So with Peter attentively—but quietly—seeing to her plate, she was actually enjoying her meal.

  Except for the tea, which was, as always with Madam, scarcely more than colored water.

  “I understand that you are planning to visit the vicar this afternoon? Something about a Bible-study class?” Madam continued, with a slight, but very superior, smile. “You must take care that you are not labeled as a bluestocking.”

  “There can be nothing improper about taking comfort in religion,” Marina retorted, hoping to sound just the tiniest bit stuffy and offended. Reggie thought she wasn’t looking, and rolled his eyes. Madam’s mouth twitched slightly.

  “Not at all, my dear.” Madam chided. “It may not be improper, but it is—” she hesitated “—boring.”

  “And of course, one shouldn’t be boring,” Reggie said solemnly, though there was no doubt in Marina’s mind that he was laughing at her behind his mask. “I’m afraid it is an unpardonable social crime.”

  “Oh.” She did her best to appear chastened, and noted the satisfaction on both their faces. “Then I shan’t mention it to anyone. It won’t matter in the village.”

  “The village matters very little,” Madam pronounced. “But I believe your time would be better spent in some other pursuit.”

  Marina contrived a mulish expression, and Arachne sighed. Reggie didn’t even bother to hide his amusement.

  “You’re going to turn into a laughingstock, cuz,” he said. “People will snicker at you behind your back, call you ‘the little nun’ and never invite you to parties. Turn it into a Shakespeare class instead—or a poetry society. Try and instill some culture into these bumpkins. People might think you’re mad, but at least they won’t call you a bore.”

  She set her chin to look as stubborn as possible. “Perhaps I shall,” she said.

  Reggie laughed. Madam hid a smile.

  Marina had to pretend to be very interested in her plate in order to hide her own triumph. Madam hadn’t forbidden her to go to this “Bible study class” and that was all that was important. Let Reggie laugh at her; the more that he thought she was a bore, the less time he’d spend with her.

  “No riding off this morning, though, cuz,” Reggie reminded her, Wagging a finger at her. “Dancing lessons. You’re shockingly behind. You might be invited to parties even if you’re a bluestocking as long as you can dance.”

  She escaped with a sigh of gratitude after luncheon, and claimed Beau.

  The closer she got to the village, the lighter her heart beca
me. When she was within sight of the vicarage, she felt—

  Almost normal. Being dragged away from Blackbird Cottage hadn’t been the end of the world. Madam was a tyrant—and a terrible snob—but there were advantages to being under her care.

  The wardrobe, for one. She had never had so many fashionable gowns. Granted, they were all in black, but still—and being all in black, it would be a fine excuse next year, when her year of deep mourning was over, to order another entire wardrobe!

  Then there were the half-promises of going to London. The theater—the music—and the amusements of society. The things she had read about in the social pages of the Times and wished she could attend them herself.

  And there was the matter of a coming-out ball. She would never have had a coming-out ball with Margherita—for one thing, their village wasn’t exactly the sort of place where one held coming-out parties, and for another, the Tarrants weren’t the sort of people who held them. But given Madam’s near-worship of society, there was no way that the Chambertens would not hold a coming-out ball for their ward. If they didn’t, it would look very strange indeed. They would probably put it off until next year, rather than this, because of her mourning, but she would need that long to get used to all of the clothing and the manners, not to mention learning the dances.

  A coming-out ball! Just like all the ones she had read about! The prospect was almost enough to make up for everything else.

  As for the everything else—things were by far and away not as wretched as they had first seemed. Now that she had a safe place away from Oakhurst where she could work magic, she could send a message to Elizabeth and to Sebastian, Margherita, and Thomas. She didn’t need a stamp; all she needed was time and energy.

  Now that she knew that she could contact them, the frantic feeling the fear that she’d been completely uprooted, was fading. This was more like—well, rather like being away at school, with a horribly strict headmistress. And the same wretched food that all the books like Jane Eyre described! But there were none of the other privations, and if Jane could survive her school, surely Marina could sort this experience out without immediate help.

  Besides, I’ve been here for weeks now, and there hasn’t been a single Undine or Sylph that has tried to speak to me—so they must be certain I’m all right. Even if the others couldn’t raise Air or Water Elementals to send to her, Elizabeth certainly could. Perhaps they had scryed, discovered she was all right, and decided to wait for her to contact them.

  But what if they hadn’t? What if they thought she had forgotten them once she had some inkling of the social position she held, the wealth she would eventually command? What if they thought she was ashamed of them? Madam seemed to think she should be, after all—

  —perhaps I can ask the doctor or the vicar to help me. After all, once I make them understand my situation, we could use letters, as I planned. They can send me postage. Oh, what a ridiculous position she was in! A wardrobe worth hundreds of pounds, and she hadn’t a penny for a stamp! Looking forward to a coming-out ball, yet so strictly confined she might as well be in a convent!

  Riding about on the back of a high-bred hunter, and knowing that if I took him farther than the village, I’d be so close-confined that a convent would be preferable.

  She shook the mood off; there was work to be done.

  There would be no leaving Beau tied up at the gate today, not since she was planning on spending at least two hours working on Ellen. Instead, she brought him around to the rear of the vicarage where there was a little shed that held the moor pony that the vicar hitched to a cart to do his errands. There was a second stall with just enough space in there for Beau as well, although she had to take his tack off him outside, since there wasn’t enough room for her in the stall too. Beau gave her an incredulous look as she led him in, as if to object. Strongly. She couldn’t understand animals the way Uncle Thomas could, but she could almost hear him speaking. “You intend for me to lodge here? Me? A hunter of impeccable bloodline? Next to that?”

  “Don’t be as much of a snob as Madam,” she told him severely.

  He heaved a huge sigh, and suffered himself to be led into the stall and offered hay. It was perfectly good hay, as good as he’d get in his own stall at Oakhurst, but he sniffed it with deep suspicion.

  “Now don’t be tiresome,” she scolded, and shut the half-door on him. “If you can’t learn to enjoy the company of ordinary folk, I leave you to the Odious Reggie’s good graces from now on, and we’ll see whom you prefer!”

  She left him sighing over his hay, and went around to the front of the vicarage to tap on the door.

  To her immense surprise, it was Dr. Pike who opened the door of the vicarage at her second knock. “Good gad!” she blurted. “What are you doing here?”

  He laughed, looking much more amiable than he had at the sanitarium, and held the door open. “That’s a fine greeting! Where else should I be but here at the appointed time?”

  She blushed, then got annoyed with herself. Who was this fellow, that he made the color rise in her cheeks so often? But it was a rude thing to say.

  I really have to be more careful. Having to curb my tongue around Madam is making things break out when I’m around anyone else.

  She apologized immediately. “I beg your pardon—I’m always just bleating out whatever is in my head without thinking about it. What I meant was, your horse and cart are nowhere to be seen—”

  “That’s because my poor horse would hardly fit in there with that monster you ride and that little pony of the vicar’s. My horse and cart are doing the weekly errands for the sanitarium, the good Diccon having carried Miss Ellen in here for me, and will return for us at a quarter before five.” He grinned. “That will give us time for you to rest after helping Ellen, and have a nice strong cup of tea.”

  She moved into the little white-wainscoted hallway and he closed the door behind her.

  Then, unexpectedly, he shook his head. “What am I saying? My dear Miss Roeswood, I intend to assist you to the level of my strength, and as your partner in this enterprise, I will be as much in need of that strong cup of tea as you. Probably more, as I have often noted that my female patients seem to have more stamina than the male.”

  As my partner in this enterprise! Feeling pleased and immensely flattered, Marina followed him into the vicarage.

  “How is Ellen coming along?” she asked anxiously, as he led the way past the parlor that the Ladies’ Friendly Society had used, past what appeared to be a study, and into the back of the house.

  “She was much better for a little, then relapsed—” he said, looking back over his shoulder at her. “Ah, I see that you are not surprised.”

  “That is what happened to the arsenic-poisoned birds I treated,” she replied. “But I don’t know why. I had to purge them several times before they got better and stayed better.”

  “I believe that I do, or I have a good guess. You purge the blood of the poison, which causes the victim to feel better. But that creates a—a kind of vacuum in the blood, so the tissues release some of what they hold back into the blood again, and the patient relapses.” He flung open a door on a narrow little room, painted white, and hung with prints of country churches, with white curtains at the tall, narrow windows. “And here we are!”

  Ellen lay in an iron-framed bed much like her own back at Briareley, propped up with pillows like a giant doll. She smiled to see Marina. “Lord love you, Miss, I wasn’t sure you’d be able to come! That Madam—”

  “Is a terror, but she thinks this is a Bible-study class,” Marina interrupted, getting a startled laugh from the girl “So, I suppose we had all better have the vicar expound on a verse before we all So home again, so that it isn’t a lie.”

  “Then I will take for my text, ‘Even as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me,’“ said Davies, who was kneeling beside the fire and putting another log on. “And for an original and radical interpretation, you may wax eloque
nt on the point that I feel—quite strongly—that the text means actions both for good and ill.”

  “Oh my—have we a reformer in our midst, Clifton?” asked the doctor, taking Marina’s cloak and draping it over a peg on the wall beside his own.

  “You do. But on the whole, I prefer to be a subversive reformer. They get a great deal more accomplished than the ones who shout and carry placards and get themselves arrested.” Mr. Davies stood up, and smiled, quite cheerfully. “Which is one reason why, for instance, that I am providing a space for you and Miss Roeswood to work in.”

  “We can talk all about subversion and theology when I have no more strength to spare for magic,” Marina said firmly. “It is always possible that Madam will send to fetch me at any point on some pretext or other—she didn’t forbid me, but she did not altogether approve of my interest in Bible studies.”

  Doctor and vicar turned astonished expressions on her, but it was the vicar who spoke first. “Whyever not?” he asked. “I should think it would be entirely proper for a young lady of your age.”

  “She says it is because I will turn into a bluestocking and a bore,” Marina replied with relish. “Although it is possible that she has got wind of those radical opinions of yours, so I believe I will not voice them, if you don’t mind, vicar. Well, shall we to work?”

  Ellen made a face, and began drinking water—Dr. Pike must have remembered everything from the last time, for there was a full pitcher on the little table next to her. There were three chairs of faded upholstery, indeterminate age and much wear in this room besides the bedside table and the bed; Marina was offered the most comfortable-looking of the three, and took it, on the grounds that she was the one who was going to be doing most of the work. And besides, she was burdened with corsets; they weren’t. She closed her eyes, and put her right hand out toward Ellen. The girl took it, and laid it on the covers over her stomach, folding her own hands over it.

  “Shields please, vicar,” she heard Dr. Pike say, and heard the vicar whisper something in Latin. His voice was too soft to make out the words, but she rather thought it was a prayer. Then his shields swept smoothly through her—she felt them pass, like a cool wave—and established themselves, settling into place with a swirl and a flourish, into ever-changing and fluid shields that looked much like Elizabeth’s, except for being a slightly deeper shade and blue instead of green.