by David Liss
“You shall find I have power and authority over more than you suppose,” said Lady Harriett. “If you refuse to marry Mr. Olson, then I will instruct Mr. Buckles to bar you from having any contact with his wife and daughter, whom you shall never see again.”
Lucy stared in amazement, unable to believe what she heard. Martha and little Emily were her only family—for she hardly counted her uncle—left in the world, and she could not imagine Mr. Buckles could be so monstrous as to prevent his own wife from having contact with her sister. Martha would have no choice but to obey her husband’s demands, but such an order would only fill their marriage with resentment and bitterness. “You cannot mean it,” she said.
“Lady Harriett is, ah, very serious,” said Mr. Buckles. “It would distress me to no small extent to give pain to my wife, but I will not… will not, shall we say, hesitate to do so for the good of my family. If you do not marry this Olson, you shall be cut off entire.” He paused to wipe his brow in a dramatic and determined manner, as though the rest of the company must now pause to admire his brow-wiping prowess.
“I beg you recall the annuity which Mr. Buckles has been generous enough to provide,” added Lady Harriett. She rose from her chair with the gravity of a queen vacating her throne and stepped across the room to stand directly before Lucy. “Your obstinacy is an insult to my late husband’s memory, and I shan’t tolerate it. If you continue on this course, you may remain in your uncle’s house no longer. Consider your situation, young lady. Either you marry Mr. Olson, or you will be cast adrift, utterly alone and friendless.”
Mrs. Quince nodded at Lucy, as though she herself had arranged everything that had happened and now gazed upon her own handiwork with pride and satisfaction.
11
LUCY COMFORTED HERSELF THAT MR. BUCKLES AND LADY HARRIETT chose not to stay. After their brief conversation, they set out at once to return to Kent. One good result of the visit, however, was that it effectively reintroduced Lucy to the routine of the house. Neither her uncle nor Mrs. Quince said anything of her walking with Byron or her brief confinement to her room.
Nevertheless, Lucy remained trapped. She had to marry Mr. Olson. She did not see how she could avoid it, not unless the new will proved valid and she came into her inheritance. Otherwise, she would be cast adrift with no money or refuge.
Oddly enough, in the face of these devastating consequences, Lucy found a new calm. Events were now out of her hands. She could hope the world might rescue her, and if it did not, she would float along on the tides of fate, much the way everyone else did. Who was she to think she deserved better? She would marry Mr. Olson, so dull and cold, but capable of providing her with a decent life. Women prayed daily for such a husband.
Lucy’s efforts to resign herself to her fate were interrupted when Mrs. Quince pushed open her door to tell her that she had a visitor. “It is that Crawford woman. I did not know you continued to carry on with her. I believe I shall have to speak to your uncle.”
Lucy would not have yet another connection taken away from her, but protesting would not serve her ends. Instead, she silently followed Mrs. Quince to the sitting room, where the ethereal Miss Mary Crawford stood looking out the window to the street beyond. She wore no green today, but a frock of white trimmed with light pink, and a broad-brimmed white hat with a matching pink band. With her fair hair and fairer skin, she glowed, almost like an angel.
“What is your business with Miss Derrick?” asked Mrs. Quince.
“She is my friend,” said Miss Crawford. “Is she not permitted friends?”
“Of the proper sort,” said Mrs. Quince with the sort of sniff she believed must make her appear more formidable.
Miss Crawford took a step forward. “Do you suggest something, Mrs. Quince? I beg you speak plainly.”
Much to Lucy’s surprise, Mrs. Quince retreated. Lucy had never seen her do so except in the presence of someone she wished to flatter. “I know of nothing objectionable,” she said, and then walked toward the door, where she hovered for a moment, one last attempt to intimidate. Miss Crawford turned her back to her, however, and so Mrs. Quince departed.
When they were left alone, Lucy permitted herself to look at Miss Crawford, studied her face for signs of good news or bad. Miss Crawford met her eye, and her thin, vaguely sad smile suggested nothing good.
“The will is not real,” Lucy said, holding on to the wall for balance. “It is false, and I have no cause for hope.”
“It is real,” said Miss Crawford, stepping forward to take her hand, “but the situation is complicated.”
Lucy felt the most unexpected sensation, the warmth of pure affection that seemed to course from this woman’s gloved hand. “You’ve already been so kind to me. I must thank you for making the effort, for attempting—”
“You need not thank me. Though we have met but recently, we are friends, and I will always do what I can for you. There is so much more to say, about this and about other things. Will you come with me, Miss Derrick?”
“Go with you where?”
Miss Crawford’s countenance appeared suddenly so serious that Lucy could never have predicted what she said next.
“To a picnic.”
* * *
She had packed a basket in preparation, and they rode out of town, toward the southwest, in the direction of Gotham Village. It was a pleasant spring day, warm and dry—perfect for a picnic, but somehow Lucy did not think they were to sit out of doors because the weather was fair. In the carriage Miss Crawford tried to make idle chatter, saving the meat of her conversation for their destination. Lucy tried not to stare at her hostess, tried not to notice how her fair hair and pale skin seemed to glow in the dark of the carriage, tried not to notice her pure, almost painful beauty.
They came at last to their destination, near one of the old fairy barrows alongside the road. It was a hillock, much like the one on the road to Mr. Olson’s mill. Already the brown grass was beginning to green, and some flowers were near blooming. A trio of rabbits scattered as Lucy and Miss Crawford approached and laid out a blanket and, upon that, a large basket. The lady had brought only a light meal of seedcakes, a loaf of bread, and a wedge of orange cheese. She had also packed a bottle of wine, the cork pulled and loosely replaced, and two pewter glasses. Lucy did not drink much wine, certainly not unwatered, and not in the middle of the day.
Miss Crawford removed some plates and prepared portions for them both. She then poured wine and handed Lucy a cup. Something felt almost ceremonial in her gestures, and Lucy somehow knew it would be wrong to refuse to drink. The wine smelled of earth and mushrooms and damp fallen leaves, but the taste was bright and fruity and delicious.
“My solicitor believes this will genuine,” said Miss Crawford at last. “The one read after your father’s death was false, and you were almost certainly cheated out of your inheritance.”
Lucy let out her breath very slowly. This information was neither new nor surprising. She had suspected it from the moment she had first seen the new will, but to hear this fact asserted, without reservation, by another person—it made her feel faint. She set her cup down, struggling to balance it upon the ground.
“There are difficulties, however. Your father’s solicitor, a Mr. Clencher, is dead, and so we know of no witnesses who can directly testify on the matter. The fact that the handwriting of this new will more closely resembles that of other documents by your father’s hand is to your advantage, but it is a case that would certainly circulate in the courts for years, and cost thousands of pounds to bring to a conclusion. The resolution of the matter would likely cost more than the value of the inheritance. I know you must dream of a speedy reversal of this injustice, but the falsification of your father’s estate is hidden behind legal barriers that make prohibitive the cost of revelation.”
Lucy sat clutching her cup of wine so tight her fingers began to numb. She set it down with a trembling hand, and then wove her fingers together in an endlessly moving pattern.
This life she lived was not hers, it was a fabrication, a falsehood, an unnecessary misery. She ought to be living in comfort, in independence, but that true existence was barred to her. This was the end of her hopes, and she would have to marry Mr. Olson. “There is nothing I can do?” she asked.
“You do have… options, though not perhaps the ones you imagine. I understand you hoped you could deliver yourself from your current situation, and that cannot happen with this will. But I believe I can offer you some help, if you will trust me.”
Not daring to speak, Lucy only nodded.
“I think,” Miss Crawford said, “we must begin by discussing the man who is most probably the architect of this fraud.”
Lucy snapped out of her misery, her attention focused and sharp. At the same time, she observed, as if from a dispassionate position, how much more powerful was anger than misery. “Then you know who cheated me.”
“There is a suspicious circumstance of a gentleman who shared the same solicitor as your father, and who hired this Mr. Clencher for a number of lucrative endeavors around the time of your father’s death. These endeavors are poorly documented, and by all appearances, Clencher was paid for facilitating the false will and then keeping silent.”
“Who was this other man?” Lucy rose without meaning to, hardly knowing she moved at all. She wanted to move, to act, to do. “Is it someone I would have heard of?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Miss Crawford. “The man who has cheated you is very likely Mr. William Buckles, your sister’s husband.”
12
LUCY HAD CONSIDERED MR. BUCKLES A POSSIBLE SUSPECT, BUT IT had been an abstract sort of speculation, and she had not really believed that her sister’s husband, no matter how much she might dislike him, could have taken part in such a mad scheme. But now to hear it said aloud, to be told it was true—it was more than she could endure. She began to cry, first a stream of silent tears, and then convulsive waves. Her face was in her hands, and without knowing how it had happened, Miss Crawford was holding her, one arm around her shoulder, and Lucy sobbed into the sleeve of her gown.
“Shh,” said Miss Crawford. “We shall make everything right.”
“No, nothing will be right.” To steady herself Lucy took another sip of wine. And then another. Her cup was empty, and Miss Crawford was refilling it. Lucy could begin to feel the effects of the drink. A soft cloud of indifference gathered around her thoughts. What did any of it matter? “I must marry a man I do not like while I know I have been cheated out of what is mine. It is a nightmare, and I can do nothing.”
“It is not so,” said Miss Crawford. “I beg you to hear me. You have been much abused, but you are not powerless. I will show you that you can have everything. You can have your freedom, your inheritance, justice for those who have harmed you, and whatever else you desire.”
Lucy stared at her as though she were mad. “I am not a child to believe that. I have so oft felt that my life is not my own, that I am where I do not belong, doing things I have no business doing, and now I find that it is so. The life I was supposed to have was stolen from me. And not only from me, but from my sister. Would Martha have married Mr. Buckles if she’d inherited her share of my father’s fortune? Everything has been taken from us, and the courts provide no recourse. How can you lie to me so?”
“I tell you the truth. You can have what is yours and you can have justice, and you can set everything aright, but first we must speak of what transpired with that man—Lord Byron.” Miss Crawford said his name as though testing out its feel in her mouth.
“What of him?” The last thing Lucy wished to think of was Byron. She hardly felt equal to discussing anything about him, and yet there was something in Miss Crawford’s tone, in her manner, that she could not ignore.
“I believe you can help yourself with the same skills you used to help break that curse. I have no talents in that regard myself, only an interest, much as a person might be an indifferent singer or player, and yet also be a great enthusiast of music. Indeed, I came to Nottingham because it was predicted by another cunning woman, a very good one I met along the Scottish border, that I must come here. I was told that in your county I would find someone remarkable, and now I know I came here to find you.”
Lucy hardly knew how to respond. Her cup of wine was empty again. She set it down behind her so Miss Crawford would not fill it again. She was beginning to feel things differently, sharper and more dull all at once. She liked it, but at the same time, she hated it. And she noticed things, as if for the first time. The wind blew a comfortably warm breeze across her face. The sun, which had been too bright a moment ago, vanished behind a cloud.
When Mrs. Quince had tried to teach her to read the cards, she had also said that cunning craft was like music or painting or acting. Everyone could do something, and, as in the various arts, only a few were possessed of sufficient talent to do a great deal. There were those for whom all the application in the world could produce only a mediocre result, and then there were those who hardly needed to apply themselves at all to achieve much. However, Mrs. Quince had come to the conclusion that Lucy was singularly ungifted. She called Lucy a clumsy oaf, too foolish and muddleheaded to grasp even the most basic of principles. Mrs. Quince’s efforts to help Lucy learn to read cards had marked the end of those early days of friendship and the beginning of the long period of enmity.
“What is it you tell me?” Lucy asked. “That I might become a cunning woman? I know something happened with Lord Byron, and there were more strange events at Mr. Olson’s mill. These things seemed real at the time, but then, that feeling fades, doesn’t it?”
“Only because we wish it to,” said Miss Crawford.
Lucy shook her head. “Do you suggest I might use magic to reclaim my inheritance?”
Miss Crawford nodded. “I believe that if you apply yourself, you will be able to master all aspects of your life. No one will ever command you again.”
Lucy wondered what it would be like to no longer fear her uncle or poverty or her future, to have the means to right the injustices of her life. The thought of such power and freedom thrilled her, but it was a childish dream that she must abandon. To let Miss Crawford lead her down this path would only open her heart to despair.
Yet at that moment, Lucy forgot to be cautious. She forgot to protect herself and to be too cynical to believe. She even set aside her fear and rage. The possibilities all seemed so real when Miss Crawford spoke of them. Her eyes were wide and bright and inviting, and Lucy was ready to believe anything she said.
“We have a selective notion of truth. Look at this mound here.” Miss Crawford took a sip of her wine. “Do you know what it is?”
“It is a fairy barrow.”
“And do you know what a fairy barrow truly is?” asked Miss Crawford.
Lucy looked at the hill, green and bright. A butterfly hovered above it, not ten feet from where she sat. “A hill. No more.”
“It is more, but also less. That is a story for another time, I think.”
Lucy thought of what she had seen at the mill, what she thought she had seen in her uncle’s house. “You don’t mean to suggest there are actual creatures, do you?”
“In the mound? No.”
“Because I saw something,” Lucy continued. “I feel so foolish even mentioning this, but you seem to believe in these things, and I have told no one else. At Mr. Olson’s mill, there were workers chanting the same strange words Lord Byron spoke. And there were creatures, dozens of them, made of shadow. And there was a man, a strange man, and he seemed made of shadow too. I sound mad. I know I do, and yet I saw all these things.”
Miss Crawford rose to her feet. She walked away from Lucy and then back again. Her fingers moved, as though adding sums, and then she wiped her hands on her skirts. “You have already seen so much, and you have no training.” She sat down again. “Can it be that you have truly never studied any sort of music?”
“I have read Mr. Francis Barrett’s
book, The Magus,” Lucy said, referring to a popular book that had been published perhaps ten years earlier. After the unpleasant incident with Mrs. Quince, Lucy had sent off to London for a copy, spending money she could hardly afford. She had believed in a moment of weakness that if she could master magic, she would have a friend once more. It had been a silly notion.
Miss Crawford appeared amused. “Have you, now? All of it?”
“Some of it.” Lucy felt her cheeks grow warm.
Miss Crawford did not respond to her embarrassment. She was, on a sudden, quite businesslike. “Have you attempted to make any of the talismans therein, or to cast any spells?”
She shook her head. “It all felt silly. Like I would be playing childish games.”
Miss Crawford nodded. “And you would have been. Barrett’s is a popular book written for a general readership. His spells are fabricated or extracted from tawdry volumes meant for the ignorant. And such books are always obsessed with love magic, which you must never practice.”
“I thought that was nearly the whole of what cunning women do,” said Lucy. “Make this one fall in love with that one.”
“Those spells are for dabblers with little skill. For someone with talent, it is a vile thing to make someone believe he feels what he does not, to induce him to make commitments that stand even after the effects of the magic fade. I cannot tell you how many unhappy matches, how many ruined hopes and lives, are the result of cunning folk playing with love magic.”
Lucy nodded, though she might as well be promising not to fly too close to the sun with her waxen wings.
“If there is anything of value in Barrett,” Miss Crawford continued, “it is cribbed from other writers, principally Agrippa. I daresay these are the sections you chose not to read.”
“But I have read of Agrippa. My father had me read some histories of his life. I found them extraordinarily dull, but my father thought him important.”