Shapechanger's Birth

by Laer Carroll

  Mary did not mind the length of the tour; she spent much of it adding items to her mental list of books to borrow. Professor O'Keefe and she were finally interrupted by Bertie, who reminded them that there was a reception for Dame Edith in the grand hall tonight and that Mary and he had to have dinner first.

  Dinner was a huge picnic basket with a wicker basket cooler containing several bottles. Bertie drove them across the Lee and found a nice vantage point on the pasture up the hill. There was rolling, green countryside in every direction and a few cows and sheep too far off to bother them or vice versa. Bertie set their horse to contentedly cropping pasture grass, and they sat with the westering sun painting the green pasture before them lime and gilding the distant dollhouses of Cork City.

  They had a great time eating and chatting and Mary fancied that she made some headway convincing Bertie to commit a scandalous affair with Barbara.

  Or so she hoped. As Barbara's mother/sister/friend it was her duty to ensure that Barbara's initiation into womanhood be the best experience possible. And perhaps with the physical pressure relieved Bertie would give up the idea of marrying Barbara. Such a marriage would be a disaster for them both.

  At 7:30 pm, a stylish half-hour late, Mary and Bertie were back at the Grand Exam Hall, with en passant some time in a water closet to freshen up. The hall seemed filled with people, an illusion abetted by the addition of several active children and wives of the faculty and staff, expressly requested by Dame Edith.

  This eccentric addition was what could only be expected, of course, from a rich old woman likely in her dotage. Still, proper men could adapt to it, in courtesy to her age. And to the rich plums waiting to be plucked from her outstretched wrinkled hands.

  So it was a bit upsetting to observe entering on the viscount's arm, not the august black-clad Dame who was rumored to be as short as Queen Victoria, but a tall, teenaged girl. Who wore a dress of discreet forest-green of the most expensive cloth but a dress that was a little too light and narrow and bosom-revealing, more like the immodest fashions of a half-century past. Whose curly red hair was not properly confined but exploded around her head in a wild mane. And who strode in like a tigress stalking prey, when they had all thought that they were the hunting cats.

  Dean George Boole, prepared for their entrance, advanced to meet the viscount and his disturbing companion. With him on his arm he brought his wife, as Dame Edith had commanded.

  "Viscount Cunningham, Mistress McCarthy, may I present my wife, Mary Everest?"

  Bertie gave the young woman — twenty-six to Boole's forty-three, Mary knew — a bow and a warm smile. "Mistress Mary, a pleasure and an honor. Is the Little Mother still shaming all the young students with her knowledge of mathematics?"

  Mary's dossier on the Boole family included the information that when George first started teaching math here he had allowed his wife, a math enthusiast, to attend his classes. That evoked such protest about this "indecency" from other faculty wives that he shifted those classes to his home. Bertie and the rest of the Three Musketeers, Enoch and William, had been among those students and practically worshipped Boole's wife, feelings equally compounded of respect for her mind, romantic appreciation, and an unacknowledgeable longing for their own mothers.

  Mary Everest Boole smiled and ducked her head. "Not so little any more, I'm afraid." She patted her belly, swelling with her third child.

  "It only makes you all the more charming. Mrs. Boole, I urge upon you my most dear friend, Mary McCarthy."

  Mary took Mrs. Boole's hands in her own. A quick esoteric probe of the woman's body revealed a shy warmth that fully explained the Three Musketeers' feelings for her. Mary also saw that the child inside her was healthy and a girl, and that her mother was healthy.

  Still, she gave the two of them an immune-system boost to make the pregnancy all the easier. If Boole was going to be useful to Mary she did not want him distracted by family health problems.

  "The Three Musketeers, ah, Bertie and Enoch and Willy, have all told me so much about you. I feel I know you. May I be so audacious as to ask to call you Mary?"

  Mary Boole gave a little breathless laugh. "Of course. A friend of the —" She leaned forward, lowered her voice. "I always thought of them as the Three Little Pigs. They were so appreciative of my baking. If I had any stale leftovers I just left them out and they were gone in an instant."

  Bertie, leaning forward himself to capture this confidence, laughed. "Even your stales were wonderful."

  Mary said, "I understand you have other children. May I see them?"

  Mary Boole looked around at the College faculty. "They'll be unhappy."

  "Pish. I have several thousand pounds to hand out. And more after that. They won't dare to show it."

  "But they may show it to me."

  "Not with me around as much as I intend. We Marys will stick together." She patted Mrs. Boole's hand and tucked it under her elbow. "Come, I really want to see your family, and I'll be brief. After all, I'm not totally without diplomacy."

  At the edge of her vision she saw Bertie give an ironic grin. She was going to hear more about her diplomacy remark. From all three of her boys, she was sure.

  Mrs. Boole looked to her husband and he nodded. He might have resisted either of the Marys, for quite different reasons, but the two of them were too much for him.

  The two Marys, heads together as Mrs. Boole filled Mary in on her two daughters, swept through the crowd to the back of the exam room and into the cloaking room behind it. In it were several infants and very young children.

  Mary picked up and exclaimed over the two Boole daughters, who were quite as adorable to her as to their mother. She also boosted their immune systems, for the same reason — she told herself — that she had those of the rest of the Boole family. She wanted George Boole a useful tool undistracted by family problems.

  Mary was shortly back in the grand hall by herself, Mrs. Boole having excused herself to care for her children and the other littles, releasing faculty wives to meet Mary when it came time for that .

  She saw instantly that there was a structure to the group waiting to meet her. Acquiring Bertie again as an escort and Boole to introduce her, she was first made known to the deans of law, medicine, and the two subdivisions of arts: literary and scientific.

  Protocol then demanded a different set of introductions. The most crucial of these was that to the bursar, Edward Fitzgerald. As she grasped his fingers and gave him a quick esoteric probe she detected a personality problem of some kind. She resolved to find out more. Someone who handled the amount of money he did could do harm to her plans for the College. She did not give him an immune-system boost.

  Protocol next dictated introductions to another type of prestigious and important people. As with everyone here tonight, she memorized their faces and attached them to the intelligence files that she had assembled or had ordered assembled.

  These came from sources as various as newspapers and journals and the Cork City Whores intelligence network that she had built. By now she controlled some seventy percent of the prostitution in Cork, so she gleaned a lot of useful information from it. Which came in handy in buying and building the many businesses she owned — or had expert subordinates buy or build, often through dummy organizations.

  She was also increasingly getting intelligence from the Old Wives Network that she, as Dame Edith, had penetrated. And increasingly Mary was penetrating this net in her own persona as assistant to the Dame.

  Another intelligence source had begun because of her friendship with Barbara. The Kilrush Thrush had achieved fame in both traditional and avant-garde artistic circles. Through them she — or Dame Edith's little fund-raising organization — was funneling small but numerous donations to a bizarre miscellany of artists and music people of all kinds, and getting information back.

  Over an hour later she had finished the faculty introductions, even though they were fairly brief and because less than half of the sixty or seventy
faculty members had come tonight, for whatever reasons — they had left for the summer, felt they had nothing to gain by it, or as a boycott for obscure personal reasons.

  Then Mary segued into introductions to the faculty wives, who were as important to her plans for the College as were the faculty themselves. This was informal and even chaotic and involved much cooing over children and commiserating about the lot of women in general and specific. A few women actively avoided her, some of them with expressions of scorn. Mary marked them out for especial suasions. No one would be allowed to escape her influence.

  By now it was almost 10:00 and less than a fourth of the crowd were still present. This was quite late for most people, especially for the women with children.

  Mary finally sat down, in a chair pulled from the edge of the room and placed near the edge of the low dais at the end of the room that led into the cloaking room and the interior of the College.

  Bertie imitated her and sprawled on the dais edge, long legs crossed at the knees, looking over the crowdlet that was left. He had been chatting with various faculty, renewing acquaintances from when he was a student here, and keeping an amused and interested eye on Mary.

  "So now," he said in a low tone, "the queen will accept petitions."

  Before she had time to make a suitably tart reply a prosperously large and well-dressed man of about sixty presented himself. "Madame McCarthy, you will recall me. Counselor Francis A. Walsh, at your service."

  She recognized him as one of the two attorney's on the College's advising council of professors. The council was often at logger-heads with President Kane. They felt that he was too much like an absentee landlord.

  He waved a sheet of paper, one of those she had given to George Boole. "I have been presented with this extraordinary document. It presents some serious legal problems."

  William Penrose, an attorney himself, had said several things about Walsh. He was a Catholic who had been practicing in Cork City since the 1830s. Despite his religion, which more often drew political conservatives, he was a liberal. He was also quite competent and well-connected.

  "Perhaps you should consider it a guide rather than a legal document," she said. She had not yet given his body the esoteric push that would aid in his health and long life.

  He smiled at her, genuine humor. "Every document, even the merest scrap of paper, is a legal document. "

  "Well, let's not talk about the legalities now. What do you think of the task set down on it?" The task was to find a way around the laws that decreed that all the property of a wife was instantly the husband's when they married, never to be returned to her even upon divorce or his death.

  "Quite impossible, at first glance. The laws governing women's properties are a thicket that enthorn every woman."

  "Dame Edith feels that thicket is unjust. She's determined it will be chopped down. If you feel you cannot handle the job — or start it well — give that sheet to someone else."

  He looked at it dubiously. "I am not without sympathy with Dame Edith's position...."

  "Make a good start and she will be satisfied. And appropriately grateful."

  He was quickly almost-elbowed aside by a quartet of gentlemen each with his own sheet of paper. They were from biology, chemistry, geology, and engineering. The engineer, Professor Alexander Jack, an appropriately burly outdoors type, waved his paper.

  "I demand to know why each of us received a mere twenty-five pounds when everyone else received one hundred."

  "First, this is just the beginning of Dame Edith's support to the College. Second, she and I are, after all, women, and the amount reflects our ignorance of your specialties. You will notice that there are no conditions whatsoever on these bequests. Use the time they provide to come up with tasks that interest her and she will provide additional support."

  She paused, looked at each in turn. "Dame Edith is interested in knowledge that is useful. That does not necessarily mean immediately. Fundamental understanding that may lead to usefulness is also useful. That she also prizes.

  "Come, gentlemen. You are intelligent men. Use your imagination. Surprise us." She nodded dismissal and watched them walk away, not happy, but thinking over what she had said.

  She did indeed want these intelligent men and their colleagues to come up with something she had not thought off, even though she could have suggested a path to explore to each of them.

  She knew that she was probably the most intelligent human being alive. The same esoteric powers that gave her body power greater than those of ordinary people worked just as well on her brain.

  Her brain had already been quite good at her death, honed by desperate need over decades to creatively multiply the meager resources left to her by the poverty in which she had lived. She could now read faster and better — and longer, since she needed half the sleep she used to need. She could also comprehend more, and remember more.

  But not remember perfectly. She had once given herself a perfect memory and found it a serious liability. The ability to selectively forget was very useful. It left the important information more easily available, and allowed her mind to better see the larger generalities unobscured by thickets of finicky detail.

  But she was only one person, no matter how superhumanly augmented. She needed to multiply the resources of intelligence available to her. And that required that she trust others and let them surprise her.

  Hopefully in a pleasant way!

  She turned to look at one final man. She had not been introduced to him. But she knew what he was.

  "Daniel Darcy Downey, at your service."

  "My. How awfully alliterative." She smiled at him.

  He assumed a mournful look. "One of the crosses I bear."

  He lifted an imaginary hat, replaced it. "I am a reporter..."

  "I guessed. The subtle clues were the pencil and notebook and the way you were buttonholing everyone in sight.

  "And you're from the Cork Examiner , I would guess."

  "Interesting. Why would you say that?"

  "The Daily Reporter and the Morning Post have earlier deadlines. The Herald and the Southern Reporter — not quite their cup of tea. Or dram of whisky. And the Freeman's Journal has more interesting bastions of privilege to sneer at."

  "I applaud your perspicacity."

  "Then there's the fact that I've often admired your columns."

  "My, what a flatterer you are. I am so impressed I will never write a harsh word about you — or Dame Edith."

  "That would be so boring. And not at all what Dame Edith would prefer. She quite enjoys suing reporters who err.

  "And I've often thought," Mary added, "that bad publicity is often more effective than — mere publicity."

  "But not always."

  "No. Sometimes it ruins reputations and lives. Sometimes unjustly. When that happens, of course, there are resources available to balance the injustice."

  Perhaps he saw the steel shine through, though it was hardly likely that he guessed that those resources included a visit from professional thugs. Or the cat lady. He became businesslike.

  "As much as I enjoy our casual conversation, I have some questions that perhaps —"

  "I don't have the time or authority to answer all your questions. However, if you present yourself to Dame Edith's residence at 10:00 sharp in the morning, she will receive you."

  "I am — surprised. But I will be there."

  She stood. "Good. I know Dame Edith looks forward to it."

  He made his respects and left and Mary looked at Bertie. "Home?"

  "Home. And a very interesting day it's been, too."

  "I'm sorry, Bertie. You must have been bored most of the time."

  "Not a minute. No, don't frown at me like that. I'm telling the absolute truth." He grinned at her, offered his arm, and they went through the nearly empty cavernous hall to say their goodbyes to George Boole and his wife and children, waiting patiently.

  The next morning she received Mr. Downey in the gui
se of Dame Edith. She wore the Dame's usual gloves and veil, through which her face could only dimly be seen — suitably changed, of course, to give the appearance of great age. As was her voice box and throat.

  She walked bent over when she did so in public, though Downey only saw her sitting down during his stay, bent over her cane. He tried to ask her wide-ranging questions but she herded him quickly back to the College donations.

  "I couldn't help noticing that some departments did not receive any donations."

  "I have only a limited amount of money to give. I must focus on those that will pay dividends. I refuse to just give away money. I want a return."

  "And what kind of return is that?"

  "It can not have escaped your notice that I am not in perfect health. So I am more inclined to support programs that will improve the health of all, if not myself."

  With some prompting she described the questions she wanted answered. What causes cholera, infant deaths right after birth, infections of cuts and other bodily damage? What causes the damage to potatoes that caused famines? What causes milk and wine to sour?

  "Those seem to be very different problems? Why those?"

  "Because I believe they all have the same cause. Not specifically, but they have too many similarities to be coincidence. The way dogs, cats, cows, sheep, and so on all have four legs, long ears, fur, and so on. I believe that the root cause of many illnesses is a biological agent of some kind. Microscopic life forms.

  "Now I trust you understand what a metaphor is. I will be very unhappy with you if you report that the old bat thinks illnesses are caused by tiny four-legged animals."

  "You may be rest assured of that, Dame Edith. Now, one of the, ah, investments, is for a somewhat peculiar mathematical investigation. What connection does that have to do with illness and agriculture?"

  She grinned at him, careful to keep her teeth from showing. They looked too white and healthy for an old woman's head.