Staff & Crown

by W. R. Gingell

  “I would like to know, Nan,” he said, ducking his head until he was almost nose to nose with her, “exactly who has been teaching you to do things like this?”

  “Who do you think?” demanded Annabel. “I learn everything from you, so if you don’t like what I do, you only have yourself to blame.”

  “I don’t believe I was complaining,” remarked Melchior. “Actually.”

  Annabel spluttered a laugh. “You can’t say that!” she said. “That’s mine!”

  “Perhaps we’re learning from each other,” Melchior said thoughtfully. “Nan, what are you doing?”

  “I’m going back to bed,” said Annabel, pressing both of her palms against his chest to push him away. “Trenthams doesn’t approve of young ladies being out of their beds at this time of night.”

  “Unless they’re the ones causing it,” Melchior agreed, stepping back. His hands covered Annabel’s where they touched his chest, but Annabel didn’t think it was consciously done; Melchior was gazing down the hall after the Lavender Aunt and her midnight guest, his cheek brushed by the curtain edge. “Very well, Nan; you’d best go to bed before I accidently teach you anything else disreputable.”

  As Annabel had expected, it was significantly harder to get up on a morning that was not only a half-holiday, but had been preceded by a night out of bed far too late. She got up anyway, because Isabella was very carefully making just enough noise in her morning ablutions to keep Annabel awake in spite of her desire to sleep longer.

  “All right, what is it now?” she demanded, dipping her feet into her slippers. “You’ve been trying to get me up this past half hour and more. What do you want?”

  Isabella didn’t even try to dissemble. She grinned, bright and unabashed. “Do you know, Nan, what is the most enjoyable part of any half-holiday at Trenthams?”

  “Sleeping in,” Annabel said, and padded over to the tea kettle to make herself a cup of tea. “And it’s no use trying to tell me it’s anything else, because I won’t believe you.”

  “Well, then; the second best,” allowed Isabella. “No, don’t guess; you’ll only be grumpy again. Have your tea first. Well, Nan, the second best thing about any half-holiday at Trenthams is permission to visit the village and purchase anything we so desire—or at least, anything for which we have the money.”

  “And anything that’s allowed into Trenthams, I suppose.”

  “Oh no!” Isabella assured her. “You can buy anything. You simply can’t get anything into the school. Unless you’re me, of course.”

  “Of course,” echoed Annabel, watching spirals of steam rise from the kettle spout in the early morning sun. “That reminds me. When are we going to start making bustles unfashionable? It’s too hot to be walking to the village in a bustle and corset.”

  “Nan!” Isabella said reproachfully. “Have you lost all that vim and vigour you showed to Melchior? How can we investigate these interesting occurrences at Trenthams when you’re moping about bustles and corsets?”

  “I’d like to know how I can investigate anything in a bustle and corset,” Annabel remarked. “I don’t think anyone can—unless they’re you, of course.”

  “Of course!” Isabella agreed, laughing. “Never mind, Nan; we began phasing out bustles earlier this week, in fact. Did you really not notice?”

  “What was there to notice?” demanded Annabel, reverting to her previous glower. “I’ve been squeezed within an inch of my life by the Deportment Master whenever I so much as breath in his direction, and I’ll have you know that every dress I’ve worn this week has been bolstered by a bustle.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s true,” agreed Isabella. She still sounded far too cheerful for someone who had just admitted to failing in a most important mission, but at least she looked sympathetic. “But have you not noticed, Nan? I’ve been putting out a smaller bustle for you each day. In fact, your gown for today doesn’t need one at all; it’s already worked into the design. The merest suggestion of a bustle made from ruched cloth and the tiniest bit of padding! And I’ve raised the waistline, besides.”

  “Oh,” said Annabel, who hadn’t noticed. She poured two cups of tea and asked, “Do you think the Deportment Master will stop making my corsets so tight if I look smaller without a bustle?”

  “Anything is possible, I suppose,” Isabella said. “But one is inclined to doubt it. One is inclined, in fact, to come to the conclusion that the Deportment Master merely hates you and is trying to do all he can to make your life miserable.”

  “He hates you too, but he doesn’t squeeze you within an inch of your life,” pointed out Annabel. “Oh! Those evening wrappers—”

  Isabella nodded. “All part of the plan, Nan! After all, there’s no reason for a wrapper to accommodate or provide a bustle, is there? And we certainly had the chance to show our fashion last night, did we not?”

  “Don’t remind me,” Annabel muttered. She sipped her tea and said hastily as Isabella approached with an armful of clothing and a determined expression, “All right, all right, I’m getting dressed; there’s no need to bring my clothes over! You’d make an awful maid!”

  “I’d make a wonderful maid,” contradicted Isabella, dropping the clothes on one of the sofas in favour of the tea Annabel had poured. “I’d dress you to perfection every day and be awfully rude to your face but full of fiery brimstone to anyone who dared to say a thing against you behind your back. Only, one suspects one ought to be angular and pinched to be that kind of maid, and I’m not sure I could forgo the chocolate cake.”

  Annabel gave a smothered giggle. “Never mind,” she said. “All you have to do is have someone appoint blue napkins to your place settings and you won’t have to worry about it!”

  The village was much bigger than Annabel remembered. It could have been the fact that they hadn’t had a chance to walk its full length on the day after they arrived, but Annabel was more inclined to think it was because they had already walked from Trenthams, and the length of the village itself was an unpleasant addition to that exercise when she was already too hot, too breathless, and dizzy from a sad lack of any kind of sustenance for breakfast that didn’t involve a peel or a glass of water.

  There was a flock of younger girls, intent upon spending their money on whatever sweet things—or alive things, Annabel realised, sighting one girl who was bouncing by the cages of birds for sale on the village street—they could conceivably manage to sneak back into the school. The older, more sober girls were led away swiftly by Lady Caroline, who didn’t look as though she had been up the previous night, either in haggardness or general guiltiness.

  Annabel frowned at that. She didn’t particularly want Lady Caro’s company—or the company of those other girls she had so confidently led away—but it gave her the uncomfortable feeling that there was something in the wind.

  “In most cases,” Isabella said confidingly to her, as Lady Caro and her flock sailed away, “I would advise this as a very good chance to steal a few of Lady Caro’s supporters. I’m certain there are several of them who are ready to leave her and see if the waters are any warmer with you. However, since we’re going to be purchasing things of a decidedly more suspect nature—”

  “Yes,” agreed Annabel thankfully. “Since we don’t know we can trust them not to talk, it’s safer to be on our own.”

  “For now,” Isabella said. “For now. It does seem to me that Lady Caro is just a little bit too determined to lead everyone away from you, and there’s more of a coherency to them this morning than I’m comfortable with. One has the feeling, Nan, that something has drawn them together and made them uneasy to be seen with you in public.”

  “Yes,” Annabel said. She’d seen the sort of thing that happened when cliques that had been loose began to draw together; and the timing was just a bit too coincidental with the visitors to Lady Caro’s room last night. “I thought so too. Do you suppose someone has been spreading rumours about me?”

  “Of course they’ve been sp
reading rumours,” said Isabella. “Lady Caro has probably been spreading most of them, if it comes to that.”

  “Do you think it’s got to do with whoever arrived last night?”

  Isabella considered that meditatively, steering them both rather bizarrely in the direction of a blacksmith. “Now there’s an idea, Nan! I doubt Melchior will tell us even if he knows—and I strongly suspect this has been a surprise to him as well. Well! There’s no need for him to be creeping about the halls and being silly with curtains if he knew about it, is there?”

  “Oh,” said Annabel. “Well, actually, there was a reason for that.”

  “I’m quite certain there was,” Isabella said. She was grinning, though Annabel wasn’t sure why. “You were a little late coming back last night, Nan, if it comes to that.”

  “That’s what I was saying,” Annabel said. “I forgot to tell you last night—”

  “I’m not surprised,” murmured Isabella irrepressibly. “You were too busy cuddling with Melchior.”

  Annabel, taken by surprise, coughed. “I wasn’t cuddling!”

  “Really? What a waste, Nan! I was under the impression that that was why you’d forgotten to tell me what else happened last night.”

  “It wasn’t!” Annabel said crossly. She had certainly felt off balance and odd last night, but she had also been very tired. “I forgot because I was tired. The Lavender Aunt who didn’t follow last night’s circus came to Lady Caro’s room last night with another girl.”

  “Really?” Isabella’s eyes brightened. “Oh, how interesting! I can’t imagine it was one of the regular girls, can you?”

  “I didn’t recognise her,” Annabel agreed. “I don’t know all the girls, though.”

  “I wonder,” said Isabella meditatively, “I really wonder if Melchior knew about this in advance.”

  “He said he was just in the right place at the right time.”

  “Very suspicious!” nodded Isabella. “And that brings something to mind, Nan! Do remind me when we get back to the school that I’ve got a few ideas about how we can get a little information out of Melchior.”

  “All right,” agreed Annabel. Melchior had far too much knowledge that he wasn’t sharing. He might not have known exactly what was going to happen at Trenthams last night, but he had certainly been aware that something was going to happen. “Belle, what on earth do we need from a blacksmith?”

  Isabella grinned. “Certain things that can’t be purchased anywhere else. Come along Nan—and let this be a lesson to you not to judge from appearances!”

  This pronouncement, Annabel soon learned, meant that the blacksmith was not merely a blacksmith; or at least, that his son wasn’t inclined to follow his trade. At the back of the forge was a small room that opened onto the forest behind the house, small and tidy and herby-smelling. It was so tidy and herby-scented, in fact, that if Annabel hadn’t been able to read some of the small, neatly labelled drawers around the room, she might have thought it was merely a chemist. She had no ability to see magic the way Poly and Melchior did.

  In surprise, she asked Isabella, “We’re buying spells?” She was sure that Isabella had said that the attempted smuggling of spells was bound to be caught by Trenthams’ magic sensors.

  “Not exactly,” Isabella said. “That’s the sort of thing that Trenthams catches up with sooner or later if one keeps doing it. Besides, I like to be able to manage without magic where I can, given the distinct lack of magic inborn in me. No, the Blacksmith’s son is a far more useful person—he does sell spells, but he also has a range of useful things not dissimilar to my smuggling garters. I always like to browse here whenever I come into the village. The poor boy needs encouragement, and I’m ever in need of useful things.”

  Annabel couldn’t see that Isabella was in need of anything more than her usual quick wits, but she was content to be browsing in a shop for a little while. It had struck her almost immediately after the other girls separated from herself and Isabella, that two slowly strolling men always seemed to be in view when she glanced over her shoulder. She wasn’t sure if Isabella had ducked into the shop to ascertain for herself whether or not the men were following them, but certainly the men were still there when they entered the street again.

  There was nothing to stop two men strolling down the street, of course, but had that one been reading the paper he was holding so assiduously to his nose? Annabel didn’t think so. He put it down casually and moved after the girls, his reflection fluctuating in the shop windows, and the other man, who had at first seemed not to be there any longer, now stepped out from the shadow of the bakery door.

  “Bother!” said Isabella beneath her breath, startling the entirely absorbed Annabel. “Nan, do you suppose you could move a little more quickly? I fancy we’re about to have some excitement.”

  10

  “They won’t attack us in the street, will they?” protested Annabel.

  “Ah.” Isabella looked pleased. “I thought you’d seen them, too! Well, perhaps they won’t, but from here I can see at least three different ways in which they can corral us before we reach the end of the street, and I’d really rather they didn’t.”

  Annabel looked over at her in some respect. “Actually three? Good grief. All right, I’ll move more quickly. What shall we do?”

  “Keep walking at this speed until that cart draws even,” said Isabella rapidly. “And when it does, we’ll pass around those boxes ahead. There’s a street there: duck down it as quickly as you can. I’ll dart across the road and meet you by the bakery in a couple of minutes if I can. If I can’t, I’ll meet you just outside the village and we’ll try to make it back to Trenthams when the other girls come out.”

  “Yes, but what about you?” protested Annabel, quite well aware that Isabella was taking the more perilous route. She might not be able to see three ways in which they were in danger, but she could certainly see one—it was across the street, where Isabella was planning on running. Besides the two men who had been dilatorily following them, a third had been watching them from across the street as they drew closer.

  “No time, Nan!” Isabella said cheerfully. “Off you go! Keep in the shadows, won’t you!”

  Annabel, shoved down the side street summarily, threw a brief look over her shoulder as she ducked into the cover of protruding brickwork. Isabella dashed across the road, accompanied by something that billowed along with her and could have been either another person or a cloak she had snatched up and taken with her.

  “Rude,” Annabel muttered to herself. Isabella was by far too bossy—worse, she was completely reckless of her own safety in her behaviour. Annabel hesitated, and as she did she knew she wasn’t going to keep walking down this street. Instead, she hurried back to the turning, hanging back just enough to shelter behind the crates there.

  If she had been Isabella, she would have waited until she saw all three threats disappear. Since she wasn’t, and since she wasn’t entirely sure what threats Isabella had seen apart from the obvious three men, Annabel simply waited until she could bring herself to wait no longer, and ran across the road. Where exactly had she seen Isabella’s tidy bustle disappearing? There—that small gap between shop and shop that wasn’t even wide enough to be an alley—she had seen Isabella last near that. None of the three men could possibly have fit down there, so there was a good chance that Isabella had gotten away clean.

  Too worried about her own, more generous size combined with her bustle, Annabel didn’t attempt to follow Isabella’s probable path exactly. Instead, she skirted around the gap and found it again after circling a shop completely. There were a few small threads of blue caught on the rough blockwork there, suggesting that Isabella had not found it as easy to exit as she had to enter, but of Isabella herself there was no sign. Nor was there any sign of the three men Annabel had recently seen in hot pursuit of Isabella.

  Annabel looked around herself dubiously. Behind the shops in the main street was a rather dingy place to be; cottag
es backed on the exits of the shops, and if Annabel had been wondering where all the garbage from either of those two lines was stored, she was no longer left in doubt. It was piled up against the rear of both shops and cottages, with little attempt at neatness or general cleanliness other than a few haphazard piles. Annabel stole quietly past those piles, her eyes darting from one side of the alley to the other. It was out of the question for Isabella to be hiding in the garbage, she was quite certain; she must have darted down one of the other cracks of light that led to a normal, sanitary village road.

  Annabel followed the alley toward the darkness of forest at the end, cheered by the fresh scent of the trees sweeping through the fetid air, and saw a gate that was just slightly ajar. It was a very small gate, set crookedly in the wall, and it didn’t look particularly promising. Still, it was something a little different from the rest of the alley, and Annabel wasn’t keen to try her bustle through any of the gaps between stores. She carefully pushed open the gate, afraid that it would squeak and give her away, and stepped into a small courtyard that was just as grimy as the alley she had come from and made no less confusing by the sheer amount of archways it contained. Once, it must have been a common courtyard leading to the back doors of several of the buildings around it. Now it was slick and grimy with disuse, and a third of the archways were haphazardly blocked up.

  As Annabel opened her mouth to call quietly to Isabella, there was the sound of a muted gasp from one of the archways.

  Someone said in disbelief, “She bit me!”

  “I warn you, sir,” said Isabella’s voice icily, “that I have a hatpin poised where you do not wish to have it poised. If you do not release your hold on my waist immediately—thank you. I can assure you that Miss Ammett is well back on her way to Trenthams by now, and any attempt to take me prisoner will be resisted to the utmost.”