Lessons After Dark

by Isabel Cooper

  Gareth made one final adjustment to his tie, straightened his shoulders, and went out to face the evening.

  ***

  Over the last few weeks, Gareth had not had much occasion to be in the parlor, and his strongest memory of the room was of Fitzpatrick’s panic about Elizabeth and of his own brief conversation with Mrs. Brightmore. That was probably why she was the first person Gareth noticed when he walked through the door.

  Granted, her dress helped in that regard

  It was deep red satin, the color of good red wine or old garnets, with a slim skirt and a square neckline. Not low cut. Nobody but the most old-fashioned of Puritans could have accused Mrs. Brightmore of immodesty. And yet it made a man very much aware of the fullness of her breasts, of the way what skin she did expose looked like satin, and of the long, graceful line of her neck. After the first glance, Gareth did the gentlemanly thing and kept his eyes above her neck, but that was almost worse. Surrounded by a loose cloud of chestnut hair, her face was almost luminous, and her eyes shone brightly.

  He thought of fine sherry held up to light.

  Then he wondered why he was thinking of metaphors for Mrs. Brightmore’s eyes in the first place.

  Gareth bowed politely, saw her curtsy in return with what seemed like an inborn grace, and then noticed Simon and his wife standing nearby amid a small crowd of other people. “Good evening,” he said and felt more than saw their eyes on him.

  Fortunately, if he’d been standing there like a dunce for any length of time, everyone was too polite to notice. Mrs. Grenville came forward briskly and made the introductions. The tall, stocky man was Dr. Gardiner. A younger and less-rectangular-looking one was Simon’s friend Mr. Desmond. The plump and balding one was Reverend Talbot, and the plump, brunette girls in pale dinner dresses were Miss Rosemary Talbot and her sister, Miss Elizabeth. Gareth thought Miss Rosemary was wearing blue and Miss Elizabeth lavender but he wouldn’t have wagered any amount of money on it. He would have wagered on Waite composing bad poetry to the one in the violet gown before the evening was out, judging by the way the boy was looking.

  Luck wasn’t with Waite that night. Mrs. Grenville took the vicar’s arm when they went in to dinner, Simon the arm of his blue-gowned daughter, and Mr. Desmond the one in violet. To his credit, Waite made some effort to disguise his regret as he offered an arm to Miss Woodwell. That young lady, far from being grateful, returned a sardonic elder-sister grin and a whispered comment that made Waite look like he’d swallowed a frog.

  That left Gareth with Mrs. Brightmore. He turned away from Waite’s predicament to look for her, and found her a fellow spectator, with one corner of her mouth turned up enough to suggest suppressed laughter.

  “Youth,” she said in a low voice when Gareth drew within hearing distance. Then she did laugh softly. “No matter what the poets say, I cannot think it a great tragedy that it passes.”

  “Some aspects of it, yes,” said Gareth. After all, he could offer his arm to her without stammering or feeling vaguely ill: a decided benefit of maturity. At seventeen, he’d either have fallen over himself, regardless of Mrs. Brightmore’s past, or done something hopelessly adolescent to rebuke her for it. “Do you look forward to old age, then?”

  “Say rather I’ll be happy if I reach it,” she replied, smiling up at him. “And I’m disinclined to try for physical immortality.”

  Her lips were remarkably red. Part of Gareth wanted to think it was rouge, but, probably not. Not for this company. The woman knew her audience. “It’s good to know,” he replied, “you have scruples in this area. I’m quite reassured.”

  Mrs. Brightmore’s cheeks flushed. Embarrassment? Anger? Both? Neither showed in her voice. She laughed again, tilting her head back a little. “Practicality, sir, I assure you. No good end has ever come to those who sought the Fountain of Youth, or none I’ve ever heard of. I’d rather not waste my life trying to prolong it.”

  “One might ask how you consider a life best spent,” said Gareth. He should probably stop trying to provoke the woman. He wasn’t sure why he’d started in the first place, except perhaps to remind himself he shouldn’t be considering metaphors for her eyes.

  “One might indeed,” Mrs. Brightmore replied smoothly as they reached the dining room. Chandeliers and candles blazed with light there, reflecting on old silver and throwing little prisms out of cut glass. She paused a moment, out of appreciation, he supposed, then let him help her to her seat and glanced down the length of the table. “Indeed, I might consider it an eminently suitable topic for our guests.” She spoke loudly enough to catch the attention of Reverend Talbot, who was sitting on her other side.

  “If you think so,” the vicar replied, turning toward her with a smile, “you’d best lay it before us. I know I’ll be too curious to pay proper attention to my food otherwise.”

  “Man’s purpose in life,” said Mrs. Brightmore. “Or woman’s.”

  “A weighty subject for dinner,” said Mr. Desmond, eying Mrs. Brightmore across the table. There was more than intellectual appreciation in that look, Gareth saw. “Do you often discuss such things?”

  Mrs. Brightmore nodded. “Someone in my profession is obligated to consider these matters, I believe, almost as much as someone in the reverend’s.” She glanced very briefly, almost imperceptibly at Mrs. Grenville, and then added, “And I believe all of us have a duty to attend to certain higher callings…and to better prepare the next generation for the world that is to come.”

  Conversation rose around her, as if she were the moon calling the tides, and Gareth let it carry him along.

  ***

  “And I hear you’ve come up from London to serve this calling of yours, Mrs. Brightmore?” Desmond was eying her with a lifted eyebrow and the hint of a grin. “You must have been very sorry to have left so much society.”

  The evening, as far as Gareth could tell, had been quite a success. The conversation had flowed along smoothly, from ideals to art to the state of the government, never stopping too long on any topic that might create too much controversy. At his end of the table, Mrs. Brightmore had always seemed aware whenever anyone hesitated or frowned, and had chosen that moment to inquire about the state of the crops or ask one of the Misses Talbot if she played or sang.

  Even he had found it enjoyable. True, he’d neither eaten nor spoken as much as any of the others, but the mutton had been good, the soup better, and the company more interesting and less irritating than Gareth had been anticipating. He’d even brushed the dust off some memories to talk about boating with Desmond, who’d turned out to be the younger son of Simon’s nearest neighbor, pressed into service to make up an even table.

  The man had conducted himself creditably, under the circumstances, and had even had a brief discussion of Morris with Reverend Talbot and Mrs. Grenville. Still, he knew little of the school, lacked some of the motives for investigation which propelled Talbot and Gardiner, and had seemed more than a bit lost in some of the more philosophical turns in conversation. His question was no surprise.

  Mrs. Brightmore shook her head and smiled. There was nothing furtive in her face, no hint of tension or of guilt. “Society can be wearying after a time,” she said, “and I never moved in any particularly eventful circles. I’m quite glad to be in the country.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Desmond. Clearly attempting to be subtle, he glanced at Mrs. Brightmore’s hand and the gold ring there.

  It was the only jewelry she wore, Gareth noticed now. No earrings danced when she shook her head; no onyx or rubies rested around her neck. Not like the other women. He glanced around and was certain of it. Even the Misses Talbot had small pearl beads made into necklaces and hair ornaments, Mrs. Grenville wore gold and sapphires, and emerald earrings dangled above Miss Woodwell’s lace-covered shoulders.

  Now that Gareth came to think about it, Mrs. Brightmore’s dress seemed rather plain too. Granted, her neckline was lower than the one on Mrs. Grenville’s blue velvet gown, but higher than o
n either the Talbot girls’ dresses or Miss Woodwell’s. He didn’t know much about fashion, but all the others also had ribbons or lace or both.

  Maybe she’d decided she would look more responsible without ornament, or maybe simply that she’d look better.

  And if there was another reason, if necessity rather than choice had guided her, what of it?

  “I was raised near Kent,” Mrs. Brightmore said, breaking into Gareth’s observation, “and came to London only once I’d married. So, you see, it’s a bit like coming home for me.”

  “You must have married very young,” said the blue Miss Talbot, impervious to her father’s warning look.

  Again, if the comment disturbed her, Mrs. Brightmore didn’t show it. “I was seventeen,” she said. Wistfully? Perhaps. Gareth couldn’t be sure. She was still smiling. “At the time, I think I believed myself quite mature.”

  Reverend Talbot chuckled. “And so do we all, I suppose.” He gave his daughters a fond glance.

  “Did your husband live in London, then?” asked the same Miss Talbot. She sounded a little wistful herself, though, Gareth guessed, for reasons very unlike Mrs. Brightmore’s. “It must have been quite a change.”

  “Yes and no,” said Mrs. Brightmore. “Or not at first. He was a lieutenant. His regiment was quartered near us for a time. They departed shortly after my wedding, and, naturally, I went with them.”

  As far as Gareth could tell, she spoke the truth. Indeed, he had no reason to doubt her on this particular point, or to care. A woman could invent a husband, or a hundred if she wanted. It was nothing to him. He’d never really stopped to consider whether she had any right to the “Mrs.” before her name.

  Yet hearing her speak of it was somehow strange. Gareth could connect Mrs. Brightmore and Madame Marguerite without too much difficulty. It was far harder to connect either of them with a schoolgirl roaming around Kent or a young bride on the arm of a man in regimentals or, for that matter, a new widow in London.

  He would almost have preferred to believe her husband a fiction.

  Chapter 14

  Tap.

  Olivia came half-awake at the sound, surfacing from confused dreams of swimming in purple seas and reaching for flying fruit. Had she dreamed the sound too? She hoped so. It had been a very long day.

  Tap. Tap.

  No. There it was again. Now she was awake enough to recognize that someone was knocking at her door. Olivia bit back a curse, opened her eyes, and let the moonlit shapes of her room resolve themselves. “Yes, all right,” she managed through a mouth that felt like something had been living in it, “I’m coming.”

  Olivia couldn’t tell time by the moon, and she had no clock in her bedroom, but if it was before midnight, she would have been very surprised. The fire had certainly died down, and a chill had set firmly into the air. The cold woke her up quite efficiently—there was a silver lining in most things, she supposed—and she managed not to squeak. Her hands found her dressing gown and pulled it on, while her mind shook itself into awareness.

  A late-night disturbance, particularly at Englefield, could have meant almost anything, but Olivia had spent the past few weeks dealing with one specific cause. When she saw Charlotte’s face on the other side of the door, hair mussed and eyes half-closed, she was unsurprised. She did permit herself a sigh. “Again?”

  “Afraid so,” said Charlotte and stepped back to let Olivia out into the hall. Sleepy as she looked and sounded, she managed a grin. “Pity you can’t keep a pot of tea around overnight.”

  Olivia felt it was too late to be circumspect. “Much more of this, and I’ll be able to sleep right through the whole process.”

  They opened the door of the girls’ bedroom and stepped inside. As expected, Elizabeth was floating again. She had looked particularly eerie the first time, her nightgown white in the darkness and her hair streaming down below her, but now the sight was almost commonplace.

  “She’s not going as high as she was at the start,” Charlotte said, trying to be encouraging.

  Olivia nodded. “She’s at least three feet from the ceiling. It’s certainly a good sign.” Good signs were important just now. “Thank you for getting me. You can go back to sleep now.”

  “Luck,” said Charlotte and promptly cocooned herself in her blankets again.

  Olivia watched her enviously for a moment, then stepped back and cleared her throat. A series of words in Enochian projected her voice to the girl’s ears, as if she were in the bed and Olivia leaning over her. “Elizabeth,” she said, quiet and firm. “Wake up now. And don’t scream.”

  Elizabeth didn’t scream, though she did squeak and look down wide-eyed at Olivia. “Oh, no. Not again.”

  That was a fair summary of Olivia’s thoughts, but she didn’t feel that saying so would help anything. “You’re awake,” she said and took a seat in the chair she’d first collapsed on when she’d come to Englefield. It had, in the nights since, become an old companion. “Now get yourself down.”

  “But—”

  “I told you last time,” said Olivia, holding up a hand. She tried to keep an edge out of her voice, to remember the girl was very young and she hadn’t asked for this power. “You’re quite capable of descending on your own now. Moreover, the more you control your own power, the fewer nightmares you’ll have, and the less likely you’ll be to levitate during them.”

  Elizabeth blinked down at her a few times then shook her head and wailed, “I can’t! I’m too scared!”

  Her levitation was probably fortunate just then. Olivia had never struck anyone and had no intention of starting with a frightened child, but she could feel her nerves fraying. “Lower your voice,” she said through gritted teeth, “and breathe deeply. I am right here. I will not let you hurt yourself. But, by God, you will get yourself down under your own power, or we’ll both be here all night.”

  Something in her tone must have convinced Elizabeth, because she gulped and took a few breaths. Olivia muttered another phrase in Enochian and watched the flow of power within the girl, ready to intervene if anything did go wrong. It wasn’t likely Elizabeth would fall hard enough to break her leg, and less likely she’d send herself up through the ceiling, but both were possible.

  Elizabeth shut her eyes. “All right,” she said. Although Olivia couldn’t see her face, she could imagine the look of concentration there.

  A moment passed. Then another. Then, finally, Olivia saw power begin to subside within Elizabeth’s body. Not flowing out, the way it might have with a magician like herself, but shrinking and calming, like flame dying into embers. The girl floated down a few inches.

  It was working.

  That was almost worth getting up at whatever ungodly hour it was. Almost.

  Getting Elizabeth down under her own control was even slower than helping her to do it, though. By the time she reached her bedclothes again, she was yawning, and she was asleep a few seconds after Olivia tucked her in.

  Olivia had no such luck. Her dressing gown was heavy wool, the nightgown beneath it thick cotton, but the night air had done its work quite soundly earlier, and the strain on her nerves hadn’t helped. From past experience, she knew quite well all her bed held was a few miserable hours half dozing.

  Also, Olivia realized as she turned quietly away from Elizabeth’s bed, she was hungry. Perhaps a slice of bread and jam, and even a cup of tea, if she was lucky and the kitchen was simple, would help her bed do its work when she returned.

  Closing the door carefully behind her, she slipped down the hallway and then descended two flights of the back staircase into another hall. The floors were neither carpeted nor polished here, though they were clean and well kept, and they were cold under her bare feet. Up ahead, Olivia could smell hearth smoke and tomorrow’s baking. Her stomach rumbled.

  The dim light coming from the kitchen didn’t surprise Olivia. Her youthful memory held a vague recollection of scullery maids who were supposed to keep the fire going. One of them could probably t
ell her where the kettle was, she thought, unless the girl started screaming. In any event, nobody was likely to mistake her for a burglar.

  With that thought, she stepped into the kitchen and blinked.

  There was someone in there, but not the half-grown girl whom Olivia had expected to find drowsing by the fire. Instead, a tall male frame in a dark green dressing gown sat by the long kitchen table, the makings of an impromptu meal in front of him and his sharp chin propped on one fist.

  “Dr. St. John,” she said, surprised into speech.

  “Mrs. Brightmore?” St. John jerked around to face her, his face a study in surprise.

  For a moment, they stared at each other. St. John’s eyes looked very dark, and the firelight threw shadows across his angular features, making him look rather like some ancient image on a coin. Then he started to get up, keeping one hand on the table, and the resemblance passed.

  “Oh, don’t stand on ceremony,” said Olivia. “Not at whatever ungodly hour this is.” Quickly, she found a chair of her own and sat across from him.

  “Help yourself, in that case,” said St. John. He actually smiled at her, weary but genuine, with nothing unwilling about it. “I’d say it was a token of my thanks for not making me rise, but it’s not actually my food.”

  It was good food, and there was plenty even without what St. John had already taken: a few thick slices off a roast, half a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, and an apple. He had a glass of wine in front of him too. “I can’t offer you the bottle,” he said when he saw the direction of Olivia’s gaze, “or yet another glass. I don’t mind sharing, though, if you’re willing to be a little primitive.”

  “We’re in the kitchen, and it’s past midnight. I think ‘primitive’ is rather inescapable at this point.” Olivia glanced around and located a plate.