A Secret History of Witches

by Louisa Morgan

  When she reached Valéry Chirac’s bedside, she thought it must be finished at last. He lay utterly still. The rattle that had marked his breathing for hours had ceased. His face looked as if it were carved out of marble, the features clarified and exaggerated by illness. The sleeping nurse slumped in her chair, her head falling back, her mouth open.

  Veronica touched Valéry’s hand, and found it cool and dry. She pressed her palm to his forehead, and that was cool, too. His lips and nostrils, indeed, his entire face, was a healthy pink, and his breathing, she realized now, was not silent but light and steady, free of the rales that had so frightened them all. Veronica pulled a chair close to his bed, and for a long time, until the sun crept over the horizon and the makeshift ward began to stir, she sat gazing at the sleeping soldier, silently offering thanks for the craft that had saved him.

  When Valéry opened his eyes after the long night, Veronica was still there. He whispered, “Merci, mademoiselle. Merci beaucoup.”

  “De rien.” She smoothed his blankets and reached behind his head to plump his pillow.

  He said, still in French, “I thought I would die.”

  She was too weary to judge her response. She blurted, “I thought so, too.”

  The young soldier said, his eyes drooping, “I will fight again. It’s all that matters.”

  She wasn’t sure she understood the words, but the meaning was clear, and it filled her with fear.

  Perhaps it was because she was tired beyond belief. Or perhaps it was because she had seen her mother in the crystal, the mother she had longed for and mourned, and her emotions were raw. Whatever the reason, she felt an impulse to beg Valéry Chirac not to return to the war. It made no sense. He wanted to fight again, and she had no right to prevent him. She had no right to fear for him any more than she feared for any of the other soldiers in her care. It was as if her efforts to save him had created some sort of bond between them.

  But Valéry Chirac would never know what she had done. He would never be aware that she regarded him differently from her other patients. She would make certain of it.

  5

  Wartime erased formality at Sweetbriar, and Veronica no longer believed the old customs would return. She and Lord Dafydd took all their meals in the morning room now, which was simpler for the staff. They gave up dressing for dinner. Veronica cropped her hair short for convenience. Breakfast was a spare meal, just coffee and toast, a boiled egg if one was available.

  One morning in early December, she sat in silence across from her father, twisting her engagement ring and worrying. Phillip was flying sorties over Germany. They believed Thomas to be in France. Valéry would soon be well enough to fight.

  A bomb had fallen on the Home Farm, destroying the old stone house and setting the wooden barn ablaze. When Veronica trembled at the thought that Jago might have been killed, Oona, lying beneath the table, tucked her little whiskered muzzle over her foot, and Veronica reached down to stroke her head in gratitude.

  Lord Dafydd laid aside his newspaper. Veronica read the dour headline upside down: TERROR RAINS FROM THE SKY. “It’s bad, isn’t it, Papa?”

  “Terrible,” he answered. “I can’t imagine celebrating Christmas with this going on.”

  “No.” Veronica folded and refolded her napkin to stop herself from turning her ring. She frowned, looking at the lines of pain around her father’s eyes and mouth. “I think you’re suffering as much as our patients are.”

  “Nonsense!” He pushed back from the table and reached for his cane. “I’m going with Jago to the Home Farm, see if there’s anything we can salvage.”

  “I’ll go to the shops,” Veronica said.

  “Why can’t Cook do that?”

  “Papa! She’s working night and day trying to feed the men, the staff, and us. She has trouble managing the ration books, too. I have to help her with that.”

  “Jago and I will have a look at the fields while we’re down there, decide what to plant in the spring. Dig for Victory, and all that.”

  “No digging for you, Papa,” Veronica said firmly. She was about to say more, but Honeychurch interrupted, coming in with the post on a silver tray.

  Lord Dafydd leafed through it, tossing most of it aside. When he came upon one small cream-colored envelope he paused. He held it up between two fingers, giving his daughter a curious glance. “From Buckingham Palace. Were you expecting something?”

  “No! Is it addressed to me?”

  He handed it across to her. The return address was engraved, and the paper was thick and smooth. Her name was handwritten in elegant script: “Lady Veronica Selwyn, Second Drift, Sweetbriar, Stamford.” The envelope was embossed with the royal seal.

  Wondering, Veronica slid her thumb under the flap. The note was handwritten, too, in the same script, with strong capitals and disciplined lines:

  Dear Lady Veronica,

  We beg the pleasure of your company at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, the 10th of December, at four o’clock, for a private talk. Please come. We will regard it as a personal favor.

  Elizabeth Windsor

  Veronica stared at it for long moments. Finally she breathed, “The queen wants to see me, Papa. Privately! What can that mean?”

  “I have no idea. I suppose you’ll have to go and find out.”

  “I think I must! But can you manage?”

  “I have Honeychurch. And Jago.”

  “Perhaps Jago should move into the house.”

  “That’s a good thought. I’ll suggest it to him this morning. When are you off to London to visit the queen?”

  “That sounds like a nursery song.” Veronica smiled, distracted from her worries by the mystery. “Tuesday’s the day, in the afternoon. I’ll take the morning train.”

  “Take your gas mask.”

  She rose, smiling at him. “I will, dear Papa. I always do.”

  Veronica, since her presentation, had seen Queen Elizabeth only from a distance. Her Majesty was always, it seemed, accompanied by various men and women looking serious and attentive. The Selwyns had no connection with the Windsors, and although Lord Dafydd served in the House of Lords, he had met the king only once or twice, and never the queen. Veronica didn’t expect a “private talk” to be truly private. She expected at the very least a butler, or perhaps one of the ladies-in-waiting, certainly a maid to serve the tea.

  In the event, she learned that Elizabeth had written precisely what she intended. A butler escorted Veronica up the stairs to a small parlor, where he left her alone. A maid appeared with a tea tray, then also disappeared. A moment later, hurrying in with a little clatter of high-heeled shoes, came Her Majesty.

  Veronica leaped to her feet and curtsied. Elizabeth put out her hand—ungloved—to be shaken, and said with a smile, “Lady Veronica. Thank you so much for coming. I know how busy you and Lord Dafydd are with the convalescent hospital.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Veronica said. “Naturally, since you asked to speak to me, I wouldn’t dream of refusing. It’s an honor.”

  “Still, it’s kind of you. We’re all at sixes and sevens these days, aren’t we?” Elizabeth, with a small sigh, sat on a brocaded divan, and waved Veronica to the matching one opposite. “This is something I couldn’t write in a letter.” She leaned to reach the tea service and poured out the tea with her own hand, saying absently, “Milk? Sugar?”

  It had been months since Veronica had taken her tea with sugar. There simply wasn’t enough of it, and she and her father saved what there was for the soldiers. She hesitated, and Elizabeth glanced up, a twinkle in her startlingly blue eyes. “It’s all right,” she said. “We’re quite careful about rationing here at the palace, but we do indulge in a little bit of sugar. Please take some.”

  “I will then, thank you, ma’am.”

  When they both had their cups in hand, Elizabeth settled back and took a sip. “Ah. I needed my tea. It’s been a trying day.”

  “You’ve been touring the bombed neighborhoods, I believe
, ma’am.”

  “Yes. It’s ghastly. So many people have lost their homes, and far too many their lives.”

  “I know. From Sweetbriar we can see the explosions, and last night a bomb fell on our Home Farm. The house was destroyed.”

  “No one injured, I hope?”

  “No. Our staff there had already moved up to the house to help with the hospital.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “England is in peril.”

  “I fear so, ma’am.”

  “We have to do everything we can to help the war effort.”

  “Is there something more I could do, ma’am? You have only to ask—” She broke off at the expression on the sovereign’s face. The bright blue eyes darkened. Elizabeth’s round, pleasant face appeared to sharpen, her lips to thin. Her chin even jutted, just a bit.

  Veronica froze with her teacup halfway to her lips. Her Majesty’s face reminded her of the faces she had seen in the crystal, fading in and out of the light as they gazed back at her. She gulped and lowered the cup carefully, lest it slip from her suddenly chilled fingers.

  The queen said, “You must have wondered why I wanted our talk to be private.”

  Veronica nodded.

  “I have—let’s call them friends—in some strange places, my dear. One of those places is a rather unusual bookshop on Museum Street. Atlantis Bookshop. I believe you know it.”

  Veronica’s heart skipped a beat, and her next breath trembled in her throat.

  “I see you understand me.” Elizabeth, looking nothing at all like the smiling monarch the English public adored, set her teacup firmly into its saucer. She fixed Veronica with a gaze of blue steel. “I dare not say too much, Lady Veronica, in case I’m mistaken. I think, however, having been alerted by my friend in that bookshop, that you and I may have something in common.”

  “Ah—ma’am, I don’t see—”

  Elizabeth clicked her tongue. “We must save time. Let me put it this way,” she said. Her eyes grew even darker, until they were nearly black. “Do you have a grimoire?”

  Veronica, staring at her queen, felt a rush of gratitude so powerful it left her shaking. Someone knew! Someone else knew, and understood. She wasn’t alone after all.

  She said, in a voice rough with emotion, “Yes! Oh, ma’am, yes, I do!” Then, realizing suddenly that the queen had confessed to her just what she had been forbidden to reveal to anyone, she said, “Does that mean—ma’am, I hardly dare—that is, are you—”

  The darkness of Elizabeth’s gaze began to abate, and the habitual softness to return to her plump face. “Yes, Lady Veronica. I am.”

  “Oh, I can’t believe it,” Veronica cried softly, forgetting the formal mode of address. “I’ve always wondered—longed so much to meet someone else—”

  “I’m sure you’ve felt terribly lonely.”

  “Truly, I thought everyone else—everyone like me—was dead.”

  “Happily, no.” A faint twinkle softened Elizabeth’s eyes. It was a relief to Veronica to see her looking like herself again. “I’m not entirely certain of your lineage, though I’ve heard of it. My own, of course, is known to everyone, for better or worse. I don’t know if you understand how the craft is passed down.”

  “I know very little.”

  “Handed on mother to daughter, if at all. Not everyone inherits the power, but enough do that the craft survives, if the practitioners aren’t discovered. We take a terrible risk.”

  “Still? But surely no one believes, in this day and age …”

  “Let us pray we never find out.” Elizabeth gave a delicate shrug. “One of my Glamis ancestresses was burned as a witch in Scotland, in 1537. Others have been suspected over the years. When I was a little girl, a gypsy walked up to my mama and me and announced, rather loudly, I’m afraid, that I would be a queen, and mother to a queen. It was obvious she recognized us for what we were. No doubt she was one herself.”

  “Your mama was a …?”

  “We will say the word, my dear, but very quietly. We need to understand each other perfectly.” Elizabeth glanced at the door, which remained firmly closed. “Yes,” she said. “My mama was a witch. I am one. Evidently so was your mama, and now you.” She nodded toward Veronica. “I am of the Glamis line. Do you know yours?”

  “Yes. My mother left instructions with someone she trusted. It’s the Orchiére line.”

  “It’s a great tragedy your mother didn’t survive to teach you. I’m so very sorry. That’s why you ordered the books, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. There was little enough in them to help me, and I wouldn’t have tried, except … well. There was a need.”

  “There always is.” Elizabeth, returned now to the image of the gentle royal known to her people, picked up the teapot and poured fresh tea into her cup. She held the pot up in question, and Veronica nodded, holding out her cup so Elizabeth could refill it. “Never more need than now, I fear. The evil being visited upon our people is beyond anything I could ever have imagined. We need every one of our kind to come together to do what we can.”

  “There are others?”

  “A few. It’s so terribly dangerous to reveal ourselves. Can you imagine the effect on the monarchy if I was even suspected of such practices? They say enough about me as it is, and such exposure would make my life unbearable, and poor Bertie’s. It could bring down the monarchy.” She gave a delicate shudder. “It’s unthinkable. And of course it makes it difficult for women like us to connect, one to the other.”

  “What do you wish me to do, ma’am?”

  “Move to London, Veronica. Bring your grimoire and take a room with us, at Windsor Castle.” Elizabeth gave her a narrow look. “You’re not afraid of the bombs?”

  “No, ma’am. I mean yes, of course I’m afraid, but then, isn’t everyone?” Elizabeth nodded. “I have something else,” Veronica added. The queen raised her brows. “I have a stone. A scrying stone. It was my mother’s, and my grandmother’s, and her grandmother’s, very far back. Farther than I can trace.”

  “You can use it?”

  “Yes. Yes, it seems I can.”

  “Then that,” Elizabeth said, “is the best news I have heard in a long, long time.”

  “Her Majesty,” Veronica said, using the words she and Elizabeth had decided on before she returned to Sweetbriar, “remembered me from my presentation. She needs someone she can trust to carry messages to the princesses.”

  “Surely she has staff for that sort of thing,” Lord Dafydd said. He had met Veronica at the station, with Jago driving the Daimler. “Why does she need you?”

  Veronica couldn’t meet his eyes, and she felt Jago’s attention as acutely as if he had stopped the car and turned around in the driver’s seat to listen. “The royal family has the same problem we do, Papa. Many of their usual staff have gone to fight.”

  “But we Selwyns … the Windsors … This doesn’t make sense.”

  Veronica managed a laugh. “Papa, I could take offense, you know! Queen Elizabeth remembered me. She likes me, and I’ll be helping with the war effort.”

  “But London,” Lord Dafydd said mournfully. “It’s dangerous.”

  “It’s dangerous everywhere, Papa. Even the princesses are working, you know.”

  “But where will you stay?”

  Veronica took a deep breath and relaxed. It seemed there was to be no serious argument. “We’ll work during the day mostly at Buckingham Palace, then go by car to Windsor Castle, where there will be a room set aside for me. I’m allowed to take Oona, also.”

  Her father took her gloved hand in his. “You must write me every day,” he said.

  “Of course.” She leaned to kiss his cheek. “And you, too, Jago,” she added. Without taking his eyes off the road, Jago touched his fingers to his cap.

  Just before moving to the palace, Veronica went to see Phillip, who had a short leave. He was staying at the Strand Palace Hotel in London. She took the train down, and when he met her at Charing Cross, he looked au
thoritative and striking in his uniform, his hair very fair beneath his dark cap. She hugged him, and kissed him with enthusiasm, glad to be one of the throng of dashing officers and lovely young women. Phillip, as always, stood out from the crowd, tall, handsome, polished. She was proud of him, and proud to be seen with Squadron Leader Paxton.

  They drank champagne that night, and danced in the club of the hotel until four in the morning. Everyone was giddy with the awareness of being young, of being alive when so many had died, of stealing a few precious hours from the terrors of war. The old rules of behavior were far from their minds.

  When it was time to say good night, Veronica and Phillip embraced in the corridor outside her room. She whispered, “Come in with me, Phillip. Stay.”

  He stiffened and pulled away. “Veronica! You can’t mean that. It wouldn’t be—”

  “Honorable,” she finished for him, giving him a wry look.

  “Exactly! I could never—I mean, Lord Dafydd—your father trusts me.”

  “Phillip, this war! Anything can happen. We should make the most of every moment!”

  “I’m a gentleman, Veronica. You’re a lady. We don’t do things this way.”

  She let it pass. She knew Phillip and his ideals too well to be surprised, and as it happened, when she woke in the morning, alone and lonely in her single bed, she was grateful he had refused her impulsive gesture. There was risk there, as he had clearly understood. What he didn’t know was that she had work to do, important work with her queen. It would be foolish to let anything interfere.

  The night before she left for London she went through the hall saying good-bye to the nurses, the doctors, and a few of the patients who had been there for a long time. She found Valéry Chirac on his feet, leaning on a cane, but dressed in a shirt and trousers instead of hospital wear. “Valéry,” she said, putting out her hand. “I understand you’re moving up to the dormitory.”

  He shook her hand and gave a courtly little bow over it. “I am if I can manage the stairs,” he said. “It is a miracle, is it not?”