Blythewood

by Carol Goodman

  “Oranges and lemons

  Say the bells of St. Clement’s

  You owe me five farthings

  Say the bells of St. Martin’s.”

  “When will you pay me?

  Say the bells of Old Bailey,”

  Mr. Bellows eagerly chimed in. The two men walked up the porch steps, trading verses of the rhyme as the church bells tolled.

  “When I grow rich

  Say the bells of Shoreditch.”

  “When will that be?

  Say the bells of Stepney.”

  “I do not know,

  Says the great bell of Bow.”

  “Here comes a candle to light you to bed . . .”

  “‘And here comes a chopper to chop off your head’!” the gentleman in white concluded triumphantly just as the front door was opened by Vionetta Sharp.

  “Uncle always has to have the last line,” Miss Sharp said. “Don’t you, Uncle Taddie?” She gave him the sort of indulgent smile one might give a child.

  “I’ve brought my teacup,” Uncle Taddie said, handing Miss Sharp the violet-patterned cup. “Emmy says I can’t have any more tea if I don’t bring back the cups.”

  “That’s perfectly right, Uncle, as we would soon run out of cups if they all remained in the tower with you, and then we wouldn’t be able to have these lovely young women for tea.”

  “I found these three wandering the streets of the village being accosted by drunken sailors,” Mr. Bellows announced rather loudly. I guessed that he had been composing the speech while walking here. “I thought it best to bring them along. I brought these, too,” he added in a lower voice, thrusting the bouquet of violets toward Miss Sharp.

  “Rather like bringing coals to Newcastle,” a female voice remarked. The door opened wider and Miss Corey appeared. She was wearing a white lace tea dress rather than her usual plain shirtwaist and skirt, and a straw hat rather than the heavy cloche she usually wore. Although she still wore a veil, it was a lighter one, a rose-colored net that cast only a faint shadow over her face.

  “Oh, Miss Corey,” Mr. Bellows said in a subdued tone, “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “Nor I you,” Miss Corey replied primly. “And I certainly didn’t expect to see any Blythewood girls. They’re not supposed to leave the school grounds without permission, and I’m quite sure no one would have given them permission on Halloween.”

  “Well, now that they have they might as well have tea,” Miss Sharp said, smiling, and then, in a lower, more ominous tone, added, “It will be better if we walk them back.” Then she relieved Mr. Bellows of the bouquet as we stepped into a foyer paved with lilac and jonquil-yellow tiles and dominated by an enormous grandfather clock. She held the flowers to her nose and inhaled deeply.

  “Ah, Parma violets, my favorite. Aunt Emmaline won’t grow them because of an unpleasant incident with an Italian prince that occurred in Naples on her grand tour. I shall secrete them away until it is time to go.” She slipped the violets into a carpetbag that stood on a marble-topped table. “Come along. Tea is served in the conservatory.”

  Miss Sharp led us to a glass-roofed room on the side of the house. Although it was a brisk fall day outside, the room was as warm as the tropics. Potted palms and aspidistras filled the corners of the room, ferns trailed from baskets hanging from the glass ceiling, and pots of violets stood on every available surface along with a great assortment of framed pictures and clocks. Brightly colored birds flitted inside wire cages or darted freely amongst the ferns and palm trees. Although the room was as cluttered as my grandmother’s parlor in New York City, it was a great deal cheerier—and the plump woman in lavender silk and mauve lace sitting in a high-backed wicker chair, although around the same age as my grandmother, was a great deal more welcoming.

  “I knew there would be unexpected guests for tea,” she cried out at the sight of us. “Didn’t I say so, Hattie?” she asked a tiny birdlike woman perched on a footstool to her right. The tiny woman—she was so small I wondered if she wasn’t a species of fairy—looked up from her needlepoint and nodded.

  “You did, and I promptly told the cook to make extra sandwiches and Victoria sponge cake, as you are always right about such things.” She turned and looked over her beak-like nose at us.

  “My sister Emmaline predicted the stock market crash of ninety-three and had father move all our holdings into gold. Come sit down, children. Doris will be in with the tea in a moment. We always have tea at four.”

  She glanced up at an imposing grandfather clock, the kind that has a sun and a moon that move around with the hour. This one also had a dial painted with an apple tree in varying stages of foliage—bare, budding, fully leaved, and blazing red—to represent the seasons. According to the clock it was a quarter past two, in the middle of the night, in the summer.

  “Oh dear, that one’s wrong,” Aunt Harriet said, glancing at a smaller clock on the mantelpiece, which said that it was half past six. “Our father was an horologist, you see. He made beautiful, rather complicated clocks, but since he passed away we haven’t been able to figure out how to keep the clocks going right. But never mind—the church bells have just gone four o’clock. Doris will be in soon.”

  We sat and introduced ourselves to Miss Sharp’s two aunts. “I believe we are fifth cousins on the maternal side with your uncle Hector,” Aunt Harriet remarked to Helen.

  To me, Aunt Emmaline mentioned she’d been at Blythewood with my grandmother. “She was an excellent archer.”

  By the time the tea trolley was rolled in by Doris—an ancient woman even older than the two sisters—it was clear that the Sharp sisters were well acquainted with Blythewood’s secret, but that their brother Thaddeus was not. Or at least the sisters preferred to think he was not. Whenever a detail about the school was brought up the sisters lowered their voices to a conspiratorial whisper and bent their heads together, but because they were both a little deaf they spoke so loudly anyone could have heard them.

  “Is Euphorbia Frost still teaching deportment?” Aunt Emmaline asked loudly, and then in an equally loud whispered aside to her sister, “And still preaching about the evils of fraternizing with F-A-I-R-I-E-S?”

  “As if any fairy would be caught dead fraternizing with her.” Aunt Harriet chuckled.

  I glanced at Uncle Taddie and saw that he was following the conversation avidly as he stuffed cucumber sandwiches into his mouth, his eyes bright as the hummingbird that had alighted to drink from a saucer of sugar water Aunt Harriet had put out. Did the two women really think he wasn’t in on the secret? Miss Sharp gave her aunts a warning look when Emmaline tried to ask Daisy if she’d seen any lampsprites in the woods, and steered the conversation to more neutral topics, such as the new archery equipment ordered by Miss Swift and a concert program being organized by Mr. Peale for Christmas.

  Eventually lulled by this conversation—and the copious quantities of tea sandwiches, scones with clotted cream, and sponge cake—Taddie fell into a doze and began to snore. Taking that as a signal to abandon all caution, Emmaline leaned forward and asked us all what kind of fairies we’d seen on our first night and whether we’d caught sight of any since then. Daisy, who was the best at the classifications we memorized in Miss Frost’s class, listed off the species we’d encountered so far. “Lampsprites, horn goblins, piskies, fenodorees . . .”

  “Any boggarts or boggles in the house?” Harriet interrupted.

  “In the house?” Daisy asked, alarmed. “What do you mean, in the house? The bells keep all the fairies out and the Dianas patrol the grounds . . .” She faltered and Emmaline smiled craftily.

  “Ah, you see, why would the Dianas have to patrol if the bells kept all the fairies out?”

  “It’s because the bells don’t work on all the fairies,” Harriet said. “In our time there was a boggle living in the pantry. The cook tolerated it because it kept out the
mice, but it also liked to play tricks on the girls.”

  “We’d wake up with cattails braided in our hair and our shoes full of tadpoles,” Emmaline said, her eyes shining.

  “It was a marsh boggle,” Harriet explained. “It only did that to girls it liked.”

  “But I thought all the fairies were evil!” Daisy cried. “That’s what Dame Beckwith told us. And that’s what we learn in Miss Frost’s class.” Daisy’s voice shook when she mentioned Miss Frost. I knew she hated looking at the specimens.

  “Of course that’s what they teach you.” Harriet patted Daisy on the hand and offered her a plate of bread and butter. “The mission of Blythewood is to protect the world from the creatures who wander out of Faerie. India thinks it would be confusing to teach that there are gradations among the fay from innocent mischief-making to unadulterated evil. And as for Euphorbia Frost—well, she wouldn’t have the imagination to conceive of gradations of good and evil in her narrow worldview, let alone differences among the individuals of any one species. She’s a very closed-minded person who worshipped her mentor, Sir Miles Malmsbury, and slavishly adheres to the old ways, which teach us that all fairies are evil and that in order to destroy them we must obey a set of rigid rules invented in the fifteenth century!”

  “You mustn’t get so upset, Hattie,” Emmaline cut in. “You’ll bring on another bout of dyspepsia. My sister feels things very strongly,” she explained to us. “And some of the Order’s rules are rather . . . limiting.”

  “Limiting?” Harriet spluttered. “Try draconian! Their rules on marriage, for instance . . .”

  “I’m sure these girls are not old enough to be worried about marriage yet, Aunt,” Miss Sharp said with a warning look at her aunt. And then to us: “My grandfather Thaddeus Sharp began to question the old ways before he died.”

  “He believed that young people ought to be trusted with the truth,” Aunt Harriet averred with a thump of her walking stick.

  “I agree entirely,” Mr Bellows said, jostling the teacup on his knee in his excitement. “As a historian I am committed to the truth. I believe our girls are mature and intelligent enough to appreciate shades of gray. I was shocked to learn that there are certain books in the library that are removed from the shelves to keep students from reading them.” He cast a reproachful look at Miss Corey.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said, her veil trembling. “It’s not my choice. If it were up to me I’d make all information available to every student. But the Council tells me every year what books I must place in the Special Collections Room.”

  “That’s what’s in the Special Collections?” Helen asked. “I thought it was a bunch of moldering antiques.”

  “Many of them are moldering,” Miss Corey replied, “but most are there because they are deemed too . . . controversial for students.”

  “What controversy?” I asked, recalling the discussions I’d overheard Agnes having with Caroline Janeway and Vionetta Sharp and how Agnes had looked bitter when she referred to the “old ways.” What I really wanted to ask was whether their father had thought the Darklings were completely evil, but Uncle Taddie chose that moment to snort loudly and startle awake. The aunts exchanged a look and Emmaline asked Taddie if he wouldn’t mind going into the greenhouse and gathering three poesies “for the girls before they left.” When he’d gone Aunt Emmaline told us Taddie’s story.

  “As we mentioned before, my father believed that young people ought to be trusted with the truth, so even though Taddie was deemed too frail to attend Blythewood—let alone Hawthorn—our father took him into the Wood for the initiation. Taddie became so frightened that he ran off and was lost in the woods for three days. When we found him he was quite . . . distracted. He never would say what happened to him and he was never the same again. We try not to talk about the fairies around him. The incident quite devastated Mother and had unfortunate consequences for us all.” She looked nervously at her sister, who was suddenly intent on tidying the tea things, and then continued. “Of course Father couldn’t very well continue proposing that Blythewood change their policies when his own son had been so . . . damaged by his encounters with the wee folk.”

  “Unfortunately there are scores of such incidents recorded in the annals,” Miss Corey said to Aunt Emmaline. “As I’ve said before, I’d be happy to do some research into what treatments have proved useful in handling such cases.”

  Aunt Emmaline sighed. “That’s very considerate of you, dear, but Father brought Taddie to all the experts in Europe. He spent a year at a sanatorium in Marienbad that specializes in psychical traumata brought on by encounters with the fay. It only made him worse. What calms him now are working with the violets and tinkering with Father’s old clocks—although, frankly, I’m afraid that he’s made rather a mess with the clocks. I believe Father was attempting something more complicated than telling time, but I don’t think anyone else will ever figure out exactly what he was doing with them . . . Oh, here’s Taddie now. What lovely poesies you’ve brought for the girls, Taddie!”

  Uncle Taddie presented us each with a bouquet of violets surrounded by heart-shaped leaves and bound with lilac ribbon. Taking this—and Mr. Bellows’ anxious consultations of his pocket watch—as a cue to leave, we made our farewells.

  Aunt Emmaline gave us each a parcel of cakes to take back with us and told us not to mind what her sister Hattie had said about boggles. “I’m sure they’re better about keeping them out these days, although you need to be especially careful tonight because of its being All Hallows’ Eve. You’d best hurry back before nightfall.”

  Before we left, Emmaline pulled me aside in the foyer and whispered to me, “You’re a chime child just like me, aren’t you?”

  “How . . . ?”

  “One chime child can always recognize another once you’ve learned how to use the bells . . . but you haven’t learned yet, have you? You come see me one day and I’ll show you how to find an object to focus the bells.”

  I thanked her and said I would like that. Then I hurried after my party, who were being escorted down the path by Uncle Taddie. He seemed sad to see us go, and I half thought he might follow us back to the school. But when we got to the gate the church bells began to ring the hour and he froze on the path as if they were the signal to go no farther. Nodding his head, he held one finger up and recited a rhyme to go with the rhythm of the bells. I did not think that this verse was part of the original poem, though.

  “Violets and Monkshood,

  Say the bells of Blythewood.

  Here comes a lampsprite to lead you astray,

  And here comes a Darkling to steal you away.”

  20

  WE WALKED OUT of the village and onto River Road. Miss Corey walked on ahead at a brisk clip, glancing anxiously at the western sky, where the sun was sinking over the mountains on the other side of the river. Miss Sharp walked between Helen and Daisy, and I trailed behind with Mr. Bellows, who seemed too busy checking his pocket watch and whistling the bells tune he’d sung with Uncle Taddie to talk. Helen, too, was distracted, peering ahead on either side of the road as if she was looking for someone. For Nate, I guessed. She must have been wondering if he had already left the village or would be stranded on the road after dark.

  Only Daisy felt compelled to trade social niceties. “I liked your aunts, Miss Sharp,” she said.

  “Yes, they’re old dears. I’m sure they liked you, too.”

  “It’s sweet they take care of their brother.”

  “Yes, fortunate, too. I’m not sure what we’d do with Uncle Taddie otherwise.”

  “Is that why they didn’t marry?”

  Miss Sharp didn’t answer right away. I could see Daisy fidgeting with her reticule nervously. “I’m sorry,” she said after a few awkward minutes, “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “No, it’s perfectly all right. As my grandfather would have said,
young people deserve to know the truth. My aunt Harriet meant to marry. She was engaged to a young man of the One Hundred—a Driscoll, in fact—but when Taddie became . . . disturbed, the Driscolls insisted her fiancé break off the engagement. They were afraid, you see, that madness might run in the family. According to the old ways it’s irresponsible to have children if there’s a taint in the bloodline.”

  Beside me Mr. Bellows had ceased whistling, and up ahead Miss Corey had slowed down.

  “But that’s . . . that’s . . .” Daisy spluttered.

  “Unfair? Cruel? Yes. You can see why my aunt Harriet has no fondness for the old ways.”

  Even Daisy’s repertoire of cheerful homilies was exhausted by this comment. She lapsed into silence. Miss Sharp resumed her inspection of the woods. Miss Corey walked on at an even brisker pace. Mr. Bellows walked with his head bowed, scowling at the ground. I kept my eyes on the lengthening shadows at the side of the road and thought about tainted blood. Aunt Harriet had only to have a brother who chattered harmlessly about fairies to be denied marriage. What if the Order knew about the dreams I had about the Darkling? Were they signs of madness? Or were they part of a spell the Darkling had cast over me to lure me into the woods? But would a sane woman be susceptible to the lure of a Darkling? Georgiana’s mocking words came back to me. “Nature protects those of the best blood from undesirable matches because impure mates will appear repugnant to the truly pure woman.”

  So did my desire for the Darkling mean I was impure? Tainted by impure blood? Had my father been mad? Is that why my mother never spoke of him?

  Or was it my mother who was mad? After all, did a sane woman shun her rich relatives and live in poverty with her daughter?

  Did a sane woman drink laudanum?

  Did a sane woman hear bells in her head . . . ?

  As I did now.

  The bass bell had been chiming in my head for some moments now. But for what? There was no danger here. There was nothing in the woods but a large crow rustling its feathers as it alighted in the low-hanging branches of one of the giant sycamores that lined the road. It was joined by another crow . . . and then another. A dozen of them were amassing in the trees, like bits of the gathering dusk made visible. A flock of them—only that’s not what you called a group of crows . . .