by Webb, Holly
www.orchardbooks.co.uk
ORCHARD BOOKS
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Orchard Books Australia
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First published in 2011 by Orchard Books
This ebook edition published in 2011
ISBN 978 1 40831 484 5
Text © Holly Webb 2010
The right of Holly Webb to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved.
Orchard Books is a division of
Hachette Children’s Books,
an Hachette UK company.
www.hachette.co.uk
‘And one, two, three, and one, two, three, and – twirl, girl!’
Rose sighed, and twirled obediently. The last time she had danced, it had been in a Venetian ballroom, lit by candles hanging in huge crystal wheels from the ceiling. She had been surrounded by masked society ladies, and by the music, which swept her around in a whirl of silvery chimes.
The thin tinkling of the piano couldn’t send her feet circling like that Venetian orchestra had a few weeks before. And Bella refused to obey Miss Fell’s strict instructions on the polite steps of the quadrille. She kept adding fancy footwork, and Miss Fell did not approve. Even the jauntiest tune was dismal when the piano stopped every four bars for the pianist to hiss with horror.
Rose half-closed her eyes, and remembered soft white fur gloves instead of Bella’s thin, hot hands.
‘Rose! Not you as well! Chassé! Oh, stop it, stop it, I cannot stand the pair of you any longer. Tell one of the maids I shall take tea and a piece of lavender shortbread in my room.’ Miss Fell sprang up from the piano stool with a remarkable energy for one so elderly, and strode – as much as she ever did anything so unladylike – out of the room.
Rose sank onto a small gilt chair, and shook her head. ‘Mrs Jones will have a fit. I’m practically certain there’s no lavender shortbread in the kitchens. She’ll have Sarah making holes in the plain kind with a pin, and sticking the lavender in.’
‘You’d think Miss Fell would know that, as she’s such a powerful magician,’ Bella said thoughtfully, chasséing perfectly across the polished floorboards and subsiding onto the windowsill beside Rose’s chair.
‘You would, wouldn’t you?’ The two girls exchanged glances, and Rose cast her eyes down to the floor, smiling a little. A few short months before, she had been an orphanage brat. The first time she had met Bella, she had been laying the fire in the younger girl’s bedroom. Rose had moved from the orphanage to be the lowliest maid in the house of Bella’s father, Aloysius Fountain, a powerful magician who worked as an adviser to the king. But then Mr Fountain’s apprentice, the insufferable Freddie, had discovered that Rose could do magic too, and everything had changed. Dancing lessons – however horrible – were a world away.
Miss Fell had been living in Mr Fountain’s house with them ever since they had returned from Venice, where they’d travelled to defeat the crazed magician, Gossamer. She wasn’t anything as humble as a governess, but she had taken over Bella’s lessons, and had insisted that Rose attended too. She also taught Freddie for some subjects, but Freddie had taken to developing interesting illnesses when it was the day for etiquette and genealogy.
Mr Fountain had been intending to find a new governess for Bella anyway, as she had finally seen off Miss Anstruther, her long-suffering last governess, just before they left for Venice. Bella’s magic was now starting to show – and she couldn’t control it properly. Rose rather suspected that Bella didn’t want to, as it was more fun that way. Unfortunately, her magic was also immensely strong.
No one had quite realised how strong until they landed at Dover, two weeks before. As Mr Fountain had predicted, the Venetian ship hardly stayed in port long enough for them to disembark. The captain seemed to have very little need of favourable winds, and the spell-laden sails filled and swelled despite the stillness in the air.
Rose and the others were left abandoned at the quayside, something which happened to Mr Fountain very rarely. It was terribly cold, and Rose felt desolate, looking at the grey water, and greyer sky. It was surely about to snow again, which would at least cover the dirty slush around their feet. Their adventure in Venice had been dangerous, and frightening, and almost fatal – but it had been exciting too, and home was dismal. Tattered recruiting posters were pasted up on every wall, and the war with the Talish Empire seemed to have grown nearer and more certain while they were away.
Bella had huddled against Rose, moaning, her hands snuggled inside her huge white fur muff, and her blue eyes enormous in her pinched, cold face. ‘I want a carriage!’ she whimpered. ‘I’m frozen. Papa, summon a carriage. I want to go home!’
‘I want, I want,’ Freddie muttered. ‘Don’t worry, sir, I’ll run to the inn and fetch one. Sit on that bollard, why don’t you?’ He ushered the master over to the iron bollard, worriedly eyeing the area of waistcoat where Mr Fountain had been stabbed. Bill, one of the young servant boys, helped him to set Mr Fountain down. ‘And don’t let Bella work you into one of her tantrums. If anything’s going to bring about a relapse, it’ll be that.’
‘Thank you, Frederick.’ Mr Fountain sighed wearily. The cold seemed to affect his spirits in the same way it ruined Bella’s.
‘I’m not having a tantrum!’ Bella smacked Freddie on the arm. ‘I shan’t be spoken of in that horrid way. Apologise! Papa, make him!’
‘Bella, dear!’ Miss Fell frowned haughtily. ‘Ladylike manners, if you please.’
‘I’m not a lady, I’m only eight, and I’m cold, and I want to go ho-oome!’ The last word extended into an eerie wail, and Rose put her hands to her ears as they began to throb, pain pulsing through them with the wobble in Bella’s voice.
There were startled cries from the deck of the ship anchored nearest to them, a tall clipper, as the masts started to shake, and the sailors fell to the deck wrapping their arms around their heads.
‘Bella, stop it… Please…’ Rose whispered. There was no chance that Bella would hear her. How was she doing it? She had always had a piercing scream – Miss Anstruther had left Mr Fountain’s employ after Bella had made her ears bleed. But nothing like this.
A break in the dreadful battering of sound let her open her eyes, but it was only a catch in Bella’s throat. The wailing would start again in moments. Rose’s one horrified glance around showed her the others clutching their heads as she was. Bill was on the ground, pulling his jacket over his head, and Mr Fountain drooped limply on the bollard. Freddie was trying to hold him up, his head buried in the master’s shoulder as he tried to protect his ears.
Bella’s father! She was killing him! Rose took a determined step towards Bella, who seemed to have been affected by the sound herself. She was lying in the snow, curled into a little ball, still uttering that unearthly noise.
‘Bella!’ Rose pulled urgently at Bella’s shoulder, then cried out herself. Taking even one hand away from her ears was agony. ‘Bella, you have to stop! BELLA!’ Suddenly angry, Rose resorted to Mrs Jones’s remedy for hysterical housemaids, and smacked Bella round the face.
The screaming stopped rather abruptly, and Bella uncurled and looked up at Rose, her hand to her cheek. ‘Did you hit me?’
Rose took a cautious step back. ‘Yes,’ she admitted, wondering if she ought to run. But Bella looked more confused than angry.
‘Why?’ she murmured, rubbing her cheek. Rose could see the red mark across Bella’s pale skin, but she didn’t feel gu
ilty.
‘Look!’ she snarled, hauling Bella up. She wasn’t frightened any more. Now she was furious. How could Bella not know what she’d done?
Bella sagged in her arms, and looked round at the others. Mr Fountain’s cat, Gus, was slumped on the cobbles, his fur trailing in the dirty ice. As the girls watched, his tail flickered, and he licked a paw weakly.
‘You did that, Bella!’ Rose snapped. ‘Because you had a stupid, selfish, little girl’s tantrum. You can’t do that any more.’
‘But I didn’t mean to…’ Bella whispered weakly. Then she ran to stand in front of her father, laying a hand on his sleeve. Freddie was kneeling by him still, and there was a thin trickle of blood running down the boy’s neck from his ear, staining his starched collar.
‘Oh, Papa! I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ Bella glanced up at Rose, with wide blue eyes, the whites showing all around the blue. ‘Did I do that to Freddie? The blood?’
Rose nodded, and saw the expression on Bella’s face change. The fear shifting slightly into thoughtfulness. Perhaps even a little pride.
‘Yes. And it’s horrible!’ Rose hissed.
Bella nodded guiltily.
‘Please don’t do that again,’ Freddie muttered, shaking his head as though he felt dizzy. ‘Sir? Sir? Are you all right?’
‘Mmm. Tell me, Frederick. Dear boy. Was that Bella?’
Freddie hesitated, not sure whether he might send the master into heart failure by admitting that it had all been Bella’s doing.
‘Yes, then.’ Mr Fountain sighed. ‘I really should have found her a better governess.’
‘She doesn’t need a governess, she needs a cell!’ Miss Fell swept across the snow towards them. Her hat was on crooked, and she seemed old, and angry.
Bella was trying hard to look innocent, as though it was all just an unfortunate misunderstanding, but no one seemed to be appreciating the careful fluttering of her eyelashes, and she lapsed into a sulk.
There was an ominous creaking sound from up above them. Rose looked up slowly, reluctantly, as though if she didn’t look, it might not happen.
‘The mast!’ Freddie muttered, staring with her. ‘She broke the mast! I don’t believe it. Sir, we have to move, please, you have to get up!’
The foremast of the clipper, a solid lump of wood taller than a tree, was swaying above them. Bella’s screaming had splintered it fatally.
‘The sailors…’ Rose whispered. ‘It’ll hit them – they’re all unconscious on the deck. We recovered faster, because we know magic. Bill’s still collapsed too, look.’
‘Don’t just stand there gawping and whining, you silly girl,’ Miss Fell snapped. ‘Help. And you too, Isabella, since this is all down to your ridiculous behaviour. Frederick, see to your master. And the cat, and the servant boy.’ She marched briskly towards the ship’s gangplank, and swept up it, her damson-coloured pelisse trailing over the wood. The girls scurried after her.
‘Why are we going towards it?’ Bella whimpered. ‘We should be going away…’ But she subsided when Miss Fell and Rose turned remarkably similar glares on her.
Miss Fell threaded her way delicately between the unconscious sailors, pulling the skirts of her coat away from them. Bella and Rose trailed behind her, staring up at the hypnotic swaying of the mast. Rose felt herself drawn towards it, wondering which way it would fall.
‘Put your hands on it,’ Miss Fell commanded. ‘Isabella, stop play-acting, this is your ridiculous spoilt-child mess.’ She snatched Bella’s hand, and pressed it against the dark wood. Rose followed, wincing as she felt the tearing shudders running through the timber.
‘It’s going to fall on us,’ she muttered. ‘Bella, if I get squashed, I shall kill you.’
Bella sniggered, but stopped quickly when Miss Fell glared at her again.
‘I don’t work with wood.’ Miss Fell sounded frustrated. She was gripping the wooden mast as if she was trying to push her fingertips into it, but it was iron-hard, cured by the salt sea-winds.
Rose pressed her fingers against the polished wood, feeling for a hold, but it was no good. She hissed crossly, and felt Miss Fell’s eyes on her, just a moment’s glance.
Ever since they had first met Miss Fell in Venice, she had been looking at Rose oddly, and she kept dropping strange little hints. She seemed convinced that Rose must belong to one of the old magical families. Bella was certain of this too. Rose kept finding Bella staring, her nose wrinkled in a delicate little frown, as though she were trying to catch a scent.
‘I can’t get inside the wood,’ Rose told Miss Fell apologetically. ‘It’s too dead. The sails maybe? Could we do something to those?’ The old magician gave a thoughtful little nod.
‘Our magic is very similar, I think, Rose… Agh!’
With a shrieking crack, the mast suddenly listed to one side, sending Bella careering into Rose. Rose fell back, but was hooked upwards by something seizing her coat collar. An invisible something, a spell that Miss Fell had conjured up to catch her. At the same time, the sixty-foot mast suddenly exploded – very gently – into a cloud of powdery dust.
Gaping, Rose steadied herself, and dragged Bella upright. ‘I thought you said you didn’t work with wood, ma’am?’ she murmured admiringly, looking around the deck of the ship, now heaped with little drifts of sawdust.
Miss Fell’s lips pursed in a dissatisfied expression. ‘I don’t. I dislike merely – blasting things. No finesse. No delicacy. So uncouth.’
Rose nodded, and brushed the dust off Bella’s bonnet. It would be rather lovely, she thought, to know one’s magic well enough to actually decide what sort of spell to use, rather than just having to grab whatever happened to be passing through one’s head, as she seemed to. She shivered a little. She knew that Miss Fell was an incredibly strong magician – she had watched her heal Mr Fountain of a fatal stab wound, in their fight against the mad magician, Gossamer – but this was different. That solid slab of wood was simply gone, and the feathers on Miss Fell’s bonnet hadn’t even twitched. It was pure power, and now Rose had had time to think, it was frightening. So frightening that Rose wanted to be able to do it too.
‘I think perhaps now we should make for an inn,’ Miss Fell said, twitching dust out of the folds of her pelisse. ‘Rather tiresome to have to explain to these good fellows why one of their masts has disappeared.’
‘Woodworm? Very hungry weevils?’ Bella suggested, but Miss Fell ignored her majestically.
As they reached the quay, Bill was stumbling up from the ground, but Gus was still stretched out in the dirt, his whiskers trembling.
Rose hurried down from the gangplank to pick him up, lovingly wiping the greyish slush from his fur with her handkerchief.
‘That girl…is a menace…’ Gus moaned. ‘I’m dirty. I need to wash…’
‘Can’t you just glamour it away?’ Rose suggested helpfully.
Gus rolled his blue and orange eyes at her in disgust. ‘Don’t be stupid, Rose. If I glamour myself sky-blue I’m still white underneath! The dirt would still be there. I can feel it! Ugh!’
‘What did she do?’ Bill’s eyes were rolling, and he staggered as he tried to walk towards Rose. Bella’s screams seemed to have left his ears ringing. ‘Is she one of you lot properly now then? Mrs Jones’ll give notice, she always swore she wouldn’t stay when Miss Bella was bringing the house down round her ears.’
Rose put an arm round his shoulders to hold him still, and sighed. ‘Mrs Jones was right about that. I think if Bella had gone on longer she could have toppled a house.’ She shook her head disgustedly. ‘And not a hair out of place, look at her! How did she find the one clean spot in the harbour to lie in?’
After Bella’s screaming fit at Dover Harbour, Mr Fountain had been horrified. He had blamed himself for allowing Bella to run wild, instead of insisting she stayed at home in London with a proper governess. And then he had begged Miss Fell to take Bella on as her apprentice, in the same way he had taken Freddie into his house for
training.
When he suggested this in their private parlour at the smart Dover inn, Rose thought Bella was about to have another fit of hysterics. She had turned an unearthly white, and seemed hardly able to speak. Despite her awful behaviour, she did love her father dearly, and clearly couldn’t bear the thought of being parted from him. Mr Fountain didn’t seem particularly happy about the idea either. His moustache was drooping, which made him look like a depressed walrus.
‘Please…’ Bella whispered.
Miss Fell, seated in the best armchair, her back ramrod straight, and her hands resting on her silver-headed cane, regarded Bella thoughtfully. ‘She certainly needs to be taught,’ she agreed, although Rose thought she sounded somewhat reluctant. ‘But I do not think my household would be particularly suitable. My London residence has been shut up for some years, for a start. I shall be staying in a hotel while I engage new servants. All most unsettling. Not the place for a young girl.’ But her eyes rested on Rose as she spoke.
Mr Fountain watched her, his eyes thoughtful. ‘A hotel is a most soulless place,’ he suggested delicately.
Miss Fell stared back at him, her sharp nose making her look hawk-like. She inclined her head, very, very slightly.
‘Would you not be more comfortable if you came to stay with us?’
Freddie’s head whipped round at this, and his eyes widened in horror. He’d had enough of Miss Fell’s old-fashioned ideas on the upbringing of children and apprentices.
‘How very gracious…’ purred Miss Fell. ‘And then, of course, I would not only be able to teach dear little Isabella, but also Rose. And even Frederick.’ Her eyes closed, for the merest fraction of a second, as she contemplated that thought.
But Rose was quite sure that this was what she had been intending all along. Miss Fell had descended on the Fountain house in a mass of expensive luggage. Of course, Mr Fountain had not thought to inform his housekeeper that he was bringing home a house-guest, he simply expected Miss Bridges to deal with the consequences. In fact, Rose mused, Bella’s selfish habits were inherited from her father – he merely managed to make them seem rather less obnoxious by adding a great deal of charm. Perhaps it was just that rich people were all inconsiderate, having never known anything else? Rose wrinkled her nose thoughtfully.