Phoenix and Ashes em-4

by Mercedes Lackey

  Between the two of them, Lauralee and Carolyn could have used a dozen maids to get them into their costumes, instead of only two. Lauralee, in her Madame Pompadour garb, had petticoats and panniers, underskirts and overskirts, a corset that pushed her breasts up until they looked like a pair of hard little apples, and a bodice cut so low that they were threatening to pop out at any moment. Alison had taken one look at that particular part of the display and ordered that a fichu of lace be inserted and tacked in place to prevent a disaster— which meant more work, as Lauralee fidgeted and shrieked every time she thought a needle was passing too close to her skin. And when all that was taken care of, came the white, powdered wig, the patches to be pasted on, and all the rest of it.

  Carolyn's guise of Empress Josephine looked deceptively simple, and at least it didn't require a winch to pull the lacings of her corset tight, but the requisite hairstyle with its Grecian-inspired diadem and tiny, tight-curled ringlets done up in imitation of ancient statues had Howse nearly in despair. She had two burns on her hands from the curling tongs already, and there had been one accident that had caused Carolyn to slap the hapless maid, and which had left the bedroom reeking of scorched hair. Fortunately only the very ends had been scorched; Howse had been able to trim out the ruined bit to Carolyn's satisfaction.

  Alison had elected to wear the strangest costume of all, so far as Eleanor was concerned—and it gave her the most peculiar and uneasy feeling when she saw it. Alison's costume was a hooded, black velvet gown, something like a monk's robe, but lined in scarlet satin. There was something embroidered on it in black silk—not a discernable pattern, more like symbols of some sort, but the black-on-black of the silk made it nearly impossible to tell what it was. Around her waist she wore a very odd belt, for all the world like a hangman's rope, but made of silk. A floor-length, black veil, edged in jet beads, went over everything, and an odd tiara of stars held the veil in place.

  When Howse asked, timidly, who Alison was portraying, Alison had just smiled, and said, lightly, "The Queen of the Night, of course. From Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. I doubt anyone else will think of it, and there's value in novelty."

  At least the costume didn't require any special wigs or hairstyles, nor did it require a full hour to put on. Even if she did look like Lady Death. . . .

  Though it did make Eleanor wonder, was this Alison's ritual robe? Some people liked to wear such things, although they weren't necessary, and didn't contribute any to the efficacy of a spell, unless the wearer had put spells or protections into the robes before she put them on.

  If so, Eleanor could hardly imagine the cheek to wear such a thing to a fancy-dress ball.

  When the three of them finally sailed out the door, it was a distinct relief. They were motored away by Alison's escort, Warrick Locke, who himself was costumed as some sort of wizard. When they were safely in the automobile, Howse closed the door behind them.

  "I have a headache," she declared, staring at Eleanor. "I am going to wait in Madame's room."

  Eleanor shrugged. "I think that would be a good idea," she said, in a neutral voice. "They won't be back for hours, and you'll need to be ready when they return."

  She, of course, knew exactly what Howse was going to do. She was going to nap on Alison's bed—much more comfortable than her own. Since this was exactly what Eleanor wanted her to do, she simply waited until she couldn't hear any more movement overhead, then went to the kitchen and knelt beside the hearthstone.

  The flames of the fire flared up as she breathed the first words of her spell, and a half dozen Salamanders burst out of the heart of the fire to slither up her arms and entwine themselves around her neck.

  Slowly, carefully, Eleanor insinuated herself into the complex weave of the binding spell. With a word here, and a tweak there, she stretched it, rearranged it, suggested to it that its territory was not merely this house and grounds, but the entire county. She felt the spell respond, sluggishly, but by no means as slowly as it had the first time she had done this. Make this your boundary until midnight, she suggested to it.

  With a shake, like a reluctant dog, the spell grumbled, stretched, and settled into its new configurations. With a final word to hold the new shape in place, she came out of her half-trance, and got to her feet with a feeling of distinct triumph. A spell, properly speaking, was a process and not a thing—but the ones that Alison had set on her certainly felt like things—things with lives of their own, and rudimentary personalities. Unpleasant personalities, but that was only to be expected.

  She cocked an ear to the rooms overhead, and heard nothing. Eagerness took over, and unwilling to wait another moment, she slipped the latch of the kitchen door and closed it behind herself, then flew out of the garden gate and down the street to Sarah's cottage.

  Other than a couple of men entering the Broom pub, there wasn't anyone else about. However much excitement the ball had generated in the Robinson household, for the rest of the village this were no differences between tonight and any other Saturday. Which was just as well, since the last thing she wanted was a lot of coming and going that might disturb Miss Howse's slumber.

  Feeling excitement and anticipation rising in her and threatening to boil over, she ran for all she was worth. She had not dared, until this moment, truly to believe that she was going to be able to do this. So many things in her life had been taken or thwarted that she had been afraid to put too much hope into this moment—

  —this moment when she would live, for a few hours, the life she should have had. When she would be herself, Miss Eleanor Robinson, not Ellie the maid-of-all-work, with nothing to look forward to but a lifetime of drudgery in the house that should have been hers.

  She managed to control herself when she reached Sarah's door, enough so that she paused, caught her breath, and after a preliminary tap and the expected response of "Come!" she opened the door quite demurely.

  Only to gasp with shock, surprise, and delight at the vision that met her widening eyes.

  "Like it, do you?" Sarah asked, a twinkle in her eyes and a pardonably smug expression on her face. "Not a bad job, if I do say so myself. And I do!"

  Arrayed on an improvised dressmaker's-form made of a broomstick and a stuffed sack, was every little girl's dream of a fairy dress, the sort of thing that bedazzled young eyes believe in when they see the Fairy Princess at the Christmas pantomine. Only this gown was real, and not cheap muslin and machine-lace.

  It had been a sort of ivory the last time Eleanor saw it—now it was a soft rose pink. "How did you change the color?" she stammered.

  Sarah rubbed the side of her nose, and looked suitably smug. "Do you know, there's an old spell in my grimoire that does just that? Temporary, of course, but temporary is all you need, and after I took some thought about it, it seemed to me that a fairy princess was a better costume choice than Princess Victoria. The wings I made; you know what I always tell you—it's easier to change what's there than make new. I expect there won't be another fairy princess in the lot; those girls have forgotten magic by now, and think they're too old for fairies. You'll look nothing like yourself."

  Little bouquets of rosebuds ornamented the skirt, here and there, and a garland of them ran from the right shoulder to the left hip. A pair of tiny, pink gauze wings sprang from the shoulders in the back. Waiting on the table was a wreath of rosebuds to wear in her hair, and a pair of pink silk opera gloves to cover her work-roughened hands. The left, of course, had only three fingers.

  "What am I going to do for shoes?" she asked, suddenly, aware that her clumsy and well-worn walking shoes would ruin the entire effect of this exquisite gown. "And stockings—"

  "Ah, that's where a little more magic and illusion come in," Sarah replied, with a sly wink. "Strip to your shift, my girl. I have some work to do yet."

  Sarah was as good as her word. A handful of rose-petals pressed against each shoe, a breath of magic and a muttered charm—and the square-toed, worn brown leather was magically transmute
d to a pair of the most delicate silk slippers Eleanor had ever seen, with pink stockings that matched the gown taking the place of the much-darned cotton stockings she had been wearing. She couldn't see any flaw in the illusion, though if she closed her eyes she knew very well she was still wearing her old stockings and shoes. Which was not at all a bad thing; they might be worn nearly to bits, but they were comfortable, which was more than could be said of most fashionable shoes.

  With that transformation complete, the dressing began, though it didn't take more than a fraction of the time it had taken to dress her stepsisters. Petticoats and gown went on over her old underclothing; Sarah re-attached the garland of roses, and then, with practiced fingers, put up her hair and pinned the wreath to it. She pulled on the gloves—and it was done.

  "Well! If I were a little girl or a young man, I would be half in love with you!" Sarah exclaimed, as she shed her skirt and apron to don a pair of antique breeches and a rusty woolen uniform coat. She brushed her hands over herself from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, and Eleanor felt another breath of power flit by her—

  And in Sarah's place was a solemn faced, gray-haired man, in rose-red livery sporting more braid and gold buttons than any general could boast. "There's your invitation," said Sarah's voice, coming from the man's mouth—a distinctly disorienting proposition. "He" pointed at the mantelpiece, where the precious envelope was held securely between two jam-jars full of water and rosebuds. "You get that invitation, take a look in the mirror in the corner there to make sure I haven't forgotten anything, while I get your 'carriage,' milady. And don't forget. Midnight is as late as you can go, because that's the longest I can hold the illusions."

  A careful check of as much of herself as she could see in Sarah's tiny mirror that hung over her washstand seemed to indicate that Sarah had been her usual efficient self. There was nothing to strike a false note, and Eleanor began to feel quite shivery with anticipation when she heard the sound of a horse's hooves and a low whistle just outside Sarah's door. She seized the invitation and hurried outside.

  She hesitated a moment at the door itself, since she was wider than the doorway now, but the wide skirt wasn't as difficult to maneuver as she had feared it would be. She got through without even catching the lace on her flounces.

  And there, to her absolutely astonished gaze, was the sort of open carriage that—according to the pictures she had seen—the King used on state occasions, only a bit smaller. In the light coming from the two little lamps on either side of the driver's box, she could tell that it was rose-red in color, with gilded ornamentation. "Sarah" sat on the driver's box, and expertly handled the reins of the snow-white horse that was harnessed to this confection by rose-red and gilded traces.

  "It's an old pony-cart and plow-horse I borrowed from a friend," "Sarah" said, laughing at Eleanor's expression. "Be careful getting in; it's nowhere near as padded as it looks to be."

  She was careful getting in, feeling the old, worn wood under the glove on her hand where her eyes told her there was bright gilding and slick paint. The lines of the carriage conformed to the shape of the old pony-cart beneath the illusion—she knew from her studies that the less a magician had to create, the better an illusion was, and here was the proof of that.

  "Sarah" chirruped to the horse, who moved out with brisk dignity. Eleanor kept her hands tightly folded in her lap with her hands atop the precious invitation. She wished it weren't dark. She really felt like a fairy princess. She wished that she could see, and yes, be seen. In this guise, she would be like a sort of pantomime character herself, and it would have been a great deal of fun to act that way.

  But no one came out of or went into the pub or the inn as they passed, and no little face peered down out of a bedroom window to gape in surprise. Probably Sarah was using a little more magic to make sure no one saw them—understandable, if disappointing.

  What would I have thought as a little girl, if I had looked out a window and seen a fairy princess passing by in her carriage? I'd have believed in fairies so firmly that nothing could have dissuaded me. Perhaps, then, it was just as well—because little girls now were facing the loss of fathers, brothers, uncles, and were in dire need of magic that she could not supply. To send one looking for a fairy to conjure back her lost papa or brother would have been intolerably cruel.

  The horse broke into a trot once they were out of the village; where an old horse got that kind of energy, Eleanor couldn't guess. More magic? Or was the old fellow just feeling frisky in the cool of the evening? Whichever it was, the carriage rattled merrily down the road to Longacre Park, and in a much shorter time than Eleanor would have guessed, it turned in through the huge wrought-iron gates and rolled onto a smooth graveled driveway.

  The manor loomed up at the top of a shallow rise ahead of them, all lit up for the grand occasion, with lanterns set out along the staircase to light the way up. Eleanor felt her stomach clench as she gazed up at the enormous structure, feeling suddenly altogether out of her class. How on earth did the Fenyxes keep that enormous barn of a building up? Did they have an army of servants? Was all of that truly just to support two people, Reggie and his mother?

  You have every right to be here, she told herself sternly, as the carriage drew nearer and nearer to the broad double staircases leading down to the drive, each one curving down from the side. You have an invitation, and what's more, you have more right to be here than Alison and her brats.

  By repeating this to herself, over and over, by the time they reached the bottom of the staircases, she had some of her composure back.

  Or at least, the illusion of composure.

  There was a liveried footman—or foot-boy would probably be more accurate—waiting beneath the twin lamps at the foot of the stairs. He didn't even blink when Sarah brought the carriage to a halt, even though most guests were arriving by motorcar. He simply waited while Sarah got down, opened the carriage door, and handed her out; then he took Eleanor's hand and directed her to the bottom of the stairs, as if he had been doing this sort of thing all his life.

  Well, given how entire families in Broom and Arrow tended to go into service and stay in service to the Fenyx household, perhaps he had. But the fact that he was so very young told her something else— no matter how sheltered the great house was from the real world, the real world could still affect it profoundly. Longacre Park was as subject to compulsory conscription as any other place in this country. Reggie might have been the first to go to the war, but it seemed that every other able-bodied man here had followed.

  Sarah drove the carriage away before the illusion could waver at all, leaving Eleanor alone on the paved landing at the bottom of the stairs. She looked up, uncertain as to what she should do. She seemed to be the only person arriving alone, which made her feel very self-conscious. The big doors at the top were both flung open wide. There was another man in livery at the top, and an older gentlemen in a black swallow-tail coat and stiff white shirt. Another footman, and the butler, she expected.

  All right. It's now or never. Escorted or not, I have an invitation, and I belong.

  She put on her pink silk domino mask, tying the ribbons behind her head, then carefully picked up the sides of her gown, and began the long climb towards those huge doors, and whatever fate held for her inside them.

  27

  August 11, 1917

  Longacre Park, 'Warwickshire

  SHE HANDED OVER HER INVITATION to the butler, who inspected it, and to her relief, merely nodded. She had been afraid he would announce her, and if Alison was anywhere within hearing distance. . . .

  Instead, she stepped into—well, she wasn't entirely sure what to call this room. There could easily have been a second floor to this room, and there wasn't. The ceiling was somewhere up a full two stories—easily forty feet. It was surely another forty feet wide and twice that in length. There were enough candles burning in candelabra all around the walls to have supplied an entire chandler's shop, supplementing
the gaslights.

  There was only one name that suited this space—the Great Hall.

  And it was full. In one corner, a small orchestra composed entirely of black-gowned women (most of them not young) played what sounded suspiciously like ragtime. Four years ago, either circumstance would have caused a scandal. But as Eleanor eased herself into the room, she overheard, almost immediately, the end of a conversation.

  ". . . and even the band called up, my dear! So fortunate that Lady Virginia was here!"

  "They seem a bit—modern," came the doubtful reply.

  The first speaker laughed. "But of course they're modern! They're Virginia's pet suffragette band! But if I had to choose between holding a ball with a suffragette orchestra or holding one with a gramophone, I know which one I would take! At least when one engages women, there is no danger of seeing them called over to France!"