Hobgoblin Night: Mask and Dagger 2

by Teresa Edgerton

  "I shall prescribe her a tonic of catmint, meadowsweet, and marigold, to strengthen her blood, a good plain diet to improve her constitution. These will treat the symptoms, though not the disease," said Dr. Bell. "Beyond that: allow her no time to brood on whatever is troubling her. If her daily tasks are not too strenuous, see that she continues them. And I believe you said you were contemplating a journey? That is out of the question. In her present nervous state, she requires the constant reassurance of familiar surroundings."

  Perceiving much good sense in this prescription, Sera could not argue with any of it, even though the doctor had put an end to her plans to remove Elsie from Hobb's Church at the first opportunity.

  "What did you and the doctor talk of—that I was not permitted to hear?" said Elsie, as they climbed back into the gig.

  "We are to stay at Mothgreen Academy for another season at least," said Sera briskly, as she tucked a lap robe around the invalid. There was no use repining over something that could not be helped.

  "I am glad," said Elsie, with a weary little sigh. "I am so tired of moving about. It was all very exciting and adventurous when I was well, but now that I feel so tired and nervous . . . Sera, do not think me quite a coward, but I wish we could settle somewhere and not go travelling again for a long, long time."

  They rode out of the town without again encountering the ominous-looking coach, but as they traveled back down the road skirting the fens, Sera suddenly remembered the gloomy brougham.

  "It's a crazy old place, Stillwater Hall," said Mr. Herring, in answer to Sera's question. "An unhealthy situation, some might say, and the house, which has stood untenanted these sixteen years, exists in a largely ruinous state, falling apart from damp and neglect."

  "Then why would anyone wish to live there?"

  "A desire for seclusion, I should imagine," said Mr. Herring. "The place is so isolated and the road so difficult, it is enough to discourage unwanted visitors. And the woman is recently widowed, after all. She may find her surroundings congenial."

  But to Sera, it all sounded so dank and depressing, she could not repress a shudder.

  ***

  Even as Sera and Elsie discussed the new owner of Stillwater Hall, they were the subject of discussion between the occupants of the black brougham. The coach had turned off the main track and was traveling down the difficult road to Stillwater Hall, a road so rutted and muddy that the Duchess and her new accomplice, Thomas Kelly, were jostled and bounced in a disagreeable fashion, highly injurious to their dignity. But a satisfying glimpse which they had both gained of Elsie as she passed by had set off a comfortable train of conversation, which served to beguile the journey.

  "The young woman certainly looked ill," said Kelly, with the coldest of smiles.

  "Yes indeed," the Duchess agreed cheerfully. A veil and an auburn wig lay on the seat beside her, and her own pale curls hung loose about her shoulders. But she still wore a pair of high wooden pattens which she always slipped on before visiting the town, in order to disguise her tiny stature.

  As they had by now penetrated so far into the marsh that it was unlikely they should be seen or recognized, the Duchess drew back the curtains. "It is the proximity of her double that makes her look so ill. And poor Skogsrå is ecstatic: the weaker Elsie grows, the livelier becomes the monster. He is convinced that the grotesque sounds Cecile makes now are actually attempts at speech.

  "I do not think," she added, with a thoughtful frown, as she settled back in her seat, "that Skogsrå quite realizes that this pleasant state of affairs cannot long continue. When Elsie Vorder dies, his Cecile must perish along with her."

  Kelly made a steeple of his hands and rested his chin on them. "I must confess that I do not understand why you have adopted this elaborate scheme of revenge," he said. "You are a woman of means . . . why not hire a man to pose as a highwayman and shoot both young women dead? It would be the surer road to revenge, and I make no doubt that your Mr. Hooke, for instance, would gladly accept the task, or any similar commission."

  The Duchess tilted her chin disdainfully. "Indeed, you do not understand, for you know nothing of the intricacies of fairy justice. A gnome might understand," she added thoughtfully. "But not, I suppose, a creature like you."

  The muscles on Kelly's face stiffened into a smile. "You astound me. I had no idea that the race of gnomes was inclined to practice the art of revenge."

  "They do not, of course," said the Duchess, with a fulminating glance. "However, they do build tricks and traps, and sell them to Men and to dwarves. Very complex their traps are, too, but there is always at least one way out. Gnomes believe in fair play, and so do fairies, be they Fee or Farisee, and a proper scheme of revenge in the grand fairy tradition must be as intricately crafted as a gnome's trap."

  The Duchess began to do up her silvery-blonde hair. "My victims, you see, must participate in their own destruction. I may lure them in, trick them, even resort to coercion, but I cannot stoop to physical force. It isn't enough to merely ruin them. No, I must outwit them as well, prove myself superior. In that way, I gain a moral advantage."

  "And this moral advantage," said Kelly, with that same stiff smile, like the rictus on the face of a corpse, "that will make you . . . happy, I suppose?"

  "Happy?" said the Duchess, forcing a laugh, and Kelly wondered why she should look so surprised. "I do not know if it will make me happy, but at least it will satisfy me, and that, for the Fee, is all that matters."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  In which "Absent Friends" prove not so absent after all.

  On the thirty-second day of the season of Leaves, Sammuel Jonas received a message from Captain Hornbeam, requesting a meeting at the Eclipse. Naturally, the gnome and Jedidiah were highly elated, expecting the news would be good. They arrived at the tavern a good half hour ahead of time, and waited impatiently for the old seaman to arrive.

  Nor did Captain Hornbeam disappoint them, when he finally turned up. "The Otter's shipshape and ready to sail whenever you say, gentlemen. And I've hired me the trustiest and most experienced crew on the whole blamed Cordelia coast!"

  "Excellent," said Mr. Jonas. "The moon will be full in another fortnight. Allow us a week to make the final arrangements, then we will sail." And with matters thus favorably arranged, they toasted their venture with tankards of ale, and then Jed and the gnome returned to the cottage for a good night's rest.

  But the next morning, when they entered the shed behind Mr. Herring's shop, a dismaying sight met their eyes. "D——n! It's naught but a heap of splinters," cried Jed, turning deathly pale as he surveyed the ruins of the complex machine he and Mr. Jonas had so carefully constructed.

  Mr. Jonas picked up a gear and a convoluted piece of copper wire. "This was no accident . . . someone has utterly and mischievously destroyed our creation. But who—or rather more to the point, why?"

  But Siegfried Herring, when they called him in to view the damage, had a ready answer. "Hobgoblins!" he said, wrinkling his nose. The room reeked of embryonated sulphur. "Who else could it possibly be?"

  "But surely not," said Mr. Jonas, ruefully examining a piece of waxed canvas hose, which had either been chewed or else clumsily hacked apart. "Surely the creatures have never been given to wanton destruction. All the damage they have done before was merely the unfortunate result of their incessant tunneling and gnawing."

  Mr. Herring bit his thumb, thinking intently. "With all the hob traps one sees in town these days, perhaps they thought the device was meant for their destruction."

  "Thought?" asked Jed in a harsh voice, and he and Mr. Jonas exchanged a horrified glance. Mr. Herring had the grace to blush, right up to his pomaded wig—for had he not proclaimed from the beginning, most vociferously, that the hobgoblins could not possibly be Rational Beings and therefore ought to be classified and treated as vermin?

  Mr. Jonas was shocked to the core of his honest being. "If even you are willing to credit the hobs not only with rational thought but
also with a fair degree of foresight," he said, sitting down abruptly on a stool, "then surely you must realize that the complete extermination of the species would be nothing less—my good Siegfried!—nothing less than genocide. "

  Indeed, the three races, Man, dwarf, and gnome, had lived together so long and harmoniously (and the other races apart, but more or less peacefully) only because an absolute prohibition existed, forbidding any action that could possibly be construed as the systematic destruction of one race by any other. To violate that principle was unthinkable—obscene.

  "You are quite right," said the shame-faced Mr. Herring. "I did wrong to accuse the hobs of this at least. They could have no reason to destroy your machine."

  But however the damage had occurred, without the device, it would be impossible for Mr. Jonas and Jed to carry forth their plan.

  "We cannot hope to build another like it in the six days remaining us," said Mr. Jonas, sifting sadly through a pile of glass and splintered oak. "It will take another fortnight at the least, working as swiftly as we can, for some of the calibrations are extremely delicate, to say nothing of reharmonizing the magnets. And then we shall have to wait another full cycle of the moon!"

  ***

  A pleasant flutter of anticipation pervaded Mothgreen Academy, for Miss Jamaica Barebones was at long last arranging the promised Dumb Supper. All the mystical old ladies of the town had received their gilt-edged invitations, and all of them had accepted. Miss Barebones was busy with preparations, for she meant to serve them a veritable feast: "For it would not be correct to do the thing cheaply or meanly, you know! Our otherworldly guests would be vastly offended."

  This pleasant anticipation did not, of course, extend to Sera, who viewed the preparations with mounting horror, convinced that the affair could only exert an unwholesome effect on poor Elsie. But Miss Barebones would not allow anything of the sort. "How could it harm her indeed? Most especially because you have convinced her that she ought not even attend?

  "Besides that," the headmistress continued, with determined optimism, "if Elsie is troubled by night-terrors, we may hope to induce some more friendly spirits to assist us in banishing them."

  Just as though, Sera thought, as she went upstairs to her classroom, a man like Izrael Barebones (how dreadfully evocative the name!), decent and respectable when he was alive, is likely to lose all sense of propriety now that he is dead, and appear before a congregation of aging spinsters in the scant concealment of his winding sheet! The very thought of speaking with spirits made Sera turn cold.

  Rather worse, Miss Barebones's arrangements strongly reminded Sera of that shocking travesty of a wedding feast which she and Elsie had both attended back in Thornburg, with Lady Ursula Bowker as the bride and a dreadful wax effigy, representing the lady's recently executed husband, doing honors as the groom.

  Fortunately, both Sera and Elsie had a number of wholesome and sensible tasks to occupy them in the meantime. This afternoon it was a lesson in deportment, which they taught together in a big sunny chamber on the second floor.

  But the little girls evinced more interest in the coming Supper than in their afternoon lessons. "I do think it's hard that we haven't been invited," said Luella Battersby, as she balanced a book on her head—an exercise meant to improve her posture. "I am sure we should all of us welcome the opportunity to eat an elegant supper with a gentlemanly spook or two."

  Her friend Patience Armitage fervently agreed. "Uncle Izrael is no good at all. All he ever does is moan and rap and move things about . . . and follow Miss Thorn wherever she goes.

  I think he is sweet on her!" said Luella. And both little girls collapsed in giggles.

  ***

  On the night of the Dumb Supper, Sera and Elsie tucked their charges into bed at an unusually early hour. Then Sera left Elsie in her bedchamber with a novel and a pot of tea to occupy her, and went into her own room to change her dress.

  Naturally, Sera had not wished to attend the Supper, had fully intended to decline the invitation. But Miss Barebones, Miss Eglantine, and Miss Fitch were all so pressing. "Because Uncle Izrael has taken such an interest in you," twittered Miss Fitch. "And we have a much greater chance of success if you are there."

  Which is just as much as to say: If I am not there, and nothing happens (which of course must be the case), why then, they will all just blame it on me and resolve to repeat the whole foolish exercise at some later date, thought Sera.

  At the appointed hour, she reluctantly entered the dining room. The table was set with the very best china, silver, and crystal: places for Miss Barebones, Miss Eglantine, Miss Fitch, and Sera; places for all the old ladies from the town; an elegant setting at the head of the table awaited Uncle Izrael, and a number of other settings and empty chairs had been designated for "the spirits of absent friends, living or dead."

  The ladies came into the room, all very fine in their rustling gowns of satin or taffeta, scenting the air with perfumes and pomade; Miss Eglantine and Miss Fitch had even powdered their hair. No one spoke after they entered, but Miss Barebones gave a mute signal and they all took seats. Much to Sera's dismay, Elsie slipped into the room and sat down along with the rest.

  Sera scowled most horribly and shook her head. Elsie mouthed an apology, but kept her seat. Meanwhile, Miss Barebones took a pinch of salt and solemnly dropped it onto the plate in front of her, another pinch for the empty plate beside her, then passed the salt cellar on to the next lady. Shivering with excitement, one by one, the other ladies repeated the gesture. When the salt cellar came to her place, Sera gritted her teeth and imitated the action.

  There followed a great deal more: a ritual breaking of bread, an elaborate ceremony over the wine, Sera lost track of all the nonsense before Miss Barebones, moving with hierophantic dignity, uncovered the first of many covered dishes, and the actual feast began.

  Never before had Sera been in a room full of so many people and eaten so quiet a meal. There was no sound but the muted clank of silver on china, the soft gurgling of wine poured from a bottle into a crystal goblet, the rattle of a silver lid replaced on a chafing dish. The meal consisted of several courses: beef, lamb, fish, and fowl; vegetables stewed, boiled, and baked; with pies, jellies, and conserves on the side. It was a great deal for a roomful of old ladies to eat, but the guests ate stolidly on, waiting for something to happen.

  With the arrival of the boiled pudding, however, the long table of solid oak suddenly tipped wildly from side to side, causing the dishes to slide from end to end, and some to crash to the floor, as it lurched and then righted itself. A brisk sound of tapping came up through the floorboards.

  Someone stifled a gasp; there was a strangled exclamation of horror. But the old ladies remained mindful that silence was required and nobody said a single word—though all exchanged glances of triumph or dismay.

  Then Miss Barebones jumped up from her chair, and flung out a trembling hand. Even Sera obediently looked in the direction she pointed. A very old and very beautiful gilded mirror hung suspended above the sideboard. On the surface of the glass, a dim, clouded image was beginning to form: dark eyes, a pale face, a determined jaw. Everyone watched, in wide-eyed excitement, as the image grew—until a blood-curdling shriek from Elsie drew all eyes her way.

  In the chair beside Elsie, a misty figure of a man could be plainly seen, which gradually became more and more solid, taking on clear and recognizable features. Sera, at least, (with the blood pounding in her temples and her breath coming swiftly) most certainly recognized the phantom, and Elsie must have done so as well, for she leaped out of her chair, took two stumbling steps, and then crumbled to the floor in a dead faint. The man in the chair began to fade.

  In the general commotion that followed, chairs fell over, candles were extinguished, and the invited guests all fled the room. Only Miss Barebones and the redoubtable Miss Eglantine remained, to help Sera carry Elsie out the door.

  ***

  An hour later, lying on her own bed up i
n the attic, with a damp cloth on her forehead and a shawl spread over her like a blanket, a tearful Elsie said to Sera: "You recognized him, too. It was Jarl Skogsrå. And it cannot have been any kind of a trick, because nobody here knows anything about him, not anyone but you and I."

  "No, it can't have been a trick." Sera sank down on the bed beside her. "But what it means I do not know. Unless Jarl Skogsrå is dead, and has come to haunt you. Having witnessed that scene down below," she added bitterly, "I suppose I must now admit that such things are possible.

  "What a disheartening thing it is, to be sure," she added, with an angry laugh, "to discover that what you have always known—but would not for the world believe—should be true after all!"

  "No, he isn't dead," sighed Elsie, her face very white against the pillows. "Miss Barebones said spirits of absent friends, living or dead, did she not?"

  Sera considered that with a frown. "But living or dead, Haakon Skogsrå is no friend of yours . . . or mine."

  "Yes, but he was very nearly my husband." Elsie faltered. "We stood together before the altar, the ceremony had already begun. Do you think that Lord Skogsrå and I were . . . were somehow joined together, in a kind of spiritual marriage?"

  "Surely not," Sera insisted. "We interrupted the wedding long before anything like that might have happened." But then, with a keen look at Elsie, she added, "Why do you ask? My dear . . . is there something you have failed to tell me?"

  Elsie protested, but after considerable coaxing she finally admitted to having the same disturbing dream almost every night. A dream of a faceless man who entered her bedchamber and whispered endearments in her ear, who kissed her and caressed her with great tenderness.

  "Like a demon lover," Elsie blushingly disclosed. "I was ashamed and afraid at first—though it was only a dream—but then I came to long for his presence. Only perhaps it wasn't a dream after all, and . . . Sera, what have I been doing?"