Hobgoblin Night: Mask and Dagger 2

by Teresa Edgerton

  "It must have been a dream!" said Sera. Anything else would be altogether shocking and she would not believe such a thing of innocent Elsie. "Not an ordinary, natural dream, perhaps, you would have known the difference if it had not been a dream. Someone has been inflicting you with these wicked hallucinations.

  She sprang to her feet. "But whatever else it means, it must also mean that Skogsrå and the Duchess are in Hobb's Church looking for us, or somewhere very near. We are no longer safe. We must not wait another day, but must leave this place immediately, whatever Dr. Bell might say."

  But Elsie insisted that to remove from the vicinity would accomplish nothing. "Because, if I am somehow bound to Haakon Skogsrå in that way—then where on earth could I possibly be safe?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Wherein Mr. Carstares is much Offended.

  The Glassmakers Guild in Hollifax—a country town of moderate size, some two hundred miles to the north of Hobb's Church—was a group of gentlemanly, congenial souls, who, not content with thrice-annual festivities at the local guildhall, had a habit of gathering in force in their own homes, at least once in every fortnight.

  They were met, one particular evening, in the library of an elegant town house belonging to a certain wealthy Mr. Alcock, when their host introduced a brother Glassmaker from across the sea. "Gentlemen, I present to you: Mr. Carstares."

  The newcomer removed his hat and bowed very low. As visitors from Euterpe were comparatively rare, the gentlemen gathered eagerly around, in order to make his acquaintance. But this Mr. Carstares scarcely presented a Continental appearance: he wore his fair hair unpowdered and uncurled except for a slight natural wave; his face was innocent of patches; and though undoubtedly a gentleman, he was very plainly dressed.

  "I have come to Hollifax," said Mr. Carstares, replacing his simple tricorn, "in search of certain young friends who might have settled in the area. They would have arrived bearing references from the Glassmakers Guild in Thornburg-on-the-Lunn, and may or may not have come here under their own names: Mr. Jedidiah Braun, and the Misses Seramarias and Elsie Vorder."

  The gentleman Glassmakers all shook their heads, expressed their regrets. No such persons had appeared in Hollifax, no combination of two young ladies and a youth bearing references had sought the Guild's protection.

  "But stay a bit . . ." said Mr. Alcock, cocking his head. "The one name does put me in mind of something. Now, what was it?"

  "It was the box," said another gentleman, taking snuff for himself and offering a pinch to Mr. Carstares. "Last year, was it not, during the season of Ripening?"

  "Ah yes," said Mr. Alcock. "That was it, indeed. A little box like a jewel box, sir, with the legend 'Seramarias' writ in gold upon the lid—as it might be a lady's name, rather than the mythical Stone of Great Price. We were instructed to pass it on from lodge to lodge, until it should finally come into the proper hands."

  Mr. Carstares paused, with the snuff between his thumb and his forefinger. "I am acquainted with the box. It was I who sent it. But do you know what became of the box? Do you know if it ever came into the young lady's hands?"

  "We sent the box to Philodendria, where it apparently did not find her, for it came back to us again, almost immediately," said Mr. Alcock. "It went to Birch Corners after that, with much the same result, though it took longer to return. After that, let me see . . ."

  "Lootie's Bay," the gentleman with the snuffbox prompted him. "We sent it on to Lootie's Bay."

  "Indeed," said Mr. Alcock, nodding his head. "We did send it on to Lootie's Bay. And we never saw it again after that."

  Mr. Carstares inhaled his pinch of snuff, sneezed into a large, plain handkerchief, and put it back in his coat pocket. "It is possible, then, that the young lady received my gift in Lootie's Bay?"

  "It is possible that the young lady was there to claim it," said Mr. Alcock. "Also possible that Mr. Bullrush merely sent the box on to another lodge. Still, you might do worse than go there and ask. And I will give you a letter for the Mayor, if you like."

  ***

  The mail coach between Philodendria, to the south, and Lootie's Bay, in the north, did not arrive in Hollifax until the next morning. Rather than spend the remainder of the day at the inn where he was lodged, the visitor decided to beguile the rest of the afternoon with a leisurely stroll through the shady streets of the town.

  As he sauntered down Oakapple Lane, he was surprised to hear his name called out in an all-too-familiar voice. Turning, he saw a tall, auburn-haired beauty just descending from a sedan chair.

  "Dear Lord Skelbrooke—or should I say Mr. Hawkins—how charmingly unexpected!" gushed Lady Ursula.

  His lordship gritted his teeth, replied politely that it certainly was, and bowed over the hand she extended to him. He did not think it worth his while to inform her that he was now using the name of Carstares. "Is it possible, madam, that you and Lord Vizbeck have settled in this very town?"

  "Indeed yes. And you, sir, have you . . . ?"

  "Alas, no," said Skelbrooke, with such gallantry as he could muster. "I remain for a few days only."

  "Then what a fortunate chance that we happened to meet. It does almost seem, does it not, that the Fates conspire to bring us together?" she asked, with a smile both coy and flirtatious. His lordship replied only with a silent bow.

  As the lady made no move to do so, and the bearers seemed to expect it, Skelbrooke was obliged to pay for her chair. Then Lady Ursula linked her arm familiarly through his, and they proceeded down the street.

  "Do you know? I almost did not recognize you, you look so very different," she said, eyeing him seductively. "Yet I must say that this austere style rather suits you. I had always thought of you as quite a little man, but now you appear . . . well, certainly not any taller, but so very substantial!"

  Skelbrooke thought nostalgically of the latter days of their voyage, when Lady Ursula's continuing fear of contagion had spared him her company. Today, however, he was well and truly caught, and what he was to do with her, he really did not know.

  He had no wish to escort her home—even if he had an inkling where that might be—for fear she would invite him in. Nor did he dare to invite her to the inn where he was staying—the Fates alone knew what that might lead to! In the end, he made the best that he could of a bad situation, by taking her to an open-air cafe by the park at the center of town, and sitting down with her at a little table with a flowered cloth.

  Over cakes and chocolate, Lady Ursula waxed sentimental. "I wonder when either of us shall see Thornburg again," she said, with a sigh and a pensive smile. "But you know, it seems that many of our acquaintances have emigrated recently. You will never guess whom I met with, just the other day."

  Pausing in the act of raising a cup of chocolate to his lips, he begged her to continue.

  "Miss Sera and Miss Elsie Vorder . . . yes indeed! And that was a great surprise, for I remember the scandal when they both disappeared, and no one had any idea where they had gone. I might add that they did not seem at all pleased to meet me."

  Skelbrooke put down his cup so suddenly that the chocolate spilled out on the flowered cloth. "And where was this, Lady Ursula?" he said, determinedly casual. "Not here in Hollifax?"

  "Oh no," said the lady, crumbling a sugared biscuit on her plate. "I was visiting friends in Cordelia, in a quaint little village called Hobb's Church. I must say, the young ladies both looked well and prosperous enough, which was also surprising. I had heard that one or the other of them had eloped with some horrid young ruffian who worked on the river." Skelbrooke stiffened and his eyes dilated, but Lady Ursula continued on, apparently oblivious. "Though why both of them should run off with him—well, if true, it is really very shocking!"

  "Indeed," said his lordship coldly. He took out his pocket watch—an elegant object, about the size and shape of a hen's egg—and ostentatiously checked the time. "If such a thing were true, it would be shocking. But rumor so often lies. I fancy you are th
inking of Miss Sera's foster brother, a respectable youth who at one time did have some professional connection with the river, and a most particular friend of mine."

  Lady Ursula smiled sweetly. "Then it seems that my news is no news at all, for you already know everything about it."

  "No," said Skelbrooke, in a voice still tinged with ice. "I did not know where they were living, but of this much I am certain . . ." He snapped the case of his timepiece decisively shut. "Wherever they are and whoever they may be with, Miss Sera and Miss Elsie Vorder will undoubtedly conduct themselves like the perfect ladies they are!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Wherein Mothgreen Academy suffers an Invasion.

  At Mothgreen Hall, Miss Barebones and her cohorts were as pleased as they were baffled by the success of their Dumb Supper, for none of their previous attempts to communicate with the spirit world had ever yielded such spectacular results—or indeed, any noticeable results at all.

  "I am convinced that you have a natural gift," the headmistress told Sera. "You must play a part in all our spirit-raisings, after this."

  "I beg your pardon, but I certainly shall not!" said Sera, and departed the room.

  Yet one favorable result had occurred. Elsie confided to Sera that her phantom lover had ceased to woo her. She slept better at night and her health improved noticeably, though her color remained poor and she had little appetite.

  With the end of the term on the last day of the season, the little girls went home for an eight-week holiday. The house was strangely peaceful for two days, until a sudden invasion: not by ghosts or school girls, but apparently by hobgoblins.

  Far more disturbing than Uncle Izrael's knockings and rappings were sounds of movement within the walls, a pattering of tiny feet across the roof all night, and Nathaniel, the boy who worked in the garden, discovered a hob-hole under a rosebush. At least, it had once been a rosebush, covered with salmon-pink flowers, but the branches were all chewed off short, nearly down to the ground.

  And things began to disappear, things for which Uncle Izrael could have no possible use: a tablecloth, a velvet drape, a lace-trimmed pillowcase. Miss Barebones concluded that the hobs had tunneled all the way from the town, a distance of nearly a mile.

  "Perhaps, after all, most of the 'ghostly manifestations' that plagued us from the beginning were nothing more than the tricks of hobgoblins," Elsie suggested doubtfully. The ladies had gathered in the garden to view the hole and the violated rosebush. Rose petals and green leaves lay scattered all over the ground, as though the hobs had no interest in anything but the wood.

  "If that is so, and they were here from the very start, why should they suddenly become more active now?" asked Sera, with a puzzled frown.

  "Why should we suddenly become infested in any case?" asked Miss Fitch, drawing in her drab skirts, as though she suspected they were in imminent danger of being snatched away. "And I never heard before that hobgoblins were house-dwellers, or lived inside the walls."

  "It must come of all the digging and poisoning and explosions in the town; the creatures have run mad with fright," Miss Barebones suggested, shaking her head. "Perhaps they come here because they feel safer. We did rescue that little one, you know: Miss Thorn, Miss Winter, and I. Or perhaps some of them remember Uncle Izrael's kindness and have come here for sanctuary."

  "Mr. Barebones has been dead for fifty years," Sera felt obliged to point out. She bent down and scooped up a handful of rose petals, allowed them to sift through her fingers and drift slowly to the ground. "Do hobgoblins live that long?"

  Miss Barebones heaved a sigh. "It hardly seems likely. But perhaps they tell stories about him— Oh dear, that would argue a degree of intelligence on their part, wouldn't it? And to think that people are exterminating them!"

  "Why they have come here is quite beside the point," Miss Eglantine said sternly. "The question is: what do we intend to do about them?"

  "But I don't think that it is beside the point," Miss Barebones protested, as they headed back toward the house. "If the poor creatures have conceived a trust of us, if they come here for refuge, it seems terribly heartless to—"

  "I am sure we should all feel compassion at the sight of a rat caught in a trap," Miss Eglantine interrupted, in her decided way. "Or a poor little mouse in the claws of a cat. Under those circumstances, anyone of us might feel, as you did, inclined to rescue the creature. But if the house should afterwards be infested by rats and mice as a result, I doubt we should be so wrong-headed as to welcome them to stay."

  They continued their discussion over breakfast in the parlor. Miss Barebones steadfastly declared that she would have no traps or poisons at Mothgreen Hall. "Though if anyone chooses to buy a cat to keep in her own room—to guard the sanctity of her bedchamber—she may feel quite free to do so."

  "For my part," said Miss Eglantine, "I shall buy two cats."

  ***

  Meanwhile, in the town, people remained divided on how to deal with the hobgoblin problem—for despite the invasion of Mothgreen Hall, hobgoblin activity still continued to plague the town. But in Hobb's Church, the very harshest methods were under discussion.

  Traps . . . poisons . . . explosions, all had been tried and proven ineffective. So an army of stoats was imported and released down all existing hob-holes. As no weasel ever emerged, folks were forced to assume that the hobs, though disinclined to attack their larger persecutors, had bloodily disposed of the invading stoats. Even some of the more compassionate citizens, who had first counseled moderation, no longer did so. But there remained a large faction, whipped up by the hectoring of Moses Tynsdale, who continued to proclaim loudly that the depredations of the hobgoblins were a clear demonstration of divine displeasure. These folks held loud revival meetings which lasted most of the night, called for the abolition of any establishment selling gin or spirits within the town, and the removal of all such sinful luxuries as velvet cushions and prayer stools from the church.

  Loud arguments broke out at the Eclipse. There were two fist-fights between sailors, and a number of duels between gentlemen were but narrowly averted. Then word spread (no one knew who began the story) that the ladies at the Academy were actually "harboring the nasty little creatures."

  When Sera came into town on an errand, a boy threw a rock at her, then disappeared down an alley, and she could hear people muttering angrily after her as she continued her walk down the cobblestone street. It seemed to Sera that even the very figureheads nailed up above the doors in place of shop signs eyed her with open hostility. She tied the broad yellow ribbons of her chip-straw bonnet more firmly under her chin, drew on her gloves with a defiant air, and marched down the lane with a firm step.

  Unfortunately for Sera's dignity, it soon developed that the children of Hobb's Church were at war among themselves, quite as much as the adults. Rounding a corner, she was horrified to encounter Luella Battersby actually engaged in a most hoydenish scuffle with a crowd of small boys. Heedless of her gown, her bonnet, and her gloves, Sera dove into their midst, restraining Luella with one hand, and using the other to lift a naughty little gnome up by the seat of his breeches.

  While she was thus occupied, Sera chanced to look around her for some possible ally among the goggling spectators, and met the eyes of a fair-haired gentleman who stood watching her efforts with apparent appreciation. With a jolt of surprise, she recognized Francis Skelbrooke.

  Eventually, Sera sent the boys packing. Then she took a handkerchief out of her reticule and proceeded to scrub the dirt from Luella's face. She looked up at Lord Skelbrooke's approach, her cheeks very hot and her eyes very bright, struggling to reclaim what dignity she could.

  Little wonder she had been so startled, for he was very conservatively dressed, in a sage-green coat, buff-colored small clothes, and a soft felt hat cocked up into a "shovel" brim. She had never met him before but when he was powdered and patched, attired in rustling satins and cascading lace. And she was not even certain, now that she thou
ght about it, whether she had previously known the color of his hair.

  He took off his hat and made a sweeping bow. "What a delightful circumstance, Miss—" He hesitated, perhaps remembering that she would hardly be using her real name. "I beg your pardon, my wretched memory!" he said, with a slight cough. "I do not seem to recall your name, though you I remember very well indeed."

  "Sera Thorn," she said, for the benefit of Luella and the staring neighbors, as she stripped off her ruined gloves and offered him one of her hands.

  And how like Lord Skelbrooke, when he finally arrives, thought Sera, to discover me in the midst of such an awkward situation! And considering his passionate declarations at their last meeting, and all of the time that had elapsed between, that he could greet her now so coolly and with such perfect composure—that was perfectly, and typically, outrageous.

  "Of course . . . Miss Thorn," he murmured, and Sera was somewhat mollified to feel his hand tremble, ever so slightly, as their fingers touched and he raised her hand to his lips.

  "It is a pleasure to see you again, Lord—"

  "It is just plain Robin Carstares," he interjected smoothly, still retaining her hand. "No, you need not apologize. As I recall, when we met before, my father was commonly supposed to be on his deathbed and I had every expectation of succeeding to his title. Fortunately, he recovered, and it seems likely that many more years will pass before you may address me as Lord . . . Wyvernwood."

  "Mr. Carstares, yes," said Sera, between her teeth. She wondered if he made up these facile prevarications as he went along, or whether he practiced them in advance. Regaining possession of her hand, she added, "Perhaps you will be good enough to walk with me. I have so much to tell you!"

  "I am entirely at your disposal," said his lordship.

  With a continued exchange of false pleasantries, they escorted Luella home, then started down the long, deserted country road toward Mothgreen Academy. It was a warm, balmy day, the air scented with grass and apple blossoms. Suddenly, Skelbrooke surprised her by blurting out: "I suppose it is premature for me to ask you, again, to marry me?"