by Webb, Holly
As it turned out, the governess felt otherwise. Mostunfortunately, when Miss Anstruther rose from her sick-bed the next day, she decided that she had, at last, had enough of Bella.
‘She said that her affection for dearest Isabella had been finally overcome by the clever child being able to make her ears bleed,’ Freddie reported to Rose. ‘She thinks Bella needs more advanced instruction. And she said she didn’t feel her constitution was able to stand accompanying Bella to Europe. Which is quite true. She’d be a fainting heap in the corner of the carriage before we got as far as Dover. I can’t evenimagine her making a sea crossing.’
‘Is Mr Fountain still going to pay her?’ Rose asked. ‘Even though she never gave notice?’
‘I think he took pity on her. She did look dreadful, with a bloodstained cloth all wrapped round her head. He paid her wages for the rest of the year, too.’
Rose shuddered. ‘If anyone deserved her money, she did.’
Freddie sighed. ‘You do realise, no one will be paying us when we get landed with looking after Bella? In fact, we’ll be the ones getting into trouble when she does something terrible. At least if Miss Anstruther had come, we could have said it was her fault…’
Rose nodded grimly. ‘I’m already supposed to help her pack. She wants to take every single dress she owns, and she just won’t believe me when I tell her they can’t fit in that trunk. As soon as I have everything packed, all ironed, and wrapped in silver paper, she flings it all out again because I haven’t put in her absolute favourite dress. Which changes every five minutes.’
Freddie snorted with laughter. ‘Perhaps you should just pack her in there. It’d keep her quiet.’
Rose nodded, but she was frowning. ‘How strong do you think she really will be, when all her magic comes in?’ She stared down at her hands. ‘I know Bella’s a spoilt little horror, but I like her. She’s sweet to me sometimes – she was so excited about giving me the doll.’
‘You’re talking about me again.’ The honey-sweet little voice whispered in Rose’s right ear, and she actually screamed.
‘How did you get there!’ Freddie demanded, sounding shaken.
‘Simple,’ Bella snapped. ‘I walked in through the open door while you two were too busy gossiping about me to listen properly. We are about to set out on a secret diplomatic mission, you know. You need to be a great deal more cautious.’
‘You are a deceitful little brat!’ Freddie snarled.
‘Do you realise, Rose,’ Bella ignored him completely, and went on murmuring in Rose’s ear, ‘that when we set off, you won’t be a maid any more? None of the servants are coming with us. You’ll be a magician’s apprentice, and nothing else.’ She paused. ‘You really ought to bring some better clothes.’
Rose frowned at the insult, but then what Bella had actually said sunk in. She had already gone from being an orphanage brat to a respectable servant, which was all she had ever hoped for. Surely no one would ever think she was anything more?
‘Miss Bridges says I’ve to take this up to your room.’
Rose looked up from the china lamb she was dusting. Miss Bridges had looked so horrified when Rose explained that she was about to disappear again, that Rose felt she couldn’t really excuse herself from any more housework.
Bill was standing in the doorway of Bella’s room, his arms full of some sort of shapeless fabric. Rose stared at it, her expression puzzled.
‘It’s a carpet bag,’ he told her, scowling. ‘For you to pack your things in.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘You’re really going, then?’
Rose nodded. ‘I have to.’ It was almost true. It would not be kind to show Bill how desperately excited she felt.
‘Why’s the master need you, for some jaunt abroad?’
Rose held back – with difficulty – from telling Bill to mind his own business. He had no right to act as though he owned her. You did let him take you to the Frost Fair, a nicer inner Rose pointed out. He bought you gingerbread. The thought of the gingerbread, still wrapped in tissue in a box under her bed, sweetened her tongue.
‘It’s because of being an apprentice. We have to go, to learn things. We have to go where he goes.’
‘I don’t like you going off with the master, and that Freddie. And Miss Bella! You’ll be shipwrecked, with her around. She’s a monster!’
Rose grinned. He was quite right, but the monster had given her three lace collars, and told her father that Rose needed more clothes. It had proved too late to order any, but Mr Fountain had promised to buy her a dress while they were in Venice. Bella had been grudgingly satisfied, and Rose couldn’t stop thinking about it. ‘She’s better when her father’s there,’ she promised Bill soothingly.
‘Huh.’ He walked out, leaving Rose still holding the china lamb from Bella’s mantelpiece, and gazing after him stricken. She put it back on the marble mantel, setting it down too hard. Bill was never like that! He’d been a little strange, when he first saw her do magic, but he’d got used to it. He was her friend, always. Rose looked at the lamb, her eyes watering, and saw in dismay that its delicate china tail had fallen off. It was gazing up at her mournfully, and the little shepherd girl who stood at the other end of the mantelpiece was glaring at her. Sometimes the magic all through the house made housework more difficult, rather than less.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rose muttered, trying to push the fragile china back together with trembling fingers, muttering some hopeful, sticking sort of words. It wasn’t working. Bella would be furious. The lamb was now giving her a reproachful look, and the shepherdess had most definitely moved along the mantelpiece to see better. ‘You do it then!’ Rose hissed crossly, and the china skirts flounced. Rose scowled down at the lamb, and muttered again, but this time in a rather threatening tone. ‘Mint sauce! Redcurrant jelly, and roast potatoes. Be quick about it!’
There was a whisk of porcelain fleece, and the broken piece was suddenly attached again. Rose set the figure back on the mantel, carefully this time, and made a face at the shepherdess, who gazed snootily back at her. Had her arms been folded like that before? Rose couldn’t remember, and she hoped Bella wouldn’t either.
Rose’s humble little carpet bag was buried in a mountain of other baggage that was piled over the black-and-white tiled floor. She could just see a fraction of it sticking out, and she was twisting her gloved fingers behind her back, so as to stop herself snatching it back up. She wanted to clutch it close, likea little bit of home. She made do with stroking the little china doll in her cloak pocket instead. She had noticed that one side of the doll’s face was shinier than the other now, from all the times she ran her thumb over its cheek.
They were going, really going! She had run to the receiving office herself with Mr Fountain’s letter to Lord Lynton, the British Ambassador to the duke’s court, explaining that they would arrive at the mercy of the tides. Now the strange words of the address kept dancing through her head, wonderfully foreign. Freddie had written them out onto dozens of labels for the bags, muttering crossly about the fiddly spelling. Rose had one tied onto the handles of her little bag, too.
Mr Fountain was proving himself a fussy and demanding traveller, and kept adding more and more luggage. An extra coach had been hired to carry it all, and its coachman and two of the stable boys were loading it, with Mr Fountain dancing around them, beseeching them to be careful.
‘Be good, Rose,’ Miss Bridges told her sternly. ‘And please, if you can, try to keep control of Miss Isabella.’ She glanced at Bella, who was standing out on the front steps, looking particularly darling and carrying her Christmas doll. ‘Or at least, do not let her…’ She paused again. ‘I don’t know quite what to say,’ she sighed.
‘I will do my best, Miss,’ Rose promised.
‘Come back safely,’ Miss Bridges said, her voice sterner than ever, before she shocked Rose by folding her in a brief and bony hug. ‘You too, Master Frederick,’ she added, in a voice that was now positively doom-laden.
‘Ye
s, Miss Bridges.’ Freddie sounded surprised. He had been quite certain that the housekeeper couldn’t stand him, as he was constantly breaking things.
Miss Bridges rolled her eyes, and passed Rose a smallhamper. ‘Mrs Jones said you had better take care of this, Rose. And do not let that cat in it!’
‘Potted shrimps!’ Gus mewed in Rose’s ear, from where he was perched, peering down from the top of the grandfather clock. ‘Delicious. You really had better let me look after it, Rose. Perhaps I should sit on it.’
‘Come along, children, don’t dawdle!’ Mr Fountain scolded, most unfairly. ‘Miss Bridges, I know I can rely on you to take care of everything in my absence.’ He flapped his travelling cloak at Rose and Freddie, shooing them towards the family carriage.
Susan minced after them with a pile of fur rugs, and Rose snuggled her feet onto the hot brick that had been wrapped in more fur on the carriage floor. After Freddie had got out again to fetch the travelling chessboard that he had left on the hall table, and Bella had found her purse in the pocket of her cloak, despite it most definitely having not been there before, Mr Fountain at last gave the order to drive on.
Rose, sitting with her back to the horses, could see just a glimpse of the Fountain house, and the servants gathered to wave them off. Even Sarah and Mrs Jones were at the top of the area steps, waving their handkerchiefs. She waved back shyly. As far as the servants knew, they were off gallivanting with Mr Fountain on a visit to some strange foreign place, where there was a lot of magic, and the master was gathering information for the king. Everyone in the kitchen had agreed it was just like him to go rushing off at a moment’s notice, setting everyone in an uproar until he got his way.
No one knew that they were really chasing after afour-hundred-year-old mask, and the madmen who’d stolen it. The madmen who wanted to use it for some strange, cruel purpose. The madmen who’d rather like it to help them do away with their little Rose.
Rose pushed thoughts of the mask away, and tried toremember the eager excitement she had woken with that morning. She waved again to Miss Bridges, noting her troubled expression. She wasn’t sure the housekeeper believed the vague story Mr Fountain had told. Susan was standing behind the housekeeper, staring coldly after Rose. And Bill was nowhere to be seen. Rose sighed miserably. He hadn’t spoken to her since their fight yesterday, and this morning she hadn’t had even a glimpse of him. She wished he would have come to say goodbye at least. Perhaps if she had told him the truth? But then he would have been evenangrier about her going.
Gus gave a morose little hiss. ‘Here we go. Cats shouldn’t go journeying,’ he muttered. The wheels ground slowly over the frosted road, and the carriage gathered speed. The grey horses made a fine show as they drove out of the square and set off through London, heading for the Dover road.
Freddie spent the first part of the journey trying to teach Rose chess. She didn’t really want to learn, she would have preferred just to look out of the window. Already they had reached a part of London she had never seen before. Unfortunately, Freddie had been on plenty of coach journeys, and he wanted to be entertained.
After a few minutes Rose was sure that Freddie must be cheating, perhaps making up the rules as he went along. ‘But why does the horse one move like that? Horses don’t go sideways, do they? It doesn’t make sense!’
‘It’s called a knight, Rose, and just because you’re losing…’ Freddie said smugly.
‘Play with Gus, instead,’ Rose snapped. Which was much better, as now she could hear Freddie moaning that he was sure that wasn’t allowed, and that moving the pieces with one’s whiskers was most improper.
Rose pressed her cheek against the chill glass, feeling the swing and bounce of the well-sprung carriage, and hungrily watched the road flowing away behind them. She wondered when they would see the sea.
The journey took a whole long, muddy day. Rose had never seen so much space before, so much empty ground, dark and frosted, and edged with stands of lonely-looking trees. She had thought she would love to see the countryside, but she found herself missing buildings, and wondering where all the people were.
Mr Fountain was anxious to reach Dover that day, so he allowed only the briefest stops to change the horses, with no lingering at the inns. Mrs Jones’s hamper was disposed of at midday, and the smell of fishpaste lingered unpleasantly afterwards, so that Rose was glad to be allowed out for a few minutes to gulp at a cup of bitter coffee at the next change. She and Bella and Gus huddled by the coffee-room fire. The hot bricks on the carriage floor had long since lost theirwarmth, and the day was only getting colder. The afternoon was drawing in already, with pinkish streaks of cloud flooding the sky.
Bella fell asleep on Rose’s shoulder on that last stage, and Rose was grateful for the warmth of the smaller girl. She lay back against the velvet seat, wondering how Bella could possibly sleep, and how the beautifully sprung carriage that had left London had turned into a wood-wheeled cart.
She woke to find Freddie shaking her, and the carriage stopped at last.
‘Are we here?’ She nudged Bella gently, shivering as she pushed the fur rug away.
‘Yes, yes, come on!’ Freddie told her excitedly. ‘Come and see!’
Bella was still half-asleep, and leaning on Rose, so Rose climbed out of the carriage sideways, concentrating on not letting her fall. It wasn’t until they were both standing on the stone dock that Rose took any notice of where they were. She stared up at the black thing towering above her, and swallowed. It looked so fast, so made for cutting through the water that it seemed to be charging down upon her, eventhough she could see the ropes tying it to the strange iron mushrooms sprouting from the dock. The ship resembled a shark, or one of those strange black diving birds that Rose had seen in Freddie’s Boy’s Guide to Natural History, with twenty-four coloured plates.
And they were going to sail on it. It was going to go flying through the water with them on board. Rose tore her eyes away from the black-painted timbers and saw that they were surrounded by a forest of masts, all starkly black against the fiery sky.
Sailors were hurrying down from the vessel, anddisappearing with the baggage, and an officer came stalking down the gangplank to escort them aboard.
Freddie was bubbling over with excitement at their luck. The naval vessel that the king had promised was in fact the very same Princess Jane that had had such a dramatic effect on the Talish war, he explained to Rose. She had been renamed after the baby princess, and regarded as a lucky ship ever since. Her original commander, the gallant Captain Fremantle, had most unfortunately been lost overboard while on a cruise to the Indies. The crew swore blind that he had been snatched from the forecastle by an enormous squid, but it had been felt by the Admiralty that this was untrue. Captain Fremantle had been very fond of rum, and it seemed more likely that he had simply lost his footing in a rough sea and slipped overboard. It was assumed that his crew, who had the greatest affection for him, despite his liking of long speeches, had manufactured the squid story to glorify his memory.
The Princess Jane was now commanded by Captain Peake, and Rose thought his memory seemed unlikely to be glorified by anyone. He seemed a bad-tempered,self-important man, and he greeted Mr Fountain on the deck of his ship with a curse.
‘We’ve missed the wind, do you realise? You and your party of children – children! Am I transporting a dame-school now?’ He glared round at Freddie, Rose and Bella – Bella in particular, carrying an ermine muff, and with her doll Lucy dressed to match. This charming picture seemed to infuriate him, and he positively growled.
Rose put her own hand inside Bella’s muff, and clasped one of the chilly little paws, drawing her back against an enormous coil of rope, out of the way of the captain’s anger. She didn’t quite trust Bella not to say something terribly rude, or perhaps even grow claws, like she’d seen the smaller girl do once before.
Bella shivered, looking up into the web of rigging. ‘I do not like boats. Do you think we will be on t
his one very long?’
‘It all depends on the wind,’ Freddie murmured. ‘And he says we’ve lost it. We could be stuck in the harbour for days. But it’s only a few hours to Cormanse, once we get going.’ He laughed, staring up at the masts. ‘Faster than the journey here from London. Isn’t the ship grand?’
‘Oh, I cannot bear it!’ Bella wailed, looking over the side of the ship at the water. ‘Look at the way it tosses up and down!’
Gus walked along the rail, his whiskers twitchingdisgustedly. Cats were not fond of water, he had told Rose. He was only coming on this journey because they would undoubtedly be lost without him.
Rose stared over Bella’s shoulder. There was a gentle swell in the harbour, but she had a feeling that this did not count as rough weather, and that it might be rather worse when they were actually out at sea. Her stomach turned over, but she was reasonably sure that it was fright, not seasickness.
‘Perhaps we should go below?’ she suggested, gazing out along the side of the ship to the open water. There was such a lot of it. It was disconcerting to think that soon – she wasn’t sure whether to hope for a wind or not – they would be out in the middle of it, unable even to see the land. The massive coils of anchor chain around the capstan, marked with weed and strange crustings of shellfish, seemed a lifeline, connectingthem to the earth.
As it turned out, they were not long delayed, the wind rising in the right quarter the next morning. Rose sat in the little wooden bunk with her arms around Bella, who was positively shaking as the timbers groaned beneath them. Gus was stretched out beside them, shivering, his white fur tinged with grey, and his eyes shut tight. They were sharing a cabin, and Freddie and Mr Fountain were in the cabin alongside.
‘Shall we look out of the window?’ Rose suggested, glancing longingly at the round, brass-framed porthole. ‘It might help to see what’s happening.’