by Nina Clare
‘No, indeed! That is what we Godmothers are for, we love to help!’
‘Then you will help me?’ He looked eager. But then his face fell. ‘But how can you help me if you have no charms, no love potions? What can you possibly do that I cannot do myself?’
‘I can help discern if your feelings lead you correctly. I can discover if the lady you think of really is your true love. The heart is most contrary, Master Elftyn. It does play tricks on us, and people are not always just as they seem. One can get tricked by glamour and charm. I can help you see through all of that.’
Harriet felt a sudden surge of confidence as she spoke. For the first time in her life she realised what this matchmaking was all about, and for the first time she was sure she could actually do it!
She was too heady with her own excitement to notice Master Elftyn’s look of uncertainty.
‘I do not require any validation of my choice, Sister Harriet. I know my own heart, and there is but one lady in all the kingdom who holds it.’
Harriet sighed with pleasure at the romance of his words. ‘But are you certain of her heart? Is it awakened to you?’
His confident look faltered. ‘Well, that is, I cannot absolutely say.’
‘I can help you with that. I can discern whether or not your lady is showing encouragement or not.’
‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘Any help is helpful.’
Harriet joined in his titter of laughter.
‘Thank you, Master Elftyn. You will not regret this. It is such an honour to have you as my ward.’ A happy thought came to her, as though dropped by a fairy – ‘Poem’ she cried.
‘Excuse me?’
‘You must write her a poem of love. Or a riddle. We have ever so many riddles and charades in the library. I will copy out the most romantic one that you may give it to her. I may even write a whole new one especially for you! I have been practising.’
‘Oh. Riddles. Most helpful, I am sure.’
They had reached the end of the lane and Master Elftyn set his handsome face towards the entrance gates of Hartfield and the beautiful mistress within. A gnome had obligingly opened the gate for him, he stepped inside, turned his head to give Harriet a collusive nod, then sauntered down the drive.
Harriet stood watching him go and pulled her cloak a little tighter about her. A cold October gust of wind came from behind her and beat against her hood and back as though chiding her.
She wondered why it should occur to her that the wind was chiding? She deserved congratulations. She’d had a breakthrough. She had realised that Mother Goodword’s choice of ward had been mistaken. She was not to have been given stoic Master Knightley, who had no thoughts of love, she was always to have been given worthy Master Elftyn, so very ready to fall in love. Indeed, had already fallen in love, and deserved all the help she could possibly give him in winning the hand of his fair lady.
Mistress Woodhouse was by far the highest-ranking lady in all of Highbury. Of course she was his perfect match. It was a shame about Mistress Woodhouse’s plans for matching him with herself… but what man could think of she, Harriet Smith, when Mistress Woodhouse was near?
13
Abominable Folly
Rue wondered what was wrong that morning as she walked through the courtyard to check on the wind vane. The copper fox pointed south-east, though his tail was twitching as though he were getting ready to move.
The wrong feeling was nothing to do with the wind. So, what was it? Rue looked around, using her senses to pick up anything unusual. There was a strong kilting in the air, as the fae would say.
Something else was odd, she realised as she walked back towards the school. She stopped underneath the chestnut tree and looked up. The chestnut sprite was not pelting her as she walked by. She felt a pang of remorse.
‘I’ll find a way to get rid of that tail if you show yourself,’ she called up into the branches, but there was no reply. ‘And the ears.’ Not even a dry leaf rustled. ‘I promise.’
Sprites understood the word ‘promise’ was important. All of faedom was highly attuned to the laws of promises and bargains. Rue waited a minute or two longer, but the sprite did not appear. Funny, she thought to herself, she kind of missed him.
‘Is all well?’ Rue asked on entering the Sister’s dining room for breakfast. Harriet smiled, but it was an odd kind of smile. ‘Wind’s coming from the south-east,’ Rue said as she took her chair and reached for a slice of toasted bread. ‘That burst of east wind yesterday is gone. The fox is twitching though. I wonder if Mother Goodword might be getting ready to move.’ She was not entirely happy at this thought. What would Mother Goodword say about the chestnut sprite?
‘Can’t figure out why the air feels so uneven, though. I know we’ve had some blunders with the wand, but surely nothing to cause this much change.’
‘You feel it too?’ Myrtle said, looking up from the book she was reading at the table.
Rue nodded; her mouth full of toast. ‘Likely it’s all my fault. Neither of you have done much wrong.’
‘I did have that accident with the chalk,’ said Harriet sadly.
‘Well,’ said Myrtle, ‘I suppose that explains the kilting.’ She broke off to sneeze into her handkerchief. Getting soaked from head to foot earlier in the week had resulted in a bad cold and a bad temper.
‘What explains the kilting?’ Harriet asked.
‘You and Rue using the wand. I should say we’re all going to fail once Mother Goodword hears of it.’
‘Oh, don’t say that,’ whimpered Harriet.
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Rue, taking offence. ‘At least I didn’t almost choke a man to death.’
‘How was I to know he was allergic to nuts? But I didn’t use the wand, did I?’
‘Perhaps not, but you did use up all your Dust, and we were told not to waste it.’
‘Oh, you’re a fine one to talk of wasting Dust. I saw you putting Dust on the muffins to make them bigger.’
‘Please don’t argue,’ begged Harriet. ‘Mother Goodword said we must work together.’
‘Well, where’s the wand now?’ asked Myrtle.
She and Harriet looked at Rue.
‘I put it back, of course,’ said Rue. She took a bite of her toast, then her chewing slowed and her brow furrowed. ‘Or did I?’
Suddenly she leapt up, taking the toast with her. ‘I’d best go an’ look.’ She scraped her chair back. ‘I remember taking it into the parlour—’ She ran from the room.
Myrtle and Harriet looked at one another in silence. Myrtle sneezed again, then closed her book and Harriet put her tea cup down and both got up to follow Rue to the parlour where the sound of banging and crashing was to be heard.
‘Blazing Bullfrogs and Blundering Bearcubs, I can’t find it,’ Rue moaned, emerging from under Mother Goodword’s desk on her hands and knees. ‘I don’t remember where I put it.’
‘It was only yesterday,’ said Myrtle, ‘it can’t be that hard to remember.’
‘I came in,’ said Rue, getting to her feet and scrambling to the doorway to re-enact her movements.
‘I had the wand in my pocket.’ She patted her pocket which only contained her near-empty pouch of Dust. The bronze key was jutting uselessly out of the lock on the desk
‘I took it out,’ she walked towards the desk under the window. ‘I heard a noise. I thought it were a horse, coming up the drive.’ She leaned across the desk to look out of the window. ‘I thought it might be Mother Goodword, but it were only the dairyman an’ his donkey.
‘Someone came in.’ She turned to face the door. ‘It were Mistress Perry, come to ask if we had any dried tansy. I showed her to the storeroom.’
Rue ran out, with Myrtle and Harriet following close behind. They ran down the hallway, out of the small external door, and into the cool, stone-walled storeroom where the herbs were dried and kept.
‘The tansy were on the top shelf, so I put the wand down.’ She mimed placing it on a shelf.
‘I climbed up,’ she pointed at the stool, ‘then I walked out with her.’
‘Leaving the wand on the shelf,’ said Myrtle. All three pairs of eyes regarded the shelf in question.
‘What next, Rue?’ said Harriet anxiously.
Rue shrugged. ‘That’s it. I left it on the shelf. I forgot about it and ain’t seen it since.’
‘Did Mistress Perry see it?’ Myrtle asked.
Rue shrugged again. ‘P’raps. She left the school. I walked with her to the gate. She were talking about Highbury having an odd feel in the air of late.’
‘Who else could have come in here? You did replace the protection charm on the door, didn’t you?’
Rue winced. ‘Blundering Bearcubs, I forgot. I were too busy talking.’
‘So anyone could have gone in,’ said Myrtle.
Rue groaned and slapped herself on the forehead. ‘Merciful Mushrooms, what a dunce I am.’
‘It was my fault,’ said Harriet. ‘If I had not been using it in the classroom, you wouldn’t have taken it from me to put away.’
A heaviness settled over the Sisters. They all continued staring at the empty space on the shelf where the wand ought to be.
‘Searching spells,’ said Myrtle decisively. ‘We must cast our very best searching spells and find it.’
Rue brightened at this idea, but then her face fell. ‘I’ve hardly enough Dust to scrape together one good spell.’
‘How could you use it all up so quickly?’ Myrtle exclaimed. ‘There was half a jar left last week.’
‘Well how much have you got left?’ Rue retorted.
‘That’s different – I was saving someone’s life!’
‘Please don’t argue,’ begged Harriet. ‘We must work together.’
‘You must have plenty left,’ Rue said to Harriet. ‘You never waste it.’
‘But I lent some to you, Rue, remember? And I used up a lot on searching spells. I have enough for a little spell, but not enough to search all over.’
‘Then we’re doomed,’ said Rue.
This was a bleak statement coming from Rue.
‘Rue the Ineffable’, her first teacher had called her. ‘Rue the Optimist’, Mother Goodword had often said. ‘Can-Do-Rue’, her Pa had joked. ‘Silver-Lining-Rue’ had been her Gran’s pet name.
Myrtle broke into a bout of sneezes.
‘Let’s sit back down inside while we think what to do next,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s cold out here.’
‘We got to write up a list of suspects,’ said Rue. ‘Someone’s took that wand and we got to find it.’
‘I’ll make you some speedwell tea,’ Harriet said to Myrtle. ‘And we’ll start the list directly.’
‘Thank you,’ said Myrtle, moving dejectedly out of the storeroom.
‘But what will we do without Dust?’ groaned Rue, passing her hands over the empty shelf, as though checking that the wand wasn’t somehow invisibly there.
‘I can do without Dust for now,’ Harriet said. ‘Until you make some more.’
‘How can I make more without the wand? But how come you can do without it?’
‘Because I think I have made my match.’ Harriet whispered, as though it were a great secret. ‘Or as good as.’
‘You have? Well, at least that’s one of us. Who is she?’
Harriet hesitated. ‘Mistress Woodhouse.’
‘A good match.’
Harriet flushed with pleasure. She opened her mouth as though to say something more on the subject, but then closed it again and fell silent.
‘Fancy you finding the courage to match Master Knightley, when you was so scared of him to begin with.’ They had left the storeroom, and re-entered the school.
‘Actually, Rue… it is not Master Knightley after all. I think Mother Goodword made a mistake. It was not Master Knightley I was to match with Mistress Woodhouse, it is Master Elftyn. He is dreadfully in love with her, though she does not yet realise it.’
‘Oh,’ was all Rue could say in reply as she digested this. ‘You sure?’
‘Quite sure,’ Harriet said earnestly. ‘No one could be more truly in love than Master Elftyn, and no one is more worthy in all of Highbury than him to be matched with the Lady of the Manor.’
Rue regarded her friend doubtfully.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Rue,’ Harriet pleaded. ‘If you could only see him for yourself, you would know it’s true, and Master Knightley has no interest whatsoever in being married, I assure you he has not!’ Harriet’s voice grew a little shrill.
‘All right, don’t get in a pet. If you say Master Elftyn is the man, who am I to say elsewise?’
‘He is, I just know that he is.’.
‘Well then. You just go and see about that tea for Myrtle. ‘I’ll see if there’s any honey in the pantry. Nothing like our fae honey for a cold. Then we’ll put our heads together and figure out about finding the wand.’
Harriet nodded and left for the kitchen. Rue stared after her. ‘Doomed,’ she said quietly.
14
Discordances
Master Knightley watched the Last Apple fall. He had been watching the ceremony since boyhood, and never tired of it.
He only wished his brother were with him. He enjoyed a rare moment of nostalgia as he thought of all the autumns they’d helped to gather in the harvests: the cabbages and carrots, the pumpkins and squash, the apples and pears, and the last of the raspberries and peas. There was always satisfaction in seeing the full-laden baskets carted off into winter storage, sent out as gifts to share with friends, and the remainder sold at market for a good price. Donwell produce was excellent quality, irrigated by the River Don, with its source in Faerie.
Pride of place in the Donwell estate was the ancient apple tree – fairy-blessed to live for a thousand years and yield an abundant crop every year.
In times of drought and famine during the Dragon Years, the famous Tree of Donwell had supplied life-giving food to the village. When the Last Apple fell from the Tree of Donwell, then the harvest was complete, and preparations for winter began.
‘A grand crop, sir,’ William Larkins gloated, eyeing the baskets of apples being loaded onto the wagons. ‘We’ll do well at market.’
Master Knightley agreed. ‘Send a bushel of the best to Hartfield,’ he reminded his steward. ‘And another to Dame and Mistress Baytes.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘And take a sackful home for Mistress Larkins. Where’s Ben?’ Master Knightley glanced about at the workers for the steward’s tall, curly-haired son.
‘He’s working alone down at the stable forge,’ said William Larkins. ‘Can’t speak well today. His mouth is all swollen up. His ma says he must have somehow eaten a nut. He takes ill in that way if he eats nuts, he fair chokes on them.’
‘Sorry to hear it. Send to Mother Goodword for a tonic, I’m sure she will have something that can help.’
‘Tried that. But she’s still away. Sent to the Perrys instead. Mistress Perry made up something with tansy which helped a deal. Master Perry says the boy will be fine in a day or two. ’Tis a mystery how he came to eat a nut. The boy says he cannot recall anything of it.’
Master Knightley’s ears pricked at this. ‘Cannot recall anything? Nothing at all?’
‘Well, just a feeling of having spoke with someone while he was down at the well, but he cannot recall who.’
‘Sounds like fae work,’ said Master Knightley thoughtfully.
‘Sounds like mischief work,’ replied his steward. ‘And there’s plenty of it about. Farmer Mitchell’s pigs all ran loose into Gypsy Woods this morning, and he’s having a job finding them. Mistress Wallis is having a job keeping her ovens from burning everything that goes in them—’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Master Knightley, who had heard of every grievance many times over the past days. ‘Something is out of balance, and I’m trying to find out what it is. I shall find out what it is.’
‘And Mother Goodword gone from us when
we most need charms and helps. Folks are talking of getting their charms from the next roamer who passes through, if nothing else comes to hand.’
‘That would be very foolish,’ said Master Knightley. ‘I hope you tell them so whenever you hear such nonsense.’
‘Certainly, I do. I remind them of what happened to that old fool Peter Crofter. Bought himself a charm from a passing roamer, a charm to make the earth soft, to give him an easy time in digging his plot, and what happened? The ground went that soft it swallowed up his whole house and plot and left him with nothing but a patch of bog. Serve him right for trying to get out of honest work.’
‘Indeed,’ agreed Master Knightley, moving away, having had enough of his steward’s chatter. He could talk away the whole morning if he let him.
‘Who shall have the Last Apple, sir?’ Larkins called after him. Master Knightley paused and looked back at the golden apple being held out. It was an ancient tradition that the Last Apple from the Donwell Tree should be given by a man to a maiden, and should she eat it, he would win her hand.
Master Knightley believed in upholding tradition, but he was not romantic ordinarily.
The faces of all the workers were turned towards him, waiting to hear who would give the apple that year. He looked around, noting that there were no unmarried men among them. ‘Find a worthy young man to give it to. There’s none present who need a wife.’
‘Excepting you, sir,’ said his steward.
Master Knightley stared again at the golden apple, and his right hand flexed as though he were half inclined to take up the fruit. But he let his hand drop again.
‘How about your son?’ he suggested. ‘He’s of an age to marry. Fine lad like him would make an excellent husband.’ He gave one lingering glance at the apple, then made a farewell nod and turned away, striding through the orchard, and whistling to his dogs to fall in behind him.