The Gates of Sleep (40 page)

A second set spun up at that perimeter, very like Uncle
Thomas’ craftsmanly constructions, but more organic and alive. This
variant of Earth was the
living
Earth, a tapestry of intertwining
life, rich and flavored with the feel of sun on a freshly-turned furrow, the
taste of (oddly enough) warm milk and honey, and the scent of new-mown hay. But
it was the same rich, golden-brown of Uncle Thomas’ magic, and the
shields rose up like a powerful buttress behind the fluidity of the vicar’s.

She sighed; they were perfectly
lovely
things, and
she wished she could study them. But time was passing; she needed a source of
power.

And found it immediately, a spring that supplied the
vicarage well. There were lesser Elementals here, though no Undines—not
surprising, really, since it was directly below a human-occupied building, and
despite the lovely shields, she could tell that Clifton Davies was not really
strong enough to attract the attention of powerful Elementals. She tapped into
it, and let the full force of it flow into her hands and out again.

She sensed the doctor probing what she was doing at one
point when she was so deep into her task that she wouldn’t have noticed a
bugle being blown in her ear. He was very deft—and he made a brief
attempt to join his personal energies to hers. But it came to nothing, as she
had already known would happen, and he withdrew, turning instead to the task of
healing what he could of the harm done to Ellen by the poison.

Then she lost herself in the intricacy and sheer delight of
the task—she had seen Margherita similarly lost in the intricacy of a
tapestry or an embroidery piece, and supposed it must be much the same thing.
Some
to make and some to mend,
her aunt had always said when she lamented her
inability to create. Well, there was joy enough in both.

Then, as ever, she felt her strength run out, and came back
to herself with an unpleasant jarring sensation. At almost the same moment, she
felt the two sets of shields come down again. She opened her eyes, and took
away her hand, and was pleased to see that now there was some faint color in
Ellen’s cheeks. But she didn’t get to admire them for long, because
the girl struggled to her feet with Dr. Davies’ help, and was out the
door as Marina sagged back into the comfort of the old wingback. Poor Ellen!
She hoped the vicarage had an indoor WC.

“About that cup of tea,” she suggested, feeling
very much in need of it.

“We can manage a bit better than that,” Davies
said, and held up his hand when she opened her mouth to protest. “Now I
know you are reluctant to be a drain on my larder, but there are two things you
don’t know about the state of it. First, I am a single man living here,
not one burdened with a family, and although a country parson doesn’t see
much in the way of monetary help, he is certainly well-endowed with the gifts
of the farmers in his parish. And they have been granting me those as if I did
have an enormous family, and would take it very hard if I were not to make use
of it. Second, Miss Roeswood, I am a
single
parson—singularly
single, as the saying is. Not a day goes by when some young lady or
other—equally single—doesn’t gift me with a little offering
that is, I must suppose, intended to impress me with her kitchen skills.”
He chuckled. “If I ate all of these things I should be as round as a
Michaelmas goose, and a good corn-fed one at that. My housekeeper would
probably be mortally offended at this unintended slur on her skills, if she
wasn’t so pleased that she hasn’t had to do any baking herself
since Christmas. Some of this supplies the Parish groups with refreshments, but
by no means all of it. So, the long and short of it is I can and will provide
the means for a sumptuous high tea every time you bring Miss Ellen here.”

She held up both hands. “I yield to the honorable
opposition,” she said, and he went off to some other part of the house,
returning with Ellen leaning on his arm.

The housekeeper arrived after Ellen had been settled back
in the bed, with an enormous tray stacked with plates of sandwiches and cakes,
and Marina’s mouth began to water at the sight of it all. This was
not
ladylike fare! Good, honest ham, egg, and cheese sandwiches, and decent-sized
cakes, just like she used to eat at the cottage when Margherita made a high
tea!

“Doctor, will you pour?” Davies asked genially.
“I know that’s supposed to be the lady’s job, but frankly,
the lady’s hand is shaking too much and I don’t want tea slopped
all over my saucer. Now, what will you have, Miss Roeswood?”

“For starters, I’d like to dispense with the
formality, at least while the four of us are together,” she replied,
telling her protesting stomach that it did not want one of everything. “Marina,
please, from now on, vicar. And the same for you, doctor. Other than
that—some sandwiches, tea with two, and milk, please.”

“Then it will be Andrew and Clifton,” the
doctor said, handing her a cup of good strong tea, with plenty of sugar and
just a touch of milk. “At least in private. We don’t want to give
rise to any of those rumors you warned me of—and quite properly
too—at Briareley.”

“Hmm.” The vicar made up a plate for Marina at
her direction. “A very good point,” he said, handing it to her. “Your
guardian mustn’t be given any excuse to forbid our meeting. Ellen, I am
afraid it is beef broth and milk-pudding for you, my child.”

She accepted both with no sign of discontent. “I’d
only lose anything stronger,” she said with good humor. “Oh, I feel
so much better, though! I know I’ll feel bad again, but—”

“But it won’t be as bad as it was before,”
Andrew told her. “And every time we do this, it will be a little better,
until we’ve purged all of the poison out of you and I’ve healed
what I can.”

Ellen smiled, but the smile faded. “Pardon my asking,
but—then what?” she said reluctantly. “What’m I to do
then? Go back to painting?”

“Good gad, no!” the doctor and the vicar
exclaimed at the same time. Andrew made a “go ahead” motion to the
vicar.

“You’ll come to work for one of us, Ellen, if
you want to,” Davies said. “I must warn you though, that it’s
no gilded life here. You’d live here and eat here, but I couldn’t
afford much in wages, and it is likely to be hard work.”

Ellen was shaking her head. “I got no skill at it,
sir, begging your pardon. I never been trained in service.”

“Then you’ll work for me—which is very
little better, but you can start training as a nurse little by little as you
get healthier,” Andrew told her. “Like Eleanor—you see,
nurses are readily come by, but nurses who are Sensitives, or even magicians,
are far, far, rarer. I could use you to work with the children. Would you like
that?”

Ellen brightened immediately. “That’d suit me,
yes it would! That’d suit me fine!”

“It’s settled then.” Both men seemed
satisfied with the outcome, and certainly for someone who was a Sensitive,
there really was no better place to work than Briareley, however poor the wages
might be.

Well—Blackbird Cottage. But she’d have to
do heavy work, just like Jenny, and I doubt she’ll ever be able to do
that again.
But Marina made a mental note to talk seriously with
Margherita when she finally got back in touch about supplying a place or two
for other former charity patients of Andrew’s who were more robustly
built.

“If that doesn’t work for you, I expect I’ll
need a lady’s maid eventually, Ellen,” Marina put in. “I’d
rather have someone who I know that can learn what to do than have someone who
might be beautifully trained but whom I don’t know that I’d have to
trust. But—” she sighed. “That will have to wait for three
years, until I’m of age. Until then, I have less charge over Oakhurst
than you do!

Madam has charge of everything. Including me.” She
finished the last bite of an exquisite little Bakewell tart, and grimaced. “I
don’t even get to say what I have for tea—which is why I have made
such a disgusting pig of myself over the sweets today!”

Ellen put her empty bowls aside. “Miss, I’ve
been wondering—who’s this Madam? Why’s she such a hold over
you, miss?”

“She’s my guardian, worse luck,” Marina
sighed, and began to explain her situation to the girl. Which, of course, ran
right counter to everything she’d seen in etiquette books, or been taught
by Arachne. Ellen was a mere factory girl, an absolute inferior; Marina a lady
of privilege. Marina should have addressed her by her last name only, and
really, should not even have noticed her, much less be laying out her entire
life for her scrutiny.

Madam would have the vapors. If Madam ever
does
have
the vapors. Which I doubt, actually.

She got as far as her first interview with Madam, when
Ellen interrupted her. “Now, miss—I
know
your Madam
Arachne! I wondered, when I first heard you call her that, and I do! ‘Twas
her pottery I worked at, in Exeter! ‘Twas there I got poisoned by all the
glaze-dust, or at least, that’s what Dr. Pike says!”

Up until this moment, Arachne’s potteries had been
nothing more than an abstract to Marina—something that hadn’t any
real shape in her mind, as it were. Oh, she had thought, if she had thought at
all, that they were—like a village pottery, only larger. She hadn’t
even had a mental image, nor put together Andrew’s rant about the
lead-poisoning with what made her guardian’s fortune. Now, though—

“Good gad,” she whispered.

Ellen held out her trembling hand and frowned at it. “She’s
real particular, Madam is. Picks her paintresses herself. And she does make
sure that the girls is taken care of for when the shakes start. Gives us a
lay-down room so we can take a bit of a rest and still get the quota done. And
she sees to it other ways. If you know what I mean.” She looked more than
a little embarrassed, when the vicar and Marina shook their heads dumbly.

Andrew saved the girl from having to answer. “Let me
handle this, Ellen.” He turned to Clifton and Marina. “I think I
might have told you already, but if I haven’t, well—the lead kills
the girls’ appetites and has an effect on the complexions. Ironically
enough. their skin becomes as pale and translucent as porcelain—well,
just like Ellen’s is now. So, they are thin and pale, ethereal and
delicate, they have to stay clean and neat because they’re on show for
visitors.”

“Madam gives us a wash-up room, and she gets a
second-hand clothes woman who gets stuff from the gentry to come around and
give us good prices,” Ellen put in. “And if we ain’t got
enough, she has it laid by for us, and takes a shilling a week out of our
wages.”

Andrew made a helpless gesture. “There you have it.
Clean, well-gowned, and if they had any looks at all before, they become
pretty. If they were pretty before, they become beautiful. Men who are looking
for—companionship—”

Clifton turned beet-red. Marina tilted her head to the
side; wide and uncensored reading, and Elizabeth’s influence had given
information on what came next, if not personal experience. “Men looking
for pretty mistresses may go looking among the paintresses, you mean? Ellen, is
that what you meant when you said that Madam sees that the girls are cared for?”

Ellen nodded. “She lets visitors come right in the
painting-room,” she admitted. “Lets ‘em palaver with us
girls, and so long as the quota gets done, nobody says anything. So when they
can’t paint no more, they’ll have maybe someone as is interested in
other things they can do.”

“Monstrous!” Davies burst out, red-faced now
with anger. “Appalling!”

“Well, what else are they supposed to do? Petition
Madam to take care of them?” Andrew looked just as angry, but tempered
with resignation. “Good God, Clifton, what would that get them? Nowhere,
of course—she’s the one who’s poisoned them in the first
place! What relations are going to care for them? Ellen’s second-cousin
is the only person that has ever brought one of these paintresses to the
attention of a doctor, and that is in no small part because the cousin
discovered Ellen’s magical potential was being drained away from her by a
person unknown. That is
one
case, out of how many potteries?”

“Quite a few, I would venture to say,” Marina
offered, feeling an odd sort of dislocation—ethically, she was as
appalled as the vicar, emotionally she was as horrified. But
intellectually—she couldn’t find it in her heart to blame any girl
who took such a step toward ensuring whatever future she had was comfortable. “But
I suspect that would be because those doctors are disinclined to see a patient
without being paid. Actually, Andrew, that’s not quite true—Madam
and Reggie were discussing something about a female doctor, a suffragist, who
was campaigning on behalf of the paintresses at one of her potteries. But I don’t
know which pottery that was, so I can’t tell you if there’s anyone
trying to do anything about the place where Ellen worked.”

“I’m glad to hear that, but it’s
irrelevant to the situation we were discussing,” Andrew pointed out. “So
Clifton, what exactly
are
these girls to do with themselves before
they die? Eke out the remaining miserable days of their lives in the poorhouse?
Or spend them in comfort by selling their bodies while the bodies are still
desirable?”

The vicar hung his head, his color fading. “I don’t
know, Andrew. A hard choice, in a hard life.”

“They say that Madam letting them men in, makes sure
all the paintresses gets a chance to get set up—and they
do
just
go off, sometimes without giving notice,” Ellen observed, with a hint of
sardonic amusement at the vicar’s reaction. “Girls get a lot of men
coming ‘round. We all figured soon or late, you get one as is willing to
take care of you proper. And until you do, you get nice presents, lovely
dinners, get taken to music-halls…”