The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (18 page)

“I am sure Mr. Garritt and Mr. Rafferdy have other matters to attend to rather than to accompany us,” Miss Lockwell said.

“On the contrary,” Rafferdy said, “we have nothing to do that could be more important than to accompany you home. Isn’t that so, Mr. Garritt?”

“I doubt we’ll hear you utter truer words today” was Garritt’s reply.

After this, any polite resistance that remained was quickly dispensed with, and soon they made a cheerful party walking down the street. Lily had claimed a position on Garritt’s right arm, and he had offered Rose his left.

“I fear, Miss Lockwell, that Mr. Garritt has but two arms,” Rafferdy said. “You shall have to make do with mine.”

There was a hesitation on her part, but one that made it all the more appealing when she did accept his offer, for it showed there was no overzealous desire to attach herself to him but rather a natural affection tempered by a keen awareness of their disparate and unbridgeable situations. He was struck by the fact that the only woman who intrigued him was one who was perfectly aware she could in no way ever possess him. It was paradoxical; he could not contain his good humor.

“May I ask what you find so amusing, Mr. Rafferdy?” she said as they walked.

“Is it not obvious?”

“Not in the least. Nor is this the first time I have observed you to laugh at a jest of which no one else is seemingly aware.”

“Those are the most delightful kind.”

“Is that so? Yet the humor of the situation cannot be lessened in the sharing of it. Indeed, I should think it must only multiply if it encountered additional subjects upon which to work its mirthful powers.”

“You are right, of course. However, if you cannot already see the humor, which is quite plain to me, how can I possibly explain it to you? It would be like trying to describe the color blue to a man who has never seen it. You either know
blue
or you don’t.”

“So you mean to say one can never know something unless one has experienced it directly?”

“I do.”

“Then I could not disagree with you more, Mr. Rafferdy.” Her green eyes brightened, and there was a firmness to the set of her fine chin. “For you see, I have gained many valuable experiences in books. Through their pages I have visited places and witnessed events I would otherwise have never known. I have stood on the field where ancient battles were waged. I have wandered through keeps fallen to ruin and have spoken with kings and queens who now lie entombed beneath marble and dust.”

“But those experiences are nothing real!” he exclaimed, at once amused and taken aback.

She inquired if he read very much, and he was forced to admit that he had, much to his discredit, read very little.

“Then I forgive you for your statement, Mr. Rafferdy. All the same, you are in error. It is true that, in the strictest sense, I have not been to those places or conversed with those people. Yet the result of reading about them is every bit as affecting as if I had. For all these happenings have entered into my memories and reside there now as if they are mine. Indeed, they
are
my own. I can see in my mind’s eye all the legions of Tharos lined up on the field of Seramar. I can feel how the stones of Erenoch trembled just before they came tumbling down. I can hear the defiance in Queen Béanore’s voice as she announced her abdication.”

Such was the light in her eyes and the look on her face that he believed she
could
see these things. He confessed his ignorance; he begged her forgiveness. It was granted at once, graciously.

“I must say,” Rafferdy went on, “you make books sound magickal in a way I had never considered.”

“Indeed, it would certainly qualify as magick if you ever cracked the covers of one,” Garritt said from behind. He laughed, and Lily joined in.

Rafferdy laughed too, though his cheeks felt warm, and after that he found he desired to speak of something other than books. He inquired of his companion how the church service had gone. She answered that it had gone well enough, though she felt the priest might have spoken the sermon with a bit more ardor in his voice and that his surplice might have been better kept, being rather stained, and also that the church was always very dark inside.

“It seems every month,” she said, “there are fewer on the benches at St. Hadlan’s than the month before.”

“Perhaps if the priest put on clean clothes and opened the windows, attendance might grow.”

“You might be right, Mr. Rafferdy. Everything about St. Hadlan’s…” She appeared to think for a moment. “It feels weary somehow. That the service should be solemn, I grant you. But surely the windows might be scrubbed without removing any of their holy tincture. I fear if things continue as they are, my sisters and I will, some Brightday soon, find ourselves the only three in the pews.”

“In which case they will yet be well graced,” he said, but her only answer was to shake her head. This bemused him; in his experience, young women were always pleased by idle compliments.

“Where is Mrs. Lockwell today?” he asked, and learned that their mother found the walk Uphill intolerable. An offer of his barouche was made for Brightday next, that they all might attend service as a family. Miss Lockwell attempted to decline, but her sister was quicker at accepting.

“A barouche!” Lily exclaimed. “Think of how elegant we will all look riding to church. Everyone will stare at us. It will be grand. You will ride with us, Mr. Garritt.”

“A barouche seats but four, plus the driver,” he informed her.

Lily frowned; she appeared to struggle with the idea of refusing the offer. However, the lure of conveyance in a fashionable carriage was too great. “But you and Mr. Rafferdy will meet us afterward, Mr. Garritt,” she said finally. “You must say you will.”

“Only if they should find it convenient,” Miss Lockwell said before Mr. Garritt was forced to respond. “And their coming should not in any way be counted upon. The gesture is already far too much.”

They made a detour through Uphill Gardens and walked along flower-lined paths. As they went, Rafferdy took pleasure in his conversation with Miss Lockwell; her mind was keen and her wit sharp. While in some this might have resulted in a sort of hardness, in her the effect was softened by the delicacy of her speech and by her statements that evinced a completely disinterested mind—one concerned not at all with herself but only with the benefit of her mother, her sisters, and those around her. This fascinated Rafferdy; her lack of vanity was novel to him. And it did not hinder his enjoyment that she made an appealing sight on his arm.

From her expressions, he concluded that Miss Lockwell enjoyed their conversations as well. Though it was also obvious that, with some regularity, her sister’s speech caused her discomfort—being often thoughtless and very nearly always silly.

“I
so
wish to attend a play,” Lily exclaimed in one such instance. “My mother and sister say I can’t go, but they don’t understand, not as you and I do, Mr. Garritt. Besides, no one could complain about the suitability of my going to Durrow Street if you were there with me.”

Rafferdy felt Miss Lockwell grow stiff upon his arm at this outburst. Garritt said only that he did not know when he might ever go to Durrow Street. Undeterred, Lily continued to propose schemes that involved Mr. Garritt accompanying them somewhere or another. Rafferdy felt some sympathy for his friend; he was certain many men would enjoy the fluttering attentions of a decently pretty, if silly, young girl. However, he was equally certain that Garritt was not one of them.

He must have laughed again, for Miss Lockwell looked up at him.

“Do not fear, Mr. Rafferdy,” she said with a smile. The others had fallen a bit behind as Lily made a fuss over some flower. “Unlike my sister, I suffer under no misconceptions that you will ever accompany me to masques or plays or to anyplace more extraordinary or notable than these gardens around us. Even if our natures allowed it, our situations never would.”

“I must say, Miss Lockwell, that while I have long believed this was your understanding, I am relieved to hear you speak it aloud.” However, even as he said these words, he felt something less like relief and more like regret.

“Your encounters with us have been dreadful, then,” she said with a laugh. “I imagine you must see it as ill fate rather than good fortune that chance has conspired to bring us into contact on these several occasions.”

“On the contrary!” he said with an enthusiasm of which he had hardly known himself capable. “It has been a great while since I have found myself so entertained as I have been in your company. And since you comprehend, given our relative positions, that our meetings can progress only toward friendship, then it means there is no harm in letting them lead us in that direction, nor can there be any danger of impropriety.”

“I see you have thought through it all quite logically,” she replied. Her words struck him; they were so cool.

The sunlight felt suddenly oppressive. That wasn’t at all what he had meant to imply. Reflecting on his words, he found them distasteful, even calculating, as if his only concern in the world was respectability, which in all his five-and-twenty years had never been the case. A sudden recklessness overwhelmed him.

“There is to be a party at the house of Lady Marsdel, who is an acquaintance of mine, three nights hence, at the start of the next long umbral,” he said. “I insist you attend as my guest.”

This caught her off guard. Her cheeks grew bright, and her breath quickened. He could not help but be pleased at the effect upon her; she looked very pretty just then.

When she recovered her capacity for speech, it was to say she was certain she could not—indeed
must
not—be included in such an affair. For his part, he was adamant that she would be welcome, that Lady Marsdel would be most interested to meet her, and that he would send his cabriolet, which would bear her to Lady Marsdel’s house in the New Quarter.

“To her house in the New Quarter!” she exclaimed, though it seemed less an expression of wonder than dismay.

“Do not be concerned with any difference you might perceive between Lady Marsdel’s house and your own.”

“You mistake me. The grandness of Lady Marsdel’s house can hardly be a concern to
me
. I should instead be concerned that my sisters and I might one day have no house at all.”

She looked away, and he perceived that, in her sudden passion, she had uttered more than she wished.

“I understand your meaning,” he said in a low tone. “I have it from your cousin that your house is entailed to him. While I have not yet met your father, from our conversations I can only suppose his health is not good. You must fear your removal from Whitward Street.”

“You know much, Mr. Rafferdy,” she said. “However, while your facts are correct, your understanding is imperfect. Our house is entailed, as you say, but it is on my mother’s side, not my father’s. She was the eldest of only sisters, you see, and there was no son, nor any male heir, when her father passed. Thus the house went to my mother for the duration of her life. But at the time of his death, the next eldest daughter was with child and not a few months later bore a son. That is our dear cousin Mr. Wyble, to whom the house will one day go.”

Rafferdy could not help but wince at the name. “Ah, Mr. Wyble. I hadn’t realized your relation to him was by your mother. I had assumed it was through your father.”

“It matters not,” she said with a laugh. “I think, as far as Mr. Wyble is concerned, we are no relation at all!”

That the law should one day permit an insipid man like Mr. Wyble to deprive three young women of their home was abominable. However, the day this would transpire was many years off—Mrs. Lockwell was in no way old—and no doubt her daughters would be comfortably married by then. Still, it rankled.

“It seems unfair you cannot keep your house as long as you wish to reside in it,” he said.

“Indeed, it is unfair.” Her cheeks shone from exertion, and the wind had stolen several locks of gold hair from her bonnet. “That is, it is precisely unfair by design. For we are merely women, you see, and all laws conspire to keep us dependent. Though upon what or who we will depend, I cannot say. That we might have any sort of power over our own fortunes is a thing society forbids. Why this is so, I am at a loss. Perhaps over the ages men have found us to be incapable of making such choices. Or rather, perhaps they did not like or trust the choices we made. Either way, the result is the same. A man might make his own way in the world, Mr. Rafferdy, but a woman must transfer all her hopes to others, however ill she might thereafter be treated.”

Rafferdy wished to make a response, but none came to him. Then the others had caught up, and a few more minutes saw them to the gate of the house on Whitward Street. Farewells were exchanged, the sisters retired indoors, and Rafferdy found himself walking along the street back to where his cabriolet waited.

“I would ask you what you’re doing,” Garritt said, “but you always have your own reasons for things. Still, I’m hard-pressed to know what your intentions are this time around.”

So lost had he been in his thoughts that Rafferdy had forgotten his friend was walking alongside him. “To know my intentions regarding what?”

Garritt shook his head. “It is cruel to fortify her expectations and to give her cause to anticipate an event that can never come to pass. Hope is no good thing to have when all hopes must necessarily prove false.”

“So you think I should inspire despair instead?”

Garritt’s expression was serious. “You are many things, Rafferdy, but not a fool. You know there can never be any real connection between you.”

“No doubt that’s why I like her,” Rafferdy replied.

“That might suit your fancies, but I can hardly believe it matches
hers
. This can only end in one fashion, when it becomes clear she depends upon your offering a thing you can never grant her. You shouldn’t have invited her to Lady Marsdel’s.”

Rafferdy was suddenly vexed with his friend. “You are wrong. She expects nothing of me. And what is there to fear from inviting her to Lady Marsdel’s, save that a dull party might be made interesting?” They had reached the cabriolet. “I do not go in your direction. Here is a coin. Hire yourself a hack cab.” He climbed in.