A Scandal in Battersea Read online

  “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, Master Durwin, Master Roan,” Nan said as gravely as she could. It’s just a good thing there’s no one in the Gardens right now, or we’d look like right lunatics, standing about and talking to the air. I’m pretty sure no one can see Robin or the hobs but us.

  “As am I,” said Sarah. Both little men blushed shyly. “Our friend Robin has suggested you might be willing to come live, one with us, and one at the school where Suki will be in a few days.”

  “Oh aye, Mistress!” said Roan quickly. “Us hobs like you Big Folk, allus have! All we need is a corner to oursel’n to tuck into out of sight.”

  “And a bit of somethin’ now and again . . .” said Durwin wistfully. “We can feed ours’l’s, ’deed we can, but Big Folk food be . . .” Roan elbowed him hard, and he fell silent, blushing harder, this time with embarrassment.

  “If you’re sure,” Nan said. “We’d love to have one of you, and . . . someone . . . can introduce you to Memsa’b who runs the School, and she’ll see to it that whichever of you goes with Suki is settled happily.” She glanced at Sarah. “How . . . exactly would that work?”

  Robin chuckled. “You leave that to me, Daughter of Eve. I’ll have a word with Memsa’b myself, tell her what’s what, and get Roan settled.”

  And I’ll send a note to make sure Memsa’b knows to have someone in the kitchen leave out food for him. “I hope you like Indian food, Roan,” she cautioned. “That’s almost all that’s served at the School.”

  “We hobs aren’t par-tic-u-lar,” Roan replied, but from the way his face lit up for a moment, she rather fancied he did. And where would he have tasted Indian food, I wonder? Another mystery. Did hobs serve English folk exclusively, or were they inclined to move into any household where they were welcome? Was there an Indian version of a hob?

  “Meanwhile, would you both like to stay with us until Suki goes back?” Sarah asked—impulsively, Nan thought, although she didn’t dislike the idea. These two little men did not seem disposed to mischief.

  Now the faces of both little men lit up like the sun. “Oh, yes, Mistress, please!” Roan spoke for both of them. “That would be excellent for us. Thank you!” And then, they vanished. Between one blink of the eye and another, they simply disappeared. Now, Nan was quite used to seeing Elementals fading from view, or whisking out of sight, but just vanishing into thin air was not something she would have expected.

  Nan blinked in astonishment. “Do they do that a great deal?” she asked. “Just pop out of existence, I mean.”

  “It’s a hob’s way.” Robin shrugged. “They like to get out of sight as quickly as they can. They’re shy. They don’t much care for being seen at all, and then only when it’s only likely to be by one or two Big People. And it’s not as if they needed to come home with you in a hansom; they know how to find where you live. In fact, they’re probably already there.”

  Nan and Sarah exchanged a wry look. So . . . now strange little Elementals could appear in their flat whenever they chose! Nan turned back to Robin. “I have to say,” she said, “It is distinctly unfair how your kind can just flit wherever you choose.”

  Robin shook his head mockingly. “And when, Daughter of Eve,” he replied, “Has life ever been fair?”

  Sure enough, when Nan unlocked the door to the flat, she could hear deep chuckles, the lighter laughter of Grey imitating Sarah, and the distinct chortles of the raven. So, Robin had been right. The hobs had managed to get to the flat long before the girls could, and must have spent the time since making the acquaintance of the birds. Suki squeezed into the flat before Nan could fully get the door open and made a beeline for the bird’s room.

  Once there, she broke into peals of laughter. Curious now to discover just what was so funny, Nan tossed her cloak and hat aside on the nearest chair, and hurried into the room herself.

  There she found Roan and Durwin, each with a bird balanced somewhat precariously on the top of his head, performing a sort of pavane to music that was coming out of thin air. Suki bounced on her toes with delight. The birds were clearly enjoying themselves. And Nan’s worst fear—that the birds would somehow resent or even dislike the hobs—was assuaged. In fact, from the look of things, the birds found the two hobs to be the most entertaining things to come into their lives in a long time.

  When the music stopped, the birds flapped into the air and went to their perches, and the hobs looked with alarm at Nan, as if they were afraid they had somehow offended her. It even looked as if they were going to vanish.

  “Don’t go just yet,” Nan told them, as they were poised to flee. “You said you needed a little space to make your own. Let’s find that corner for you. How much room do you need?”

  The hobs relaxed slightly. “Just enough to curl up in, Mistress,” said Roan. “Out of the way where we won’t be a bother to you by day.”

  “With a book?” Durwin added hopefully. Roan elbowed him hard again. Nan did her best not to laugh. This was certainly a distraction from worrying about Amelia’s visions.

  “Then I have just the thing, and Roan, for now, and later if you come visit Durwin, there is room enough to share.” Sarah flung open the doors to the huge old linen cabinet in which the bird’s toys, their traveling carriers, and their extra dishes were kept. “Look,” she said, pointing to the bottom, where there were two shelves, completely empty, that probably had been meant to store very bulky things like pillows, blankets or heavy coverlets. There was about as much space for the hobs as there would have been for a sailor in his bunk. “There’s plenty of space for both of you down there, we never use it, and I’m sure we have pillows and shawls to make it comfortable for you.”

  “There’s no need Mistress—” Roan began, but Nan had already gone in search of pillows that had gone flat that would serve the hobs for mattresses, and something for blankets. She returned with a “mattress” for each of them, a couple of cushions Suki had made when learning to sew that would serve them very well as pillows, and a number of shawls that she and Sarah had been given as presents that . . . well . . . the giver meant well, but the colors were so garish that they’d been relegated to the back of the wardrobe. She thought that spare pillowcases would probably serve well enough as sheets, and had brought two of them as well.

  “Here you are, gentlemen,” she said cheerfully, dropping her burden at their feet. “And do feel free to help yourselves from the bookshelves. All that I ask is that you not borrow a book one of us is already reading.”

  The two little men were clearly torn; they were delighted at this hospitality, but also embarrassed by it. “Really, Mistress . . .” Roan said, and trailed off. “You’re very generous. We hobs do with little. It’s not our way to be so . . .” he appeared to be searching for a word. “. . . luxurious.”

  “Really, Master Roan, we’re going to be working Durwin rather unmercifully,” Sarah replied, a look in her eye telling Nan that evidently she understood this situation better than Nan did. “This isn’t a gift, nor is it charity. We hope we can rely on him to stand guard at night when we are asleep, and whenever we are gone, so that the birds are safe and nothing catches on fire. It’s been a constant concern for us when we’ve needed to leave them alone. So many things can go horribly wrong. He’ll be taking a terrible burden of worry off of us.”

  Roan’s face cleared, and so did Durwin’s. “Well, then . . .”

  Durwin whispered in Roan’s ear. It was a very loud whisper and Nan could hear it. “I can clean up after the winged ones too.”

  “And the one thing that no one can keep up with at the school is the repair of the toys!” she continued. “They’re good children, but they are children, and they play very hard. Why, there are two whole rocking horses that are in the school workshop to be extensively repaired now, and I really don’t know when anyone is going to be able to get to them!”

  Now Roan’s face lit
up. “Toys, indeed.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now, the making and fixing of toys is something I am a bit of an expert in. Happens, I once lived in a toymaker’s shop . . .”

  “And of course, we’ll need your presence around the clock to take messages to Robin,” Sarah concluded, and sighed theatrically. “And now I am afraid that is so much work you are going to regret saying you’ll live with us. I cannot conceive of any hob ever doing as much work as we will need doing.”

  Roan marched up to Sarah, reached up, and patted her hand. “There, there, now Mistress. Don’t you worry your pretty head about that. Hobs are tough! Hobs are resourceful! Do much with little, that’s what I always say!”

  Durwin bobbed his head. “That he does, Mistress,” the sandy-bearded hob concurred. “Do much with little! He says it a lot.” Durwin glanced sideways at his compatriot. “Says it a whole lot.”

  Roan elbowed him again.

  Sarah sighed with exaggerated relief. “All right then, if you’re sure. We’ll leave you to get comfortable. Suki, it’s time for your lesson.”

  Suki opened her mouth to object, because, after all, it was Christmas Day, and there weren’t any lessons, but then she exchanged a look with Nan. We should let them settle to suit themselves, Suki, Nan thought at her. They’re shy, and very much not used to being around Big Folk who can see them.

  Suki’s eyes widened, and she nodded. With the birds to supervise, they left the hobs to work out who was to get which shelf. “I call the top!” “Rubbish! I’m eldest, I get the top.” “Rubbish yourself! I’m smaller, I get the top!” “Then I’ll be having this red blanket.” “Oh, you will, will you?”

  Nan had to stuff her hand in her mouth to keep from laughing. It was like listening to a couple of siblings argue over a room. It’s a good thing it’s a cupboard. They can’t draw a line down the center of the room and forbid each other to set foot across it.

  They retreated into the sitting room. “If they’re not brothers, they’re the next thing to it,” Sarah giggled. “Well, how are we to feed them? I assume they’d be horrified if we asked them to sit at table with us.”

  “I think there’s something in one of the books Mary Watson lent me,” Nan replied, and went to the shelf on which she was keeping the borrowed books on Elemental Creatures separate from the rest, to avoid mixing them up. She found the book on Earth Elementals she wanted—like most such books, it was a handwritten tome, with empty pages at the back for the next Master to own it to use for his or her own observations. Unfortunately, it was not indexed or alphabetized in any way, which made looking for anything specific a bit of a chore. While she looked, Sarah laid out food—not much, just some bread and butter and cheese, as Mrs. Horace was making everyone a lovely Christmas dinner when she returned from church, and indeed, the aroma of chestnut-stuffed goose had begun to fill the building. Nan absently nibbled as she searched the book, while Suki, who never turned down food, sat with a piece of cheese in one hand and a thick slice of bread-and-butter in the other.

  “Ah, here we are. We should simply leave it by the hearth when we go to bed. They like anything dairy, anything baked, and anything sweet.”

  “That sounds like the kind of diet that would give Memsa’b the horrors,” Sarah chuckled. “There are always leftovers from our dinners. We can make up a plate and leave it covered at the hearth.”

  “It appears,” Nan continued, still reading, “That Durwin and Roan are bending the hob rules considerably for Robin. They’re supposed to work secretly, and humans are never to offer anything as ‘payment.’ In fact, if they are given anything as ‘payment,’ especially clothing, they are supposed to leave. We rather implied that, and they deliberately did not take offense.”

  “Any more rules we should know about?” Sarah asked, as the quarreling in the bird room ceased.

  “Well, we should never make it appear we take them or their work for granted, and get lazy.” Nan looked up from the book directly at Suki. “Which means, my love, putting away your clothing and toys is still your responsibility. Roan is your friend, not your personal servant. If he happens to help you out on a day when you are terribly busy, then just be quietly thankful.”

  Suki heaved an exaggerated sigh of regret, and stuffed the last of her bread-and-butter into her mouth.

  “We should try not to take any notice of Durwin . . . although to be fair, I think it’s in his nature to be not as secretive as Roan. Perhaps he’s not so much a traditionalist. At any rate, it seems that the proper etiquette is to announce whatever is pertinent to the empty air, or your companion. Such as, if we were going out, something like, ‘Well, since we are going out, I hope the birds and the flat stay safe.’ That lets the hob know something particular needs doing.” Nan looked at Suki again. “I think the rules can be bent for children. So I think if we go out and leave you, you can play with them.”

  Suki’s face was wreathed in smiles at that.

  “What about at the school?” she asked.

  “Memsa’b will probably have Roan stay in the workshop, so you probably won’t see him. And it’s not as if you don’t have plenty of friends to play with at the school. You can’t expect magical creatures to be popping in all the time just to play with you.” Nan put a tiny touch of chiding into her tone, as a reminder that Roan was to be there mostly so that Memsa’b could call on Robin directly.

  Suki sighed again. “Well, orl right,” she agreed.

  “It also says here that Robin is a kind of hob,” Nan concluded, shutting the book. “I think someone was very much mistaken if they think that.”

  “Well, technically he is one of the Great Elementals, so I suppose, if you stretched a point . . .” Sarah said, but doubtfully.

  “That’s stretching it until it snaps back on you and leaves a welt on your chin,” Nan chuckled. “And I think I hear Mrs. Horace now! Let’s go down; the more we can help, the sooner we can feast!”

  They returned to their flat laden with a tray and two baskets of good things, having told Mrs. Horace that they would attend to their own tea and supper from the leftovers. And still they had left Mrs. Horace with things to store in the pantry and the cold pantry, and wondering aloud why she had cooked so much and where she was going to put it all. It was a very good thing that Christmas was at the end of December, and that this was a cold Christmas at that. In the cold pantry, you could see your breath, and nothing was going to spoil.

  They stowed their own goodies in their own, much smaller pantry, and went to bring the birds their share of the feast and look in on the hobs. The birds were overjoyed to see the food—Grey went immediately to work on one of the goose’s thighbones, cracking it open and eating the marrow with almost ghoulish relish.

  “You know that’s cannibalism, right?” Sarah said, teasingly.

  Grey looked at her. “That’s a bird. I’m a bird. I want some,” Grey retorted, and went back to her bone as Neville chortled. Then he set to on his chopped giblets.

  Nan eased the door of the cupboard open, just a little. There were two shawl-covered lumps on the shelves, backs to the door, looking entirely comfortable, and easing Nan’s fears that the arrangement would be less than desirable, at least by hob standards.

  She closed the door again. “They’re sleeping like a couple of stones,” she said. “The book implies we should just go about our business as normal, and they’ll be fine.”

  The birds flew to their shoulders, and they moved back into the sitting room. Suki decided she would go and play with her Christmas toys, leaving them alone.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do.” Sarah frowned a little. “And the one thing that we have not done is to try and figure out if there is any way our two particular talents would be of use in this uncertain case.”

  She took her favorite chair on the hearth, and Grey went to the back of it. Neville elected to hop to the back of Nan’s chair before she could sit.
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  “Mine, probably not, unless this Old Thing decides to try and manifest somewhere near me,” Nan admitted. “And even then, it probably won’t be my telepathy that warns us, but having the Celtic Warrior manifest. I have the notion that this Old Thing may be related in some way to the creature in Berkeley Square that we finally trapped. The Warrior reacted strongly to that, and I think she would react even more strongly to this. But you—spirits might be able to tell you something, if you can find one that isn’t tied down to a place.”

  “Oh it might be easier than that,” Sarah replied after a moment. “Something like this is going to upset the spirits. All I have to do, really, is ask them if there are rumors of something matching that description. Tonight would be a good night for that.”

  “And meanwhile. . . .” Nan looked at the bookshelf she had taken the Earth Elemental book from. “This might be a good time for some more research.”

  Suki emerged for tea and supper, but otherwise she had found something very engrossing in her room. Nan didn’t enquire as to what it was. Suki would tell them later, probably. At this point, she was a very self-sufficient little person; she washed up by herself, and appeared in her nightdress to hug and kiss them goodnight, but no longer required tucking in, nor wanted to be told a bedtime story, as she preferred to read one on her own. Nan did check on her when silence had reigned over the flat for about an hour, and she was sound asleep, book on the bedside table, all lamps extinguished.

  She came back out to find Sarah already disposed on the sofa, Robin’s talisman in one hand, Grey at her shoulder. “Should we warn the hobs?” she wondered aloud. “They should probably know that I am about to try to call in a ghost.”

  “A ghost is it, then?” said Durwin, softly, peeking through the door to the bird room. “Lummy! I’ve never seen no Big Folk spirits! OW!”