The Wizard of London Read online

  Suddenly he found himself hoist on his own petard. He had wanted to see this woman for himself, and if he discovered that she was the girl of his youthful infatuation, use her current state to destroy any lingering, sentimental memory of that girl. After all, the years were generally not kind to poor vicars’ daughters, and he was certain they would not have been kind to her. One look at a prim-faced, stern-eyed creature in the severe, dark, unfashionable gown that seemed to be the universal garb of all schoolmistresses, and he was sure the soft, pastel-colored memory of that girl would be burned from his mind. The last thing he wanted to do was to confront her husband.

  But there seemed no way that he could avoid such a confrontation now. If he declined to meet with Mr.Harton, there would be questions as to why he had turned up, and why he wanted to meet with Mrs.Harton and not her spouse, questions he did not want to , have to answer. Nor did he want the absent Mrs.Harton to have to answer an interrogation about his presence later either—whoever she was.

  “Yes,” he said simply, if reluctantly, “Master Harton will suffice.”

  The servant bowed, unbolted a little postern door on the left side of the gate, and let him inside the walls. Silently, the man led the way to the front door, and with continued silence, brought him into the vestibule from there into a small parlor.

  “If you will wait, sir, I will summon the Master,” the servant said, taking his card. “It will be no more than a few minutes at most.”

  In fact, it was less than that. David had no time at all to look at most of the souvenirs of India displayed on the walls and tables of the parlor. The servant’s steps had hardly faded when a different set of footsteps, with a limp this time, heralded the approach of someone new.

  David rose and turned toward the door.

  Standing in the doorway was a middle-aged man—a gentleman, in fact, who was probably no more than five or six years older than David—with the physique of someone considerably younger than his apparent age. David was immediately conscious that he was not nearly so robust as this fellow; jaunts in carriages around London did not lend themselves to looking as if one hiked six miles through the jungle before breakfast. In coloring, he was ordinary enough, brown of hair and eye, though there was a set to his jawline that suggested toughness and a hint of a smile that suggested sardonic good humor. The hair itself was just a little long and carelessly untidy, as if the wearer had put off seeing a barber for a little. The eyes were frank, honest, and appraising. David had expected a military bearing, given the servant, but there was less of it than he would have anticipated.

  He stepped forward, holding out his hand.

  The other clasped it, a good, strong handshake, warm, dry and firm. “David, Lord Alderscroft,” David said, wondering what the other made of his own grasp. The man chuckled.

  “Plain Frederick Harton, and pleased to meet you. I had been hoping to make your acquaintance, since my wife and I had a bit of a problem with an Elemental Master not long ago.”

  David tried not to blink; the fellow certainly did not beat about the bush!

  “Erm, yes,” he temporized. “But the problem seems to have solved itself, more or less.”

  “So I’ve been told,” came the noncommittal reply. “Would you care to come to my office? You might find it more comfortable than this parlor.”

  David had intended to say, “No,” intended to claim he had only stopped to let the Hartons know that the problem with the renegade had been disposed of, but found himself saying instead, “Yes, thank you.”

  The man led the way to a small room just off the parlor, lined with books, displaying more exotica, and quite comfortable in that shabby, well-worn way that the lounges of the adventurers’ clubs often looked. Without being asked, Frederick Harton poured and handed him a brandy. Wordlessly, David accepted it, and took a seat in a handsome, if slightly battered, leather chair that accepted his weight and embraced it. He also hadn’t intended to drink what he had been handed, but a whiff and a cautious taste proved it was not an inferior product.

  On the wall over the fireplace was a photographic portrait of the Hartons, presumably made in India, since the woman was wearing a white gown suited to the tropics.

  And there was no doubt; the woman was “his” Isabelle. Nor did that sepia photograph do anything to erase the memories from his mind. Though looking grave and serious, and certainly as if she had seen many things and perhaps endured many trials, Isabelle Harton looked considerably less aged than the face that gazed back at David’s from his mirror every morning. The years, which had not been kind to him, had laid a light hand on her.

  “I hope you understand that while we are grateful for your attention, we are not entirely convinced that the threat has ended with the death of your miscreant,” Frederick Harton said, as he seated himself behind his desk.

  “Ah, well, that is what I came here to speak to Mrs.Harton about,” David replied, grateful for a chance to turn the tide of conversation in his own favor. He drew himself up a little and gathered all of his authority about himself. “You see, Mr.Harton, my associates and I think you would be doing better to look among the ranks of the psychical set for your enemy, if indeed there is one.”

  He rattled on, repeating all the arguments made in advance, to an attentive, but neutral Frederick Harton, until at last he ran out of arguments.

  “I see,” Harton said, sounding unconvinced. “These are all good arguments, to be sure, but it does not answer how such presumed enemy contacted an Elemental Master in the first place, nor how he or she convinced said Master to work for them in the second place. It is a conundrum that has as yet to be addressed.”

  Drat the man! Why did he have to be so intelligent and thoughtful? David had hoped to find a stereotypical retired Colonial soldier, rigid and uncomfortable with matters nonmilitary—or else a moony mystic, easily persuaded by a stronger personality. He found neither. Instead, he discovered he was facing an intellect as powerful as his own; he had literally met his match. If this man did not lead a psychical Master’s Circle, it was because he felt enough of them existed that he did not need to create one.

  “Unfortunately,” he replied, setting down the empty glass and rising, “The one person who can answer that has gone beyond the reach of our justice, so we shall never know, I expect. Good evening, Mr.Harton. I hope your school continues to flourish with an absence of incident.”

  “Oh, where there are children there will always be incidents,” came the ironic reply, as Harton rose and shook his hand. “One simply hopes to keep them confined within the four walls of the school.”

  David Alderscroft took his leave, and his carriage, feeling that somehow, though swords had never been crossed in the meeting, he had come off second-best.

  ***

  Props and costumes for the play had mostly been constructed, and still the full cast had not yet been chosen. Nan and Sarah were to be Helena and Hermia, the two friends whose tangled affairs formed the bulk of the play—a natural choice, though Nan was a little disappointed, as she had hoped to be Hippolyta the Amazon Queen. She rather fancied herself in armor.

  But Mem’sab and Sarah had convinced her that the semicomic role of Helena suited her better, and after studying the text with Mem’sab’s help, Nan agreed. Anna Thompson, a girl tall for her age and rather angular, would be Hippolyta; the role was not precisely a demanding one, when it all came down to it, and Anna would fill it well enough. Almost all the other roles had been filled, except two of the most crucial: Bottom, and Puck.

  The difficulty was that the most natural choice for either of them was Tommy, and he clearly could not fill both roles. Given a choice, he wanted Bottom; he clearly lusted after the donkey’s head worn by the character for the scene with the fairies. He had already tried the papier-mâché creation on so often that not even the much-amused servants were startled to see him cavorting about in it anymore. But in Nan’s opinion there was no one else clever and lively enough to play Puck—

 
Mem’sab, the girls, and the birds had ensconced themselves in that overgrown summerhouse (which Mem’sab referred to as a “folly”) to sort through the final cast options. And Mem’sab was growing a little frustrated, in an amused sense.

  “I vow,” she said in exasperation, after yet another sort-through of the boys, shuffling them into various parts to see if a new configuration would solve the dilemma, “I am tempted to play Puck myself at this point. There is not a single boy half as able to do Bottom as Tommy, he has most of the part by heart already. But there isn’t anyone, girl or boy, as well suited to Puck either! Except, perhaps you, Nan.”

  “But I’ve already got most of Helena by heart!” Nan wailed, aghast at the notion of having to learn a different role after all that work.

  “Ah, dear lady, and tender maidens,” said a bright voice from the doorway, making them all turn, “Perhaps I can solve this problem for you.”

  There was a boy there, perhaps a little older and a trifle taller than Nan. He had a merry face, sun-browned, with reddish brown hair and green eyes, and wore very curious clothing—

  At first glance, it looked perfectly ordinary, if the local farmers hereabouts were inclined to wear a close-fitting brown tunic and knee-breeches rather than sensible undyed linen smocks and buff trousers, but at second glance there was something subtly wrong about the cut and fit of the garments. First, they looked like something out of a painting, something antique, and secondly, they looked as if they were made of leather. Now, the blacksmith wore leather trousers, and the village cobbler, but no one else did around here.

  And there was something else about this boy, a brightness, a spirit of vitality, that was not ordinary at all.

  And that was the moment when Neville made a surprised croak, and jumped down off the marble seat where he had been pecking with great interest at a hole in the stone, to be joined on the floor by Grey. Both of them stalked over to the boy’s feet, looked up at him—

  —and bowed.

  There was no other name for what they did, and Nan’s mouth fell agape.

  But this was not the only shock she got, for Mem’sab had risen from her seat, and sunk again into a curtsy. Not a head-bowed curtsy, though, this was one where she kept her eyes firmly on the newcomer.

  “ ‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit!’ ” she said as she rose.

  The boy’s eyes sparkled with mischief and delight.

  “Correct author, but wrong play and character, for never could I be compared to Ariel,” he replied and swiftly stooped down to offer Neville and Grey each a hand. Each accepted the perch as Nan stared, her mouth still open. “How now, Bane of Rooks!” he said to Neville. “I think you should return to your partner, before bees see her open mouth and think to build a hive therein!”

  With another bow, and a croak, Neville lofted from the boy’s outstretched hand and landed on Nan’s shoulder. Nan took the hint and shut her mouth.

  Wordlessly, he handed Grey back to Sarah, who took her bird with round eyes, as if she saw even more than Nan did to surprise her. “So ho, fair dame, did you think to plan to play my play on Midsummer’s Day and not have me notice?” he said to Mem’sab, fists planted on his hips.

  “I had not thought to have the honor of your attention, good sirrah,” Mem’sab replied, her eyes very bright and eager. “Indeed, I had not known that such as you would deign to notice such as we.”

  He laughed. “Well spoke, well spoke! And properly, too! Well then, shall I solve your conundrum with my humble self, and let your restless Tommy play the ass?”

  Nan blinked hard, as a furtive glimmer of light that could not have actually been there circled the boy, and then her brain shook itself like a waking dog, everything that wasn’t quite “right” shifted itself into a configuration she could hardly believe, and she burst out with, “You’re him! You’re Puck!”

  The boy laughed, a laugh that had a friendly tone of mockery in it, but as much to mock himself as to make fun of Nan. He bowed to her with a flourish. “Robin Goodfellow at your service, my London daisy! Not often evoked these present days, but often in the thoughts of my good country folk, who care very little for the passage of time.”

  “And how am I to explain one extra boy to the others?” Mem’sab asked dryly, rising from her curtsy. “Not that I would dare to contradict your will, but we poor mortals must have our proper explanations.”

  “Ah, that,” he waved his hand airily. “A simple thing. Say I am the son of a friend of yours, I have conned the part at my school and will come to fill it here. And in your practices, do you take my part as you threatened to.”

  Mem’sab smiled. “A sound plan, but what of those others in my charge who will see you for something of what you are and may ask questions I cannot answer without your leave?”

  He laid his finger alongside his nose, and then pointed it at her. “Well asked. Well thought. Perhaps a touch of glamorie will not come amiss, with your permission. ‘Twill do them no harm. They will notice nothing amiss, nothing that their minds cannot find an explanation for, and the explanation will seem to come from outside their minds.”

  “ ‘Ere!” Nan objected. “Not on us! Please!”

  A “touch of glamorie” sounded to her as if Puck was going to do something that would make her and Sarah forget what he was—and she didn’t want to forget!

  “We’d like to know what is really happening, please,” Sarah chimed in, as Grey bobbed in agreement and Neville shifted his weight from foot to foot on Nan’s shoulder.

  Puck cast a glance at Mem’sab. “And so what think you?”

  “That both these girls can hold a secret,” Mem’sab said instantly. “Certainly they already have done so many times in the past.”

  “Then I bow to your will, London daisy,” Puck replied with a grin. “Let it be as you wish, and you will see me again, on Midsummer’s Night!”

  Nan blinked, as there was a sudden glare across her eyes, like a flash of sun reflected from water, and when she could see again he was gone.

  Neville bobbed and quorked once. He sounded surprised.

  “Cor!” Grey said, in Nan’s voice. “Blimey!”

  “That was… entirely unexpected,” Mem’sab said, sitting down hard, and looking a little out of breath, as if she had been running. “Of all the things that could have happened here, this is not one I would have ever anticipated! To have so powerful a spirit simply walk in on one—I confess it has taken my breath away!”

  “Was that really P—him?” Sarah asked, her eyes still round, as if she didn’t quite dare speak the name aloud. “The same as in the play?”

  “Ah, now… I hesitate to pin down someone like him to any sort of limited description,” Mem’sab temporized. “And the Puck of Shakespeare’s play is far more limited than the reality. Let’s just say he is—old. One of the oldest Old Ones in England. As a living creature, he probably saw the first of the flint workers here, and I suspect that he will see the last of us mortals out as well, unless he chooses to follow some of the other Old Ones wherever they have gone, sealing the doors of their barrows behind them. If he does, it will be a sad day for England, for a great deal of the magic of this island will go with him. He is linked to us in ways that some of those who were once worshipped as gods are not.”

  Nan thought about asking what all this meant and how Mem’sab knew it, then thought better of the notion. Mem’sab had said that she and Sarah could hold their tongues, and this seemed like a good time to prove it.

  Instead, she said, “Didn’ you say that them barrows is burial mounds of kings an’ such? So how can they be doors?”

  Mem’sab chuckled. “And so they are. But you, Nan, are a little girl and Neville is a raven—yet at the same time, you are a Warrior of the Light, and Neville is your battle companion. Some things, and some people, can be two different things at the same time. Barrows can be both portals and burial vaults, and those who have no eyes to see the doors in the hills will not be troubled by the knowledge that they a
re both.”

  Well, that seemed sensible enough, and Nan nodded.

  “Will we see ‘im again afore the day?” she asked.

  “Now that I cannot tell you.” Mem’sab pursed her lips. “If you do, be polite, respectful, but don’t fear him. He is the very spirit of mischief, but there is no harm in him and a great deal of good. You might learn much from him, and I never heard it said that any of his sort would stand by and let a child come to harm. His knowledge is broad and deep and he has never been averse to sharing it with mortals.”

  “But would he steal us away?” Sarah asked, suddenly growing pale. “Don’t they take children, and leave behind changelings?”

  Here, Nan was baffled; she had no idea what Sarah was talking about. But Mem’sab did.

  “I don’t believe he’d be likely to,” she replied after a long moment of thought. “Firstly, I don’t think he would have revealed himself to us if he was going to do that. Secondly, what I know of such things is that his sort never take children that are cared for and wanted, only the ones abused and neglected.” She held out a hand, and Sarah went straight to her to be hugged reassuringly. “No one can say that about any of you, I do hope!”

  With the casting problem solved, preparations for the play went on so well that it almost seemed as if there was a blessing on the whole plan. Tommy was, of course, in ecstasy at being able to play Bottom. Not only were the servants charmed by the idea of being an audience for such a thing, but the local vicar got wind of the scheme, and asked if they would be part of the church fête, which was also to be Midsummer’s Day. Now that was something of a surprise for all of them, but a welcome one, at least for those who, like Nan and Tommy, felt no fear at performing before larger audiences. So far as both of them were concerned, they’d get right up on stage at Covent Garden without a qualm.

  With the new venue in mind, further touches were made on props and costumes. Permission was granted to rummage through selected attics and use whatever they could find there; a happy discovery was that at some point in the past, the inhabitants of the manor had engaged in amateur theatrics and had held many fancy-dress parties. While much of the costuming was sized for adults, there was enough for children, or that could be cut down to fit children, to make vast improvements in the wardrobe.