A Study in Sable Read online

  John, however, was not having much luck; the man was here to buy, it seemed, and not to sell, and that made him difficult to approach. Through Neville’s eyes, Nan saw him trailing the man all over the market, and she could only hope he was able to overhear something, or have some pretext to ask people who he had bought from who he was.

  Finally the man moved out of the market. Neville pushed off, and followed him to the yard of the “Farmer” pub and hotel. Under Neville’s watchful eye, he harnessed a cart horse to a farm wagon, went back to the market with them, and proceeded to load his purchases into the wagon. Then, as John watched from a corner of the market, he drove off, with Neville in leisurely pursuit.

  Nan left Neville to his task; she could do nothing to aid it, and it would be just as well not to distract him.

  “Neville’s gone chasing our man,” Nan reported, and Mary and Suki looked up from the book Suki was cheerfully laboring through.

  “What about John?” Mary asked.

  “You can ask him yourself in a minute, he should be coming up here as soon as he works his way through the market,” Nan replied, and stood up to stretch. “I hope it turns out that the farmstead isn’t as far away as that grove was, or we’re in for another long walk tomorrow.”

  At that moment, there was a tap on the door, and John Watson opened it. “Frustrating,” he said, closing it behind himself. “Very frustrating. Evidently he was here to buy supplies for the farm, and I could not make an excuse to speak to him. I did find out that his name is Cedric Edmondson, and he and his family have owned Sennoke Farm ‘forever,’ at least according to the lady who sold him a coil of rope. I also discovered that his reputation hereabouts is very good, so we should tread carefully here.”

  Mary handed the book to Suki and regarded her husband with thoughtful eyes. “Perhaps we should return to London and merely report this to Lord Alderscroft.”

  But John shook his head. “Lord Alderscroft left this in our hands. I think we will have to confront him and find out how far he has gone. No matter how much blood magic he has performed, since he hasn’t yet descended to sacrificing humans, he will be no match for two Elemental Masters. And then—” He glanced at Nan. “—there is the little matter of Miss Killian’s . . . other aspect.”

  “My other aspect, as you call it, was utterly furious at the sight of him,” Nan confessed. “I fear that if he should act at all aggressively I will not be able to hold that part of me back.”

  “All the more reason to confront him, then,” John said with confidence. “By daylight would be best; black magic of all sorts is weaker in the day. We’ll wait for Neville and the sylph to return and see what they can tell us.”

  When the sylph returned, it was merely to give John the directions to Sennoke Farm. When Neville returned, however, it was with more detail. Neville had flown over the place with an eye to memorizing where each and every building was and all of the people on the farm. He had returned with every bit of information that a human scout might have.

  With Suki looking on attentively, Nan sank into a half-trance, communing closely with Neville, and slowly sketched out the raven’s-eye view of the farm from above. The buildings whose purposes were obvious she labeled—house, barn, cowshed—and those whose purposes were not, she left alone. “Neville can count up to eight, but there were more people than that there, so he counted them up by type,” she said, as she “listened” attentively to what Neville had to tell her. “Four Big Skirts—that would be grown women, probably the wife, and servants or female farm folk, I suppose. Eight Big Trousers, including this Cedric. Two Little Skirts—little girls. Two Medium Skirts—girls in their teens, I think. One Little Trousers, and five Medium Trousers.”

  “That is a big farm,” John observed. “Our best chance might be to approach him when he is alone in the fields. Otherwise there’s no telling how much help he might be able to draw from the others.”

  “Me go,” croaked Neville.

  “That would be the best idea, Neville,” John agreed. “And you can tell us when he is alone, and where.”

  “A good, sound night’s sleep, then,” Mary declared. “A good meal before it, and John, you and I will make our preparations.” She hesitated. “I don’t like the idea of leaving Suki here alone, but—”

  “Oi ain’t stayin’!” Suki declared, crossing her arms over her chest, and glaring. “Yer cain’t make me!”

  Nan sighed. She knew Suki in this mood. “She’s right,” Nan said, to forestall any attempt at argument from John and Mary. “We can’t make her stay, and if something terrible does happen, she needs to know, and we need to be able to send her for help.”

  “What kind of—” John stopped, as he realized what Nan meant. “Do you think he’d come for her?”

  “More readily than for an adult,” Nan replied. “Robin considers adults to be capable of defending themselves. Children, however . . . that’s another story.” She turned to Suki. “I’m going to give you my charm for summoning Puck; you must promise me that if things go badly, you will run very far and very fast, and when you get somewhere you think is safe, call him.” She would have liked to add, “and take Neville with you,” but the likelihood of Neville deserting her in a crisis was next to nothing.

  Suki nodded solemnly, her curls bobbing. “Oil roight,” she promised.

  Nan could only hope it would not come to that.

  • • •

  The silence in the flat was . . . unnerving. When she got back to the flat in the morning, there were no cheerful greetings from Nan and Suki, no raucous quork from Neville, just Grey’s happy whistle and “Welcome home, Sarah!” She made sure that Mrs. Horace had brought up Grey’s breakfast, spent a half an hour cuddling her, then went to bed wishing for the chatter she had sometimes found annoying.

  It was the silence that actually woke Sarah in the afternoon. Usually she slumbered, lulled by the murmur of voices in the next room as Suki and Nan did lessons. Today the only sounds were those of the street outside. It made her unsettled, and instead of lying in bed, waking up slowly, she got out of bed immediately.

  She wandered the flat in her dressing gown for a bit, picking at the food that Mrs. Horace had left, feeling a bit disoriented to find herself in almost sole possession of the space. She kept expecting to hear Nan and Suki coming up the stairs, but there wasn’t a single sound in the hallway, only, faint and far, Mrs. Horace singing over her work. Finally, though, she settled with Grey and a book, and the silence stopped being so unsettling. In fact, as she got herself dressed in a more leisurely fashion than usual, she began to enjoy it. It was rather nice not to have to listen to chatter about lessons, or answer Suki’s infinite questions while she got ready for the opera. Grey expressed herself in very few words, preferring simple companionship and now and again a scratch or a cuddle. Things felt unhurried, and as a result, she left the flat in Grey’s sleepy charge with a faint smile on her face, instead of feeling as if she had to rush out of the house on the instant.

  She loitered in front of the house, watching the few people on the street in the evening light. A small skein of starlings flew overhead, chattering, and she reveled in the knowledge that for once, she was not beholden to anyone to set the time of her leaving and coming back. Freddy Smart turned up for her, right on time, and handed her into the cab with a little bow that made her giggle. She settled against the cushions of the hansom with a sense of relaxation for the very first time since she had begun this particular adventure.

  He dropped her at the opera house early for the performance, since Magdalena liked to see her in her dressing room before the curtain rose. The front of the opera house was shut up and silent, all the lights extinguished, the doors locked. She went around to the stage entrance, where the doorman let her in without a murmur, and proceeded down the plain, even spartan backstage hall to the dressing room reserved for the Prima Donna.

  “Ah,
you are here!” Magdalena cried, as Alicia let her in. “Ausgezeichtnet!” It was one of her rare lapses into German, but apparently there was no equivalent word in English. “Sit, sit, and have some grapes, have some wine!”

  The first thing that struck all the senses were the flowers; vases and vases of them, wreaths hung up on pegs on the wall or even a corner of the folding screen, fragrant, colorful—dying, wilting in the heat. There were always flowers waiting for Magdalena before the performance, and after, it seemed as if the entire contents of Covent Garden had been loaded into the room until they spilled out into the hall. There was a folding screen across one corner where Magdalena changed; there were costumes hung up on the walls, a chair and a couch much stained with makeup from countless previous occupants were jammed against the wall, with their worn upholstery concealed by opulent silk shawls thrown over both. The rest of the room was taken up by the dressing table, dressing stool, and huge mirror with another full-length mirror standing on the wall opposite, so Magdalena could survey herself before and behind. Lights were all around the mirror over the dressing table: the cause of the heat. The dressing table in other divas’ rooms might be strewn with a chaos of makeup and hairpieces, notes from the producer, notes from lovers, notes from admirers, jewelry both paste and real, half-eaten boxes of bonbons. Not Magdalena’s. Everything was precise and in its place. Stage jewels were in boxes covered with the same fabric as the costume they went with. Real jewels were in velvet jewelry boxes that were kept in a small strongbox under Alicia’s care. The real jewelry went in there when Magdalena took off her jewelry to exchange it for the stage jewels and came back out again at the end of the performance, when Magdalena took off the stage jewels. That strongbox always returned under Alicia’s guard to the hotel when the performance was over. Frequently, more velvet boxes went into the strongbox for their return than there had been before the performance. Notes from the producer, conductor, and the director went on the mirror to be studied. Personal notes went into a floral pasteboard box, secured with ribbons. Sarah suspected there was a color code to the ribbons, but Magdalena had never revealed it.

  There was always fruit on the small table between the chair and the couch. There were always boxes of bonbons beside the couch, which Magdalena never indulged in, and which she gave away to the chorus the day after she had been gifted them. There was always wine next to the dressing table in a footed bucket, which she did indulge in, but not to excess, that Sarah could tell.

  The chair and the couch were reserved for visitors while Magdalena was dressing; Sarah was the only visitor allowed before the performance. After the performance, once Magdalena had doffed the final costume and taken off her stage makeup, the chair and the couch went to admirers. Magdalena would hold court for some indeterminate time while Alicia and Sarah went to the hotel in Freddy Smart’s hansom. If Magdalena planned to spend some time with an admirer, she sent a note, and Alicia and Sarah would share the feast meant for the diva and Sarah, giggling and gossiping in a way Sarah had never experienced before, because Memsa’b never seemed to gossip, and Nan didn’t know how.

  Sarah took her seat in the chair, curling her legs under it to as to take up as little room as possible. Magdalena’s costumes for this opera were absolutely enormous; she was playing Violetta in La Traviata, and the dresses were all those huge wedding-cake-like creations of decades ago, big bell-shaped skirts held out with hoops. It was a mercy that the hoops collapsed and could be stacked against the wall, or there would never have been room for anything in here but the costumes.

  Sarah ate grapes slowly and watched as Magdalena transformed herself from a healthy and hearty German woman who did not look to have had a sick day in her life to the fragile, consumptive, Violetta. It was, frankly, startling, and when Magdalena donned Violetta’s black wig, which underscored her pallor by contrast, she didn’t seem to be the same person at all.

  Then Magdalena rose from her stool to begin donning the ball gown of the first act, and that was Sarah’s signal to leave. As she edged past Alicia, who was shaking the hoops into shape, Magdalena, as always, gave her an arch wink. “Guard me from spirits, faithful one!” she said gaily, and bent so that Alicia could slip the hoops over her head.

  Now Sarah made her way down into the theater—not yet open for patrons, except for those few, very special ones like herself. Behind the lowered curtain workmen were everywhere, and she took care not to get in their way. The stage smelled of dust, sawdust, and paint. She went past the curtain and paused on the stage front, as she always did, looking up into the dim half-light in front of the closed curtains—looking for spirits. She hadn’t seen any yet, but Magdalena insisted that she be on the alert anyway, and the stagehands all swore the theater was haunted by the spirits of performers long dead and their own fellows who had died in accidents. When she was satisfied there were no lurking ghosts this time, she made her way down the stage steps, into the halls, and then up to the left-hand box nearest the stage, reserved, now, for her and only her. Alicia had told her that some of Magdalena’s admirers were angry that they could not make use of it, but she was adamant. Only Sarah could sit there, so that if she needed to protect Magdalena from ghosts, she would not have to do so with distractions.

  There was a bottle of chilled mineral water waiting there for her, in ice, as champagne would have been for someone else. And more grapes. As always, Sarah sat in a cushioned chair toward the rear of the box and drew the curtains on the side nearest the audience half-closed. She could see Magdalena perfectly, and Magdalena could see her, but it was unlikely that anyone else would know who was the tenant of that box seat.

  She waited as the orchestra filed in, as noises from behind the curtain announced the final setting up of the first-act props and scenery, and as, at long last, the rest of the audience was allowed in. She waited as the limelights were lit, as the gaslights in the house were turned up, as the audience, gossiping, laughing, made their way into their seats and got themselves comfortable. It was going to be another full house. Only the Royal Box would be empty, for the Queen, even after decades, still thought La Traviata was immoral and still would not come to see it, nor allow any of her children to. The only way any of the Royal Family would be able to see this opera would be if they came without the Queen knowing, incognito.

  Which was, of course, quite possible, especially for her heir, Prince Edward, who never let a little thing like “immorality” stop him when it came to pleasure. He went plenty of other places “incognito” (although he never tried all that hard to hide who he was, and he was very distinctive), so why not the opera?

  And then the orchestra ceased its tuning, the lights came down again, the audience settled. And the overture poured, lush, faintly erotic, into the hall.

  The curtain rose on a party in a fashionable apartment in Paris—probably not unlike ones Magdalena attended on a regular basis. Except that, of course, at this party most of the women present were courtesans, and the men were their keepers, for Magdalena was singing the part of Violetta, the Lady of the Camellias, the most beautiful courtesan in Paris.

  Sarah did not give herself over to the music—not completely. Instead, she kept her occult senses active, waiting for the brush of chill, the hint of the otherworldly, the catch in the throat that meant something un-alive had entered the hall. But there was nothing, and Magdalena took the stage like a conquering hero, her voice soaring out over the others with a power that was positively uncanny.

  It even caught Sarah, vigilant though she was, and she understood, as she came to understand over and over, every night, why so many were in love with this woman.

  • • •

  Sarah waited in Freddy’s cab at the stage door for Alicia to come out. She always slipped out as the applause began and took the entrance into the backstage to slip out the stage door. More than one gentleman had tried to engage the cab and been sent away disappointed and grumbling that the hansom was already occupi
ed; Sarah looked respectable enough and met them with a fierce enough glare that none of them tried anything other than a weakly bullying effort to get her to give it up. There was, as usual, a crowd around the stage door—admirers of small consequence, not important enough to be allowed inside, most of them students and the like. Some of them were impudent enough to peer into the cab to see if Sarah was anyone important; she ignored them or gave them her best basilisk glare. Finally, Alicia emerged, head held high and chin thrust out aggressively, making her way, with energetic thrusts of her elbows and kicks to shins whenever necessary, until she reached the safety of the cab. Once she was inside, Sarah knocked on the roof, and Freddy and Crumpet took off smartly.

  “Students!” Alicia said, making the word into a curse.

  Sarah laughed. “They’re hoping to pick up pretty ballet girls.”

  Alicia snorted. “The pretty ballet girls wouldn’t give them the time of day. Why settle for a beer and a cheese sandwich when you can get champagne and pheasant and maybe a gold bracelet?”

  “From a wheezy old man, who might be fat, and will almost certainly be bald and want to put his hands all over you at the least!” Sarah pointed out. “I think I would take the beer and sandwich.”

  “Most wouldn’t,” Alicia replied. “I wouldn’t. You and I can go on until we are old harridans, but they are mayflies. Dancing for pennies, and ten years, fifteen at best, they replace you with someone younger? Then, if you’re lucky, you go into the costume department, or teaching little girls, and if you aren’t, you hope you can find honest work at a laundry. You’ve got to make your hay whilst the sun shines, as my old mother says. Take that little black-eyed minx, May Fancher. There’s a girl who knows how to butter her bread! A ruby ring she got last night!”

  Sarah settled back for a nice bit of gossip about the ballet girls, who were highly sought-after by certain men, those who would not or could not support a mistress but could derive much of the same benefits of having one (without any of the inconvenient attachments) by dint of sumptuous suppers and a few gifts. As Alicia had noted, the girls of the ballet corps came and went, most were poor, and the men took full advantage of that.