The Gates of Sleep Page 5

  “We’re not social pariahs either, brother mine,” she pointed out. “Silly goose! She wouldn’t harm her reputation by visiting us, even if anyone actually knew that was what she was doing here. A mature lady just might take up the invitation of a perfectly respectable couple and the wife’s brother, all well-known for their scholarly pursuits—”

  Thomas primmed up his face, and Sebastian drew himself up stiffly, interrupting her train of thought with their posing.

  “Stop that, you two!” she said, torn between exasperation and laughter. She slapped Sebastian’s shoulder lightly, and made a face at Thomas. “Like it or not, we are respectable, and only old roues like some of your clients, Sebastian, think any different!”

  “Dull as dishwater, we are,” Thomas agreed dolefully, as Sebastian leered at her. “We don’t even amuse the village anymore. We give them nothing to gossip about.”

  “Oh, but if they only knew…” Sebastian laughed. “Now, acushla, don’t be annoyed with us. There’s little enough in this situation to laugh about, don’t grudge us a joke or two.”

  He reached out to embrace her, and she sighed and returned it. She never could resist him when he set out to charm her.

  “Now, what about Elizabeth? Obviously you two women have been plotting something out behind our backs,” Sebastian continued.

  “Well, to be honest, it never occurred to me that we’d need to have her here, I just thought it would be good for Mari to be around another Water-mage, and even better to have someone around who was—well—more like Hugh and Alanna. Someone who could get her used to the kinds of manners and social skills she’ll have to have when she goes to them.” Margherita sighed. “I don’t want her to feel like an exile. And she likes Elizabeth. I thought if Elizabeth could come for a few weeks at a time, it would help the transition.”

  “So, that makes perfect sense; all the better, that you’ve clearly got something in motion already,” Thomas said, with his usual practicality. “So, what was your plan? How did she figure to get away from all of her social obligations? I should think given the season that it would be nearly impossible.”

  “Not this year!” Margherita said in triumph. “You know she hates both the shooting season and the hunting season—”

  “‘The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible,’“ her brother muttered, quoting Wilde.

  “—and now that her daughter’s married and both her sons are at school, she’s got no real reason to stay and play hostess if she truly doesn’t want to,” Margherita continued. “Her husband, she tells me, has always wanted to try a season in Scotland instead of here. He’s had tentative invitations he never pursued because she didn’t care to go.”

  She stopped there; both her brother and her husband were canny enough to fill in the blank spaces without any help from her. The Hastingses had been the host to more than enough pheasant-shoots and fox-hunts over the years that they must have an amazing backlog of invitations that Stephen Hastings—always a keen hunter—could pursue with a good conscience without worrying that Elizabeth was going to make no secret of being bored.

  “So he’ll get to be that most desirable of social prizes, the ‘safe single man,’“ Margherita observed with irony. “He can escort the older widows to dinner without feeling put-upon, and he won’t target or be a target for unsuitable romance. He won’t cause a quarrel with anyone’s fiance, and he can be relied upon, if there’s a country dance, to make sure all the wallflowers get a waltz.”

  “That alone will probably ensure he gets his choice of shoots,” Sebastian said, his face twitching as he tried not to laugh.

  Elizabeth had said as much herself, pointing out the rest of her husband’s good points as a sporting guest. He was a good and considerate gun too; not a neck-or-nothing rider, but that wasn’t necessary in a middle-aged man to preserve his standing in the Hunt Club. All things considered, in order to give him a free conscience in accepting one or more of those long-standing invitations, all that Elizabeth would have to do would be to find some excuse that could reasonably take her off to this part of the country for some extended period of time.

  “Let’s put our heads together on this one,” Sebastian said immediately. “What on God’s green earth could Lady Elizabeth Hastings want in this part of the world?”

  Thomas blinked again—and said, “Folk tales and songs.”

  Margherita clapped her hands like a girl, and Sebastian’s smile lit up the entire room. “Brilliant, Thomas!” he shouted. “By gad, I knew I’d made a good choice of brother-in-law! Absolutely brilliant!”

  The collection of folk ballads and oral tales was always an appropriate and genteel pursuit for a lady with a scholarly bent; this close to Cornwall there were bound to be variations on the Arthurian mythos that no one had written down yet. During the seasons of planting, tending, and harvesting, no farmer or farm-worker would have time to recite the stories his granny had told him—but during the winter, if Elizabeth wanted to lend verisimilitude to her story, all she would have to do would be to have Thomas run her down to the pub in the pony-cart now and again to collect a nice little volume of tales and songs.

  “We’ve already had her out here during the summer and spring over the years, so she’s seen the May Day celebrations and the fairs,” Margherita said, planning aloud, “She can look through her sketches and notes and ‘discover’ what a wealth of untapped ballads we have here and make visits the rest of the winter. One long one up until the Christmas season, say, and another between the end of January and spring.”

  “That’s a rather long time. You’re sure her husband won’t mind?” Sebastian asked, suddenly doubtful, remembering the other half of the Hastings equation.

  Margherita smiled. “I didn’t think you two ever listened when I read her letters aloud. Let me just say that they are on cordial terms, the best of terms, really, but Elizabeth has gotten confirmation about some of her suspicions about her husband’s frequent visits to London.”

  Thomas shook his head; Sebastian snorted. “Actress?” he asked bluntly.

  “Dancer,” she replied serenely. “Well, if Elizabeth chooses to look the other way, it is none of my business, and if Stephen has another interest, he won’t be unhappy if Elizabeth doesn’t go in to London with him this winter.”

  “Stephen got his local Parliament seat last year, didn’t he?” Sebastian asked, showing that he had paid a little more attention to Elizabeth’s letters than Margherita had thought.

  “He did, and Elizabeth loathes London.” The plan unrolled itself in Margherita’s mind like a neatly gridded tapestry. “Stephen can pretend to live at his club and visit his dancer while Parliament is in session, and she can stay with us.” Her lips twitched in a bit of a smile. “Perhaps if he gets a surfeit of the girl he’ll tire of her.”

  “He probably will,” Sebastian predicted loftily. “It’s nothing more than an attempt to prove he isn’t middle-aged, I suspect. If he doesn’t tire of her, she’ll tire of him. There’ll be a dance-instructor or a French singing-master hanging about before the New Year, mark my words. And at some point, Stephen will show up at her establishment unexpectedly, and discover that there’s something other than lessons going on.”

  Margherita hid a smile. Sebastian had met Stephen several times, and on each occasion she was reminded of a pair of dogs circling one another in mutual animosity, prevented from actually starting a fight by the presence of their masters. Sebastian was the utter opposite of Stephen Hastings, describing him as a “hearty gamesman” and intimating that the only reason he’d actually gotten his Cambridge degree was that his instructors wanted to see the last of him. There might have been some truth in that. He certainly hadn’t taken a First, and seemed to be absurdly proud of the fact.

  It wasn’t her business why Elizabeth had married him, when all was said and done. Perhaps, besides a certain amount of affection, it had been because he was so very incurious, so utterly without imagination, that she could carry on her Magical Work
ings without rousing any interest in him. That arrangement wouldn’t have suited Margherita—but it was infinitely better than having to sneak about in deathly fear of being caught. And if one couldn’t find someone to love—society being what it was, a woman of Elizabeth’s position had little choice except to marry—the best compromise was to find someone it was possible to be friends with.

  “I’ll write her,” Margherita said. “Unless you want to use a dove to send her a message?” She cast a glance of inquiry at Thomas. He shook his head.

  “It’s not that urgent, not while Marina has other things to occupy her. There’s plenty to do around here until the end of harvest,” he said.

  “I’ll find things for her to do,” Margherita and Sebastian said together, then looked at each other and laughed.

  “It’s settled, then,” Margherita said for both of them, and felt a certain relief. That would be one more person here to watch over Marina as well. One more pair of eyes—one more set of powers.

  Most importantly, someone to help the child master the powers that would protect her better than any of them could.

  “And just what is it that you are thinking about that makes you frown so?” asked the Undine. Her pointed chin rested on her hands, her elbows propped on the bank of the brook. The faintly greenish cast to her skin was something that Marina was so used to seeing that she seldom noticed it unless, like now, she stopped to study an Undine’s expression.

  The Undines didn’t trouble themselves with individual names; at least, they never gave her their names. Though that might simply have been excessive caution on their part. Names had power, after all.

  “Was I frowning?” Marina asked. She rubbed her forehead; on the whole, she really didn’t want to discuss her internal conflicts with an Undine that wouldn’t understand anyway. Undines didn’t have parents, at least, not so far as Marina knew, just sisters. Marina had never seen anything but female Undines. “Just concentrating, I suppose.”

  “Well, at least you aren’t shouting your thoughts anymore,” the Undine replied, with a toss of her green-blond hair. “You ought to stop thinking and come have a swim. It won’t be long before it’s too cold—for you, anyway. Enjoy yourself while you still can.”

  “You’re right,” she agreed, only too pleased to leave the problem of her parents to sort itself out another day. The Undine laughed liquidly, and plunged under the surface of the brook to become—literally—one with the water. For all intents and purposes, the Undine vanished in a froth of foam and a wave.

  Marina followed the brook upstream, above the little falls, to a pond the family waterfowl seldom visited. It stood in the midst of a water meadow, and the verge was dense with protective reeds. An intensely green scent hung over the pond; not the scent of rotting vegetation, nor the stale smell of scum, just the perfume of a healthy watering hole densely packed with growing things. In fact, the water was pure and clear, thanks to a fine population of little fish and frogs. Herons came here to hunt, and the smaller, shy birds of the reed beds, but never any people—if the folk of the neighboring farm knew about this place, they didn’t think it held fish large enough to bother with, and her own family left her alone here. This was Marina’s summertime retreat by common consent, and had been since she was old enough to come up here alone. It wasn’t as if she could get into any trouble in the water, after all—even in the roughest horseplay, the Undines would never permit her to come to harm in her proper element. She had been able to swim, and be safe in the water, since before she could walk.

  She slipped out of her dress and petticoat and underthings and left them folded on a rock concealed among the reeds, where they would remain safe and dry without advertising the fact that there was someone swimming here to anyone who might be passing. This time of year there were always strangers, itinerant harvesters, and gypsies passing through the village. The villagers themselves might not come here, but the strangers, looking for a place to camp, might happen upon it by accident. Not the gypsies, though; the Undines managed to warn them off.

  There hadn’t been anyone around the pond today, or the Undine wouldn’t have invited her to swim. They might not understand much about a mortal’s life, but they did understand that strange men lurking about could be a danger to Marina.

  She took a moment to tie her hair loosely at the nape of her neck, then slipped into the sun-warmed water wearing nothing more than her own skin.

  Immediately she was surrounded by Undines wearing nothing more than theirs, and an exuberant game of tag began. She was at a partial disadvantage, not being able to breathe underwater, but she managed to compensate with her longer reach. There was a great deal of splashing and giggling as they chased one another. The warm water caressed Marina’s skin like the brush of warmed silk; as the Undines slid past her, a tingle of energy passed between them, a little like the tingle in the air before lightning strikes. The pond was surprisingly deep for its small size, and as she dove under to elude a pursuer or to chase her own quarry, she reveled in the shock of encountering a cooler layer of water beneath the sun-warmed surface. Other, lesser Elementals gathered to watch, chattering excitedly among the reeds, applauding when someone made a particularly clever move. A family of otters appeared out of nowhere and joined in the fun, and the game changed from one of tag to one of “catch the otter” by common consent.

  The otters took to this new game with all the enthusiasm that they brought to any endeavor, and soon the pond was alive with splashing and shrill laughter. Undines chased otters in every direction; slippery otters slid right through Marina’s fingers, though truth to tell, she didn’t try very hard to hold them. It was more fun watching them twist and turn in the water to avoid capture than it was to try and wrestle a squirming body that just might deliver an accidental nasty kick—with claws!—if you weren’t careful.

  Only when Marina was completely out of breath did she retreat to her rocks and watch the Undines continue the game on their own. The smallest of the otters evidently ran out of energy at the same time, and joined her. After she combed out her hair with her fingers and coaxed most of the water out of it, she stroked the otter’s smooth, dense fur and scratched its head as it sighed with content and erected its stiff whiskers in an otter-smile. It rolled over on its back, begging for her to scratch its tummy. She chuckled, and obliged.

  But the sun was westering; it was past teatime, and neither the Undines nor the otters seemed prepared to give up their game any time soon. They might be perfectly free to play until dark and afterwards, but she did have things to do. Reluctantly, she donned her clothing again—reluctantly, because after the freedom of being in the water, it seemed heavy and confining—pulled her skirts up above her knees, and waded back to dry land.

  She stopped in the orchard long enough to retrieve her basket of apples and her book. With the basket swinging from one hand, she took her time strolling back to the farmhouse.

  In the late afternoon sunlight, the gray granite glowed with mellow warmth. When winter came, the stone would look cold and forbidding, but now, with all the doors and windows open, flowers in the window boxes, and roses twining up trellises along the sides, it was a welcoming sight.

  Tea was over, but as she’d expected, Aunt Margherita had left her scones, watercress sandwiches, and a little pot of clotted cream in the kitchen under a cheesecloth. There was no tea, but there was hot water on the stove, and she quickly made her own late repast. She arranged the apples she’d brought in a pottery bowl on the kitchen table, and retreated to her room to fetch her work. After her swim, she was feeling languid, and her window seat, surrounded by ivy with a fine view of the hills and the sunset, seemed very inviting. Uncle Sebastian would be fiddling with his Saint Joan, working on the background, probably; Uncle Thomas was carving an occasional table, a swoopy thing all organic curves. And Aunt Margherita was probably either at her embroidery or her tapestry loom.

  Her uncles expected a great deal of her in her studies; they saw no reason why s
he couldn’t have as fine an education as any young man who could afford the sort of tutor that Sebastian’s father had been. Granted, neither Sebastian nor Thomas had attended university, but if they’d had the means or had truly wanted to they could have. So, for that matter, could Aunt Margherita. Perhaps women could not aspire to a university degree, but they were determined that should she choose to attend the single women’s college at Oxford regardless of that edict, she would be as well or better prepared than any young man who presented himself to any of the colleges there. She was not particularly enamored of the idea of closing herself up in some stifling building (however hallowed) for several years with a gaggle of young women she didn’t even know, but she did enjoy the lessons. At the moment she was engaged in puzzling her way through Chaucer in the original Middle English, the Canterbury Tales having caught Uncle Sebastian’s fancy. She had a shrewd notion that she knew what the subjects of his next set of paintings was likely to be.

  Well, at least it will be winter by the time he gets to them. If she was going to have to wear the heavy medieval robes that Uncle Sebastian had squirreled away, at least it would be while it was cold enough that the weight of the woolens and velvets would be welcome rather than stifling.

  At the moment, it was the Wife of Bath’s Tale that was the subject of her study, and she had the feeling that she would get a better explanation of some of it from Aunt Margherita than from the uncle that had assigned it to her. Uncle Sebastian was not quite as broad-minded as he thought he was.

  Or perhaps he just wasn’t as broad-minded with regard to his “niece” as he would have been around a young woman who wasn’t under his guardianship. With Marina, he tended to break out in odd spots of ultra-middle-class stuffiness from time to time.

  She curled herself up in the window seat, a cushion at her back, with her Chaucer in one hand, a copybook on her knee, and a pencil at the ready. If one absolutely had to study on such a lovely late afternoon, this was certainly the only way to do so.