Garth Nix - Newt’s Emerald

“You are most kind, sir,” replied Truthful, somewhat stiffly. She still felt it was all his fault that she had been delayed at all.

“I know, my dear,” commiserated Lord Otterbrook. “You think I’m a silly old fool who’s quite queered your entire journey. Well, I shall have to make my amends. What can I—”

The sound of horses on the road, and the blast of a horn behind him interrupted the old man, and he turned to look over his shoulder. A curricle rounded the bend with a pair of high-stepping thoroughbreds perfectly under the one-handed control of the tiger, who was about to blow another peal on his horn. The peal sounded, he dropped the trumpet to hang from its lanyard, and brought the vehicle to a beautiful two-handed halt between the overturned carriages.

“A proper mess you’ve made of it, milord,” said the tiger, critically surveying the wreckage. “I did warn you. Top-heavy, I said, and not at all the article you’re used to. And you supposed to be able to see tomorrow before it happens and all—”

“Yes. Yes. You were quite right, Gully,” interrupted Otterbrook genially. “Now, we must get on to Maidstone and arrange a carriage for this young lady. Lady Truthful, I most humbly beg your pardon. I shall send a coach as soon as I may.”

He heaved himself up beside his tiger, and added, “Please present my compliments to your father, and recall me to him. Say I remember the house fire very well.”

“You know my father?” asked Truthful, surprised. The Admiral was not a sociable person. “And a house fire, I think you said?”

“Yes,“ replied the Marquis. “We met in America. We watched their White House burn together. Rather an imposing sight. He said he would rather it was Carlton House burning. Ha! Ha!”

Truthful blushed.

“I’m afraid my father and the Duke of Clarence have a feud going back to when my father was a lieutenant in the West Indies and the Duke a midshipman. Unfortunately Father also holds the Duke’s brothers in low esteem, including the Prince Regent.”

“Well, no harm in that,” said the eccentric peer. “I hold him in low esteem myself, for all he’s a friend of mine! He means well, but he ain’t got much up top. Goodbye!”

The curricle sprang away, rapidly accelerating past those passengers of the mail coach who had decided to walk on instead of waiting for the next passing vehicle or a replacement coach to come back from Maidstone.

A snort behind her recalled Truthful to the emergence of Agatha, who had just descended with the aid of the two hard-pressed male servants.

“Hardly out of the ’ouse and this happens,” grumbled Agatha. “It’ll get worse, milady. Mark my words.”

Indeed, thought Truthful, it did get worse. Agatha grumbled without pause for the two hours they waited for the post-chaise. She grumbled for the half hour it took to transfer their luggage, and she only stopped grumbling when the carriage moved off because the motion, so she said, made her feel so ill she couldn’t speak.

It was a very tiring journey, and near midnight before they came to London. Truthful was almost too tired to marvel at the lights of the Gas, Light and Coke company, or at the crowds who were still abroad when all good country folk would be well abed.

But at last they came to Lady Ermintrude Badgery’s imposing house in Grosvenor Square, and were met by Dworkin, the anxious butler, and a flurry of footmen and maids, and for Truthful at least, immediate transfer to a large, ostentatious room wallpapered in green and silver and completely dominated by the most comfortable of feather beds.

The next day dawned bright and cheery, but Truthful was not awake to see it. By the time she came down to an elevenish breakfast, clouds had rolled across and a slight drizzle had begun. Truthful ate a rather lacklustre poached egg, looked at the rain outside, and felt gloomy. London was not living up to its promised allure. To make matters worse, Agatha had decided to have one of her turns and had taken to her bed and the replacement maid had none of her skill with hair or dress. Consequently Truthful was wearing a not particularly well-ironed walking dress of sprig muslin and a half-bonnet to hide her hair, and felt a complete dowd.

Soon after she finished her breakfast, a footman brought her a note on aquamarine paper folded into the shape of a cocked hat. It was, Truthful soon discovered, a request from her Great-aunt, asking her to call upon her in her bedchamber, as she was feeling indisposed and would not be coming down.

Truthful climbed the stairs with some trepidation. She had known her Great-aunt Ermintrude reasonably well as a child, but had not seen her aged relative for many years, due to her frequent indispositions and consequent aversion to travel. That aversion might have spread from travel to include great-nieces, thought Truthful, as she knocked, and then opened, the door to Lady Badgery’s bedchamber.

She had expected a dark sick-room, lined with bottles of medicine and obscure medical instruments, perhaps even a jar of leeches. But the room was bright with the new gas lights, which illuminated strange oriental wall-hangings and a huge bed hung with gauzy curtains. Even the window was a departure from traditional practice, for it was open, and Truthful could feel cool moist air coming through it.

Then the gauzy curtains twitched aside, revealing a little old lady propped up on a pile of gold-embroidered cushions of red plush. She wore a simple nightshirt, but her head was adorned with a very large red fez, complete with a long golden tassel. A pile of letters lay on the coverlet in front of her, next to a wicked-looking curved Turkish knife that she was employing as a letter opener.

Lady Badgery looked up as Truthful closed the door behind her, and her blue-black eyes ran up and down her in appraisal. Apparently satisfied by what she saw, she put her current letter down, and said, “Truthful, my dear niece. Parkins! Don’t be such a jobberknoll, and fetch Lady Truthful a chair.”

At first Truthful wasn’t sure who Lady Badgery was talking to, then a blue bow appeared from the floor on the other side of the bed, followed by the head of the large elderly women whose head it adorned. This was Parkins, her great-aunt’s maid and constant companion. She straightened up to her full height, and placed a knife scabbard on the side table.

“Milady will throw the scabbard about,” she said affectionately, as she trod heavily around the foot of the bed and moved a chair three inches closer to Lady Badgery.

“There we are, Lady Truthful. And may I say it’s a pleasure to see you all grown up, and beautiful too.”

“No you may not!” exclaimed Lady Badgery. “Go and fetch us some tea.”

“Yes, milady,” replied Parkins, executing a rather sarcastic curtsy, and winking at Truthful as she left.

“Been with me since I was married,” said Lady Badgery. “Never could do a thing with her. Sit down, girl, do!”

Truthful sat down, and tried not to stare at her great-aunt’s fez. Now that she looked closely, she could also see that Lady Ermintrude was wearing at least a dozen rune-inscribed spell-breaking silver bracelets on each arm — and that certainly couldn’t be the sort of thing a model of propriety would display!

“Don’t worry, my dear,” said Lady Badgery, catching her gaze. “The fez is a gift from an old friend, it has certain powers to help concentrate the mind. I don’t wear it in company. Callers and the outside world find me to be very proper indeed.”

“Oh, I see,” said Truthful. “Like play-acting at home with friends.”

“Something of the sort,” replied Lady Badgery easily. “But what brings you here so urgently, child? I wasn’t expecting you for weeks, the Season has barely begun. And without your father … you hinted at some dark news in your letter. I must confess I have been unable to scry what has occurred and so await with burning ears!”

“It is terrible news, Aunt,” burst out Truthful. “The Newington Emerald has been lost! Or . . . or stolen!”

“Really?” asked Lady Badgery, lifting one aristocratic eyebrow beneath her fez. “What a curious thing. Now, dear, don’t be upset. It is, after all, only a sort of rock with some sorcery attached.”

“Papa says it is the luck of the Newingtons,” said Truthful sorrowfully. “And is a very powerful talisman.”

“He must really be ill,” replied Lady Badgery. “He never cared for it much before, and your mother didn’t like it at all. Said it was too heavy, and that it felt like the proverbial millstone. As for the powers, she certainly never used them.”

“Really?” asked Truthful. She smiled at the thought of wearing an actual millstone. She had rarely heard stories about her mother, and remembered little herself.

“The absolute truth,” replied Lady Ermintrude. “She married into the family, and thought emeralds did not particularly suit her colour, though she was wrong in that respect. Nor was she much interested in magic, save for her own particular gifts. Now tell me exactly how the Emerald has been lost … or stolen.”

Truthful leaned forward a little in her chair, and her Great-aunt leaned towards her from the bed, so that the tassel on the red fez of the old lady almost touched Truthful’s bonnet. In this conspiratorial posture, Truthful told Lady Badgery the tale of the storm, the showing of the Emerald, its subsequent loss, and the Admiral’s sickness and suspicions. When she had finished, Lady Badgery lay back in her bed, and chuckled.

“A merry pickle,” she said. “And not easily untangled, I’ll warrant. What do you hope to do, my dear?”

“Well,” faltered Truthful. “I was hoping you might advise me, Aunt … I know you are a sorceress. I thought you might be able to scry for the Emerald—”

“Can’t scry for a magical talisman, particularly if it’s a powerful one,” snorted Lady Badgery. “You should know that. What did your father pay that tutor for?”

“Oh, I’d forgotten,” said Truthful. “You know I was never much for academic magic, aunt.”

“Nor was I, as a girl,” said Lady Badgery. “What book-learning I have came later. One thing I did learn early on was not to put all my trust in magic. If it can be done without magic, it’s better done without magic.”

“Perhaps, I might call upon jewelers and pawnbrokers and so forth to see if any large, sorcerous stones have been offered for sale—”

“That’s impossible in this censorious age,” sighed Lady Badgery. “You haven’t even come out yet! Wandering around London, talking to pawnbrokers! You would be sunk before launching. Why, you’re barely out of the schoolroom, Miss!”

“I might disguise myself,” suggested Truthful half-heartedly. “I have to do something!”

“Disguise . . .” mused Lady Ermintrude, her old eyes suddenly alight with scheming pleasure. “Perhaps your notion isn’t as wild as I first thought, Truthful.”

She tapped the top of her fez and began to sort through the letters in front of her, selecting one that was cut open, evidently already read that morning. The old lady flicked it open, ran her eyes across it, and then pounced with a thin finger on a particular line.

“Cousin Henri est entré dans le monastère voisin, comme nous l'avons toujours attendu. Une triste vie d'un de Vienne, je pense que vous serez d'accord, mon cousin. Mais il est un fils cadet, un homme pieux et doux, et si fraîche au visage, il pourrait être pris pour une femme. En outre, il a toujours été reclus . . .[1]” she read with relish. “I trust you speak good French, Truthful?”

“Oui, madame. Je me suis fait une étude particulière,” replied Truthful, who had always enjoyed her French lessons with a succession of tutors, including an emigré noblewoman, who had told her many tales of pre-Revolution Versailles and Paris to her eager student. “But I don’t understand. Who is Henri de Vienne?”

“The nephew of a cousin of mine,” said Lady Badgery. “As you heard, a shy and womanly young man, of pious disposition and retiring habit … who has just become a monk. He will do very well.”

“For what, Aunt?”

“For you to impersonate,” exclaimed Lady Badgery triumphantly. “Lady Truthful Newington cannot search London for an emerald, but her French relation Henri de Vienne can certainly do so on her behalf!”

“But I don’t think …” said Truthful, “I’m not sure … do you think I can be disguised as a man?”

“Bah! The disguise itself is nothing,” replied Lady Badgery. “A little sorcery, a bandeau pulled tight . . . it is the behaviour that is most difficult . . . that is, according to accounts . . . or so I believe. You were brought up with the Newington-Lacy boys — played with them, talked to them — just pretend you are one of them. Any difficulties you may have can be explained away because you are French and destined to be a religious. Oh, this will be capital fun!”