Garth Nix - Newt’s Emerald

“But I’ve never been to France!” protested Truthful. “And I have no skill with glamour myself, and I will need clothes—”

“Bah again!” cried Lady Badgery. “Henri probably only ever knew his family’s chateau and a few towns, which I shall describe to you. You shall say you never went to Paris due to your religious feelings, and a natural antipathy to Bonaparte’s regime! As for clothes, we shall take your measurements and order suitable garb, my dear. It is fortunate you are slim. And with regard to glamour, while my own poor bones are now too old to take a spell, I have not lost my expertise, nor thrown away my apparatus.”

“Oh,” said Truthful, blushing. She had forgotten that her great-aunt was a famous glamouress, among her other magical accomplishments. “If you really think I can … and if it will help find the Emerald … I’ll do it.”

“Excellent!” beamed Lady Badgery. “Now, where is the tea?”

An hour later, to Truthful’s bewilderment, everything was settled for her to assume the identity of Henri de Vienne. For some of the time, at least. Lady Badgery had decided that despite Truthful’s late arrival the night before, many people would have heard she was in London, for as she said, servants talk. So Lady Truthful must be in residence, happily at the same time as her French cousin, ostensibly as a last ditch effort on the part of his father to expose him to the world before he committed himself to the Church. If word leaked out that the young Henri de Vienne was searching for the Newington Emerald, everyone would presume he was helping his unfortunate cousin, the Admiral being unwell.

Her measurements being taken by Parkins, who showed surprising familiarity with male attire, orders had sped to Weston in Conduit Street for coats, Hoby (at the top of St James) for boots, and the finest linen to match. In all cases, the Countess attached a note giving detailed measurements and drawn outlines of Truthful’s feet and hands, all accompanied by the annotation that they were for her soon-to-arrive cousin, the overtly religious Chevalier de Vienne, who preferred not to be called upon for fitting, due to a reluctance to wear “finery”. The clothes were to be a present to the young man from the Countess, who hoped to remove him from his somber clerical garb, even suggesting that the young man had an unfortunate preference for that most awful of garments, the cassock.

That story, said Lady Badgery, would be all over London within a week, and would explain both the lack of personal attendance from tailors, bootmakers and the like, and perhaps many other oddities as well.

“In the meantime, my dear,” said Lady Badgery. “We must decide what is to be done with Lady Truthful. I had planned on giving a ball here for you, but perhaps that should be left for a little while . . . it would be difficult to explain even a monk-like cousin’s absence from my own ball if he is supposed to be staying here. However, I am sure there will be no shortage of invitations for you in any case. We must present you at Almack’s, of course. Fortunately, Lady Jersey will certainly provide you with vouchers. Doubtless she would do so for my sake alone, but she was also very fond of your father’s older brother.”

“Oh, yes! Almacks!” said Truthful. “That is of the first importance, is it not? I recall a verse to that effect.”

“Yes,” agreed Lady Badgery. “Luttrell’s no doubt, ‘If once to Almack’s you belong/Like monarchs you can do no wrong/But banished thence on Wednesday night/By Jove, you can do nothing right.’ He is an amusing man — you shall probably meet him, he often dines with Lady Holland, who is a dear friend of mine.”

* * *

For the next three days, Truthful and Lady Badgery remained quietly at home in Grosvenor Square, despite Truthful’s natural desire to see at least the Tower and some of the sights, and attend a play, particularly as Edmund Keane was performing at Drury Lane. But her great-aunt insisted that she must perfect her role as Henri de Vienne, and kept her busy memorising the details of the Château de Vienne and the land about it, practising her French, and getting used to masculine attire, which was now arriving at a steady pace in attractive brown paper parcels.

Lady Badgery also insisted that Truthful keep her intended deception secret, even from Agatha. As Agatha was still keeping to her bed (claiming “Lunnon” had brought on a semi-permanent sick headache) this wasn’t hard. Parkins and Lady Badgery herself assisted Truthful to dress, displaying a knowledge of male clothing that Truthful found rather shocking.

Though Truthful was slim, a bandeau was found to not be sufficiently secure in flattening her chest. So she had to wear a corset under her shirt, a lighter version similar to the one made popular by the Prince Regent. Fortunately, as it was not holding back a similar bulk it didn’t creak with every movement, and as Lady Badgery said if it did become noticeable, it could always be explained away as a religious observance, akin to a hair shirt.

Her hair presented another problem, but they managed to arrive at a compromise cut long enough to still be dressed in many of the current female modes, but not too long to be considered strange in a man — particularly a Frenchman, for whom there would be made a condescending allowance.

The final piece of disguise was provided by Lady Badgery, who set a powerful glamour upon Truthful, so onlookers would see her as a man. Because the spell would have to be taken on and off frequently, it was decided to place it upon a very real-looking artificial moustache, which Truthful fixed to her upper lip with gum. In her full rig-out and with the ensorcelled moustache in place, Parkins and Lady Badgery assured her she looked very much the young gentleman, even under the full glare of the sun. But her great-aunt warned her that without the moustache and the glamour it held, her costume alone would probably only serve in dim light, or at a distance.

All callers were turned away in this time, with the news that Lady Badgery was indisposed, and her great-niece still wearied by the journey and an unfortunate coach accident, though the cause of that accident was not mentioned.

Truthful, studying the cards the callers left, and listening to Dworkin recite their verbal messages, was pleasantly surprised to find a large number of highly eligible young men asking after her health and general well-being. But she was soon disabused of any notion of their gallantry or her own allure by Lady Badgery, who looked over their names and sniffed.

“Fortune hunters. They know you’re worth at least ten thousand a year from your mother, even without your father’s estates. Not to mention heiress to the Newington Emerald, which they must not know is missing … which is curious, now that I think on it.”

“It is very odd,” said Truthful, her brow troubled. “Lady Troutbridge did call upon Father that afternoon, and he was . . . awake, if still wandering in his wits. I am sure he would have spoken of its disappearance and blamed the Newington-Lacys. I wonder why she hasn’t spread the tale?”

“The only reason she would not, is because she is ill, or if the story would somehow reflect badly on herself.” replied Lady Ermintrude. “Otherwise, Portia Troutbridge has never been known to keep a scandal to herself.”

“Oh, I do hope she is ill!” exclaimed Truthful. “I mean, only just ill enough to keep the news quiet for a little longer. Is that too dreadful of me?”

“Not at all,” announced Lady Badgery. “It is a very reasonable desire. In the case of Portia Troutbridge I myself would wish for something much more severe. Scarlet fever, perhaps. Or the plague.”

At last, on the evening of the fifth day after Truthful’s arrival, it was time to put their plan into action. Truthful, her moustache glued on, donned a low-crowned beaver and travelling clothes of a very plain cut, covered them with an old and very unfashionable single-caped driving coat that had belonged to the late Lord Badgery, crept out of the servant’s entrance at midnight, and walked around the corner to Charles Street, taking care that no-one observed her. There, she waited a few minutes, till the hackney cab the Countess’s intermediaries had ordered approached. Its driver, seeing a single gentleman standing on the corner, drew up, and leaned down.

“You the gent who’s to go across to Park Lane and then back to the Square?” he asked hoarsely.

“Yes,” she muttered, keeping her voice low, and hat well down, shading her face.

“Right. Well, jump up, sir.”

Truthful, who had been waiting to be handed up, started, then jumped in as best she could. There was straw on the floor of the cab, and she brushed her boots down automatically, thinking of how awful it would be to arrive anywhere with the tell-tale straw of a hackney on one’s costume.

The drive to Park Lane, and then along it, was a nervous one for Truthful, who had never thought to be alone in a cab at midnight, in the middle of London … and dressed as a man!

But the drive was uneventful. They passed several other carriages, a group of lantern-bearing street-keepers gathered at the Grosvenor Gate into Hyde Park, and a number of tipsy young gentlemen who were trying to walk backwards along the full length of Park Lane, apparently for a bet, as they were urged on by a number of others who were walking the normal way beside them.

Ten minutes later, the hackney pulled up outside Lady Badgery’s house and Truthful jumped down. She turned back for a moment to hand the driver a guinea, a massive overpayment were it not for the added gruff instruction: “Forget you came here this evening.”

Then she was knocking on the door — a firm, but polite knock, that she felt might reflect the character of a religious-minded young gentleman.

After five minutes had produced no discernible effect on the other side of the door, she knocked again. The door opened, presenting the cautious visage of the elder footman, with the second footman behind him holding a stout cudgel. Before they could speak, Truthful gruffly proclaimed her new identity.

“I am the Chevalier Henri de Vienne, cousin to Lady Badgery. I believe I am expected.”

The next few days passed in a rush of activity for both Truthful’s personas. As Lady Truthful Newington, she drove out to Hyde Park with Lady Badgery in her barouche at the fashionable hour between five and six, thereupon meeting many of the Dowager’s friends and not a few young gallants; she visited the Dowager’s modiste and ordered several gowns of the latest fashion; made two morning visits to family friends; attended one very modest, well-bred and yawn-inducing evening card-party; and received a great number of callers.

The Chevalier de Vienne ostensibly spent most of his time secluded in one of the upper bedchambers, in silent contemplation and prayer. But when Lady Truthful was resting between excursions or guests, the Chevalier rode out to call upon the jewellers of London. The servants, noticing the care he took to avoid “meeting” Truthful, thought him very shy. The grooms, noting his unsteady seat when riding astride put it down to him being French. Truthful was a fine horsewoman, but she was used to a side-saddle.

Armed with explanatory letters from Lady Truthful and Lady Badgery, the elegant young Frenchman was met with unvarying politeness and differing degrees of unctuousness by the jewellers, but none proved of any help. The matter was not made easier because Truthful could not come straight out and talk about the Newington Emerald, but only enquire about any particularly large and sorcerous stones they might have heard were suddenly for sale. But apart from the relatively regular re-appearance of the cursed Calendula Diamond, no large and sorcerous jewels had surfaced among the more reputable jewellers, and the less respectable (who hinted at underworld connections) were no more use. Nearly all the jewellers tried to sell the young Frenchman something from their own stock, and indeed she was tempted by a number of items that were not only beautiful, but imbued with minor charms.

Truthful was riding back from just such a meeting when she took a wrong turning, and then another. Fortunately a watchman came up behind her, and seeing a young, foreign-looking gentlemen gazing about in consternation, directed her attention to the dome of St Paul’s as a useful landmark, and told her to take the next road on the left.

But this turning brought her to a lane that was crowded with the business of paper and books. Men were carrying quires of paper, loading them onto carts; others transporting paper-wrapped packages of what could only be books. Here and there, men of a more scholarly look moved through doorways, or down sunken steps.