A Study in Sable (17 page)

When Franklin appeared with a man who could have been the younger version of Trevor Howard, and to Nan's reading was the near twin of his father when it came to integrity, Howard sent Franklin out and reached over the desk to take Mrs. Hopkins' hand.

“I would like to propose something, dear lady,” he said, speaking quietly, as if to calm a small child or a dog—which actually was the right tactic to take with the poor woman at this moment in time. “There are many banks and solicitors on this list of yours, a dozen at least. Doctor Watson and Miss Killian here cannot be expected to go with you to all of them, and you will need a trustworthy and steady fellow to accompany you. Now, I will not try to conceal the fact that I hope you will keep this account with my bank, and that indeed, I hope you will consolidate everything else you retrieve here as well. But whether you do that or not, I feel I must offer you the services of my son to accompany you. He is the assistant manager here. He can speak with authority, and if need be, some force, on your behalf. He
will see to it that you are not cheated or put off in any way, and will make sure you and whatever you bring back come home safely. Would that suit you?”

Neddy finally shook off his shock and patted his mother's hand, still being held by the bank manager. “I think that's a capital idea, mother. They might try funny business with you and me, but they'll never dare do so with Mister Howard along.”

The son smiled, and murmured, “Alan. I'd be pleased if you'd call me by my Christian name.”

Neddy held out his hand to Alan, who shook it. “Thank you, Alan. I'm Ned. And I cannot thank you enough for your kindness.” He looked over to the father while still shaking the hand of the son, “And I see every reason why consolidating everything
here
would be another capital idea.”

“I cannot say that I think you'll find equal sums in those distant accounts,” Trevor Howard warned, “But I believe, given what I know of your late father's business from his dealings here, that your mother will be able to live in comfort and ease from now on.”

There was more business talk—between the men, of course. Mrs. Hopkins had clearly been brought up in an age and a household where women were not expected to concern themselves with business. It was arranged that the bank's own stockbroker would take charge of the shares and any more such items that surfaced in the course of retrieving what was in deposit boxes. Nan would have been more than a trifle irritated by the men's easy dismissal of the two women in the room as inconsequential to this discussion, but she was just too relieved that her job had been so easily discharged to really care.

But it was when she was looking in the box to see if there were any more papers in it, that she moved an empty envelope in the bottom and discovered a small, black, velvet-covered box. “There seems to be something else here,” she said, handing it to Agatha Hopkins.

The widow opened it, hesitantly. “It's a gold locket!” Nan exclaimed, recognizing the shape instantly as being nearly identical to one she herself owned. “Open it—”

Inside was a small picture of what must have been Nigel Hopkins—probably taken not long before his death. And inscribed on the other half of the locket were two simple words that made Agatha burst into tears again.

Love, always.

Interlude:
Danse Macabre

T
HE
room was shrouded in darkness, with only a single candle providing a faint illumination. The musician was playing from memory; he didn't need to consult with sheet music, as his ivory-colored bow swept back and forth across the strings of his instrument. The music was melancholy, gentle, yet insistent. He repeated the tune over and over, tirelessly, for at least an hour before he was answered.

A shimmering, transparent, slender white figure, seemingly made of mist, coalesced out of the darkness, just out of the reach of the candlelight.

The musician ceased to play, and rested his violin and bow in his lap. For a long time, he sat there, motionless, head cocked slightly to one side, brows furrowed in concentration. At length, he sighed.

“This is not what I intended,” he said to the white shape that hovered in the darkness. “I did not anticipate such interference. I shall have to make other plans.”

Again, he took on an attitude of listening.

“Yes,” he replied. “I believe that you should. No, I believe that you
must.
Perhaps you will stir into life something too formidable for this meddling girl. As for me . . .” He smiled. “I believe I have an idea. My
quarry will find
this
revenant much more difficult . . . and much less sympathetic.”

He stood up, and put the bow and violin back in the case. “You may go,” he told the misty figure, which promptly faded away.

He stood looking into the darkness after it had gone. Finally he let out a long breath. Not a sigh, but as if he had made up his mind.

“She shall not escape,” he said, as if making a pledge. “I swear, she shall not escape.”

7

N
AN
sat quietly with a book she was having trouble concentrating on. The window was closed against the dust and noise from the street, but the sun outside showed it was a pleasant, if cool, day. Three days had passed since the excursion to take Agatha Hopkins her “legacy,” and Nan was beginning to get bored. Normally, if she and Sarah were not on some errand of Lord Alderscroft's, they were sitting right here at the table where she and Suki were now, transcribing old
grimoires
or histories that Lord A had borrowed from other Elemental Masters. When Suki needed help with her lessons, they'd take turns giving her a hand.

But Sarah was fast asleep right now in her bedroom, Nan didn't
have
any arcane volumes to transcribe, and she was in the position of being Suki's sole teacher.

It is a very, very good thing that Suki sees learning as a privilege and for the most part not a chore, or I should likely be screaming at her at this moment.
From somewhat unfortunate experience, gathered when she had tried to fit herself into the position of “teacher” at the Harton School, Nan knew she did not have the patience or the temper to try to drive knowledge and information into the skull of a child
who wasn't interested in learning. Suki, however, was the opposite, which at least made teaching her a task that was merely tedious, rather than maddening.

“Miz Nan? What's this word?” Suki said, interrupting her slightly sullen thoughts. She craned her neck around to see the word Suki's thin little forefinger was pointing at. This was a history lesson on Henry VIII, which would be followed by one on his son Edward, several more on his daughter Mary, and a great many on Queen Elizabeth.

“Elephantine,” Nan replied. “What do you think it means?” She generally made Suki try a couple of guesses on her own before supplying an answer.

Suki grinned. “Tha's easy!” she scoffed. “Big's a nelephant!”

“It can also mean
fat,
or
bulky,
” Nan reminded her. “Now, read me the sentence and tell me which meaning you think it has.”

“By this time, King 'Enry's body 'ad bloated t' el-e-phan-tine pro-por-tions,”
Suki read, and furrowed her eyebrows. “Must mean fat, cuz I saw a pitchur of King
'
Enry, an'
'
e weren't big's a nelephant.” She scratched her nose thoughtfully, “'E were purdy big, though.”

“Very true; by the time he married his fifth wife he was very, very fat,” replied Nan. “So fat it took six men to move him to the bed where he died.” Suki's eyes went very round at that idea, and small wonder. In her world, or rather, the world from which Nan and Sarah had plucked her, people did not have enough money to get fat, much less grossly obese.

“There ain't
'
nuff food in the worl' t'git that fat!” she declared, which led Nan to bring out an historical novel, where one of Henry's typical feasts was described.

“The first course consisted of a civet of hare, a quarter of stag which had been a night in salt, a stuffed chicken, and a loin of veal. The two last dishes were covered with a German sauce. There were two enormous pies, surmounted with smaller pies, which formed a crown. The crust of the large ones was silvered all round and gilt at the top; each contained a whole roe deer, a gosling, three capons, six chickens, ten pigeons, and one young rabbit. With the course came
a stuffing, a minced loin of veal, two pounds of fat, and twenty-six hard-boiled eggs, covered with saffron and flavored with cloves.”

Suki's eyes went round, trying to imagine all that food. Nan continued. “The second course was a roe deer, a pig, a sturgeon, a kid, two goslings, twelve chickens, as many pigeons, six young rabbits, two herons, a leveret, a fat capon stuffed, four chickens covered with yolks of eggs, and a wild boar.” She looked up and smiled. “The third, fourth, and fifth courses are not quite that much. The third course is biscuits and an enormous jelly, the fourth course is spiced cream, sweetened cream, and fruit, and the last course is wines, nuts, fruits, and pastries. But King Henry loved to eat more than anything, and you can see how easily he could get fat, if all he did was have a mouthful or two of everything that was served.”

“Did 'e, though?” Suki asked, her brow wrinkling. “'Ave a bit of ev'thin', that is?”

“Very likely not everything, although he would definitely be offered everything. Heron, I am told, is rather nasty; it was more to show off the fact that you had goshawks who could take them down, rather than something most people would want to eat.” Nan shook her head. “It is true, though, that Henry would have wanted to try almost everything, and it is true he never left the table until he couldn't hold another bite.”

When Suki's curiosity was satisfied, she went back to her history lesson and Nan went back to her own rather unsatisfying book.

The problem was, not only was Sarah
doing
something and Nan wasn't. Now the nightly routine had stabilized to quite polite ghosts quietly lining up to air their grievances, tell her how they had
really
died (murder, usually), or dictate letters Nan would later transcribe and send off anonymously to their intended recipients. It was tedious, so Sarah said, because it was hard to hear them. Their voices faded in and out, and the older they were, the less they remembered unless they worked very hard at it. So tending to the needs of four to six spirits generally took all night. That was fine, Nan could understand that—but what was . . . irritating . . . was that Sarah was being made quite the pet of by Magdalena.

There were those delicious late night suppers at which Sarah was tasting things Nan had never even heard of—and equally tasty breakfasts that changed every day. Mrs. Horace was a good plain cook, but her imagination did not pass beyond what was typical for a solid English breakfast or oatmeal. And the Sunday roast tended to get stretched out to cover as much of the week as Mrs. Horace could possibly manage. It appeared in its magnificence on Sunday, reappeared Monday as sliced meat and gravy, made a new appearance Tuesday as an Irish stew, Wednesday as a shepherd's pie. By that time, Nan was getting rather weary of the mutton or beef or pork of the original. Suki wanted to hear about the suppers and breakfasts, and Sarah was only too happy to tell about them, but in contrast to what they'd had . . . it was hard not to feel a bit poorly done by.

But on top of that, last night Sarah had been asked to arrive at the hotel much earlier than usual, because Magdalena had taken the fancy to have her come see the opera. After hearing Sarah's description of the gorgeous spectacle when she'd come home this morning, Nan was convinced it was far superior to the panto, and been consumed with raw envy, and now. . . .

I'm jealous,
she admitted bleakly, staring at the page of her book.
I'm just jealous. I'll never get invited to these things. No one is ever going to grace me with a champagne supper, or put me in a private box at the opera. So far as Magdalena is concerned, I'm probably nothing more than the erstwhile chaperone and occasional companion. And . . . just not posh enough.
And it didn't help that Magdalena was clearly going out of her way to be utterly charming to Sarah—who was, in Nan's estimation, falling for it.

And I don't dare say anything, because I know I'll be snappish, and then Sarah will just say I'm jealous, which I am, and completely disregard the fact that I think the woman is up to something.
Of course, that
something
might be no more sinister than a plan to get Sarah's full-time attention as her own private little ghost-banisher, because if she really
was
somehow attracting spirits, until Sarah discovered
how
she was doing so, Magdalena was going to need something of the sort
.
But why should that be Sarah? Let her find her own minion!

It wouldn't be so bad if Nan just had something to
do—

“Miz Nan?” Suki said, once again interrupting Nan's brooding. “Kin we go t' th' Tower? We niver could afore, on account'a Miz Sarah, an' all the ghostes. But you an' I kin go, aye?”

Nan's head came up, and she smiled at Suki. “Yes, we can. In fact, I think that is a capital idea. Get your hat.”

Neville looked up from the toy he was playing with, a long piece of cord he was threading around an open basketwork of wire.
“Ork?”
he said, inquisitively.

“Yes, you can come along too and visit your relatives.” Nan flung open the window, and Neville hopped up onto the sill. “Off with you. We'll meet you at the Tower. Don't steal too much of their food.”

Neville laughed wickedly and lofted away. Nan turned to Grey, who was playing a game of her own with beads and straws. “You don't want to go, do you?”

Grey made a rude noise, and shook her head.

Nan had to laugh at that. “Well, yes. Neville's relatives aren't half as intelligent as you. All right, if Sarah wakes up, tell her where we've gone and we'll be back before supper.”

“Nan and Suki went to the Tower. Back before supper,”
Grey said.

“Excellent.” Suki ran in at that moment with her hat; Nan seized her purse, pinned her own hat to her hair, threw her shawl over her shoulders and took the child's hand. “Watch over Sarah while we're gone, Grey.”

The parrot chuckled happily and bobbed her head, then went back to her game.

Well,
Nan thought as she stopped long enough at Mrs. Horace's door to let their landlady know that there was only to be lunch for Grey and Sarah,
This is certainly better than brooding.

• • •

Nan was happy to take Suki all over the Tower, and coaxed the guide to tell them the most bloodcurdling stories he could manage. The man was nothing loath when he realized that absolutely
nothing
he
told them would frighten the sweet-looking little girl with Nan. He told them about Ann Boleyn and how the executioner took her head off so quickly with his sword that her eyes were still blinking and her mouth moving as the head rolled on the grass. He told them about Prince Edward and Prince Richard, the two little boys who were smothered in their sleep in the Tower by King Richard III. And he told them about many of the ghosts who were supposed to haunt the Tower: Ann Boleyn with her head under her arm, the spirit of Margaret Pole running screaming from her executioner as he hacked her to bits, the two little boys in their nightgowns clutching each other, and Henry VI pacing in Wakefield Tower. How no one, not even the Yeoman Warders, would go in the Salt Tower at night for fear of the invisible hands that would try to strangle them. Suki adored it all. But then again, Nan reflected, when the ordinary conversation over the breakfast table consists of deciding how to approach a widow with the detailed instructions of her dead husband, Suki was unlikely to be frightened by any reference to spirits.

The Ravenmaster recognized her, of course; he allowed them right into the raven mews, where his assistants goggled at the way the Tower ravens, which
they
could only handle wearing thick leather falconry gauntlets, acted as sweet as doves around her. They goggled even more when the same happened with Suki, ravens coming up to both of them to be scratched and made much of, making little happy chuckling sounds the entire time. Neville wandered among them, the only one with unclipped feathers, and seemed to be holding court among his relatives.

After that, of course, Nan and Suki got quite special treatment indeed, being taken to places where most visitors were never allowed, and eventually having tea with the Ravenmaster and his wife in their little flat within the Tower itself. Neville behaved himself beautifully, saying “Thank you” very nicely when presented with biscuits soaked in blood, a chopped boiled egg, and fresh fruit to eat. “It's what we feed the others,” the Ravenmaster said. “That, an' plenty of fresh meat.”

“I
know
!” said Neville, with such enthusiasm that they all laughed.

“Neville gets almost the same with us,” Nan told him. “Though we've given him things like fish, too, when we're at the seaside, and he quite likes that.”

“Mmmmm fish!” agreed Neville. Nan reflected that he was truly showing off his vocabulary for the Ravenmaster, who had been Ravenmaster when Neville had first flown off to be with Nan.

After tea, they all took their leave of the Ravenmaster and the other Yeoman Warders, and at a little shop across from the Tower, Nan indulged Suki's passion for souvenirs by buying her a very pretty printed paper fan with views of the Tower on one side and pictures of the Yeoman Warders and the ravens on the other. Suki played carefully with it all the way home on the 'buses, opening and closing it and admiring the pictures to her heart's content.

“Since you're studying the Tudors in history now,” Nan said, as they got off the last 'bus on the corner and walked to the flat, “I think I should take you to Hampton Court Palace, which Henry stole from—” She waited for the answer.