Conrad's Fate (27 page)

The guests began arriving from early afternoon onward. Very stately people rolled up to the front doors in big cars and came in past the lines of footmen, wearing such expensive clothes that it seemed like a fashion parade in the hall. Then Mr. Prendergast would give out calls of “Lady Clifton's luggage to the lilac room!” or “The Duke of Almond's cases to the yellow suite!” and I would be rushing after Andrew and Gregor, or Francis and Manfred, with a heavy leather suitcase in each hand. When no guests were arriving, Mr. Amos had us measuring the spaces between the chairs at the banquet table to make sure they were evenly spaced. He really did that! And I'd thought Mr. Prendergast had been joking! Then the bells would clang, and it would be back to the black marble hall to carry more luggage.

And all the time I was more miserable and wishing Christopher would get back. Millie was quite as worried about him by then, too. I kept meeting her racing past with trays or piles of cloths. Each time, she said, “Is Christopher back yet?” and I said, “No.” Then, as things got more and more frantic, Millie simply said, “Is Christopher?” and I shook my head. By the middle of the afternoon, Millie was just giving me a look as we shot past each other, and I hardly had time even to shake my head.

This was when Lady Mary Ogworth arrived. She came with her mother—who reminded me more than a little of the Countess, to tell the truth. Both of them were wearing floaty sort of summer coats, but the mother looked like just another guest in hers. Lady Mary was beautiful. Up till then I'd never expected to see anyone who was better-looking than Fay Marley, but believe me, Lady Mary was. She had a mass of feathery white-fair curls, which made her small face look tiny and her big dark blue eyes look enormous. She walked like a willow tree in a breeze, with her coat sort of drifting around her, and her figure was perfect. Most of the footmen around me gasped when they saw her, and Gregor actually gave out a little moan. That was how beautiful Lady Mary was.

Count Robert was in the hall to meet her. He had been hanging about beside Mr. Prendergast on the stairs, fidgeting and shuffling and pulling down his cuffs, exactly like a bridegroom waiting by the altar for the bride. As soon as he saw Lady Mary, he rushed down the stairs and across the hall, where he took Lady Mary's hand and actually kissed it.

“Welcome,” he said, in a choky sort of way. “Welcome to Stallery, Mary.” Lady Mary kept her head shyly bent and whispered something in reply. Then Count Robert said, “Let me show you to your rooms,” and he took her, still holding her hand, across the hall and away up the stairs. He was smiling at her all the way.

Gregor had to poke me in the back to remind me to pick up my share of her luggage. I was staring after them, feeling horrible. Anthea doesn't have a
chance
! I thought. She's deluding herself. Count Robert has simply been fooling about with her.

As soon as I'd dumped the suitcases, I sneaked to the library to find my sister, but she wasn't there. The ghost was. A book sailed at my head as soon as my face was around the door. But there was no sign of Anthea. I dodged the book and shut the door. Then I went to look for Anthea in the undercroft, but she was nowhere there either. And the undercroft was in an uproar because Lady Mary never stopped ringing her bell.

“Honestly, darling,” Polly said, flying past, “you'd think we'd put her in a pigsty!
Nothing's
right for that woman!”

“The water, the sheets, the chairs, the mattress,” Fay panted, flying past the other way. “This time it was the towels. Last time it was the soap. We've all been up there at least six times. Millie's up there now.”

Miss Semple rushed down the stairs to the lobby, saying, “Mr. Hugo's fixed her shower—he thinks. But …”

Then the bell labeled
Ldy Ste
rang again, and they all cried out, “Oh, what is it
now
?”

Miss Semple got to the phone first and made soothing Yes madams into it. She turned away in despair. “
Oh
, I do declare! There's a spider in her water carafe now! Fay—no, you're finding her more shoe trees, aren't you?” Her mild, all-seeing eye fell on me. “Conrad. Fetch a clean carafe and glasses and take them up to the lady suite on one of the best gilt trays, please. Hurry.”

If I had been Christopher, I thought, I would have found an amusing way to say that my arms had come out of their sockets from carrying luggage. As I was just me, I sighed and went to the glass pantry beside the green cloth door. While I loaded a tray with glittering clean glassware and took it up in the lift, I decided that it must be the changes that were upsetting Lady Mary. They were going on remorselessly now. Before I got to the second floor, the lift stopped being brown inside and became pale yellow. It was enough to upset anyone who wasn't used to it.

The lift stopped and the door slid back. Millie, still looking very smart and grown up in her maid's uniform, was waiting outside to go back down. She gave me another of her expressive looks.

“No,” I said. “Still no sign of Christopher.”

“I didn't mean that this time,” Millie said. “Are you taking that trayful to Lady Mary?”

“Yes,” I said. “Fay and them have had enough.”

“Then I don't want to prejudice you,” Millie said, “but I think I ought to warn you. She's a witch.”

“Really?” I said as I got out of the lift. “Then …”

Millie turned sideways to go past me. I could see she was angry then, pink and panting. “Then nothing!” she said. “Just watch yourself. And, Conrad, forget all the mean things I said about Christopher—I was being unreasonable. Christopher
never
misuses magic the way that—that—
she
does!”

The lift shut then and carried Millie away downward. I went along the blue moss carpet and around the corner to the best guest suite, thinking about Christopher. He could be very irritating, but he was all right, really. And now I considered, he had set off to rescue Millie like a knight errant rescuing a damsel in distress. That impressed me. I wondered why I hadn't thought of Christopher that way before. I wished he would come
back
.

I knocked at the big gold-rimmed double door, but no one told me to come in. After a moment I knocked again, balanced the tray carefully on one hand, and went in.

Lady Mary was sitting sprawled in a chair that must have come from another room. Everything in the huge frilly room was pink, but the chair was navy blue, with the wrong pattern on it. Fay or Polly or someone must have lugged it in here from somewhere else. Lady Mary was clutching its arms with fingers bent up like claws and scowling at the fireplace. Like that, she looked almost as old as the Countess and not very beautiful at all. There was a half-open door beyond her. I could hear someone sobbing on the other side of it—her lady's maid probably.

“Oh, shut up, Stevens, and get on with that ironing!” Lady Mary snarled as I came in. Then she saw me. Her big blue eyes went narrow, unpleasantly. “I didn't say you could come in,” she said.

I said, very smoothly, like Mr. Prendergast imitating Mr. Amos. “The fresh carafe and glasses you rang for, my lady.”

She unclawed a hand and waved it. “Put them down over there.” She waited for me to cross the room and put the tray on a small table, and then snapped, “Now stand there and answer my questions.”

I was glad Millie had warned me. The hand waving must have been a spell. I found myself standing to attention beside the table, and the door to the corridor seemed a mile off. Lady Mary waved her hand again. This time I felt as if there was a tight band around my head, so tight that it somehow gave me pins and needles down both arms. I couldn't loosen it however hard I tried. “Why are you doing that?” I said.

“Because I want to know what I'm taking on here,” she said, “and you're going to tell me. What do you think of Count Robert?”

“He seems nice enough—but I really hardly know him,” I said. By this time I was panting and sweating. The pressure around my head seemed to be worse every second. “Please take this off,” I said.

“No. Is Count Robert a magic user?” Lady Mary said.

“I've no idea—I don't think so,” I said.
“Please!”

“But
someone
here is,” she said. “Someone's using magic to change things all the time. Why?”

“To make money,” I found myself saying.

“Who?” Lady Mary asked.

I thought of Christopher pressing that shift button. I thought of Mr. Amos. I thought my head was going to burst. And at the same time I knew I wasn't going to tell this horrible woman anything else. “I don't—I don't know anything about magic,” I said.

“Nonsense,” Lady Mary said. “You're stuffed with talent. For the last time,
who
?”

“Nobody taught me magic,” I gabbled desperately. My head was going to crack like an egg any moment, I thought. “I
can't
tell you because I don't
know
!”

Lady Mary screwed her mouth up angrily and muttered, “Why don't any of them know? It's ridiculous!” She looked at me again and said, “What do you think of the Countess?”

“Oh, she's awful,” I said. It was a relief to be able to tell her
something
.

Lady Mary smiled—it was more of a gloating grin really. “They all say that,” she remarked. “So it must be true. I'll have to get rid of her first thing then.
Now
tell me …”

A change came just as she said this. I never thought I'd be glad of a change. The tightness around my head snapped—
ping!
—like a rubber band that had been stretched too much. I staggered for a moment, pins and needles all over, eyes all blurry, but I could just see that the carafe and glasses on the tray had turned into a teapot, an elegant cup and saucer, and a plate of sugary biscuits.

I took a look at Lady Mary. She was behaving as if the rubber band had snapped itself in her face, blinking her big eyes and gasping. “Enjoy your tea, my lady,” I said. Then I turned and ran.

I went down in the lift feeling awful. The pins and needles went away, slowly, but they left me feeling very miserable indeed. Lady Mary was obviously going to take over Stallery the moment she was married to Count Robert—or maybe even sooner. She would give me the sack at once, because I knew what she was like. I had no idea what I would do then. It was no good asking Anthea—she was as badly off as I was. And Christopher was not here to ask.

That was the good thing about Christopher. He never seemed to think anything was hopeless. If something went wrong, he made one of his annoying jokes and thought of something to do about it. I really needed that at the moment. I stopped the lift and sent it upward instead, just in case the changes had brought Christopher back. But our room was empty. I looked at Christopher's tie dangling from the doorknob and felt so lost that I began to wonder if Uncle Alfred was right after all about my Evil Fate. Everything went wrong for me all the time.

Middle Hall was crowded that evening.
Mr. Smithers and quite a few Upper Maids were sent to eat with the actors, because Upper Hall was filled with valets and lady's maids who had come with the guests. They had to help the guests get dressed, of course, so they had supper later. Mrs. Baldock was holding a special cocktail party for them in her Housekeeper's Room before that. Polly, Fay, Millie, and another girl had to bolt their food in order to race off and wait on Mrs. Baldock and her guests. The rest of us hardly had time to finish before bells began pealing and Miss Semple came rushing in.

“Quick, quick, all of you! That's Mr. Amos ringing. The company will be down in five minutes. Mr. Prendergast, you're in the Grand Saloon in charge of drinks—”

“Oh, am I?” Mr. Prendergast said, unfolding to his feet. “Menial tasks, nuts, and pink gin, is it?”

“—with Francis, Gregor, and Conrad,” Miss Semple rushed on. “All other menservants to the Banqueting Hall to make ready there. Maids to the ballroom floor crockery store and service hatches. Hurry!”

The undercroft thundered with our feet as we all raced away.

The part in the Grand Saloon is a bit of a blur to me. I was too anxious and upset to notice much, except that Mr. Prendergast plonked a heavy silver tray in my hands, which made my arms ache. The guests were mostly a roar of loud voices to me, fine silk dresses and expensive evening suits. I remember the Countess graciously greeting them all, in floating blue, with a twinkly thing in her hair, and I remember Count Robert coming and snatching up a glass from my tray, looking as if he really needed that drink—and then I noticed that the glass he had taken was orange juice. I wondered whether to call out to him that he had made a mistake, but he was off by then, saying hallo to people, chatting to them and working his way over to the door as if he expected Lady Mary to come in any minute.

Lady Mary didn't arrive until right near the end. She was in white, straight white, like a pillar of snow. She went to Count Robert almost at once and talked to him with her head bent and a shy smile. I could hardly believe she had spent the afternoon complaining and casting spells and making her maid cry.

“That,” Mr. Prendergast said, looming up beside me, “is a classic example of a glamour spell. I thought you might like to know.”