Phoenix and Ashes (16 page)

She
trudged along the road, pulling the shawl out of the grip of the wind. The
lovely weather a few days ago had been a lie, it had. There might even be snow
tonight. Or if rain, it would be ice-edged.

Across
from the Scroggins was the farm of Joanne and Michael Van, and here it was
painfully clear that all was
not
as normal. There was no sign of
Michael, who surely must be in France now, and all of the figures picking
stones in the field were female. One was probably Joanne, but no Broom native
had red hair of the sort that flamed under one of the scarves, nor the
midnight-black bob of another of the girls. Were these Land Girls, young women
who volunteered to work on farms and take the place of the absent farmers? If
so, they were Eleanor’s first sight of the breed, and for all the
complaints of how they were lazy or vamps out to tease the country boys, they
seemed to know their job well enough, and they were sensibly clothed in heavy
coats, boots, and long, warm skirts.

Finally,
the last farm before the fields belonging to Longacre began, was the
Samburs’ sheep farm. And as she trudged up the road, she saw Sarah
hurrying after a male figure with one sleeve pinned up to his chest, supporting
himself with a stick, following two sheepdogs with more determination than
steadiness. But she didn’t call after him, did Sarah, nor did she take
over the direction of the sheepdogs. She seemed more like one of the dogs
herself, waiting to see what her husband wanted, then doing it, without a word,
just as silent, just as faithful.
You do for yourself
, she seemed to
say, until you can’t do no more. I know you have to.

It
made tears spring into Eleanor’s eyes, and she had to turn away and hide
her face in the shawl. The last thing she wanted to do was let either of them
catch this sign of her pity. They likely got more than enough of it as it was.

But
neither of them looked in her direction as she hurried past, the cold, raw wind
plastering her skirts to her legs. All of his attention was on the dogs and the
sheep, and all of hers was on him.

Eleanor
passed their farmhouse, and more of their fields, dotted with sheep, who raised
their heads and looked at her with their foolish faces when she passed.

And
then—the hedgerows became fences, marking the beginning of the fields of
Longacre.

She
paused for a moment at the side of the road; these were grazing fields too, but
for horses, not cattle or sheep, the hunters of Longacre Park. The grass was
thick and rank here, for the horses were gone, gone to the war, to pull gun-carriages,
not leap fences in the hunt. Only off in the distance were three old,
gray-nosed fellows, too old to be of use across the Channel.

She
had gotten this far. Could she possibly get so far as the field where Reggie
had kept his aeroplane?

She
trudged on, past the horse field, past one of the woods kept stocked with
pheasant for the shooting season. Was there still a shooting season? Did anyone
come out to hunt, or were they all hunting men now in the trenches? And then,
the second field; she climbed over the stile and down into it. The grass was up
to her knees, but this was it; this was Reggie’s field.

She
could walk here, just.

Trembling
a little, and feeling the pull start, she paused beside the old shed, empty and
falling to pieces, where the aeroplane had lived. No sign of it now, beyond a
discarded and broken propeller, some bits and bobs of wing-struts and a
half-rotten roll of canvas inside. She lingered as long as she could, but the
pull homewards became more insistent with each passing minute, and when she
pulled out the rosemary sprig, it was clearly beginning to wither.

But
she turned her back on the place and headed back in the growing gloom with no
real sense of disappointment. She had gotten this far—and this place held
nothing but melancholy, as sad and abandoned as the places in the village where
the men used to gather and socialize.

Enough despair for
one day. Time to go back to Sarah, and try to scrape up enough hope to carry on
her own fight.

April 3, 1917
Broom, Warwickshire

NOW WE MUST PLAY
THESE cards slowly and carefully, girls,” Alison said, as the three of
them sat over a light luncheon of potted-shrimp sandwiches and teacakes. The
girls had taken up smoking while in London, and were indulging in malicious
enjoyment as they ruined their leftovers with ash and stubs. So much for the
stepsister grazing on what was left. Oat-bread and bean soup was more than good
enough for her.

Alison
reflected for a moment on the quiet occupant of the kitchen. That wretched girl
Eleanor didn’t seem any the worse for having been left on her own for
longer than usual, and in fact, the absence seemed to have made her more
subdued. This was a pleasant development. More than that, it now seemed more
likely that Alison would find a way to render her into a helpless object
without having to resort to any of Locke’s complicated schemes.

While
she had initially been in favor of the idea, Alison dislike complication
intensely. The simpler the plan, the better, for the less there was that was
likely to go wrong. She didn’t like the idea of bringing in a stranger,
who certainly would be a criminal, and thus, unreliable. Criminals often
thought they would be clever and turn on the one who had hired them.

The
more she thought about it, the more she began to believe that in dealing with
the girl Eleanor, it was probably better not to bring Locke or any of his
friends into it at all. After all, she
was
an Earth Master. There
ought to be some way for an Earth Master to damage someone’s mind
irreparably. And much as she would enjoy Eleanor’s pain, there were other
ways to extract the same pleasure.

She
took a reflective sip of her tea, and returned her attention to the subject at
hand.

“By
now, the first letter will have been received up at Longacre Park,” she continued,
“But we must not give an appearance of being too eager to make this
connection. The opposite, in fact; the last thing we wish is to make it seem as
if we are pursuing the Fenyx family. Remember, I allegedly married far below
me, and I might find that fact uncomfortable. In fact, we must appear to
be—”

“Diffident?”
suggested Carolyn. “Shamefaced?” was Lauralee’s choice.

“Diffident,”
Alison replied decidedly, which made Carolyn smirk and Lauralee pout a trifle.
“These days there is nothing shameful about repairing a great
line’s fortunes by marrying into trade. The only shame comes about when
one tries to push in before one is invited, or to use one’s name and
connections as a kind of commodity.” She pursed her lips; frowning only
made the brow wrinkle. “You see, Lauralee, we must appear to be
modest
above all. We must appear to be reticent about taking advantage of this
tentative connection.
You
two should look hopeful and eager but say
nothing until we are actually established and accepting invitations. And when
the invitations arrive, you must be—”

“Retiring
and modest,” Carolyn supplied, with a glance at Lauralee. “No
flirtations. Friendly wallflowers, so to speak.”

“Exactly
right.” Alison bestowed a smile of favor on her elder-born. “You
must appear to be grateful without fawning, and without any hint that you
intend to take advantage of the new situation.”

“New
situation?” Lauralee laughed, and flicked her cigarette ash into the
remains of her buttered toast. “Any parties we’re invited to will
be rather thin on male company! Unless you want us to cozy up to grandfathers
and schoolboys.”

Alison
stared at her in astonishment. “ ‘Cozy up!’ Where did you get
that expression? You’ve been going to too many American cinema shows,
young lady—”

“Well—”
Lauralee flushed, and looked at her in defiance Alison quelled the defiance
with another look.

“No
‘well’ about it.” Alison sketched a sign in the air, and
Lauralee squealed in pained surprise as her mother administered a mild
correction. “Let that be a lesson to you: no slang, no impudence. You
will maintain impeccable manners from this point on. No, you will not be
courting old men or schoolboys. You will be comforting Reginald Fenyx, who is
returning to Longacre in extremely fragile condition on medical leave. You will
be compassionate, understanding, and willing to listen to or do anything he
asks, which likely won’t be much. You will become indispensible to him.
And I don’t care which of you does it, either, so long as one of you gets
him to the point where he cannot do without you, at which point we will ensure
he asks for your hand. I will be assisting considerably, of course,” she
added. “Let’s just say he’ll be plagued by things he would
rather not see, and the only time he will be free of them will be in your
presence.”

Lauralee
understood immediately; Carolyn took a moment or two of thought, and the hint,
from her older sister, of “he’s shell-shocked.”

It
was Alison’s considered opinion at that point, that regardless of
Carolyn’s superior looks and predilection for flirtation, Lauralee was
probably going to win this particular contest. “That will be up to the
two of you,” she said serenely. “I will supply the
structure.”

“Which
is all any good daughter could ask, Mama,” said Carolyn sweetly. Lauralee
leveled a withering glance at her, but said nothing. Alison was pleased. With a
contest of rivalry set up between the two, things should proceed apace, as soon
as Reggie made his appearance back home.

“Now,
I have something important that I must tend to,” she said, and got to her
feet. “A small matter on behalf of the Lodge and the Department combined.
I will take the auto, and I should be back by dark. Has that odd butcher sent
anything of my order? Or the tavern?”

Carolyn
shook her head. “Just notes that there is no meat to be had today, so no
roast and no ham.”

“Have
the girl do something with potted pheasant then,” Alison said, absently.
“Get it out of the pantry for her.”

“Certainly,
Mama.” Carolyn always enjoyed the opportunity to humiliate Eleanor, even
when it meant having to set foot in the kitchen.

Eleanor
still wasn’t much of a cook. Fortunately, there wasn’t much that
the girl could do to ruin a potted pheasant “I will see you at dinner,
then,” she repeated, and went out, jingling her keys.

It
was a distinct inconvenience to be required to drive herself, but there
wasn’t a man to chauffeur to be had, and Alison had learned to cope. The
auto was less than comfortable on the country roads around Broom, but a
carriage would have been just as bad, and at least the weather hadn’t
left the roads nothing but muck or kicking up choking clouds of dust. She
needed her duster and her hat and goggles though. This time it was going to be
a considerable drive—into Stratford.

Even
now, three years into the war, Stratford-on-Avon was an attraction for
visitors, who came to see Anne Hathaway’s cottage and other Shakespearian
landmarks. That most of them were elderly or female was of no matter.
Strangers, even strangers with accents, occasioned no undue attention. There
was an industry—no longer thriving, but still in place—of people
renting out their cottages to visitors.

The
Lodge had been good enough to give Alison not only a name, but directions to
the quarry, who had established himself in a cottage on the outskirts of
Stratford, one that had once been a farm cottage for a tenant, until the land
was given over to grazing.

Rose
Cottage was exceptionally remote, tucked off by itself down a little by-lane;
the owners had probably been pathetically grateful that anyone was willing to
take it these days. Grateful enough to look the other way when the man claiming
to be a refugee from Belgium had turned up wanting to take it.

Alison
stopped the car at the head of the lane in the partial concealment of some
overgrown hedges, and cautiously cast a shield of protection about herself. She
had no intention of going into this unprotected. Then, without taking off the
enveloping duster and goggles that hid her identity, she walked cautiously down
the lane. That few people came this way was given mute testimony to by the
grass growing rank over the road. That fit with what Alison had been told.

As
she approached the cottage, it was clear that it was several hundred years old,
and “improvements” to it had been minimal. No gas, probably no
water pipes, certainly no electricity or telephone, and what heat there was
would be supplied by one or two fireplaces. There was a single chimney, and the
roof was of thatch.

The
aura of magic was muted and subdued; probably no one would have noticed, if not
for the tell-tale traces of Elementals that were strangers to this part of the
world. What was it about Germans that so attracted them to Tibetan magic? That
was something that had always puzzled Alison. Weren’t their native
creatures powerful enough for them?

Well,
the little air-demons of the Everest were not going to be able to deal with the
Earth Elementals of England on their own ground.

Particularly
not as Alison had surprise on her side.

She
stopped just long enough at the gate to invoke a gnome, a twisted and ugly
little manikin the color of old stone.

“Where
is the master of this place?” she asked quietly, as it emerged out of the
rock of the garden wall and stood there, rock-silent itself, looking at her.

“Gone,”
the gnome croaked, and waved in the direction of meadows.

Good.
She dismissed the creature, which melted back into the stone. She entered the
garden gate and sauntered up the path to the cottage—it had been gravel
once, but was now as overgrown as the road, and as she took in the rather
picturesque little dwelling, she could not help but smile broadly. A
vine-covered
cottage—and beneath the vines was stone. Good Cotswold stone. Thatched
roof. Earth and earth and earth. What had he been thinking?