Rose (9 page)

Rose found herself looking forward to cleaning the workroom the next day. She wanted to look at the books and all those strange pieces of equipment. However much she'd told Freddie she didn't care about the magic, it was impossible to forget. She'd suspected before, but now she knew, and it colored everything. She'd even wondered if she could turn Susan into a newt when Susan'd thrown a boot at her to wake her that morning. It was probably a good thing Rose didn't know how to use the magic. It would be just too tempting.

But when she got into the kitchen after doing all the fires, Rose found that the morning routine had suddenly changed. She was late for the servants' breakfast anyway, as she'd had to go back to Miss Isabella's room to take her more biscuits. Isabella had come screaming out of her bedroom just as Rose was thinking she'd finished, because the ones in her tin were “hateful currant ones that are full of squashed flies and I shan't eat them, so there!” Rose had run back up with shortbread instead, only to find Isabella sitting smugly cross-legged in bed, munching a plain biscuit and watching a swarm of currant-sized black flies buzzing sadly around her bedposts.

“You'd better get rid of them,” she told Rose sweetly, and it took Rose ten minutes to shoo them all out of the window with a feather duster. She wasn't sure how long they would last outside, since they were really just currants with wings, but she didn't have time to worry about them. She slammed down the window and gave Miss Isabella a
look
.

“Will there be anything else, miss?” she asked very politely through her teeth.

Isabella stared back haughtily, but perhaps she decided she had done enough. “No-o. Not this minute. I shall ring if I need you.”

Rose trudged into the kitchen, feeling hollow inside and hoping that Bill hadn't eaten all the porridge. But no one was eating. Everyone was staring at a strange glassy bubble that was floating in the middle of the table. It held a weirdly curved image of Mr. Fountain and a scratchy little voice was coming from it, repeating the same message over and over again.

Pickled
herrings
for
breakfast, please. And don't burn the toast. Pickled herrings for breakfast, please. And don't burn the toast.

Mrs. Jones was glaring at it with her hands on her hips. “When do I ever send him up burnt toast? What's come over the man? I don't have any pickled herrings. Oh, will someone please get rid of that thing!” she squawked at last.

“How?” Bill asked. He looked at Rose, but she avoided his eye. Susan was poking at the bubble gingerly with a fork, but it just floated away, still demanding pickled herrings.

Then Gustavus trotted into the kitchen, whiskers twitching and clearly hoping for cream. He eyed the bubble with his head on one side, then leaped lightly onto the table. He batted at the bubble as though it were a butterfly he was chasing, patting it from paw to paw in the most delicate fashion. Then he lunged and snatched it in his teeth. It squeaked feebly—
herrings!
—and deflated, trailing from one corner of his mouth like a scrap of fish skin before it disappeared down his gullet. Gustavus licked his chops and winked at Rose.

Miss Bridges sat down heavily and extended a shaking hand to pat his ears. “You good cat,” she murmured. Gus even purred for her. Clearly he was very anxious for cream. Rose filled the saucer to the brim, and Gus sat on her lap to drink it.

“Rose, you'll have to go out for the herrings, dear,” Mrs. Jones said, after a few gulps of tea. “Oh, dearie me, it's really turned my stomach, that thing. I feel quite odd.”

Rose looked around the kitchen. Sarah was ashen, and Bill looked grim. Susan, who was so fierce, had the back of her hand to her mouth as though she felt sick. Rose felt confused. It wasn't really that scary, was it? It was only a talking picture.
Like
my
pictures
, she thought. She couldn't understand how they could all live in Mr. Fountain's house, but still be so afraid of his magic. Only Miss Bridges seemed unshaken, and even she was clearly irritated.

“Sarah, cut Rose some bread and butter. Hurry back, Rose, and we'll keep you some breakfast. Really, why he couldn't have mentioned it yesterday? It's just a mercy he breakfasts late.”

Rose came back from the fishmonger's pink-cheeked. The boy behind the counter had been particularly rude, asking if she'd like a free lobster with her herrings now, to save her the trouble of coming back to complain. Oddly, all the lobsters seemed to have got very lively after that, and several of them had lost the bindings on their claws. Rose watched them through the window, the lobsters determinedly climbing down the counter and under the petticoats of a bad-tempered old lady buying a kipper. When she'd come into the shop, she'd complained about having to wait and made loud comments about Rose being no better than she should be, flirting with shop boys like a shameless hussy. Seeing the lobsters disappear under her skirt cheered Rose up so much she almost forgot she was starving, and she raced all the way home with the herrings, wanting to tell Bill the joke.

She was crossing the square at a run when she realized that all the lobsters couldn't have come untied at once.
She
had untied them without knowing it. She slowed to a walk, turning it over in her mind anxiously. Another thing she'd done without realizing. The magic just kept popping out and
doing
things, and she had no idea how to stop it. Maybe she did need to learn about it, just to stop herself from doing something awful. She wasn't a bad-tempered person, but she did get cross sometimes. What might she do without
really
meaning it?

By the time she'd had breakfast it was late, and Miss Bridges said crossly that the workroom had better go undusted for today. Mr. Fountain had sent down a message—by the normal means of Susan this time—that he was expecting a visitor for lunch. This was the first anyone had heard of it, and consequently everyone was in a state of flap.

“A lady,” Mrs. Jones muttered. “Mousses. A trifle, perhaps. Blancmange. Oh, I could have made a lovely blancmange if only he'd given me more time.”

Rose, who was sure that mooses were things with horns that came somewhere in Geography, wondered worriedly if that bubble had turned Mrs. Jones's head. But the lunch that was finally sent up was a masterpiece.

“I just hope this lady appreciates it, that's all,” Mrs. Jones said irritably, as she subsided into a chair, fanning herself with one hand.

“Who is she?” Rose asked, as Susan paraded smartly out with a large silver soup tureen. She knew Miss Bridges was hovering upstairs, so no one would tell her off for gossiping.

Mrs. Jones shrugged. “Another magician. He's invited her to talk about work, Miss Bridges said.” She looked anxiously over at the jelly sitting on the side table. “It hasn't had enough time to set properly. They'd better eat their soup and fish quickly, or it'll run away to nothing.”

Rose looked at it admiringly. The pale-pink jelly wobbled on a silver dish, filled with custard inside and decorated with cream and crystallized violets—the ones she and Bill had bought the other day. “I still don't understand how you got the custard inside the jelly.” She giggled. “It's like magic!”

Mrs. Jones looked at her sharply. “It most certainly is not, young lady! I told when you arrived, no magic in my kitchen. It's a clever mold, that's all. Magic indeed…”

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Jones,” Rose murmured humbly. “I was joking. I just meant it looks very clever.”

She went out to the back kitchen to help Sarah and Bill wipe up the mass of pans that had been used for cooking lunch, but she was blinking back tears. Mrs. Jones had always been so nice to her. Even though the amulet was useless, she'd meant it kindly. What would happen if Mrs. Jones found out about Rose's secret? She seemed to dislike magic so much. It was almost as if she found it disgusting.
Everyone
will
hate
me
, Rose thought, a tear dripping off the end of her nose and onto the copper pan she was drying. She rubbed at the smear crossly.
Bill
already
doesn't know what to say to me. I have to get rid of it.

Suddenly a loud scream echoed through the house. Rose clapped her hands over her ears. It was like the bell from the workroom—there was magic behind it, making it heard. Pure fury vibrated the windows, and the glass in the cabinets rang.

“What on earth is that?” Sarah gasped.

“Miss Isabella,” Bill predicted. “Couldn't be anyone else. Wonder who's said no to her now.”

They all flinched as something crashed upstairs, and the bell from the main hallway started to ring frantically.

Sarah and Bill both looked at Rose expectantly. As the newest and youngest servant, it was definitely her job to go. Still in her work apron, Rose skidded up the stairs to find Miss Bridges standing over a huddle of lace that was drumming its feet on the black-and-white tiled floor. A large china flowerpot was in splinters all over the place, and the fern that had been in it was shredded against the dining room door.

“Fetch brushes, Rose,” Miss Bridges said wearily. “Isabella, please get up. Rose needs to sweep up this mess, and you might get cut by the porcelain splinters.”

Miss Anstruther, Isabella's governess, came stumbling down the stairs. “Oh, Miss Bridges, I'm so sorry. Isabella wanted to see her father, and when I said he was busy, she locked me in the toy cupboard. Oh dear, Isabella, what a state you're in.” She looked around helplessly and twisted her hands over and over.

Rose sniffed, very quietly. She pitied Miss Anstruther, but she was so dreadfully feeble. She had a sneaking sympathy for Isabella too, shut up with the hand-wringing all the time.

When she came back up with the dustpan, Miss Bridges and Miss Anstruther were still trying to coax Isabella up.

“Come, Isabella, dear, your papa won't want to see you lying here,” Miss Anstruther pleaded. She looked at Miss Bridges, and whispered, “What happened?”

Not realizing that Rose was listening, Miss Bridges explained, “I told Isabella she couldn't go into the dining room, as Mr. Fountain had asked not to be disturbed. But often she's allowed to go and sit with guests for dessert, so she refused to believe me. She slipped past me and opened the door a crack, and then I'm afraid she saw her father's luncheon guest.”

“Oh—the lady magician.” Miss Anstruther nodded.

“Isabella is inclined to be a little jealous.”

“Quite,” Miss Bridges agreed dryly. “But we need to move her now. Before they come out. This is quite enough of a disaster already, without Isabella trying to scratch the woman's eyes out.”

“She wouldn't!” Miss Anstruther protested feebly.

Miss Bridges raised her eyebrows. “Of course she would. How long have you been here?”

A tinkling laugh was heard from inside the dining room, echoed by a man's deeper voice, and Isabella's toes drummed harder on the floor.

Miss Bridges sighed. “You take her head, I'll have the feet.” She eyed Isabella's kicking satin slippers ruefully, but Rose thought she probably had the better deal. Isabella looked like she would most definitely bite. She slipped back into the stairway, not wanting to be asked to help.

Miss Bridges was nursing a scratched wrist when she came back down the stairs just as Rose was finishing the floor. “Good,” she said, looking professionally around for any stray fragments. “Well done, Rose. Miss Isabella has had a—she's—she has been prostrated by a hysterical collapse.” Miss Bridges coughed. “Get rid of the remains, and then you may as well go and sweep the workroom, since you had to skip it this morning.”

Rose sighed and went to parcel up the broken china. This household seemed to go through an awful lot of breakables. She hid herself away in the workroom, not wanting to get involved if Isabella went on the rampage again. Rose was almost sure that her hysterical collapse would only last as long as Miss Bridges and Miss Anstruther were looking.

***

The kitchen hummed with gossip about Mr. Fountain's guest for the rest of the day, and Susan reported eagerly the next morning that he hadn't been to bed—he'd sat up in his study all night, and had worked his way through a whole bottle of the best brandy. Susan also reported that the book on his marble table was
The
Compleat
Etiquette
, and it had been open to the chapter on marriage proposals. Rose blinked, trying to think back to his room this morning when she'd lit the fire. His bed had had the curtains drawn around it; she hadn't even considered that he might not have been inside.

Isabella had most definitely been in her room. She'd thrown the biscuit barrel at Rose and had been most upset when Rose caught it. She'd threatened to get her sacked. Clearly, it was an important part of Rose's duties to be concussed by flying china. Rose kept a wary eye out as she set off upstairs again to clean after breakfast. Hopefully she could just clean and have a little peace and quiet.

Freddie jumped out at her as soon as she got through the workroom door, making her drop her brush. “Oh, good! Have you changed your mind yet?”

“No! You nearly made me break a leg!” Rose started sweeping crossly. She'd wanted time alone in here, to imagine what it would be like to spend her days consulting spellbooks, instead of dusting them.

“Oh, well.” Freddie sighed gloomily. “Fountain probably wouldn't listen to you anyway, he's too wrapped in that hateful Sparrow woman. He's gone batty about her.” He shook his head. “I can't understand it, he's only met her about three times. He's got a little portrait of her that he keeps in his waistcoat pocket. I think she gave it to him, and he's spelled it to glow, so he can even see her in the dark!” Freddie snorted with laughter. “He made me look up the spell after she'd gone.”