The Master of Heathcrest Hall (66 page)

Ivy was beyond astonishment. Not that she should be entirely surprised, she decided after a moment. She thought of the drawings she had discovered in Lily’s folio—scenes of a handsome young man with dark hair and eyes, conjuring wonders upon a stage.

“Lily knew,” she said softly. “Didn’t she?”

A vivid blush colored his cheeks, and he hung his head. “Yes, I’m afraid she did. She saw us in … that is, she discovered it the night of the party for herself and the other Miss Lockwell.”

A moment ago Ivy had felt so weak as to collapse to the ground, but now a sudden and fierce energy coursed through her. Mr. Quent and Mr. Lockwell were beyond her help now. But her sisters required her, and she would not fail them. She would retrieve Lily, and then with Rose they would leave the city at once. But first—

“You must take me to her, Mr. Garritt,” she said, gripping his arm. “I will convince Lily to return home. She cannot refuse once I tell her that … once she knows what has happened. And then we must depart the city with all possible haste. Our very lives may depend upon it.”

Motionless, Mr. Garritt stared at her hand upon his arm. Perhaps he was shocked that she had made no comment upon his personal revelation. And at another time, perhaps Ivy would have done so—though it would not have been to rebuke him, but only to gain some assurance that he was well and taking proper care of himself. Yet it was clear from his dress and manner that he was indeed quite well, aside from somewhat shadowed eyes and pinched cheeks that bespoke recent exertion. Besides, it was for Lily that Ivy’s attention was required now.

“Please, Mr. Garritt,” she said. “Take me to this theater where you perform.”

He drew himself up, then met her gaze.

“Of course, Lady Quent, at once.”

Together they started toward the door—then abruptly halted as a loud knock sounded against it. Indeed, so great was the force being applied from the other side that Ivy feared it was a band of soldiers attempting to strike it down. Then, before Ivy could tell her not to, Mrs. Seenly hurried forward and opened the door.

Mr. Rafferdy stepped into the front hall, holding a cane and clad in an elegant brown suit. Ivy was too greatly relieved at his appearance to suffer any further surprise. She left Mr. Garritt and hurried to meet him.

“Mrs. Seenly, please leave us, if you would,” she said.

Mr. Rafferdy waited until the housekeeper had departed, then he spoke in a low voice, one that was for Ivy only.

“Mrs. Quent, I do not know how to impart to you what news I must.” His face was a grayish hue, and he gripped his gloved hands one in the other. “Somehow I must find a way. But before I say anything else, you must prepare yourself and your sisters to depart the city at once. Do not think to take anything but yourselves, and perhaps a cape if a chill umbral should fall. I fear, even at this moment, soldiers might be marching here.”

Despite his grim urgency, the sight of Mr. Rafferdy had the effect of steadying her further. Gladly she would direct her thoughts to the matter of Lily, or to the task of leaving the city, if it meant for a little while longer she could keep from considering that far greater cause for despair.

“I know,” she said. “The soldiers are coming on Lord Valhaine’s order to bear me away.”

“You already know this?” he said, then his gaze went past her. “Great Gods, Garritt,” he said, his voice rising even as his eyebrows did. “What are you doing here?”

Ivy laid a hand upon his arm. “He came here to tell me about my youngest sister. It seems that, propelled by her fascinations
with plays, Lily has fled the house on a whim and has gone to—” Ivy hesitated, realizing she had been about to impart something that was not hers to reveal.

“She has come to the theater on Durrow Street where I am employed,” Mr. Garritt said, taking a step toward them.

Mr. Rafferdy’s gaze went from Ivy to Mr. Garritt, then returned to her again.

“Ah,” he said.

By that one utterance, Ivy understood that he had already been privy to this bit of news about Mr. Garritt. Ivy was glad for it; that there should be such secrets between friends was untenable. Nor would she have any secrets with either of them now.

“I came here because Miss Lily refused to leave the theater,” Mr. Garritt went on. “She claims she wants to design scenes for plays, and that nothing will stop her from doing it. She cares nothing for propriety.”

“Or for good sense,” Ivy said, and shut her eyes. “Lily—dear, strong-willed, foolish Lily. I should have known you would attempt something like this, and at the very worst time.” She took in a breath and opened her eyes again. “Mr. Rafferdy, I have called upon you for your help so often, I hardly know how I can do so again. But I must, and Mr. Garritt’s help as well. I need you to help get my sisters out of the city.”

“And you yourself,” Mr. Rafferdy said, his gaze fixed upon her.

She turned her head away. “I cannot claim to care what happens to myself now, save as it has a bearing upon my sisters.”

Now it was he who put a hand on her arm. He bent his head toward hers. “Then you already know my other news as well, it seems.”

Ivy was frozen for a moment, then at last nodded. “I have lost him,” she said, almost in a kind of wonderment; only the words burned her throat as if she had drunk some caustic fluid. “My husband is gone. He is dead.”

She heard Mr. Garritt’s exclamation of dismay behind her. Slowly she looked up, and now a wonder did come over her. For
while she had yet to shed a tear herself, one even now coursed its way down Mr. Rafferdy’s cheek. In his brown eyes was a look of such anguish, and of such tenderness, that she had a sudden compulsion not to seek comfort for herself, but rather to comfort
him
. She touched his cheek, wiping away the dampness there.

He opened his mouth to speak.

Before he could, the clatter of hooves against cobbles emanated through the front door, which stood ajar. Mr. Rafferdy gave her a startled look, then he turned and went to the door.

“We are too late!” he exclaimed as he peered through the opening. “The soldiers have come already.”

Ivy’s heartbeat became a peculiar kind of flutter, and she felt suddenly light-headed, as if she might faint. Only she could not. What happened to her did not matter now, but Lily and Rose must be protected.

“Soldiers?” Mr. Garritt said, hurrying toward the two of them. “But what do you think they want?”

Ivy turned to regard him. Again she was resolved they would have no secrets between them, not now when they were all in peril.

“They seek to arrest me on account of being a witch—a sibyl of the Wyrdwood.”

Mr. Garritt’s mouth opened as his handsome face was wrought in an expression of astonishment. Only then he gave a slight nod, as if he had come to an understanding of something.

“Dercy was right,” he murmured. “That’s why I saw it around you. Why I can see it around you now—a green light.”

“You can see a light around Ivy?” spoke a voice from the staircase. “But I can see a light around her, too!”

They all turned in renewed surprise. It was Rose who had spoken. She stood upon one of the lower steps, clad in her favorite pink gown, smiling down at Mr. Garritt.

Rose descended the last steps. “The light is green,” she said, coming toward them. “But there is a dapple of gold to it as well, like leaves in the sun. I can see it even now. Can you?”

Mr. Garritt turned his soft brown gaze toward Ivy, then he nodded. “Yes, I can. It’s very bright.”

“You have a light, too, Mr. Garritt,” Rose went on excitedly. “It’s green also, but there’s a bit of purple to it, like the air in the garden just as twilight begins to gather. And there’s a light around Mr. Rafferdy as well. It’s blue just like our father’s light always was, but brighter, and there’s a tinge of—”

“Rose,” Ivy said sternly, interrupting her sister. “You must go upstairs. Now. It is very important.”

Rose blinked and took a step backward, but she did not return to the stairs.

Mr. Rafferdy hurried back from the window he had been looking out. “They are outside the gate,” he called back. “And I saw some of them moving along the line of the fence.”

“What do we do?” Mr. Garritt replied.

Mr. Rafferdy shook his head. “I don’t know. I imagine they are going all around the house. They’ll be watching every egress. There is no way to escape them now.”

“But there is a way,” Rose said suddenly.

All of them gazed at her in renewed astonishment.

“That’s why I came downstairs,” Rose went on earnestly. “Father wanted me to tell you something, Ivy.”

“Your father?” Mr. Rafferdy said. “But how—?”

Ivy stepped toward her sister. “You were talking to him again, weren’t you, Rose?”

Her sister nodded solemnly.

“What did he want you to tell me?”

“He said that we have to go to Heathcrest Hall, that there’s something you have to do there. And he said that it’s very important that we leave at once by the very quickest way. Do you know what he meant?”

A cool shiver of realization passed through Ivy. Yes, she did know.
Listen to your father
, the man in the mask had said.
He will tell you what to do
.

And so he had.

“Rose is right,” Ivy said quickly. “There is one other way we can leave here.”

Mr. Garritt looked at her with puzzlement, but she saw a light of understanding glimmer in Mr. Rafferdy’s eyes.

“Rose,” Ivy said, looking at her sister, “go up to our rooms and fetch two capes—the ones we take with us on jaunts in the country. Get the capes, and then meet us in the gallery on the second floor, by the door with all the carved leaves upon it.”

Rose’s face had gone very white; she did not move.

“You must hurry, Rose,” Ivy said, gently but with a firmness in her voice. “We are depending upon you.”

Rose nodded, then turned and dashed back up the stairs.

“I know what you intend,” Mr. Rafferdy said. “But what of your other sister? What of Lily? You know we cannot follow you that way to bring her to you.”

Ivy suffered a pain deep in her breast. First her father, then Mr. Quent, and now Lily—one by one, she had been forced to abandon thoughts of helping each of them that day. Who else would she be made to abandon?

Not Rose. She would not relinquish Rose.

Ivy turned to face Mr. Garritt. “You must take care of Lily for me, Mr. Garritt. You must see that she remains safe at your theater. Tell no one who she really is. It is dreadful of me to ask it of you, yet all the same I must.” She gripped his hand in her own. “Please, will you do this for me?”

His face was blank for a moment. What thoughts must be racing through his mind! But then he placed his other hand upon hers.

“I will keep her safe,” he said solemnly. “I swear it.”

Ivy felt her fear recede a fraction. To think that Lily was to be staying in a theater full of illusionists was now a matter to inspire relief! Yet all could be altered in a moment, and she knew Mr. Garritt would see to Lily’s well-being—if anyone in the city could be well, with Huntley Morden marching toward Invarel.

“Thank you, Mr. Garritt,” she breathed.

Mr. Rafferdy shut the door and locked it. “The soldiers are starting through the gate. What do we do?”

The three of them came together in the hall for a hurried congress.

“We must get upstairs without being seen,” Ivy said. “Only there is something I need from the library first.”

“Go retrieve this thing you need,” Mr. Garritt said. “I can make certain they do not see us.”

“How?” Mr. Rafferdy said, frowning.

Now the hint of a smile curved upon Mr. Garritt’s lips. “They will see something entirely else, instead.”

Ivy did not wait to find out what Mr. Garritt intended. She had to trust him, for they had but moments left. Lifting the hem of her gown, she raced across the front hall and entered the library. At once she went to the writing table, unlocked the drawer, and took out the Wyrdwood box. Even as she did, the old rosewood clock on the mantel let out a low chime.

She glanced at the clock. The day had been so hot and stifling that she had assumed it would be long. But on the right face of the clock, the gold disk was now nearly half-covered by the black. The umbral would fall soon.

Good. The trees were always more wakeful at night.

Holding the Wyrdwood box tight, Ivy returned to the front hall. She saw Mr. Garritt and Mr. Rafferdy standing within the curve formed by one half of the double staircase, behind a pair of chairs arranged opposite a long sofa. She hurried to join them.

As she did, there came a furious pounding upon the front door.

“Lie down here,” Mr. Garritt said, taking her arm and guiding her to the sofa. “At all cost, you must not move.”

Ivy did as he directed, laying her length upon the sofa. Then she opened her mouth to ask Mr. Garritt what he meant. Only at the moment, two things occurred.

The first thing was that the front door was suddenly flung open. A maid who had just entered the front hall in answer to the
knocking gave a scream, then turned and fled as a half-dozen men in blue coats streamed into the house. They wore grim expressions upon their faces and sabers at their hips.

The second thing was that Mr. Rafferdy and Mr. Garritt no longer stood behind the chairs. Rather, in Mr. Rafferdy’s place, was a tall grandfather clock of brown wood. Beneath its face was suspended a pendulum with an ivory weight that looked very like the head of Mr. Rafferdy’s cane. Near the clock, instead of Mr. Garritt, there now posed a marble statue of some classical Tharosian hero or poet, clad not in a gray coat, but rather gray folds of stone. What was more, the air around them had thickened, darkening and obscuring the scene like a thick coat of varnish upon a painting.

One of the soldiers barked some order, and the men began to fan out through the length of the front hall. Some ducked into other rooms—the library, the parlor—then appeared again in the hall.

“She must be on one of the other floors,” one of the soldiers said.

And the men moved toward the staircases.

A terror came over Ivy, for several of the soldiers were going to pass directly by the three of them. Her urge was to rise and flee. Instead she remembered Mr. Garritt’s order, and she held her breath as she laid upon the sofa. Her only motion was to flick her gaze downward. What she saw was not the green fabric of her gown against the cushions, but rather a series of pillows and drapes that she knew were not really there. One of the pillows toward her feet was embroidered with the pink face of a cherub. She could only imagine her face had been made to appear its twin.