Lily and the Shining Dragons (9 page)

‘Like us…?’ Georgie asked, her voice very small.

Louis didn’t even bother answering her. ‘I don’t understand why those snakes from next door aren’t there,’ he muttered. ‘If anyone needs reforming, it’s them.’

‘Too well-connected,’ Lily pointed out. ‘That’s why they were here. For us to get on their good side.’

‘Did you?’ Louis asked suspiciously.

‘I don’t think so. They – er—’ Lily wasn’t quite sure what to tell him. It obviously wasn’t safe to mention the plot. ‘They seemed worried that our magic might be as strong as theirs,’ she admitted.

‘But it isn’t, because we don’t actually do any. Of course,’ Georgie put in hurriedly.

Louis snorted.

‘We really haven’t done any magic in this house,’ Lily told him. It was only a very little bit of a lie.

‘So you could? If you wanted?’ he asked, peering at her, round-eyed.

‘If we were doing magic here, our first spell would be to teach you some manners,’ Henrietta remarked calmly from the sofa. ‘You’ve been remarkably rude, ever since we arrived.’

Louis gawped at her for a few seconds, and then drew himself up straight. ‘I knew there was something unnatural about you,’ he told her, trying not to sound scared.

‘Magic is perfectly natural.’ Henrietta smirked at him. ‘It’s denying it that’s wrong. You’ll come to a bad end, if you try to hide it.’

‘And I’ll be shut up in a school full of freaks if I don’t!’ he snapped back. ‘Besides, I might not have any magic. I probably won’t. Mama doesn’t. What?’ He glared at Henrietta and the girls as they all began to laugh.

‘Her bad end is taking rather a long time to arrive, that’s all…’ Henrietta explained. ‘She has been denying her magic for years, except for a few spells she has on this house, and herself. She has a remarkably determined way of looking at things, it seems to me. She thinks the spells are just her high standards, and society manners, but it’s far more than that. And they’re grown into her now. She’ll never be rid of them.’

‘She doesn’t…’ Louis faltered, as he seemed to realise what he was saying – and what he’d been seeing, ever since he’d been old enough to understand. ‘She just doesn’t,’ he muttered again. But the girls could tell he knew, deep down. He was silent for a moment, staring unseeingly at the melted clock, and then he seemed to harden, shaking off his fear, and looking sharply at Lily. ‘Why did you think Fell Hall was a prison? What do you want to know about prisons for?’

‘Our father is in one.’

‘A gaolbird! Does Mama know?’ Louis’s eyes brightened at the thought of scandal. ‘She’d have a fit.’ He almost giggled, as if he was so scared he’d turned silly.

‘She probably put him there,’ Lily told him bitterly. ‘He wouldn’t give up his magic. She would have been desperate to get him out of the way, wouldn’t she?’

Louis nodded. ‘She would only have been doing her duty as an Englishwoman,’ he murmured, but he seemed uncertain about it. ‘Family…’ He shrugged. ‘Her sister’s husband, though, she ought not to have done it.’

‘She would have been protecting her good name – and yours,’ Henrietta told him sternly. ‘Should she care more for her sister’s family, or her own?’

‘You can’t defend her!’ Lily protested, staring at Henrietta in surprise.

‘I may not agree with her, but that’s not to say I can’t understand her reasoning.’ Henrietta yawned, so widely that the ridged underside of her jaw glinted in the sunny drawing room. She shut her mouth with a snap, and looked sideways at Lily. ‘Water under the bridge, now, anyway.’

‘I suppose.’ Lily sighed.

Louis glanced up, and then left the doorway, and came to crouch by Henrietta on the sofa. He clearly didn’t dare touch her, but she darted out her purplish tongue, and licked his hand, so he squeaked with surprise, and smiled shyly. ‘Mama won’t let me have a dog. She says it wouldn’t be fair, since I’m away at school for most of the time. She’s right, but I would so love one.’

‘Rude, but essentially good-natured,’ Henrietta pronounced, licking him again. ‘Like most boys.’

‘I’m sorry – if she did betray your father.’ Louis ventured to run a finger down Henrietta’s velvet back.

‘It’s why we agreed to come here. Your mother thinks we want to be respectable, and come out into society – she can’t imagine that anyone wouldn’t want that.’ Lily grimaced. ‘But actually, we were hoping that she might know where Father is. That we might be able to find out. Are you sure Fell Hall isn’t a prison as well as a school?’ she asked hopefully.

Louis frowned. ‘I don’t know for certain, but I think the prison is somewhere different, from the things that Mama’s said. It’s a deep secret.’ He eyed Lily and Georgie uncomfortably. ‘That’s why people never come out,’ he added, his voice suddenly more gentle.

Lily blinked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, then they’d know the secrets, wouldn’t they?’

‘Oh.’ Lily stared at her hands. Ever since they’d left Merrythought, the way ahead had seemed to grow harder and harder. ‘He doesn’t have to get out by himself,’ she said in a small voice. ‘We’re going to rescue him.’

Louis looked as though he wanted to snort with laughter, but for once he was being kind. ‘You don’t even know where it is,’ he reminded her. ‘And you can’t really go asking, can you?’

Georgie frowned. ‘We could ask those children at Fell Hall.’

They stared at her, and she shrugged.

‘Well, they’re the only other people we know about who’ve been using magic. That’s why they’ve been sent there. Cora and Penelope would rather cut their noses off than tell us anything useful, that’s obvious. They don’t want Father out of prison, and helping us, do they? But I don’t see why the children at Fell Hall wouldn’t tell us. We could go there, and ask them.’ She swallowed. ‘After all, most of their parents are probably in the same prison as Father is.’

Lily gazed at her admiringly, and Georgie looked pleased with herself.

‘Have you ever been to Fell Hall?’ she asked Louis curiously. ‘You sound like you know a lot about it.’

‘No! Of course not. But people do talk about it sometimes. There was a boy at my school – he was always a little odd. He hardly spoke. Then after one Christmas, he never came back. They sent him there, everyone said so. We spoke about it afterwards, only a little, and out of hearing of the masters, of course. And one of the older boys came from Derbyshire, not so far away from Fell Hall. His nursemaid’s family were employed there. He used to beg her to tell him stories about it, in the firelight, like ghost stories. They use strange medicines, she told him, and enchantments too, so the children are quiet, and can’t make any terrible spells.’

‘But they wouldn’t do that.’ Lily shook her head. ‘Magic is illegal – that’s why the children are there! How can they use magic to stop them doing any? That’s just stupid.’
But it’s just what Aunt Clara’s been doing
, she added to herself.

Louis sighed, and shrugged. ‘Perhaps these people are above the law. If they work for the queen…’

‘It still doesn’t seem right.’ Lily frowned. ‘How can the rules be different for the Queen’s Men? It isn’t fair.’

Louis shook his head. ‘If your father was trying to overthrow the queen – and I’m not saying he actually was, so don’t look at me like that,’ he added, catching Lily’s glare, ‘how would the authorities stop him, a powerful magician, if they couldn’t fight his magic with any of their own?’

Lily stared at him angrily. She could see that what he said made sense, in a way. But it still didn’t make it feel right.

She was searching for the words to argue, when Georgie jumped up, flinging herself at the window – nearly knocking over one of the flower arrangements that had suffered in the battle between Lily and the Dysart girls.

‘What is it?’ Lily demanded anxiously. Georgie was standing with her hands pressed up against the window, peering out.

‘That was Maria! I saw Maria!’

‘Maria from the theatre?’ Lily asked doubtfully.

‘Yes,’ Georgie snapped impatiently. She ran out into the panelled hall, and started to pull frantically at the heavy door locks. ‘Help me open it!’ she gasped to Lily. ‘She was just walking away past the window. She must have tried to come and see us. I didn’t hear anyone ringing the bell, did you?’

‘Because she didn’t.’ Lily crouched down, picking up a folded screw of paper that had been pushed underneath the door. ‘Look. She left a note.’

Georgie snatched at it eagerly, and Lily let her take the tattered paper. Georgie had loved Maria, and the companionship of the girls in the theatre wardrobe. She missed her, Lily knew.

‘She’s only written a line or two,’ Georgie said disappointedly. ‘There’s another letter inside – she was only passing it on. Daniel asked her to bring it, as she was going to visit her sister.’ She opened out the note, and another tightly folded letter dropped into her hands. ‘It’s for you.’ She passed it curiously to Lily. ‘Who on earth would be writing to you at the theatre? No one even knew we were there.’

Lily was staring at the letter, the familiar writing blurred with sudden tears.

‘Lily, what is it?’ Georgie asked worriedly. ‘Who’s written to you?’

Lily swallowed. ‘Peter.’ Fumbling, she tore at the sealed paper. ‘He addressed it to Miss Lily, at the theatre. He must have known not to write our surname.’

‘Who’s Peter?’ Louis muttered to Georgie.

‘The kitchen boy, back at Merrythought,’ Georgie murmured back, watching Lily scan the letter. ‘He’s a mute. He was abandoned…’

‘Abandoned on an island full of witches?’ Louis sounded shocked.

Georgie shrugged. ‘Perhaps when he never spoke, they thought he had magic in him too. Lily, what does it say?’

‘Merrythought was raided,’ Lily told her quietly. She sat down, rather suddenly, on one of the uncomfortable little velvet chairs that were scattered around the entrance hall. ‘The Queen’s Men.’

‘What?’ Georgie snatched the letter. ‘What happened? Where is Mama?’

‘She fled…’ Lily sighed. ‘All we know is, she isn’t
there
. She could be anywhere, Georgie.’

‘I don’t believe it.’ Georgie looked up from the letter, staring at Lily. ‘They’re taking him to Fell Hall!’

‘I thought you said he was a kitchen boy?’ Louis frowned.

‘He is.’ Lily shook her head disgustedly. ‘They’re getting desperate. Or panicking, maybe. Perhaps someone got wind of the plot. Peter hasn’t a shred of magic in him, anywhere.’

‘They think he might have been corrupted – by association with us!’ Georgie laughed bitterly. ‘I’m surprised they haven’t imprisoned all of the servants.’ She shivered. ‘Maybe they have… Except he must have got this letter to one of them, as they were taking him, so there’s someone left, at least. How funny that he saw our picture in Mr Francis’s newspaper.’

Lily smiled, rather miserably, and stroked Henrietta’s soft black head. ‘He recognised you,’ she told the dog. ‘It didn’t look at all like us, but he recognised you. We shouldn’t have worried about the newspaper picture, after all. He’d never have known where we were, if it wasn’t for that.’ She straightened her shoulders. ‘Well, now we know what we have to do.’

Georgie blinked at her, and Lily hissed through her teeth, ‘We have to go to Fell Hall,
now
, to get him back.’

‘Oh…’ Georgie nodded.

‘But he’s only…’ Louis started to say it, but faltered as both the girls glared at him.

‘He helped us to escape from Merrythought,’ Lily told him. ‘It’s our turn to rescue him now.’

Louis nodded. ‘I suppose you were going anyway.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘How are you going to get to Derbyshire?’

Lily looked at Georgie doubtfully. ‘We have a little money. We earned wages at the theatre. Perhaps a train? We’ve proper clothes now, young lady clothes. What was the name of the boy at your school who lived close to Fell Hall? We could say we’re visiting his family, if anyone asked us.’

Louis chewed his lip. ‘Tarrant,’ he said at last, reluctantly. ‘They live at a place called Blackwater House. I suppose it would work. Father has a railway almanac in his study. You could find the nearest station. Then you’d have to find a carriage to hire.’

‘Or we could walk,’ Lily pointed out. ‘We might not get far trying to hire a carriage to Fell Hall. I shouldn’t think they have many visitors.’

Louis nodded uncertainly. Lily wondered if he ever got to walk anywhere, other than the pretty park nearby. He was so sheltered, even if he did go to school. But she wasn’t jealous, she realised in surprise. She would far rather live their ramshackle life at the theatre, or even have the strange old times at Merrythought back, than be suffocated in silk and velvet here.

‘So we need to find your father’s railway almanac,’ Lily said, hoping that Louis might volunteer to help. He didn’t.

‘It’ll be in his study,’ was all he said, and then he retreated to the drawing-room door. ‘Just don’t do anything else to Mama. Or I’ll tell – someone…’

Sir Oliver stayed closeted in his study all that night. He and Aunt Clara were supposed to have gone to some political dinner, but Aunt Clara had been laid low by what she called a ‘slight headache’. She had also had words with the cook, forbidding her from serving fish, ever again. Even salmon.

After breakfast the next morning, Lily, Georgie and Henrietta crept out into the passageway. Georgie had the sewing box with her, for protection.

‘What are you going to do with that?’ Lily asked her irritably. She hadn’t slept well, for worrying about Peter, and about her father too. If the Queen’s Men were becoming fiercer, and more ruthless, what did that mean for him?

Georgie rolled her eyes. ‘We need an excuse. I’ve used up all the embroidery floss. I’m going to ask Aunt Clara if I may have some more.’

‘But we’re going to Sir Oliver’s study. She won’t be there.’

‘I know that, but I’m perfectly capable of pretending that I don’t. Sir Oliver thinks we’re stupid anyway. We just have to act, Lily! We did enough pretending to be princesses of the Northern Wastes at the theatre, just make use of it!’

Lily sighed, and nodded. ‘He ought to have gone out to walk around the park anyway.’

Henrietta nodded. ‘He always does after breakfast. They said so in the kitchens.’ She licked her chops appreciatively, thinking of the remnants of Sir Oliver’s kidneys and bacon that she’d been treated to that morning.