CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

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How preposterous it is to hear a woman say, ‘It shall be done’ – ‘I will have it so!’

Mrs Taylor, Practical Hints to Young Females

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Under the dome were the ladies from the house party – Honoria Blunt, Alicia and Adele Lane, and the Dowager. Ranged behind them were the female servants of the household.

All were in their nightclothes. All wore strange smiles on their faces. All were unnaturally still and calm.

Glaucus Grey, grim-faced as ever and wrapped in his black cloak, stood immediately behind his mistress.

Far out to sea, Pattern glimpsed six golden heads watching from the waves.

The throng of animals settled themselves on the grassy slopes around the hill. They did not scratch or sniff or roll about or do any of the things ordinary animals might do. They were as still and silent as the assembled humans.

‘Well?’ Lady Hawk demanded in theatrical tones. ‘Where is my sweet Cassandra?’

There was an uncomfortable pause.

‘She – she wasn’t your daughter, milady,’ Pattern said bravely, since nobody else seemed inclined to speak. ‘Not unless you’re made of cogs and wires too.’

Lady Hawk descended the steps.

‘Poor Cassandra is one of a kind: the last, and greatest, work of that master craftsman Pygmalion. It will take a great deal of time and trouble to put her back to rights.’

‘If you do, then you should find better use for such a miracle of science than luring gentlemen to their doom.’

Lady Hawk pursed her lips. ‘What a bother you’ve caused me, little Penelope! Glaucus tells me someone has been digging up my moly flowers. I suppose that must be you and your friend too. How did you get around Alasdair, I wonder?’

‘Alasdair?’

‘A one-time Scottish laird, and a most slippery character.’

Nate and Pattern exchanged looks. Alasdair had to be the snake that guarded the snowdrops. No wonder it had tartan scales and a taste for Scottish folk tunes! Here was further proof, if proof were needed, that the island animals had been human once.

The sorceress clicked her fingers and the snowdrops they were carrying flew through the air and into her hands. She wound the flowers into her hair with a complacent smile.

‘The original Penelope, you know, also appeared very quiet and dutiful, and useful around the house. Her weaving was remarkable. But then all the while she was picking and pulling at the thread, undoing everything as she went along . . .’ Lady Hawk shook her head regretfully. ‘The difference is, of course, that the first Penelope was spoiling her own work. You, on the other hand, have attempted to unravel mine.’

Pattern swallowed. ‘I do not much care for your work, milady.’

‘Me neither,’ Nate piped up. ‘It ain’t respectable, turning people’s heads to porridge, jinxing gentlemen right and left.’

‘Not all gentlemen,’ said Lady Hawk, fixing her gleaming dark eyes on Mr Ladlaw. ‘Not yet.’

Mr Ladlaw sank to his knees. ‘P-please, I b-beg you – Honourable Madam! Gracious Lady! If I have unwittingly caused offence, or neglect of some kind, then I will do everything, everything, in my power to make it up to you. I swear. I swear!’

Pattern looked at Miss Smith, expecting her to plead for mercy on her lover’s behalf. But Miss Smith was watching quite coolly, her arms folded across her chest.

‘Do you know why your fellow suitors have been punished?’ Lady Hawk enquired.

Mr Ladlaw tearfully shook his head.

‘Then I think it is time to enlighten you.’

Mr Grey brought out a high-backed golden chair and set it at the foot of the steps. He followed this with a glass of champagne on a silver platter. Lady Hawk settled into the seat with a sigh of satisfaction, and took a sip from the glass. The blank-eyed women behind her, and the animals spread out before her, continued to look on with rapt attention.

‘Lord Charnly wished to knock down an old woman’s cottage so he could build a hunting lodge. He had his henchmen drag the poor lady out from her bed in the dead of night – one of those brutes was his valet Stokes, by the way. Abandoned in the cold, the woman died soon after. No doubt Lord Charnly feels excessively chilly and stiff inside his marble cladding . . . but it is more comfortable than the morgue, wouldn’t you say?

‘Captain Vyne broke hearts, destroyed reputations and ruined lives, all because he could not resist the dazzle of his own charm. Now he is a prisoner of his reflected beauty. I suspect he is considerably less proud of it now.

‘The Reverend Blunt stole from widows and orphans, under the guise of offering them a helping hand. How fitting, then, that he should whirl round and round, helplessly, with the chance of salvation always just outside his reach . . .

‘So there you have it. There are many scoundrels I might have chosen to torment, but I consider those who dishonour women to be the blackest villains of all.’ Here her expression turned dark. ‘Moreover, these gentlemen were particularly suited to my games – for have I not made the punishments fit their crimes in a splendidly neat fashion?’

At once, the women assembled behind her, servants and ladies alike, broke into polite applause.

‘Will the gents be fixed like that forever?’ Nate asked. He looked a little queasy.

‘Oh no,’ came the reply. ‘Only for as long as it amuses me. Then I shall set them free – save for one, who I will keep for my collection of pets. I have not yet decided who it shall be. Lord Charnly would make a splendid bull, with that lowered black brow of his. But then I am also tempted by the idea of doleful Mr Ladlaw as a raven. I’m sure his cawing would be highly poetical.’

‘But – but what crime has Mr Ladlaw committed?’ Pattern asked.

‘Like the others, a crime against womankind. Perhaps Miss Smith would care to enlighten you.’

‘Miss Smith? But she is in love with him!’

Miss Smith snorted. ‘Not in a hundred years. Not in a hundred thousand.’

Pattern felt quite confounded. Foolish too. How could she have got this so wrong?

‘We were friends,’ Miss Smith conceded. ‘I was a governess for his younger brothers and sisters, you see. I wanted to write, to make an independent life for myself, and he encouraged me. Such wonderful letters he sent me, full of praise and promises! He told me I would have a far better chance of publication if he took my writing to his editor friends and presented it as being the work of a gentleman. I believed him. I trusted him. First with the poetry, but then with my novel – even though I particularly wanted it to be published under my own name.’

You wrote the Towers of Whatsit?’ Nate was saucer-eyed. ‘I’d never have guessed it was by a lady, it were that good.’

‘And there we have it,’ said Miss Smith sharply. ‘The ignorant prejudice of men laid bare.’ She sighed. ‘Anyhow, Mr Ladlaw said the publisher told him my book would do much less well if people believed it to be by a lady novelist. We should wait, and only reveal its true author once it was a success. So I waited, and I waited, and watched as my book became a minor sensation. Yet my authorship was never revealed. Instead, Mr Ladlaw took all the money, and all the acclaim, and told anyone who heard my claims that I was soft in the head, and madly in love with him to boot. I lost my position as a governess, and was thrown on the charity of my cousins Frederick and Honoria Blunt. They do not like me, and treat me like a servant – but it is them or the workhouse, so what else can I do?’

‘Precisely!’ said Lady Hawk. ‘Such gross injustice must not be allowed to stand.’

‘That may be so,’ said Miss Smith with spirit, ‘but I do not see why it should be up to you to correct it. I am the injured party after all.’

‘Yes, and you are poor and powerless. I am not. I have lived for a great many years, and over time all sorts of men have washed up on this island, making great claims and promises, all of which have proved false. What a tedious mess men have made of running the world! Why should I not amuse myself by redressing the balance, just a little? Wouldn’t you agree, ladies?’

The assembled women clapped their hands with vigorous enthusiasm.

‘Quite right,’ murmured Miss Lane.

‘So true,’ said the Dowager Duchess.

‘Very instructive,’ said Mrs Robinson.

‘Hear, hear,’ said Jane.

Pattern frowned. It seemed to her that Lady Hawk’s claims to advance the female cause were somewhat undermined by magicking a group of women into agreeing with her every word.

Judging by Miss Smith’s expression, she thought the same. ‘When all’s said and done,’ the novelist said, ‘I am inclined to think that Mr Ladlaw has suffered enough.’

‘How do we know any of them have?’ Lady Hawk indicated the menagerie before her. ‘Dumb animals can hardly tell us how their morals and manners have improved.’

‘Then turn one of them back so he can speak for himself,’ said Pattern, with new boldness. ‘Let us hear from one of your former victims. Let us hear from Mr Henry Whitby.’

‘Who?’ asked Lady Hawk, wrinkling her brow. Nate and Miss Smith also looked at Pattern in confusion. (Mr Ladlaw was far too busy wringing his hands to do anything much.)

‘Henry Whitby. He was at your island party in Italy, but never came home. He is the reason I joined your household. I am looking for him on behalf of his guardian, who is exceedingly upset at his loss.’ Pattern hardly knew where the authority in her voice came from. She was feeling very small and shaky inside. ‘A rather plump young gentleman . . . with a habit of losing at cards?’

‘Ah yes, I remember now. I believe he defrauded an elderly spinster out of her life savings, all so he could pay a gambling debt. He was in every way lazy, greedy and deceitful.’

‘But capable of change, I am sure. Won’t you please restore him to his human form so he can plead his case and prove how well he has learned his lesson?’

‘Hmm. After a certain amount of time spent living as animals, I am afraid my guests are apt to forget their human selves. As such, there is no way of turning them back. But I suppose Mr Whitby was my most recent acquisition, so it may not be too late . . . I tell you what, little Penelope – if you can find Mr Whitby, you can have him. But you will have only one chance to choose. If you get it wrong, then Mr Whitby must stay as he is.’

‘Thank you, milady.’

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Pattern smoothed down her skirts and surveyed the assembled birds and beasts, thoughts racing. She concentrated on keeping her breathing slow and steady, so to concentrate better. She had everything to play for and much to prove.

Lazy . . . greedy . . . deceitful.

Lady Hawk assigned animal identities according to both character and looks, if her musings on Lord Charnly as a bull and Mr Ladlaw as a raven were a guide.

Pattern walked among the animals. Such an abundance of furs and scales and feathers! She had toured London’s zoological gardens not long before joining Lady Hawk’s household, but this was an entirely different experience, for the creatures were so silent and still that they might as well have been stuffed and sitting in glass cases in a museum.

‘Please, might I have a closer look at the sloth?’

Lady Hawk clicked her fingers, and the sloth ambled forward. It was shaggy and grey with squinty black eyes.

‘Now the pig with the spots.’

Another click of the fingers and the black-and-white-patched pig trotted to join the sloth. Pattern remembered batting away its snout in the dining room.

‘Finally, the snake – not the one who lives by the snowdrops, but that one there. The green one, please.’

She surveyed her three candidates: lazy sloth, greedy pig, deceitful snake.

What did she know about Henry Whitby? That he was small and stout, with bulging eyes. That he lost money on gambling, and lied about it. That he drank too much. That his favourite food was oysters . . .

‘I don’t suppose it would be possible,’ she asked, ‘to procure some oysters?’

It was. A wave of Lady Hawk’s hand, and Mr Grey produced another silver platter, this time with a dish of oysters on it. Pattern put the oysters down on the grass. The sloth and the snake regarded them blankly. But the pig eagerly trotted forward and began slurping them up from their shells.

‘That one,’ Pattern said, and she could not quite keep the tremble from her voice. ‘That is Henry Whitby.’