“One cannot blame them,” Selim replied. “But it would be hard on Missy Sarah to be the one to suffer at the hands of their need.”
The sound that emerged from Isabelle’s throat was of a laugh with no humor in it. “And there is not one in a thousand of them who will consider that asking a very young child to perform mediumistic work is both cruel and uncaring. Each of them is so enwrapped in her grief—for it is predominantly women who flock to mediums—that nothing else is of consequence.”
“They would be better off seeking solace in the arms of their religion, and leave the child out of it.” Selim’s tone was grim.
“Well, they will be leaving the child out of it, because we are her guardians, and I have no intention of allowing her to do any such thing.” Isabelle’s tone was just as grim as Selim’s. “Ah! Here is Sahib with our cab!”
The short journey back was conducted mostly in silence. It was Isabelle who finally broke it. “I know I thanked you all before—but now I have to thank you again, with the full knowledge of what foolishly rushing in to this situation could have brought me to.” In fact, she felt a bit shaken and rather humbled at this point. It was painfully clear that at the least, she, the girls, and Katherine could have been harmed, and at worst—
“And who was it, Mem’sab, that kept me from believing I could brave the temple of Kalima alone?” asked Agansing.
“Or insisted that if I would go to meet that fakir, it would be while I was under the eye of my friends?” said Selim.
“Or told me to go direct to Bhurka Singh with my suspicions instead of allowing them to fester,” added Karamjit, his teeth gleaming in a white smile in the shadows of the cab.
“Or kept me from rushing into a hundred foolish ventures,” Frederick concluded, with his arms around her. “This is what it means to be human, as I quite recall you saying the last time I came home with a broken head. You succeed, you become a trifle overconfident, and at that point it is the duty of your friends to haul you back and point out the edge of the cliff at your feet.”
“Well, nevertheless,” she said, feeling a little better and a trifle less stupid. “Thank you.”
“Nevertheless,” said Frederick, with a squeeze, “You are welcome. Provided you continue to do me the same good turn, my love.”
And somehow, that made her feel very much better indeed.
4
NAN sat on the foot of Sarah’s bed, with her feet curled up under her flannel nightgown to keep them warm. Sarah Jane’s parrot Grey lay flat on Sarah’s chest, eyes closed, cuddling like a kitten. Warm light from an oil lamp mounted on the wall beside the bed poured over all of them. It wasn’t a very big room, just room for Nan’s bed and Sarah Jane’s, a perch with cups screwed to it for food and water and a selection of toys hanging from it for Grey, and a wardrobe and chests for their clothes and things. If the wallpaper was old and faded, and the rugs on the floor threadbare, it was still a thousand times better than any place that Nan had ever lived in—and as for Sarah, well, she was used to a mission and hospital in the middle of the jungle, and their little room was just as foreign to her as it was to Nan, though in entirely different ways.
While only little Sarah had a pet from “home,” there were plenty of pets acquired here in England for the other children. To make sure that the children never forgot those who had sent them here, other reminders of absent parents were encouraged here, and there was a supply of paper, ink, and penny stamps in each room. Most schools encouraged letters—so long as they were written in class where the teacher could ostensibly check for spelling, grammar, and penmanship, but in reality making sure nothing uncomplimentary about the school or the teachers went out through the mails. There was a great deal of laughter in the Harton School, and the lessons learned were all the surer for it.
And that was the least of the eccentricities here, in a school where not all of the lessons were about what could be seen with the ordinary eye.
Nan was alone in not wanting reminders of her family; she had no idea who her father was, and her mother had finally descended (last Nan had heard) to the lowest rung on the social ladder her type could reach, that of a street whore in Whitechapel. She roamed the streets now with everything she owned on her back, without even a garret or cellar room, or even an under-stairs cubbyhole to call her own, satisfying first her craving for drink, before looking for the extra penny for a bed or a meal. She would probably die soon, of bad gin, of cold and exposure, of disease, or of everything at once as her chronically-damaged body gave out. Nan had neither time nor pity for her. After all, it had been her gran that had mostly raised her, not her mam, who’d only been interested in the money Nan brought in by begging.
Sarah had a very special sort of bond with Grey—who Sarah insisted was a great deal more than “just” a parrot. Nan was in wholehearted agreement with that estimation at this point—after all, it was no more difficult to believe in than to believe that wolves could adopt a mancub, and Nan was convinced of the truth of Mr.Kipling’s stories.
Sarah had a new set of lessons, now that they had learned she could on occasion, talk with, and see, the dead. This could be a very dangerous ability, so Mem’sab had told Nan, who had appointed herself as Sarah’s protector.
Well, if Nan and Grey had anything to say about the matter, danger would have to pass through them to reach Sarah.
“Nan tickle,” Grey demanded in her funny little voice, eyes still closed; Sarah was using both hands to support the bird on her chest, which left no hands free to give Grey the scratch she wanted.
Nan obliged by crawling up to the head of the bed, settling in beside her friend and scratching the back of Grey’s neck. It was a very gentle scratch—indeed, more like the “tickle” Grey had asked for than the kind of vigorous scratching one would give a dog or a tough London cat—for Nan had known instinctively from the moment that Grey permitted Nan to touch her that a bird’s skin is a very delicate thing. Of all of the people in the school, only Nan, Mem’sab, Sahib himself, and Agansing were permitted by Grey to do more than take her on a hand. Sarah, of course, could do anything she liked with the bird.
“Wish’t Oi had a friend loike you, Grey,” Nan told the bird wistfully, the remnants of her Cockney accent still clinging to her speech despite hours and hours of lessons. The parrot opened one yellow eye and gave her a long and unreadable look.
“Kitty?” Grey suggested, but Nan shook her head.
“Not a moggy,” she replied. “Mind, Oi loike moggies, but—Oi dunno, a moggy don’t seem roight. Not clever ‘nuff.”
Sarah laughed. “Then you must not be a witch after all,” she teased. “A witch’s familiar is always a cat, or a toad—”
Nan made a face. “Don’ want no toads!” she objected. “So Oi guess Oi ain’t no witch, no matter what that Tommy Carpenter says!”
Tommy, a recent addition to the school, had somehow made up his mind that she, Sarah, and Mem’sab were all witches. He didn’t mean it in a derogatory sense; in fact, he gave them all the utmost respect. It had something to do with things his own ayah back in India had taught him. Nan had to wonder, given whom he’d singled out for that particular accolade, if he wouldn’t be getting private lessons of his own with Mem’sab before too long. There was something just a little too knowing about the way Tommy looked at some people.
“But Oi still wisht Oi ‘ad—had—a bird friend loike Grey.” And she sighed again. Grey reached around with her beak and gently took one of Nan’s fingers in it; Grey’s equivalent, so Nan had learned, of a hug. “Well,” she said, when Grey had let go, “Mebbe someday. Lots’ve parrots comes in with sailors.”