Independent by Means of Magic

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A month later, Victoria sat waiting for her father to make his appearance for dinner. Her mother sat across from her at the long, mostly empty table set with the necessary silverware, embroidered napkins, and required crystal glassware for fifteen. Several ornate vases made of engraved silver or fine painted china held sweet-scented pink and red and yellow flowers from the greenhouse, presented for guests who wouldn’t be in attendance.

Each and every piece would be inspected daily, cleaned if necessary, and rearranged. None of it would be removed to the expertly crafted heavy oak cabinets that lined the walls, all far too cumbersome to have made the trip to the colonies before Victoria was born.

After years of waiting in this echoing room, abandoned and unused, they now waited, perpetually missing much of their contents for no good reason.

Victoria had never understood why this peculiar pointless ritual of keeping the table set for no one brought her mother comfort, since she’d never insisted on such nonsense before returning to London.

No more than she understood her mother’s need to regale her with a vivid, detailed description of her day.

The shopping she’d done with the cook that morning, the intricate preparations for the meal they’d be enjoying soon, the lovely things she’d bought but hadn’t had a chance to display yet, even the correspondence she’d spent her entire afternoon catching up.

Judging by the elaborate loops and curls of her mother’s dark blonde hair, piled high all over the top of her head, she’d insisted on having it restyled after wandering the markets wearing the expected broad hat for modesty. Same with the close-fitting sunshine yellow gown covered with sky blue accents. Even with barely-puffed sleeves covering her shoulder and halfway down her arm rather than too-youthful bare skin, she would have never been out shopping in such an outfit.

Victoria half-listened to the enthusiastic retelling, nodding, thinking all over again that she’d never manage the life her mother led. No matter how many times it was carefully described to her.

Certainly not if it involved Wilfred Abernathy and carrying his vile children one after the other as long as she lived.

The thought of the procedure involved in making those children, with him at least, twisted her entire body into knots. She didn’t wonder why his first wife hadn’t survived long.

In conscious contrast to her mother, Victoria wore another pleasantly modern tea gown, the same brilliant blue one she’d put on that morning. The fragile fabric didn’t suit her nearly as well as the sturdy cotton she’d lived in before they left the Caribbean, when she never would have considered anything as restrictive as even the small corset she knew her mother wore. But she cherished her ability to breathe freely and move as much as possible within the confines of English society.

“There you are, dear,” her mother said, stopping her ceaseless monologue and brightening immediately. Victoria’s father strode into the dining room, cheeks flushed and thick hair a mess. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

“I don’t believe it’s suitable dinner conversation,” he said, sitting down and blotting his face with a spotless white cloth napkin. He’d loosened his knotted ascot tie and shed his jacket, leaving only a dark gray vest over his white shirt. “Time enough for unpleasant things later. How are my two favorite girls today?”

While her mother launched into a replay of her activities, adjusted for manly interests, Victoria took care to hide her excitement. The timing was just about right if things had gone according to her plan, and she couldn’t imagine why they wouldn’t have.

She’d never failed, not when she followed Jaji’s teaching and used her own considerable intelligence and planning.

She pretended interest again, managing not to grit her teeth in frustration at having to wait. At last, after five courses and coffee with pudding, her father folded his napkin and leaned back in his chair.

“After dinner may be no better than before,” he said, his voice low and somber. “There may be no good time for such things. I’m afraid I have terrible news, Victoria. It’s about your wedding.”

Her mother’s hand flew to her heart, and she stared at her daughter with wide eyes. Victoria took a deep, slow breath, settling her mind and nerves for her performance.

“What’s happened, Father? I do hope Wilfred is well.”

“My dear, that word can have many meanings,” he said, his mouth and eyebrows deepening into a scowl that lifted Victoria’s heart. “He is well finished with polite society. That means he’s well finished with any daughter of mine.”

“Is there no hope?” her mother said, tears standing in her eyes. “No salvation?”

“None.” Her father nodded once, then pushed his chair back and stood. End of conversation, and no more questions asked or answered. “An inspector will likely be round to ask whether we have anything to contribute to the investigation. I told him we had no secrets of Mr. Abernathy’s or our own to keep. I am sorry, Victoria. Other suitable arrangements will be made, I can assure you of that.”

“Yes, Father,” Victoria said, her voice and face reflecting her mother’s heartbreak perfectly. “I will speak to the inspector if it will help. I trust it will all work out for the best in the end.”

Victoria stood, holding her napkin to her face, and walked quickly out of the room. Before she turned the corner to the dark wooden staircase, she heard her father trying to comfort her sobbing mother.

“Shouldn’t have let him barter me off to the highest bidder, Mother,” she said under her breath. “And you should never have let him bring us back to this awful place.”

She climbed the stairs, feet silent on flowery carpet trapped under brass bars. Her face and arms started to sweat before she made it halfway up the second flight of stairs, but Victoria took comfort in the warmth, so rare throughout most of the year.

Her mind and body had grown and grown up for weather far away from here, in the land of her birth. She had no wish to ever adapt to this dank island.

Victoria had no reason to suspect anyone had been in her private chamber, but she inspected the space out of habit. The small flower vase on a shelf outside the door held a touch of Jaji’s magic along with that of her beloved Caribbean island home of Enceleas. The huge pink dahlia seemed like a perfect touch to reflect her elation. Just inside the room, several small containers on shelves close to the window not blocked by the false wall held the same protective charms.

Just as when Jaji still lived in this room, anyone passing by would feel profoundly disinterested. That was a potion and spell Victoria could set in her sleep.

She often wondered if she did inadvertently send out magic in her unconscious state. Perhaps her problems with Wilfred Abernathy could have been solved while she slumbered by his side.

Cheered by that prospect, even at such a high cost of intimacy with a man she found repulsive, she moved a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf aside. The perfectly balanced bearings helped, as did the hollowed-out books.

With her latest crisis averted, Victoria needed to take a long-overdue inventory. Having her supplies run low with her father scheming anew on her pre-meditated marital bliss would not do. She retrieved a pad of paper from a high shelf, sat at her desk, and twisted her hair into a loose bun. If she couldn’t cut the horrid mop, she could at least keep it off of her neck when she was alone.

The most important thing, Jaji’s ashes, was the one item she didn’t have to weigh or measure. Such a treasure was constantly in Victoria’s mind, and every tiny pinch she used mentally recorded. She noted the use for those last two clockwork toys in her careful, neat handwriting.

For less potent spells, she could use the sacred soil of the ancestors Jaji had brought with her on that long and terrible voyage. For now, she had enough for years of more potent work should she need it.

Victoria smiled, remembering her wonder as her beloved nanny told her what was in those jars, years ago when she was a far happier child still living on her father’s vast and beautiful plantation.

She hadn’t been able to get her mind around all those people, all those bones.

She might never have learned what all she could get her mind around if her father hadn’t forced all of them to leave and return here.

She counted the various toys on her shelves, making sure she didn’t have too many of the same kind. Victoria doubted anyone on this whole blasted island would understand what to even look for, but arousing suspicion by being careless was a risk she would not take.

She’d learned that by watching her father in his business and personal dealings, and even more as Jaji started Victoria’s true education once they were settled in this drafty old house.

Victoria at first thought her nanny—grey-haired and slow-moving after being forced away from her own home and family—was only pretending when she told the young girl about the magic and spells she’d brought with her from Enceleas. She understood now better than she’d ever wanted to about having no say over her own life.

If Jaji was powerless to stop it when Mr. Haversham decreed she was to live in this world so far away from her home, she’d damn sure control the bits that she could. And she’d damn sure teach Victoria to do the same.

Victoria carefully arranged the tiny tools of her secretive trade, making sure every one was in good repair. Both she and Jaji learned from Mrs. Haversham’s example of how powerless and weak women could be in the great advanced and enlightened and ever-so-superior English society.

Her mother had wept and begged to stay in the Caribbean, to raise their daughter and eventually grandchildren in the open, healthy air of the Enceleas plantation, not in the smog and congestion of London. Victoria hadn’t inherited her mother’s weak lungs and various breathing problems, but Mrs. Haversham still seemed to live in terror that she would.

Her own health was far more sturdy and vibrant in the warmer, cleaner air, and she was certain her daughter’s would be as well.

A particularly emotional quarrel Victoria still regretted overhearing concerned the fact that Mrs. Haversham had only been able to endure carrying one precious child to term, and that only far from the damp, chilly environs of London. Surely leaving the land of that miracle behind would prove dangerous to them all.

Mr. Haversham would have none of it, and by the end he no longer made any attempt to soften the blow with kind and gentle words, or fanciful promises of their future lives in the north.

His business interests required his return to England. He required his family to return with him.

Therefore they would, and the matter was settled.

He’d shown no more compassion for far more measured requests and later quiet pleading from Victoria’s Jaji and her large, extended family. Mrs. Haversham’s health deteriorated noticeably as the date for their return grew ever nearer. She was obviously in no condition to raise a wild young girl and train her in the ways of polite society on her own.

The nanny’s services were required. Therefore she would leave her home so she could continue to perform them.

Victoria’s hands paused in her inventory and note taking, her eyes on the curved form of the jar of ashes worth more to her than all the treasure in all the world.

She caught a tear before it could fall and mar her neat handwriting, then touched the glistening drop to the cork stopper. The moisture disappeared. Absorbed and mingled with the magic within.

Thus connected to her beloved nanny—the true parent to the young woman she’d become—Victoria continued with plans for a future of her own making.