Wyrde and Wayward

Chapter One The Scions of the House of Werth are all born normal. It is what happens afterwards that sets them apart from the rest of England. Three years afterwards, to be precise. No sooner had Augusta Honoria Werth set foot over the threshold of Werth Towers than her name was heard to resound about those ancient brick walls, uttered in the powerfully resonant tones of her Aunt Wheldrake. The syllables rolled through the great, craggy pile like controlled claps of thunder, and set the floor a-shake. ‘Where,’ thundered she, ‘is Augusta?’ The importuned lady in question paused to shake the rain from her shawl, a brisk summer shower having caught her unawares as she crossed the park. Werths she saw aplenty, as she swept her calm gaze over the darkly majestic great hall: Aunt Margaret crossing from one side to the other, a pile of linens in her hands; Cousin Theodore wisely disappearing into the library; and Mrs. Thannibour, her elder sister Nell, coming towards her, wielding an ugly but dry shawl with intent. She did not, however, see Aunt Wheldrake. ‘Gussie, how late you are,’ hissed Nell, plucking her sister’s delicate, rose-coloured shawl from about her shoulders, and replacing it with the sad, slate-grey substitute. The wool prickled Gussie’s bare arms, and scratched woefully, but Nell was deaf to all protests, instead ushering her resolutely towards the enormous, polished oak staircase dominating the central hall. ‘Go, please,’ said Nell. ‘Pacify her, or we shall not have a moment’s peace.’ ‘I do not know what peace is likely to be found on Lizzie’s third birthday,’ Gussie observed, but Nell was not listening, already hastening away. Squaring her shoulders, Gussie faced the staircase with resolution, and climbed. ‘I am here, Aunt,’ she called, just as the thunder began, again, to roll. Aunt Wheldrake’s face, crowned with a gauzy lace cap, appeared over the banister. ‘How late you are!’ she said, echoing Nell. ‘I am very sorry, Aunt, I was obliged to—’ ‘Never mind that now,’ said she, descending with a whoosh, and taking a firm grip upon her niece’s elbow. ‘We are but five minutes from the Great Event, so you see you are just in time, and not a moment is to be lost.’ Wisps of roiling cloud swirled about her feet, and then about Gussie’s, who lurched unsteadily as she rose into the air. Swiftly was she borne away, sailing through the hall, the library and out into the gardens, where the rain continued, disobligingly, to fall. ‘Theodore!’ thundered Aunt Wheldrake as they soared past. ‘Er,’ he was heard to say, followed by the distant snap of a book hastily closed. ‘Yes! Coming.’ Aunt Wheldrake cast one dark look up at the glowering clouds, and the pitter-patter of rain slowed. ‘Insupportable,’ she declared. To the best of Gussie’s knowledge, her aunt’s stormy powers did not extend so far as to hold dictates over the rain; the coincidence of timing, however, was impressive. She reminded herself not to be late to any more of Aunt Wheldrake’s parties. On a pretty stretch of emerald lawn, just beyond the borders of Lady Werth’s lavender shrubbery, a white pavilion beckoned. Lady Werth herself sat in a cane chair beneath its domed interior, her husband at her elbow, and all the disparate scions of the Werth family line gathered around her. All, that is, save Gussie, and the shabby figure of Cousin Theo marching along in her wake. ‘Aunt Werth,’ said Gussie, stepping smoothly from her cloud, and bent to kiss Lady Werth. She was rewarded with a huge smile. ‘Ah, Gussie, I knew you would not fail us. What do you think, then, of the birthday girl? Lucretia swears she shall be a mermaid, and indeed she can swim astonishingly well. Cannot you, Lizzie? But for my part I think it a great deal more likely that she shall surprise us all, and turn out a siren, or perhaps a fire-weaver.’ Privately, Gussie knew that Aunt Georgie had the right of it, for the Wyrde, when it came, rarely deigned to manifest in any manner of pattern. Mere mortal expectations were as nothing to it; it always did just as it pleased, and as such made a fitting curse for the wayward Werths. The hopes of Lizzie’s mama must, however, be respected, so Gussie smiled at Aunt Wheldrake and agreed that Lizzie would make a perfect little mermaid. ‘What with her golden hair,’ said the proud mama, ‘and would she not look well all wreathed about in sea-jewels?’ ‘Very well indeed,’ agreed Augusta, happy in her aunt’s restored temper. The members of the House being now collected, in an orderly fashion, where the Great Event was to take place, her thunders had departed, together with her mists, and she was able to take her place beside her husband with smiling alacrity. A chair had been placed upon Lizzie’s right hand, undoubtedly designed for Gussie. Someone — Nell, most likely — had piled it high with fat, silken cushions. Being herself of ample figure, she treated her thin younger sister as though Gussie might break in half were she not properly wrapped up, cushioned and cosseted. But such overbearing care had its advantages, and Gussie sank gratefully into the cushions’ pillowy embrace as she turned her attention to Lizzie. The child sat on the Wyrding Chair, so called because the throne-like structure had been wheeled out for every Third Birthday in living memory. Nothing about the chair mattered, of course. It was not, itself, Wyrded, nor could it have any impact upon the proceedings. But being oversized, gilded and ornately carved, it offered a majesty and a grandeur to these Great Events (as Aunt Wheldrake would have it) that would otherwise be lacking. Lord Werth had his pocket-watch in hand. ‘And it is time,’ he announced, meaning exactly three years, to the minute, since the occasion of Elizabeth Louisa Wheldrake’s birth. A hush fell. Every gathered Werth drew in a breath, and held it, all eyes fastened upon the tiny child shifting restlessly upon her enormous throne. Gussie felt a moment’s pity for the little girl. Long-awaited as her birth had been, she had appeared at last, sixteen years after Lucretia Werth’s marriage to William Wheldrake, preceded by only one sibling, who had not survived. Small wonder, then, the weight of expectation that rested upon her; all her parents’ hopes must be satisfied in this one little child, for only a miracle would ever bless them with another. And Aunt Wheldrake had set her heart upon the nature of her daughter’s Wyrding. She would be a mermaid in water, and a girl upon land. She would gain in power, and lose nothing, and of course she would be pretty. Gussie cast up a silent wish of her own, that her poor aunt would not be too disappointed with whatever happened instead. And that she would contrive to control her temper, if she was. Not that anything was happening at all, yet. Those collective, indrawn breaths were released at length, when poor Lizzie sat unchanged under her family’s scrutiny, growing anxious and restless but in no way uncanny. Then a faint, dry rustling came, a whispering hiss, and Aunt Wheldrake clapped her hands together in delight. ‘Oh, it is scales!’ said she. ‘It is her mermaid’s tail! Quick, Lizzie, we must get you into the water at once.’ And she rose, and bustled forward, ready to scoop up the child and carry her straight to the winding beck that ran, half asleep, through the grounds. ‘Stay, aunt,’ said Gussie, holding up a warning hand. ‘I do not quite think—’ Further words were unnecessary, for a tiny storm caught up the ringlets of Lizzie’s golden hair, and whipped it all into a tangle. It was no storm of her mother’s, for Aunt Wheldrake’s face registered dumb astonishment, and then bleak dismay — for the golden mass shifted, in the blink of an eye, into a nest of slim, gold-gilded snakes. At her approach, all those tiny heads turned as one, and uttered a sibilant hiss in chorus. Aunt Wheldrake came to an abrupt stop, but too late, for one eager little monster lashed out with its ivory fangs, and sank them with alacrity into her wrist. With a scream, Aunt Wheldrake retired, defeated, from the lists. The assembled Werths waited to see whether Lizzie’s snakes would prove venomous, to be indicated by the sudden and fatal collapse of Aunt Wheldrake. This undesirable development did not come to pass. Aunt Wheldrake clutched at her injury — but minor, to Gussie’s eye, though she keened and bristled as though it had come near to mortal — and gabbled something perhaps only her husband could understand. ‘Well,’ said Lady Werth into the ensuing silence. ‘And we have not had a gorgon among us since Werth’s Great-Aunt Maud. I shall fetch her diaries for you, Lucretia. I am sure they contain a great deal of practical advice upon the management of her hair, and other troubles.’ What her ladyship meant by “other troubles” presumably included a tendency to turn living beings into exquisite stone statues; an ability few gentlemen could consider desirable in a wife. Already, one or two Werths were drawing away from poor Lizzie, as though she might leave nothing of the party behind her but a collection of statuary. Which, of course, she might. Aunt Wheldrake should consider herself fortunate only to have been bitten, Gussie thought, though there was no sign in her aunt’s face of any consciousness of a narrow escape. At length, the disappointed mama drew herself up. ‘Mr. Wheldrake,’ she said to her husband. ‘If you will be so good as to take Lizzie? I believe I will begin upon those diaries at once, sister.’ Lady Werth gave a gracious inclination of her head, and dispatched a hovering footman with instructions to unearth these hitherto forgotten manuscripts. The defeated parents followed, bearing the birthday girl between them, and a silence fell. At length, Lady Werth sighed. ‘And I wish she had been a mermaid, for her mother’s sake. But for her own, I do not think it at all a bad thing. A gorgon! She will be the quite the terror of society, in fifteen years’ time. I look forward to her effect upon the patronesses of Almack’s, should the wretched creatures still be in the ascendancy. Only let them tell her she is denied entry to their abominable establishment.’ Had she been a man, of course, she might wreak havoc rather further afield, for tales of a long-ago Phineas Werth’s services to king and country were legendary at the Towers. He was said to have turned a whole platoon of advancing cavalry to stone, with a single flick of his riotous locks. And he was insufferable about it, too. There was no talking to him at all. As a lady, Lizzie’s influence might extend no farther than the elite social establishments of London, but Gussie amused herself very much in picturing the results. There were reasons, perhaps, why the Werths were not always entirely popular abroad.