Garth Nix - Newt’s Emerald

Charles opened his mouth to answer, but the General smoothly interrupted before he could begin.

“This isn’t the time for you to making commentaries on young ladies, Charles. I suggest you go and tell Westingham to bring de Vienne’s carriage around, and you can accompany him to Grosvenor Square and question this Agatha. No time like the present, I always say.”

“But it’s almost midnight,” protested Truthful. “Surely a commotion at this hour . . .”

“Best time,” interrupted Harnett. “She’ll not be expecting it. You can ask Lady Truthful to call her for some reason, and we’ll be waiting to question her. Simple, really.”

“But Lady Truthful will be in bed. She retired early with a sick headache.”

“I’m sure she won’t object if it means we recover the Emerald,” interrupted Harnett again. He stood up and rubbed his hands together, with every sign of someone who is about to enjoy a bracing adventure. “I’ll go and order the coach, de Vienne. I’ll be out the front in a few minutes. General, your servant, sir.”

Then he was gone, almost running out the door. Truthful blinked at where he’d been standing a moment before, then looked back at the General. He winked at her, and chuckled, then burst out into outright laughter, before quieting and wiping his eyes with a red silk handkerchief.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said weakly. “I should not let humour overcome me for this is really quite a serious matter. The Emerald is a very powerful talisman, and in the wrong hands . . . but fancy Charles not realising who you are! He told me, ‘There’s something dashed peculiar about that Frenchman.’ Ha ha!”

He started chuckling again, but subsided as Truthful said primly, “I don’t like deceiving people. I had no choice.”

“No, no. You’re doing very well,” replied the General seriously. “I admire your pluck, young lady, not to mention your great-aunt’s skill with illusion. Fixed in that moustache, ain’t it? And Charles isn’t all he says he is either, so don’t let that distress you. I suppose he never had the benefit of knowing your mother, so it’s no great surprise that he thinks you are merely an effeminate Frenchman.”

“You knew my mother?” asked Truthful, completely distracted. She hardly ever met anyone who had known her mother, and since it upset her father to speak of his dead wife, she had little opportunity to hear anything of that dimly remembered figure. “Oh, I see. I am supposed to resemble her.”

“Resemble her!” said the General. “Alike as two peas in a pod, and I can see it even when through that glamour and those clothes. But there’s few folk around who would remember Venetia when she was twenty. She married your father soon after that, and rarely came to London. She never much cared for society, you know. Now, you’d best go and meet Charles and capture your thieving maid. Frankly, I’m surprised she’s still there, even if staying would allay suspicion. Come and see me as yourself, when it’s safely done, my dear — and good luck.”

Truthful nodded, clasped her hand in the General’s briefly in unspoken thanks, and leapt up. The sooner she could confront Agatha, the sooner she could recover the Emerald — and cease her impersonation, which was beginning to embarrass her, particularly hearing comments about herself from Harnett.

Major Harnett and Truthful had little to say during the short coach ride to Grosvenor Square, though the Major did ask her a few questions about the layout of the house, whether the servant’s quarters had windows and the proximity of Agatha’s room to the kitchen door. Truthful answered vaguely and with some shame, remembering General Leye’s words about ignoring servants, for she couldn’t answer, not having ventured into those regions. She was also distracted by trying to work out how to resume her identity as Lady Truthful, summon Agatha, and then reappear as the Chevalier de Vienne.

Unfortunately, no plan of action occurred to her, and she began to fidget slightly, a symptom of a nervous sort of fear, akin to being found out when she had been naughty as a child. However, as the coach pulled up in front of the house, and Truthful looked out, she had the feeling of a reprieve. The whole house was lit up, as if for a party (but no party had been planned) and she could see shadows moving about both the upper and lower rooms. Obviously, something had happened in her absence, for the entire household was awake.

Awake and in turmoil, as they discovered when they entered the hall. Dworkin, the butler, was directing half-asleep servants to catalogue the silver; Lady Badgery’s secretary was disappearing into his study with a large tome that Truthful recognised as an inventory; and Lady Badgery herself was standing imperiously on the staircase, Parkins behind her. Truthful knew that she must be very upset, for though she was wearing her favourite fez she made no move to remove it or herself when she saw Harnett come in behind Truthful.

“Ah, cousin de Vienne,” cried Lady Badgery as she saw them enter. “And this is?”

“Major Harnett, at your service, milady,” said the Major, doffing his hat and bowing gracefully. “May I be of some assistance?”

Lady Badgery looked him up and down with regal consideration, and seemed to approve of what she saw. “You are obviously a man of action, sir, and perceiving action, wish to be a part of it. However, I have already sent a man for the Bow Street Runners, and I fear there is nothing else to be done.”

“But what has happened?” cried Truthful.

“Lady Truthful’s maid, Agatha,” pronounced Lady Badgery, “has drugged poor Eliza, and run off, probably with half the silver!”

Eventually, it was discovered that Agatha hadn’t taken anything other than her own clothes, and had left no evidence to suggest where she might have gone. Accordingly, several Bow Street Runners immediately lost interest and departed, grumbling about false alarms and rude awakenings. A runaway maid was not of the same importance as a thieving maid and a great quantity of stolen silver, and no one mentioned the Emerald.

By three o’clock that morning, the house had quietened again, leaving Harnett, the ostensible de Vienne and Lady Badgery having a quiet conference in the drawing room. Truthful quickly relayed the General’s opinion to Lady Badgery, who seemed unsurprised.

“Thought of her myself,” she said sourly. “But then I never liked her, so I had to take my natural dislike into account, and she was still with Lady Truthful, which lulled my suspicions. Surely she would have run away as soon as she arrived in London?”

“A clever ploy,” replied Harnett. “And a successful one. Perhaps she needed to make some arrangements . . . hmmm . . . we must find out more about this maid. Would it be possible for you to have Lady Truthful woken up, milady?”

Lady Badgery looked at him disapprovingly, as only a dowager could, though her fez somewhat lessened the effect. “At three in the morning? When she has been ill with a sick headache?”

“I think that we must move ahead as quickly as possible,” replied the Major. “Saving your presence, milady, I know that many sick headaches in ladies are simply nerves . . .”

He faltered to a stop as Lady Badgery’s brow furrowed still further into a definite frown, and a chilly silence spread through the room.

“Perhaps Lady Truthful should be woken up,” said Truthful hurriedly, ending with a long and only partly feigned yawn, half-smothered by a slow-moving hand. As she yawned, her gaze met her great-aunt’s, and she saw a twinkle appear to match that in her own eyes.

“Oh, very well,” snapped the Dowager. “But I absolutely insist that you go to bed, Chevalier! Why your mother would not be pleased to see you up so late, with your delicate constitution.”

Truthful looked out of the corner of her eye as Lady Badgery continued in this vein, and saw Major Harnett studiously looking at a portrait of the late Lord Badgery in a corner of the room. Harnett’s lip was slightly curled, and it was only too obvious he had no great opinion of the Chevalier de Vienne, just as he had early voiced no great opinion of Lady Truthful. Well, thought Truthful angrily, as she stifled another pathetic yawn, let him have what he expects.

“Yes, you are right, cousin,” she said to Lady Badgery. “I shall ask Parkins to wake Lady Truthful on my way up to bed. Good night, Major Harnett. Thank you for your assistance, and for the most interesting supper with General Leye.”

“Goodnight, Chevalier,” replied Harnett politely, unable to keep a slight note of condescension from his voice. “I trust that we shall soon unravel this whole sorry affair.”

“I expect so,” replied Truthful, smiling. “Good night, cousin.”

Forty minutes later, Harnett and Lady Badgery’s polite conversation about very little (which had succeeded an unsuccessful attempt by Lady Badgery to discern his ancestry) was interrupted by the querulous voice of a young woman.

“What is going on, Aunt? Parkins absolutely insisted I must get up, and I have a quite awful headache! What has Agatha done?”

This speech was rapidly followed by the speaker, a young woman carefully attired in a pale green morning half-dress with a white demi-train, grey slippers and a green and white bonnet. A few ringlets of her red hair escaped from under the latter, artful testimony to a rushed awakening.

“Allow me to present Major Harnett,” said Lady Badgery.

“How do you do?” said Truthful coldly. She let her eyes cross the Major disdainfully to slide with obvious intent to the clock on the mantlepiece, before adding, “I am unused to . . . gentlemen . . . callers at this hour of the morning.”