Carola Dunn Read online

  “‘Tis thanks to Lord Tarnholm we’re not left wi’out a roof over our heads, him and our Martha. And you swore to her you’d not tell a soul.”

  “Eh, then, your mam’s right, I did that, our Martha. I just forgot a bit, but your pa don’t break his promises. I won’t breathe a word till the banns be read.”

  “Course you won’t, Pa.” Martha kissed him and Mam, then spent the rest of the day helping with all the chores left undone because of her absence.

  As she worked, the question nagged at her brain: What was Lord Tarnholm’s faerie name?

  And what would the duke do if Lady Tarnholm refused to tell Martha, and she failed to guess, and she had to give up his son and heir to his cousin?

  Chapter VII

  On the third day, early in the morning, Martha set out for Lady Tarnholm’s lake.

  She knew roughly where to find it, though no one ever went there. It was tucked away in an isolated corner of the Tarnholm Manor park, surrounded by overgrown woods full of brambles and bracken.

  Though the sun shone in a cloudless pale blue sky, frosted leaves crunched underfoot as she made her way beneath the bare birches. She came to the end of the trees. Pushing between green laurels and leafless hazel bushes hung with swelling catkins, she came out on the bank of the lake. Only a bed of withered reeds separated her from the silent, enigmatic waters where dwelt the nixie.

  “Lady Tarnholm?” she called uncertainly, feeling foolish. “My lady? Are you there?”

  A plop startled her. A growing circle of ripples showed where a fish had jumped or a small water beast had dived. Martha hoped she would not have to follow it into the depths to speak to the baroness.

  At the far end of the lake, mallards were scavenging head down in the shallows while a moorhen bobbed along nearby. Watching them, Martha was taken by surprise when a voice quite close to her said, “Oh, it’s you, Martha dear.”

  “M-my lady,” she stammered, curtsying as she stared, her fears banished by fascination.

  The head emerging from the water looked much too young to be Lord Tarnholm’s mother. The nixie’s sleek green-gold hair was bound with a fillet of gold set with aquamarines that sparkled in the sun, no more brilliant than her slanted green eyes. Her smooth white shoulders were bare, the extreme décolleté of her watered-silk gown displaying a superb necklace of aquamarines and pearls.

  “Oh dear, I do feel overdressed,” she said with a friendly smile. “But why did you call me Lady... Oops, I’ve got in a muddle over time again. Never mind all that nonsense, then, we shall start afresh. Do tell me, pray, what I can do for you, young lady?”

  “You are Lady Tarnholm?” Martha enquired doubtfully. “Edward’s...his lordship’s mama?”

  “I am indeed. You think it odd of me, I daresay, to reside in the lake when there is a perfectly good house. I find it quite comfortable, I assure you, though it is a bit cramped after the Norfolk Broads—that’s where I met James, Edward’s father. I could go back to the Broads now. The queen confined me to the estate only for James’s lifetime. But as you can imagine, I stay on because I prefer to be near Edward.”

  “Surely not Queen Charlotte? No, of course not. Does your ladyship mean Queen Titania?”

  “That’s what she calls herself,” said Lady Tarnholm tartly. “Plain Mab it was till she was elected queen, back around 1550. And to make sure everyone realizes how superior she is now, she gives her courtiers perfectly beastly names like Peasepudding and Beetle.”

  “Shakespeare had it nearly right! Queen Titania confined you to the estate?” Martha asked, enthralled, her vital errand half forgotten.

  “She doesn’t approve of marriage between faerie and mortal, dear. Though carrying-on is all right, and she does plenty of it, let me tell you. However, she made a law against proper church weddings. She didn’t hear about James and me until too late to stop us, but that made her madder than a hornet, so at my poor dear Edward’s christening...”

  The woodland lake faded before Martha’s eyes.

  She found herself drifting through french doors, open to a flower-filled garden, into an elegant drawing room. Facing her, Lady Tarnholm reclined on a green brocade chaise longue. She was now demurely clad in blue cloud muslin like the reflection of a summer sky in the surface of her lake, but otherwise she was unchanged.

  She winked at Martha.

  Behind her, holding her hand, stood a tall, well-built young man, with an attractive, amiable face, his hair tied back in a queue in the fashion of the last century. Martha recognized him as the late James, Baron Tarnholm.

  His sister, the Duchess of Diss, young and pretty but with a familiar tentative air, perched on the edge of a chair. On her lap she held a bonny baby swathed in a long lace christening gown and cap. Her husband, but for his powdered hair the very image of his son Reginald, the present duke, stood beside her, looking bored. Two or three older people Martha did not know sat in a group.

  Over this gathering presided a youthful Swithin Stewart, Vicar of Willow Cross, in his clerical bands. As Martha watched, he picked up a silver chalice of holy water and took a step towards where the baby lay gurgling placidly in his godmother’s arms.

  A small, lithe mannikin dressed all in Lincoln green with a red cap darted in through the french doors, crying out, “Daphne, ‘ware the queen! ‘Ware Mab!”

  Lady Tarnholm sprang to her feet and ran towards her child. Half way there she stopped, rooted to the Wilton carpet, as a swarm of slender sprites rushed into the room in a smoky swirl of gossamer draperies.

  Their leader, tall and beautiful, crowned with a garland of rare orchids, laughed a silvery laugh with a spiteful undertone. “Aha, the baby in the duchess’s arms. This is a task for you, Peppercorn.”

  One of her followers moved forward, her grin revealing pointed teeth. She began to recite an incantation, and as she spoke, Martha saw to her horror the baby’s little face melting and changing.

  “‘I speak severely to my boy,

  “‘I beat him when he sneezes;

  “‘For he can thoroughly enjoy

  “‘The pepper when he...’

  Aa...aaa...atchooo.”

  Lady Tarnholm was vigorously shaking a tiny, lace-edged handkerchief at her, shouting “Off with her head! Off with her head!”

  Except for Martha, who was not really there, all the humans in the room started to sneeze helplessly, including the baby. His nose had turned into a pig’s snout, his tiny hands into pointed trotters.

  “Stickleback!” shouted the queen.

  Peppercorn retreated, still sneezing, but the rest of the faerie court were unaffected by Lady Tarnholm’s counter-spell. Another came forward, hands slowly waving like a fish’s fins. The baby’s eyes grew fishy and silvery scales covered his piggy ears.

  Perhaps Queen Mab had forgotten that her rebellious subject was a water sprite. Lady Tarnholm had considerable power over aquatic creatures, and as she fought back with words and gestures, her son’s features distorted again, changing back towards humanity.

  “Toadstool!” Mab shrieked.

  Again a water creature: In the battle, the baby’s skin shifted between pink and muddy greenish-brown, warts erupted and vanished, eyes protruded and subsided. But Toadstool had no real connection with toads. Lady Tarnholm was winning.

  “Foxglove!” The queen’s last follower.

  As rust-red fur sprouted on the baby’s head, the Reverend Stewart made a heroic effort to overcome his sneezes. Gabbling the words of the baptismal service, he sloshed the contents of the chalice over the infant and marked a cross on his forehead. The faeries fell silent.

  Though Edward James Frederick was undeniably human, he was no longer a bonny babe, but quite the plainest child Martha had ever seen. Tears rose to her eyes as she realized that the dreadful contortions his poor little body had suffered had marked him for life.

  Lord Tarnholm caught his wife as she slumped.

  Queen Mab laughed again, mocking. “Edward James Frederick? He ne
eds a faerie name, too,” she observed.

  “Stumblebumpkin,” suggested Stickleback sycophantically.

  “Fumblepipkin,” cried Foxglove.

  “Tumblewiltshin,” croaked Toadstool.

  “Piglet.” Peppercorn blew her nose on a cobweb and cast a malevolent glance at Lady Tarnholm.

  “He shall be Rumplestiltskin,” the queen decreed. “I wish you joy of him, Daphne dear.”

  As she led her followers out, the drawing room faded. Martha found herself again on the bank of the lake.

  “And I have had joy of him,” said Lady Tarnholm sadly, “along with the pain. Robin Goodfellow warned me just in time to prevent the worst. Edward was the sweetest child, always affectionate and considerate, always patient despite his difficulties, and he has not changed as a man. I could not ask for a better son.”

  Martha nodded agreement, but she said with a puzzled frown, “I have the oddest feeling, ma’am, that I once read a tale about all that has happened in the past week. Only in the story, the duke was a king, and the miller’s daughter had to spin straw to gold.”

  “I daresay, dear,” said the nixie. “These stories get badly garbled before anyone writes them down. What Lewis Carroll made of that pig and duchess business! Or is it the other way round? And Shakespeare—you mentioned Shakespeare—put in a bit at the end, where Oberon casts a protective spell:

  “‘And the blots of Nature’s hand

  “‘Shall not in their issue stand;

  “‘Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,

  “‘Nor mark prodigious, such as are

  “‘Despised in nativity,

  “‘Shall upon their children be.’

  “Only, of course, he was too late for Edward. Oberon was, that is. Or perhaps Shakespeare?”

  “But Shakespeare was hundreds of years ago! And how could I have read the story of the miller’s daughter when it only just happened?”

  Lady Tarnholm groaned. “Don’t ask. Time has me going round in circles. Why, when you arrived today—was it today?—I quite thought you had already...But I mustn’t say,” she added hastily. “It’s against all the rules. You will come and visit me again, won’t you?”

  “Oh yes, my lady, if I may. Thank you so very much for your help.”

  “Not at all, my dear. I am sure everything will turn out for the best.” Lady Tarnholm waved graciously, then performed a complicated twist and, with a shocking display of legs, she dived into the depths of the lake.

  Martha made her way back through the bushes. In the birch wood she found a rabbit path leading in the direction of the baron’s house. His mama had given her the answer to his riddle. Now she was free to marry the duke without dreading his anger over her promise.

  * * * *

  Lord Tarnholm’s manor was not at all like a palace, more like a larger version of the Stewarts’ comfortable vicarage, a solid, friendly-looking house of warm red brick. Martha walked around to the servants’ entrance, dreaming of the day when, as Duchess of Diss, she would roll up to the front door in her own comfortable carriage with the ducal crest on the door.

  The housekeeper, Mrs. Wellcome, was Pa’s sister’s husband’s cousin. “It’s nice to see you, Martha,” she said. “I don’t get down to the village often these days, mostly just christenings and funerals and weddings. You’ll be marrying young Tad one of these days, I daresay?”

  “That’d be telling, Mrs. Wellcome. Can I see his lordship?”

  “Brought a message from your father? I hope it’s nothing urgent, for his lordship’s not well in himself, if you know what I mean.”

  “He is ill?” Martha asked, alarmed.

  “Not exactly ill, no more than usual with his poor leg and his aches and pains, poor dear gentleman. No, he was up at the great house for three days,” Mrs. Wellcome explained, “and since he came home he’s been that blue-devilled. We’re all worried about him. Not but what he’ll see you, anyway, for he don’t ever turn anyone away.”

  Dismayed, Martha followed the housekeeper. Why was Lord Tarnholm unhappy? Was it so important to him to bring up his cousin’s son and heir—her son? Did he regret leaving her a way out? She hated to disappoint him, but she was frightened of the duke.

  She seemed to hear her own voice echoing in her ears, singing:

  “She’s robbed him of his horse and ring,

  “And left him to rage in the meadows green.”

  And Edward’s voice: “The ladies emerge victorious in all your favourite songs.”

  But songs were not real life, alas. In real life, a poor girl did not refuse a rich duke’s hand for the sake of her true love. In real life, she married him, Martha thought muddledly, as the miller’s daughter in the story had married the cruel king who threatened to cut off her head if she failed to spin straw into gold.

  Mrs. Wellcome opened a door and Martha recognized the room where Edward had been christened. The brocade chairs and sofas were covered with blue-striped satin now, and a fine fire blazed in the fireplace opposite the french windows.

  “It’s Martha Miller, my lord, wants a word with your lordship. Go on in,” Mrs. Wellcome urged as Martha hesitated on the threshold. “His lordship won’t bite.”

  Edward rose from a chair by the fire and limped towards her, smiling wryly. “Three days,” he said. “I take it you have discovered my name?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Gazing into his silvery eyes, she saw unhappiness, yearning, and an unselfish kindness that was glad for her sake that she had won.

  Something glimmered between them, a faint, insubstantial pattern, connecting them with a tracery as strong as steel—and as brittle as glass. Martha realized she could shatter it with a single word.

  She recalled Edward’s loathing for his grotesque, taunting faerie name and she knew she could not bring herself to pronounce it. She could not bear to hurt him because...because....

  How could she have been so blind?

  “Your name is Edward James Frederick,” she cried. “I don’t want to marry the duke, after all, because I love you.”

  And she ran into his arms, and he clasped her to his heart.

  ALADDIN’S LAMP

  Prologue

  Though Alan’s mind still followed a strand of the tangle of English jurisprudence in the books he left behind, his feet bore him out of the college and round the corner into Holywell Street. As he passed the dusty window of a curiosity shop, a blue glitter caught his eye. A sunbeam had fought its way through the murky glass to sparkle on a string of beads. It reminded him that today was his mother’s birthday, a fact liable to get lost in a head full of legal complexities. The necklace would be a good present.

  A bell tinkled as he pushed open the door and went in. “How much are you asking for those beads in the window?” he asked the stooped old man who appeared from a back room.

  “The blue ones? Half a guinea.”

  “I’ll give you half a crown.”

  “Ten bob, and that’s rock bottom. They’re genuine Strass glass, they are.”

  Even for “genuine imitations,” ten shillings was much more than Alan could justify spending on anything so frivolous. He shook his head, but he went on to poke amongst the extraordinary collection of oddments on the shelves.

  They varied from a forget-me-not decorated chamber-pot with a broken handle to an exquisite ivory horse from China; from odd forks and spoons of both silver and Sheffield-ware to a ship’s compass. Alan found a gold watch with a repeater mechanism. He listened to its chime, and was regretfully replacing it on the shelf when he saw the perfect gift.

  The small vessel was the exact shape of Aladdin’s lamp in the illustration in his mother’s favourite book. Pointed at one end, it was rounded at the other, with a curving handle and a circular foot. It would amuse her, and it only needed a wick and oil to be useful, too.

  Taking it from the dim depths of the shop over to the counter at the front, Alan saw that his find was heavily coated with verdigris. Cleaning it was going to
be quite a chore.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “A crown.”

  “Five bob? But it’s green with age!”

  “Proves it’s copper or brass, not just tin.”

  “There may be nothing left once the corrosion is cleaned off.”

  With a grunt, the dealer prodded the lamp. “Tell you what, I’ve had it lying around for years. Half a crown.”

  “A shilling.”

  “A florin.”

  “Eighteen pence,” said Alan hopefully.

  “One and nine,” the man countered.

  “All right, if you’ll wrap it for me.”

  Grudgingly the old man nodded. He produced brown paper and string, while Alan dug the coins from his thin purse.

  The parcel safe in his coat pocket, Alan continued along Holywell Street and across the grounds of Magdalen College to the footpath on the bank of the Cherwell.

  Chapter I

  “A perfect day, and amazing warm for May,” Lady Beatrice said gaily, as the boat slid out from the willows’ shade into a patch of sunshine. Conscious of the admiring gaze of a shabby young man tramping along the river-bank path, she adjusted her pink and white parasol to frame the golden curls beneath her Leghorn hat. “A punt is a delightful mode of transport, is it not, Miss Dirdle?”

  Her companion and ex-governess nervously surveyed the smooth, grey-green surface of the River Cherwell. “Delightful,” she murmured in a tone utterly lacking in conviction.

  “I shan’t upset you, ma’am, never fear!” cried Cousin Tom, the young gentleman wielding the punt pole. “Punting’s safe as houses.”

  “It’s my turn, Tom,” insisted Lord Wendover. Tom’s best friend and a fellow-student at Magdalen College, he was madly enamoured of Bea, and always trying to impress her. Impeccably dressed in fawn trousers and a blue morning coat, he had tied his starched white cravat so high it held his chin up at an uncomfortable angle.

  Tom, in buckskins, a shooting jacket, and a red Belcher kerchief, said scornfully, “Don’t be a sapskull, Windy, you can’t punt in that rig-out.”