The Gates of Sleep

her.”

“Suffragists!” Arachne’s voice rose incredulously. “What possible quarrel can they have with me? Am I not a woman? Have I not, by my own hard work and despite the machinations of men who would see me fail, turned my single manufactory into four? Do I not employ women? And at good wages, too!”

Reggie just shrugged. “How should I know? They’re mad, that’s all. They say the lead in the glazes—the woman doctor says that the lead in the glazes—poisons the girls, makes them go mad, and we know all about it. So when they start becoming unhinged we have them taken away.”

“Pfft!” said Arachne. “A little lead is what makes them so pretty—just like arsenic does, everyone knows that. I’ve never heard that a little lead ever did more than clear up their complexions, but now some ill-trained woman doctor says it is dangerous and—” She shrugged. “Who gave her this medical degree? No university in England, I am sure! No university in England would be so foolish as to grant a woman a medical degree!”

“I don’t know, Mater—”

She fixed him with an icy stare. “I trust you made it very clear to the men that these accusations are groundless and that this so-called doctor is a quack and a fraud.”

“I made it very clear to the men that it is easy enough to replace them if they stir up trouble and spread tales, Mater,” Reggie told her, with that smirk that so annoyed Marina.

“Well done.” Arachne thawed a trifle, and smiled. “Now we have disposed of the impolite conversation, perhaps we can discuss other things.” With no more warning than that, she turned to her niece. “Well, Marina? What shall we discuss?”

Her mind went blank. She couldn’t remember the topics that Arachne had indicated were appropriate. “Why shouldn’t a woman be a doctor, Madam?” she asked, the first question that came into her head.

But Arachne raised an admonitory eyebrow. “Not appropriate, child,” she replied. “That particular question comes under any number of inappropriate topics, from politics to religion. Polite conversation, if you please.”

“Um—” She pummeled her brain frantically. “The concerts in Bath? The London opera season?”

“Ah. The London opera season. That will do nicely.” Arachne smiled graciously. “Now, since you have never been to London, and in any case, you cannot go to the opera until you are out of mourning, what could you possibly say about the London opera season?”

“I could—say that—ask the opinion of whomever I was with,” she said, groping after further conversation. “About the opera selections—the tenors—”

“Very good. It is not wise to ask a gentleman about the sopranos, my dear. The gentleman in question might have an interest in one of them that has nothing to do with their vocal abilities.” She turned to Reggie. “So, what do you think of our London Faust this year? Shall I trouble to see it?”

That gained her a respite, as mother and son discussed music—or rather, discussed the people who had come to see the music, and be seen there. Marina had only to make the occasional “yes” or “no” that agreed with their opinions. And when mother and son disagreed—she sided always with the mother.

It seemed politic.

The carriage rolled away from the gates of Oakhurst with Marina in it, but not alone. Mary Anne was with her, all starch and sour looks, sitting stiffly on the seat across from Marina. Just to make the maid’s day complete, Marina had taken care to get in first, so as to have the forward-facing seat, leaving Mary Anne the rearward-facing one.

I should have expected that I wouldn’t be allowed out without my leashholder, she thought, doing her best to ignore the maid’s disgruntled glances, watching the manicured landscape roll by outside the carriage window.

Mary Anne had not been the least little bit pleased about going to church. She didn’t even have a prayerbook—but last night, a quick raid of the schoolbook cupboard in the library had supplied a pair of not too badly abused specimens, which she presented to the seriously annoyed woman for choice. Marina, of course, had her own, with her other books, a childhood present from Sebastian, with wonderful little pen-and-ink illuminations of fish, ocean creatures, and water plants. And had it turned up missing, there would have been a confrontation…

So here she was, everything about her in soberest black except that magnificent beaver cloak. She’d no doubt that even the cloak would have been black, had her aunt thought about it in advance, and considered that she might actually want to show her face in the village this Sunday.

Saint Peter’s was nothing particularly outstanding in the way of ecclesiastical architecture—but it wasn’t hideously ugly or a jumble of added-on styles, either. And it was substantial, not a boxy little chapel with no graces and no beauty, but a good medieval church in the Perpendicular style with a square tower and a fine peal of bells, which were sounding as they drove up. It was a pity that the interior had been stripped by Cromwell’s Puritans during the Reformation, but there—the number of churches that hadn’t been could be counted on one hand, if that. It had nice vaulting, though, and though it was cold, at least she had that lovely warm beaver cape to keep her comfortable during the service. The poor young vicar looked a little blue about the nose and fingertips.

The Roeswoods were not an old enough family to have a family pew, but Marina was shown straight up to the front and seated there, giving everyone who had already arrived a good look at her as she walked up the aisle with Mary Anne trailing behind. And of course, the entire village could regard the back of her head at their leisure all through the service.

For the first time, Marina’s keeper was at a complete loss. Mary Anne appeared not to have set foot in a church since early childhood. Somewhat to Marina’s bemusement, she made heavy work of the service, fumbling the responses, not even knowing the tunes of the hymns. Marina could not imagine what was wrong with the girl— unless, of course, she was chapel and not church—or even of some odd sect or other like Quakers or Methodists. And Marina had the feeling that, given Arachne’s autocratic attitudes, it wouldn’t have mattered if the maid had been a devotee of the Norse god Odin and utterly opposed to setting foot in a Christian church—if Mary Anne wanted to keep her place, to church she would go every time that Marina went.

I hope—oh, I hope she can’t ride! If she can’t ride—and I can avoid Reggie—I might be able to ride alone. Or if not alone, at least with someone who won’t be looking for my mistakes all the time.

She even went so far as to insert that hope into her prayers.

After the service—the organist was tolerably good, and the choir cheerful and in tune, if not outstanding— Marina remained in the pew while Mary Anne sat beside her and fumed. If the maid had been given a choice, she would have gone charging straight down the aisle the moment the first note of the recessional sounded, Marina suspected. Mary Anne had made an abortive attempt to rise, but when Marina didn’t move, she’d sat back down perching impatiently on the very edge of the pew, which couldn’t have been comfortable.

Having gone to this sort of church all her life, however, Marina knew very well that it was no good thinking that you could get out quickly if you were in the first pew. Not a chance… not with most of the village, including all of the littlest children and the oldest of the elderly, between you and the exit. Today, with Marina Roeswood present—well, all of those people would be lingering for more long looks at the mysterious daughter of the great house.

So she sat and waited for the aisle to clear, and only when a quick glance over her shoulder showed her that there were just a few folk left, lingering around the door, did she rise and make her leisurely way toward the rear of the church.

And once at the door, it was time, as she had known, for another delay, which clearly infuriated Mary Anne. But it was a delay that Marina was not, under any circumstances, going to forego or cut short.

“And you must be the young Miss Roeswood,” said the vicar—sandy-haired, bare- headed—stationed at the door to greet his parishioners as they left. He reached for her black-gloved hand, as she held it out to him. “I wish that we had gotten this first meeting under better circumstances,” he continued, fixing his brown eyes on her face in a way that suggested to her that he was slightly short-sighted. “My name is Davies, Clifton Davies.”

“The Reverend Clifton Davies, I assume,” Marina put in, with a hint of a smile. Cornish or Welsh father, I suspect, but born on the Devon side of the border. He doesn’t have quite the lilt nor the accent.

“Yes, yes, of course,” the vicar laughed deprecatingly. “I’m rather new in my position, and not used to being