“That will do for now,” Elizabeth said, and she let the burgeoning streamlets go with no little relief. “Luncheon, I think; then a little rest for both of us, perhaps an hour or so, and we’ll start again.”
So soon? she thought with concealed dismay. Uncle Thomas had never made her work for this long! But it couldn’t be helped; if that was what Elizabeth wanted, then there was probably a reason for it.
“I want you to have a firm grasp on this technique today,” Elizabeth said, as she got up and offered Marina her hand to aid her to her feet. Marina took the offered help; her knees felt so shaky she wasn’t certain she could have stood up without it. “If we left things at the point where they are now, by tomorrow it would all have to be done over again. We have to make a pathway in your mind and spirit that rest or sleep can’t erase. Then you can take a longer respite.”
Marina sighed, and followed her out; her stomach gave a discreet growl, reminding her not only that she had used a great deal of physical energy, but that she would feel better about resuming once she wasn’t so ravenous.
Aunt Margherita seemed to have anticipated how hungry she would be, for the main course of luncheon was a hearty stew that must have been cooking since breakfast or before. With fresh bread slathered with butter and Margherita’s damson preserves, and cup after cup of strong tea, Marina felt better by the moment. Sarah, Margherita and Elizabeth chattered away like a trio of old gossips on wash-day, while Marina ate until she couldn’t eat any more, feeling completely hollow after all her exertion.
Finally, when she’d finished the last bit of the treacle tart Sarah had given her for dessert, Elizabeth turned away from her conversation with the others. “Have you any lessons or other work you need to do this afternoon?” she asked, but somehow managed not to make it sound as if she was asking a child the question.
“Work, actually. German,” she replied, with a lifting of her spirits. “Die Leiden des jungen Werther, I’m translating it for Uncle Sebastian; he thinks he might want to paint something from it.”
“Oh good heavens, Sturm und Drang, is it?” she laughed. “Obsessed poets and suicide! Oh well, I suppose Sebastian knows what is likely to sell!”
“Sebastian knows very well, thank you,” her uncle called from the doorway. “Beautiful young dead men sell very well to wealthy ladies with less-than-ideal marriages of convenience. It gives them something to sigh and weep over, and since the young men are safely dead, their husbands can’t feel jealous over even a painted rival.”
Marina didn’t miss the cynical lift of his brow, and suspected he had a particular client in mind.
Evidently, Elizabeth Hastings hadn’t missed that cue either. “Well,” she said dryly, “If the real world does not move them, they might as well be parted from some of that wealth in exchange for a fantasy, so that others can make better use of their money than they can.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Sebastian said, and with the chameleon-like change of mood that Marina knew so well, beamed upon Sarah as he accepted a bowl of stew from her hands. “Sarah, you are just as divine as Miss Bernhardt! In a different sphere, of course—”
“Tch! The things you say! I doubt Divine Sarah’d thank ye for that!” their own Sarah replied with a twinkle, and turned back to her stove.
“I’ll come fetch you from your room in an hour or so,” Elizabeth said to Marina, who took that as her cue to escape for some badly needed rest.
Translating Werther was not what she would have called “work,” even though Uncle Sebastian said it was. She had taught herself German from books; she couldn’t speak it, but she read it fluently enough. German seemed useful, given all of the medieval poems and epics that the Germans had produced that could give Uncle Sebastian subjects for his paintings, and so she had undertaken it when she was twelve.
Mind, she thought, as she wrote yet another paragraph of Werther’s internal agony, I can’t do much with figures. And as for science—all I know is what the old alchemists did! She supposed her education had been rather one-sided.
She was amused, rather than enthralled, by Goethe’s hero. She couldn’t imagine ever being so utterly besotted with anyone as to lose her wits over him, much less kill herself because she could not have him. Poor silly Werther.
But he’d make a fine subject for a painting, her uncle was right about that. Pining over his love, writing one of his poems of wretchedness and longing, or lying dead with the vial of poison in his hand.
I suppose I’ll have to pose for him, too. It wouldn’t be the first time that she’d stood in for a young, callow man. Uncle Sebastian simple gave her a little stronger chin and thinner lips, flattened her curves, and took care to give her a sufficiently loose costume and there she was. More than one lady had fallen in love with the masculine version of herself; Uncle Sebastian never enlightened them as to her sex.
A tapping at her door told her that another sort of lesson—and work—awaited her.
“Come in!” she cried, and put the book aside. “I’ll just be a moment.”
Elizabeth pushed the door ajar, and gazed with delight on the room. “I swear, I wish I could get your guardians to create something like this for me,” she said with a chuckle.
“It would take them eighteen years, I’m afraid,” she replied, tidying her desk and making sure that the ink bottle was securely corked.
Elizabeth sighed. “I know. And it would cost me a hideous amount of money, too—I certainly couldn’t ask them to work for less than their normal commissions.”
“You’d be surprised how many would,” Marina said sourly, thinking of all the people who, over the years, had attempted to trade on past acquaintance to get a bargain.
“No magician would,” Elizabeth said firmly. “No magician could. Well, enough of that; back to work for us.”
Back down to the little workroom they went, and Marina saw when Elizabeth opened the door that she had brought in a lamp and had moved the table to the center of the room. And in the center of the table was a clear glass bowl full of water.
“What’s that for?” Marina asked, as Elizabeth closed the door behind them.
“Later,” her tutor told her. “When I’m sure you’ve mastered the first lesson.”
Marina raised an eyebrow, but didn’t argue; Elizabeth was the Master here, and had presumably taught more pupils in the art of the Element of Water than she. She took a seat on one of the benches, and took up where they had left off.
It was easier this time; at Elizabeth’s signal, she released the power, then gathered it in again. A dozen times, perhaps more, she raised the power and let it flow out again, until the gathering of it was as natural as breathing and almost as easy.
Only then did Elizabeth stop her, this time before she released it.
“Good. Now, hold the power, and watch me again.” Elizabeth cupped her hands around the bowl, and gazed into the water.
Then Marina sensed something curious—she felt a tugging within her, as if she heard a far distant call or summons.
Strange—
Was the summons coming from—Elizabeth?
Yes! It was! Marina concentrated on it, and on her mentor. Slowly she deciphered the silent message written in power, sent out into the world. Not a summons, but an invitation.