In the end, it was a feeling of responsibility toward Miss Crawford that drove Lucy forward. If that lady called upon her and asked how she had done, Lucy wanted to be able to report success, or, at the very least, report an honest and honorable failure. When she did examine the talismans, however, she found herself growing quickly frustrated. They all appeared equally plausible or implausible. They were mostly squares, subdivided into smaller squares, in which were written letters of Roman, Greek, or Hebrew, and occasionally some more mysterious runic symbols. Outside a square was often more writing, sometimes within a circle that surrounded the square. Many of the talismans were merely to be worn about the neck or placed upon the person one wished to affect. Others required more elaborate execution—combining the charm with particular plants or actions or items. She practiced copying them out, just to be sure that her hand could replicate the images, though she never produced a complete talisman, and always destroyed what she had made.
She sat in the one comfortable chair in her room, the light to her back, flipping through the pages for perhaps the fifth or sixth time, unable to see how she could determine a true talisman from a false. They were all different, all had their own characteristics, and nothing made some stand out and some fade away. Each was as opaque in its meaning as the next.
Perhaps because she was tired and not troubling herself with her feelings of hope or her unwillingness to feel hope, Lucy was able to clear her mind. She began to drift away from herself, something like the act of quieting herself she had learned, so many years ago, from Mrs. Quince. So it was in this half-quieted state that she turned the pages until she stopped hard. Her heart felt as though it would explode in her chest, for the charm upon which she gazed stood out as different—as powerful, as vibrant, as unmistakable. The charm upon which she looked was magic.
It was like an image in a book of trompe l’oeil etchings she had once leafed through with her sisters. These were pictures that, when looked at in a particular way, or with a particular disposition, would reveal a second picture hidden within. The means of uncovering these hidden images was beyond her ability to explain. When her sister Martha had begged Lucy to show her how to see it, Lucy could think of no way to instruct her. She could only say that Martha must look in different ways until she found it.
Now Lucy rapidly flipped through the volume, seeing the talismans for what they were, seeing which charms jumped off the page announcing their efficacy, and which lay flat and lifeless. She heard herself laugh aloud as she found one, and then she snapped the book shut and hugged it to her chest. What Miss Crawford said was true. And if there was magic, if it was real and Lucy could do it, what did it mean for her life?
In the end there were fewer true spells than Miss Crawford had said, only thirty-six. Many of these were to coerce love or loyalty or compliance—a few were so vile, Lucy could not imagine attempting to use them. There were a handful that would be worth trying, if only to see if the charms could be used effectively. Now Lucy wanted only an opportunity to try one, and so she determined to keep the book close at hand, waiting for the proper situation to present itself.
Some days later, the Nottingham assembly was upon her. Uncle Lowell did not wish to be put to the expense of preparing for an assembly when Lucy had already found a husband, but it was Mrs. Quince who argued for Lucy’s attendance. Mr. Olson would be there, and he’d written to say he wished to dance with Lucy. Mrs. Quince observed that it would be unwise to allow so desired a bachelor to present himself before so many young ladies without Lucy present to maintain her claim. This argument won the day, and Uncle Lowell consented that Lucy might have a new ribbon for her hat, though the extravagance of this gift pained him immensely.
Lucy had no wish to go. She once loved the monthly assemblies, where she could see her friends and make idle chatter and pretend, for a few hours, to be happy. Now she had too much upon her mind, but as she had not the option to stay home, she would make the best of it.
The assembly hall on Low Pavement, but a short walk from Uncle Lowell’s house, was a handsome building, inside and out, and very much grander than fashionable life in Nottingham, such as it was, required. Lucy did not mind, however, for it was bright and open and agreeable, and it always lightened her mood to be in a place so unlike her uncle’s house. When she walked into the room—her entry was slightly delayed by a row concerning an attorney’s clerk who attempted to gain entry to the hall, despite the rules forbidding such drudges from attending—Lucy was delighted to hear a competent trio of musicians were in the middle of a sprightly tune that had been enormously popular that year. Mrs. Quince inspected the people about her, making certain there were no conspicuous absences or presences worthy of gossip, and when she had exhausted such comments as she could muster, she retired with the other matrons to the card room. She would have remained with the younger people to keep an eye upon Lucy, but to do so would have been considered ill-mannered, and would have brought unwanted scrutiny on Lucy when it was to Mrs. Quince’s advantage that Lucy look well.
Taking advantage of her freedom, Lucy soon found her little group of acquaintances—all of about her age, unmarried, and though she liked most of them well enough, none was a particular friend without whom she could not endure. Her position in Nottingham had always been one of a young lady of no prospects, and this had made particular friendships difficult. Lucy managed as best she could with these ladies, for they approximated true friends well enough in situations such as these, when necessity required such an approximation.
This little group was led, with unanimous and unspoken consent, by a young lady called Norah Gilley, slightly taller than Lucy, thinner, with a narrow face, a sharp nose pointed down, and an unusually long mouth designed for sneering. Though not traditionally pretty, Norah had one of those plastic sort of faces that, had her disposition been sweet, her face must have seemed so too. She was, however, of a rather acidic nature. She was a lover of gossip, of finding fault, of being the first and the most eager to remark caustically upon another’s defect. As a result, her countenance had a slightly unseemly cast, less ugly than alarmingly sensuous. She was a young lady whom gentlemen often wished to know, to dance with, to take to coffeehouses. Norah believed this must mean her destined to receive a very favorable offer of marriage, but Lucy understood the world well enough to know she misinterpreted attentions.
Norah stood now in the midst of the other girls, but also present was her father, a gentleman of about sixty years of age, with closely cut, thick white hair, the weathered remnants of a handsome face, and eyes so blue they almost astonished Lucy the first time she’d seen them. Mr. Gilley was an unusual sort of man for his age, because he enjoyed the company of people far younger than he, including his daughter and her friends.
Lucy’s father had always made a great show of finding his daughters generally silly, and their friends even more so. In his study, however, when they talked of botany or astronomy or he reviewed her Latin, Papa became patient, understanding, sympathetic, and very interested in what Lucy had to say. Mr. Gilley, Lucy imagined, must be the opposite—pretending in public to find everyone of interest, whereas, she suspected, he scorned them all in private.