Then again, Nan was a little prejudiced.
“Come in, Nan,” the headmistress said, patting the flowered sofa beside her invitingly. “You’re doing much better already, you know. You have a quick ear.”
“Thankee, Mem’sab,” Nan replied, flushing with pleasure. She, like any of the servants, would gladly have laid down her life for Mem’sab Harton; they all worshipped her blatantly, and a word of praise from their idol was worth more than a pocketful of sovereigns. Nan sat gingerly down on the chintz-covered sofa and smoothed her clean pinafore with an unconscious gesture of pride.
Mem’sab took a book of etiquette from the table beside her, and opened it, looking at Nan expectantly. “Go ahead, dear.”
“Good morning, ma’am. How do you do? I am quite well. I trust your family is fine,” Nan began, and waited for Mem’sab’s response, which would be her cue for the next polite phrase. The point here was not that Nan needed to learn manners and mannerly speech, but that she needed to lose the dreadful cadence of the streets which would doom her to poverty forever, quite literally. Nan spoke the commonplace phrases slowly and with great care, as much care as Sarah took over her French. An accurate analogy, since the King’s English, as spoken by the middle and upper classes, was nearly as much a foreign language to Nan as French and Latin were to Sarah.
She had gotten the knack of it by thinking of it exactly as a foreign language, once Mem’sab had proven to her how much better others would treat her if she didn’t speak like a guttersnipe. She was still fluent in the language of the streets, and often went out with Karamjit as a translator when he went on errands that took him into the slums or the street markets. But gradually her tongue became accustomed to the new cadences, and her habitual speech marked her less as “untouchable.”
“Beautifully done,” Mem’sab said warmly when Nan finished her recitation. “Your new assignment will be to pick a poem and recite it to me, properly spoken, and memorized.”
“I think I’d loike—like—to do one uv Mr.Kipling’s, Mem’sab,” Nan said shyly.
Mem’sab laughed. “I hope you aren’t thinking of ‘Gunga Din,’ you naughty girl!” the woman mock-chided. “It had better be one from the Jungle Book, or Just So Stories, not something written in Cockney dialect!”
“Yes, Mem’sab, I mean, no, Mem’sab,” Nan replied quickly. “I’ll pick a right’un. Mebbe the lullaby for the White Seal? You mustn’t swim till you’re six weeks old, or your head will be sunk by your heels—?” Ever since discovering Rudyard Kipling’s stories, Nan had been completely enthralled; Mem’sab often read them to the children as a go-to-bed treat, for the stories often evoked memories of India for the children sent away.
“That will do very well. Are you ready for the other lesson?” Mem’sab asked, so casually that no one but Nan would have known that the “other lesson” was one not taught in any other school in this part of the world.
“I—think so.” Nan got up and closed the parlor door, signaling to all the world that she and Mem’sab were not to be disturbed unless someone was dying or the house was burning down.
For the next half hour, Mem’sab turned over cards, and Nan called out the next card before she turned it over. When the last of the fifty-two lay in the face-up pile before her, Nan waited expectantly for the results.
“Not at all bad; you had almost half of them, and all the colors right,” Mem’sab said with content. Nan was disappointed; she knew that Mem’sab could call out all fifty-two without an error, though Sarah could only get the colors correctly.
“Sahib brought me some things from the warehouse for you to try your ‘feeling’ on,” Mem’sab continued. “I truly think that is where one of your true Talents lies, dear.”
Nan sighed mournfully. “But knowin’ the cards would be a lot more useful,” she complained.
“What, so you can grow up to cheat foolish young men out of their inheritances?” Now Mem’sab actually laughed out loud. “Try it, dear, and the Gift will desert you at the time you need it most! No, be content with what you have and learn to use it wisely, to help yourself and others.”
“But card-sharpin’ would help me, an’ I could use the takin’s to help others,” Nan couldn’t resist protesting, but she held out her hand for the first object anyway.
It was a carved beetle; very interesting, Nan thought, as she waited to “feel” what it would tell her. It felt like pottery or stone, and it was of a turquoise blue, shaded with pale brown. “It’s old.” she said finally. Then, “Really old. Old as—Methusalum! It was made for an important man, but not a king or anything.”
She tried for more, but couldn’t sense anything else. “That’s all,” she said, and handed it back to Mem’sab.
“Now this.” The carved beetle that Mem’sab gave her was, for all intents and purposes, identical to the one she’d just held, but immediately Nan sensed the difference.
“Piff! That ‘un’s new!” She also felt something else, something of intent, a sensation she readily identified since it was one of the driving forces behind commerce in Whitechapel. “Feller as made it figgers he’s put one over on somebody.”
“Excellent, dear!” Mem’sab nodded. “They are both scarabs, a kind of good-luck carving found with mummies—which are, indeed, often as old as Methuselah. The first one I knew was real, as I helped unwrap the mummy myself, to make sure there was no unrest about the spirit. The second, however, was from a shipment that Sahib suspected were fakes.”
Nan nodded, interested to learn that this Gift of hers had some practical application after all. “So could be I could tell people when they been gammoned?”
“Very likely, and quite likely that they would pay you for the knowledge, as long as they don’t think that you are trying to fool them as well. Here, try this.” The next object placed in Nan’s hand was a bit of jewelry, a simple silver brooch with “gems” of cut iron. Nan dropped it as soon as it touched her hand, overwhelmed by fear and horror.
“Lummy!” she cried, without thinking. “He killed her!” She stared at the horrible thing as it lay on the floor at her feet.
Who “he” and “her” were, she had no sense of; that would require more contact, which she did not want to have. But Mem’sab didn’t seem at all surprised; she just shook her head very sadly and put the brooch back in a little box which she closed without a word.
She held out a child’s locket on a worn ribbon. “Don’t be afraid, Nan,” she coaxed, when Nan was reluctant to accept it, “This one isn’t bad, I promise you.” Nan took the locket gingerly, but broke out into a smile when she got a feeling of warmth, contentment, and happiness. She waited for other images to come, and sensed a tired, but exceedingly happy woman, a proud man, and one—no, two strong and lively mites with the woman.
Slyly, Nan glanced up at her mentor. “She’s ‘ad twins, ’asn’t she?” Nan asked. “When was it?”
“I just got the letter and the locket today, but it was about two months ago,” Mem’sab replied. “The lady is my best friend in India’s daughter, who was given that locket by her mother for luck just before the birth of her children. She sent it to me to have it duplicated, as she would like to present one to each little girl.”