“I’m only keeping on the safe side.” Lesley looked past me at the bulletin board. “Oh, great! There’s a new ad up on it—jewelry design! Speaking of jewelry,” she added, fishing inside the neck of her blouse and bringing out a little chain, “look at this! I’m wearing that key you brought back from your travels in time as a pendant. Isn’t that cool? I tell everyone it’s the key to my heart.”
Her diversionary tactics cut no ice with me. “Lesley, Raphael can’t help it if his brother is a bastard. And I believe him when he says he doesn’t know any of Gideon’s secrets. He’s new to this country and this school, and he doesn’t know anyone yet.”
“He’s sure to find plenty of people who’ll enjoy taking care of him.” Lesley went on staring straight ahead. The freckles on her nose danced in the sunlight. “You wait and see. This time tomorrow, he’ll have forgotten all about me, and he’ll be calling some other girl mignonne.”
“Yes, but…” Only when I spotted the give-away blush on Lesley’s face did light dawn on me. “Oh, now I get it! Giving his brother the cold shoulder has nothing to do with Gideon! You’re just shit-scared of falling in love with Raphael!”
“Nonsense. Anyway, he’s not my type!”
Aha. That said it all. Well, I was Lesley’s best friend, I’d known her forever, and that reply wouldn’t have thrown anyone off the right track, even Cynthia.
“Come off it, Lesley. Who’s going to believe that?”
Lesley finally looked away from the announcements on the bulletin board and gave me a grin. “So what? We can’t both afford to be suffering from hormonal softening of the brain at this particular moment, can we? It’s quite enough for one of us not to be responsible for her actions.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“But it’s true! You think of nothing but Gideon, so you simply don’t see how serious the situation is. You need someone who can think straight, like me. And I’m not about to be taken in by that Frenchman.”
“Oh, Lesley!” I gave her a big hug. No one, no one else in the world had such a wonderful, crazy, clever friend as I did. “But it would be terrible if you had to give up your chance of being lucky in love because of me.”
“There you go, exaggerating again.” Lesley lowered her voice and breathed into my ear, “If he’s anything like his brother, he’d have broken my heart after a week at the latest.”
“So?” I said, giving her a little tap on the hand. “It’s made of marzipan, so you can reshape it anytime you like!”
“Don’t laugh at me. All that about marzipan hearts is a metaphor, and I’m really proud of it.”
“Of course. One day you’ll be quoted all over the world. ‘Hearts can’t be broken because they’re made of marzipan.’ From The Wit and Wisdom of Lesley Hay.”
“Wrong, I’m afraid,” said a voice beside us. It belonged to our English teacher, Mr. Whitman, who was much too good-looking for a teacher.
I’d have liked to ask what he thought he knew about female hearts, but it was better not to answer Mr. Whitman back. Like Mrs. Counter, he was apt to hand out extra homework on way-out subjects, and casual as he might seem, he could be very strict.
“Wrong about what?” asked Lesley, throwing caution to the winds.
He looked at us, shaking his head. “I thought we’d gone over the difference between metaphors, similes, symbols, and images quite sufficiently. You can call it a metaphor to speak of broken hearts, but how do you classify marzipan?”
Who on earth was interested? And since when did classes begin out in the corridor? “A symbol … er … a simile?” I asked hopefully.
Mr. Whitman nodded. “Yes, although not a very good one,” he said, laughing. Then he turned serious again. “You look tired, Gwyneth. You’ve been lying awake all night brooding, at odds with the world, am I right?”
So what business of his was it? And I could do without his sympathetic tone of voice too.
He sighed. “All this is rather too much for you.” He was fidgeting with the signet ring that he wore as one of the Guardians. “That was only to be expected. Maybe Dr. White could prescribe you something to help you at least to sleep at night.” I cast him an indignant glance, whereupon he gave me an encouraging smile before he turned and went into the classroom ahead of us.
“Did I fail to hear properly, or did Mr. Whitman just suggest giving me sleeping pills?” I asked Lesley. “Right after letting me know I looked terrible, I think.”
“Just like him!” snorted Lesley. “He wants you to be a puppet of the Guardians all day and then drugged out of your mind at night so as to keep you from getting any ideas of your own. Well, he’s not fooling us.” She energetically brushed a lock of hair back from her face. “We’re going to show those Guardians that they underestimate you.”
“Hm,” I said doubtfully, but Lesley was looking at me with grim determination.
“We’ll draw up our master plan at first break in the girls’ toilets.”
* * *
ANYWAY, MR. WHITMAN was wrong. I didn’t look tired (I’d checked in the mirror in the girls’ toilets several times), and oddly enough, I didn’t feel tired, either. After our nocturnal treasure hunt, I’d soon fallen asleep again, and this time the nightmares stayed away. It could be I’d even had a nice dream, because in those magic seconds between sleeping and waking, I’d felt confident and hopeful. Although it’s true that when I was fully awake the gloomy realities came back into my mind, first and foremost: Gideon was only pretending to love me.
However, a little of that hopeful mood had lasted into daytime. Maybe that was because I’d finally had a few hours’ uninterrupted sleep. Or possibly it had occurred to me, even in my dreams, that galloping consumption could be cured these days. Then again, it could just be that my tear ducts were empty.
“Do you think it’s possible that maybe Gideon set out to make me fall in love with him, but then he really did fall in love with me himself, kind of by mistake?” I cautiously asked Lesley when we were packing up our things after classes. I’d avoided the subject all morning, so as to have a clear head when we were drawing up this master plan, but now I just had to talk about the idea or I’d have burst.
“Yes,” said Lesley after a moment’s hesitation.
“Really?” I asked, surprised.
“Maybe that was what he still had to tell you yesterday evening. I mean, in films we always get so annoyed with those artificial misunderstandings that are meant to heighten suspense before the happy ending, although a few words could clear them up for good.”
“Exactly! That’s where you always shout at the screen, Just tell him, you silly cow!”
Lesley nodded. “But in the film, something always gets in the way. The dog’s bitten through the phone cable, the other girl is feeling mean and doesn’t pass on the news, the boy’s mother says he’s gone to California … you know the kind of thing?” She gave me her hairbrush and looked at me hard in the mirror. “You know, the more I think about it, the less likely it seems to me that he could have failed to fall in love with you.”
My eyes felt damp with sheer relief. “In that case, he’d still be a bastard, but … but I think I could forgive him.”
“So could I,” said Lesley, beaming at me. “I have waterproof mascara and lip gloss here. Want to borrow some?”
Well, it couldn’t hurt, anyway.
* * *
WE WERE LAST to leave the classroom again. I was in such a good mood now that Lesley felt it was her duty to dig her elbow into my ribs. “I really don’t want to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but we could be wrong. Because we’ve seen too many romantic films.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “Oh, there’s James.” Most of the students were already on their way out, so there were only a few left to wonder why I was talking to an empty niche in the wall. “Hello, James!”
“Good day, Miss Gwyneth.” As always, he was wearing a flowered tail-coat, knee breeches, and cream stockings. He had brocade shoes with silver buckles on his feet, and his cravat was so elaborately arranged that he couldn’t possibly have tied it for himself. The oddest things about him were his curly wig, the powder on his face, and the patches like moles that he had stuck to it. For some reason that I couldn’t understand, he called them beauty spots. Without all that, and in sensible clothes, James would probably have been quite good-looking.
“Where were you this morning, James? We had a date to meet at second break, remember?”
James shook his head. “How I hate this fever! And I don’t like the dream, either—everything here is so … so ugly!” He sighed heavily and pointed to the ceiling. “I wonder what philistines painted over the frescos? My father paid a fortune for them. I like the shepherdess in the middle very much, even if my mother says she’s too scantily clad.” He looked disapprovingly first at me and then at Lesley, his eyes resting for a long time on the pleated skirts of our school uniform and then our knees. “Although if my mother knew the way young persons dress in my fevered dream, she’d be horrified. I’m horrified myself. I would never have thought I could indulge in such a depraved fantasy.”
James didn’t seem to be having a particularly good day. At least Xemerius had decided to stay at home (James hated Xemerius). To keep an eye on the treasure and Mr. Bernard, or so he said, but I secretly suspected he wanted to look over Aunt Maddy’s shoulder again while she was reading. She was halfway through a romantic novel at the moment, and he seemed to be enjoying it.
“Depraved! What a charming compliment, James,” I said mildly. I had long ago given up explaining to James that he was not dreaming, but had been dead for about two hundred and thirty years. I suppose no one likes to hear such news.
“Dr. Barrow bled me again just now, and I was even able to drink a few sips of water,” he went on. “I had hoped for a different dream this time, but alas, here I am again.”
“And I’m very glad to see you,” I said warmly. “I’d miss you very much if you went right away.”
James managed a smile. “Well, I’d be lying if I were to deny that I’ve developed a certain affection for you, Miss Gwyneth. And now, shall we go on with our lessons in etiquette?”
“I’m afraid there isn’t time, but let’s go on tomorrow, okay?” On the stairs I turned back. “Oh, by the way, James, what was the name of your favorite horse in September of the year 1782?”
Two boys pushing a table with an overhead projector on it along the corridor stopped, and Lesley giggled when they both asked, at the same time, “Do you mean me?”
“September last year?” asked James. “Hector, of course. Hector will always be my favorite horse. The most magnificent gray you can imagine.”