Free The Mislaid Magician by Patricia C. Wrede, Caroline Stevermer Page B

which the great concern on my mind was the possibility of grass stain.
    Georgy grew concerned when the children did not return. She rose from her spot on the rug, brushed imaginary dust from her skirts, and challenged me. “Where can they be? Aren’t you worried?”
    “Don’t you remember how tiresome it was to have Aunt Charlotte forever fretting over us?” I countered. “Let them alone. They can have a bit of an adventure for once.”
    “I’m going to find them,” said Georgy. “Come along.”
    With reluctance, I joined her. We left the nurses doting upon Diana and the babies and walked down the path beyond the hermitage. A few hundred yards beyond, we were deep in woodland. The path continued, the trees thinned, and we found ourselves at the stile that gives on to the road.
    Arthur and Eleanor were crouched beside the stile. As Georgy and I approached, they turned to us with gestures enforcing silence. With caution, Georgy and I approached and peered over the stone wall.
    Standing in the middle of the road, for all the world as if its owner intended to set up permanent residence there, was a tinker’s caravan of the most fascinating kind. There was a well-fed donkey in the traces, but no driver on the box. The body of the cart was freshly painted, with carved ornaments picked out in contrasting colors all around the curved roofline. There were spanking-clean curtains at the little window, and its tiny panes of glass gleamed as if polished by a jeweler.
    The gaily painted cart was hung about with pots and pans and harness brass. Even motionless, it clanked faintly as the breeze stirred the pans. The door at the back was ajar and the step beneath was so neatly placed, it begged the onlooker to try for a peek at the snug quarters within.
    I do not consider myself a magician, despite Thomas’s best efforts to teach me, but I can sometimes detect the presence of magic. The charming sight we beheld convinced me that we were in the presence of strong enchantment. When the driver climbed over the stone wall on the far side of the road, I was sure of it.
    I cannot describe the driver to you with any degree of accuracy, for I am certain the appearance I beheld was a disguise. Whoever it was, to me, the driver looked as if she were an elderly woman, stooped with great age, yet strangely nimble.
    The driver gazed at us, bright-eyed, and crooked a finger at Georgy. “Glad to see you, missy. I’ve been waiting for you.”
    Georgy hasn’t been a miss for a good many years now, never mind a missy. All scorn, she looked down her nose at the old woman.
    “Your man,” the old woman continued in the same goading tone, “is a sad specimen. He spends like he’s rich, but the dibs ain’t in tune. Who knows that better than you? To set himself to rights, he gave his word he’d help us. You remind him, missy. Remind him what he swore blind he’d do for us. Bring him up to the mark, missy, or something bad will happen, and chance it happens to you.”
    I felt Georgy stiffen at my side. Before she could reply—lord knows what she could have said to answer such extraordinary words—the old woman had clambered neatly up to the driver’s seat, clicked to the donkey, and set off down the road.
    We watched, all four of us, in dumbfounded silence as the cart clanked away, all pans rattling. I distinctly remember wondering how the driver had contrived to close the door at the back of the cart. I had not seen her go anywhere near it, yet as the caravan drew away, that door was shut.
    With their usual grasp of essentials, Arthur and Eleanor homed in on Georgy. “Who was that, Aunt Georgy? Who was that lady?”
    Georgy’s indignation was immense. “Lady! Hardly! I’ve no notion who that creature was. I number no gypsies among my acquaintance.”
    “That was no gypsy,” I put in. “That was someone in disguise. Could it be someone you know? Someone who thought you might recognize her?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous, Kate. I never