As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia de Luce #7)(39)

“In all aspects. Do you understand, Flavia?”

“What about poisons?” I asked, hoping against hope.

“Of course you’ll be taught the more traditional skills,” she continued, ignoring my question, “such as ciphers and code breaking, and so forth, as well as the more modern and inventive arts that are not yet dreamed of by even the most sensational of our novelists.”

“My aunt Felicity told me I was to become a member of the Nide—” I began.

The Nide was the name of the hush-hush organization into which I was to be inducted, my reason for being in Canada.

“Shhh!” she said, reaching out and touching my lips. “You must never utter that word again. Never.”

“But how will I know which of the boarders—”

She touched a gentle finger to my lips. “They will make themselves known to you. Until they do, trust no one.”

“What about Jumbo? What about Van Arque?”

“All in due time, Flavia.”

How easy, I supposed, it would have been at that moment to ask Miss Fawlthorne if she had heard anything about the identity of the corpse that had plummeted out of the chimney, and yet it was not.

A conversation between a person of my age and a person of hers is like a map of a maze: There are things that each of us knows, and that each of us knows the other knows, that can be talked about. But there are things that each of us knows that the other doesn’t know we know, which must not be spoken of, no matter what. Because of our ages, and for reasons of decency, there are what Daffy would refer to as taboos: forbidden topics which we may stroll among like islands of horse dung in the road that, although perfectly evident to both of us, must not be mentioned or kicked at any cost.

It’s a strange world when you come right down to it.

“You must learn not to ask unnecessary questions,” Miss Fawlthorne went on, as if she were reading my mind. “It is a cardinal rule here that no girl may give out any information whatsoever about any other girl, past or present.”

Her words had an eerily familiar ring. “Certain questions must not be asked,” Aunt Felicity had told me, as we walked together on the Visto at Buckshaw. Now here it was again.

“You mean I need to deduce those facts myself,” I declared flatly, taking care to make it a statement, rather than a direct query.

“Gold star,” she said quietly, almost as if to herself, as she looked off, almost idly, into the distance.

A gentle wind stirred the leaves, and in it was a touch of coldness. It was, after all, autumn.

“There will be field trips,” Miss Fawlthorne went on suddenly, “which will require a great deal of courage on your part. I trust that you will not let us down.”

“Did Harriet undergo this training?” I asked.

Her silence was an answer in itself.

“I have arranged with Mrs. Bannerman to tutor you in advanced chemistry. She assures me that your level of comprehension is far beyond expectations. You will begin work with both the electron microscope and the hydrogen spectrophotometer almost at once.”

Yaroo! I couldn’t believe my ears. This, truly, was Heaven with knobs on!

“And I don’t mind telling you that it is entirely due to the influence, in high places, of the elder Miss de Luce that our humble establishment has been presented with the funds necessary to acquire such advanced apparatuses.”

The elder Miss de Luce? Aunt Felicity! Of course!

Aunt Felicity had not taken credit for herself when she mentioned the latest scientific equipment with which Miss Bodycote’s had been endowed, but now everything was suddenly, remarkably, brilliantly clear.

Miss Fawlthorne smiled, as if she were reading my mind. “So you see,” she said, “in a way, if there had been no Flavia de Luce, there also may not have been, for much longer, a Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy.”

I’m afraid I could do no more than gape as the meaning of her words took root.

“We have a great deal riding upon you, Flavia … a very great deal.”

What could I do? What could I say? The whole world had suddenly, and without warning, revealed itself to be far larger a place than ever I could have dreamed of. I was standing at the edge of a very great abyss whose further lip was so far beyond imagination that only faith could bridge the gap. It was, I suppose, the bridge connecting childhood with whatever vast unknown might lie beyond.

I know now that there is a very precise instant when one stands at that threshold at which the choice must be made: whether to remain, even if only for a while, a child, or whether to step boldly across into another world.

I did the only thing I could think of.

I seized Miss Fawlthorne’s hand and gave it a jolly good shake.

“Excellent,” she said. “I’m glad that we understand each other. Now, then—”

Was I imagining it, or was she now speaking to me in an entirely different tone? An entirely different voice?

“Your work with Mrs. Bannerman must, necessarily, take place in the small hours. You must not be seen to be spending an unusual amount of time in her company, although you may, of course, at your own discretion, occasionally feign stupidity as an excuse to return to her classroom for explanation or clarification after your regular chemistry class.”

Feigning stupidity was one of my specialties. If stupidity were theoretical physics, then I would be Albert Einstein.