FOUR - THE ALETHIOMETER-1
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“I hope youll sit o me at dinner,” said Mrs. Coulter, making room for Lyra on the sofa. “Im not used to the grandeur of a Masters lodging. Youll have to show me whiife and fork to use.”“Are you a female Scholar?” said Lyra. She regarded female Scholars with a proper Jordan disdain: there were such people, but, poor things, they could never be taken more seriously than animals dressed up and ag a play. Mrs.
Coulter, oher hand, was not like any female Scholar Lyra had seen, aainly not like the two serious elderly ladies who were the other female guests. Lyra had asked the question expeg the answer No, in fact, for Mrs.
Coulter had su air of glamour that Lyra was entranced. She could hardly take her eyes off her.
“Not really,” Mrs. Coulter said. “Im a member of Dame Hannahs college, but most of my work takes place outside Oxford....Tell me about yourself, Lyra. Have you always lived at Jordan College?”
Within five minutes Lyra had told her everything about her half-wild life: her favorite routes over the rooftops, the battle of the claybeds, the time she and Roger had caught and roasted a rook, her iion to capture a narrowboat from the gyptians and sail it to Abingdon, and so on. She even (looking around and l her voice) told her about the trick she and Roger had played on the skulls in the crypt.
“And these ghosts came, right, they came to my bedroom without their heads! They couldnt talk except for making sort of gurgling noises, but I knew what they wanted all right. So I went dow day and put their s back. Theyd probably have killed me else.”
“Youre not afraid of dahen?” said Mrs. Coulter admiringly. They were at dinner by this time, and as Lyra had hoped, sittio each other. Lyra ignored pletely the Librarian oher side and spent the whole meal talking to Mrs. Coulter.
When the ladies withdrew for coffee, Dame Hannah said, “Tell me, Lyra—are they going to send you to school?”
Lyra looked blank. “I dun—I dont know,” she said. “Probably not,” she add<s></s>ed for safety. “I wouldnt want to put them to any trouble,” she went on piously. “Or expes probably better if I just go on living at Jordan aing educated by the Scholars here when theyve got a bit of spare time. Being as theyre here already, theyre probably free.”
“And does your uncle Lord Asriel have any plans for you?” said the other lady, who was a Scholar at the other womens college.
“Yes,” said Lyra. “I expect so. Not school, though. Hes going to take me to the North ime he goes.”
“I remember him telling me,” said Mrs. Coulter.
Lyra blihe two female Scholars sat up very slightly, though their demoher well behaved or torpid, did no more than flick their eyes at each other.
“I met him at the Royal Arctistitute,” Mrs. Coulter went on. “As a matter of fact, its partly because of that meeting that Im here today.”
“Are you an explorer too?” said Lyra.
“In a kind of way. Ive been to the North several times. Last year I spent three months in Greenland making observations of the Aurora.”
That was it; nothing and no one else existed now for Lyra. She gazed at Mrs.
Coulter with awe, and listened rapt and silent to her tales of igloo building, of seal hunting, of iating with the Lapland witches. The two female Scholars had nothing so exg to tell, and sat in sileil the men came in.
Later, when the guests were preparing to leave, the Master said, “Stay behind, Lyra. Id like to talk to you for a minute or two. Go to my study, child; sit down there and wait for me.”
Puzzled, tired, exhilarated, Lyra did as he told her. Cousins the manservant showed her in, and pointedly left the door open so that he could see what she to from the hall, where he was helping people on with their coats. Lyra watched for Mrs. Coulter, but she didnt see her, and then the Master came into the study and shut the door.
He sat down heavily in the armchair by the fireplace. His daemon flapped up to the chair bad sat by his head, her old hooded eyes on Lyra. The lamp hissed gently as the Master said:
“So, Lyra. Youve been talking to Mrs. Coulter. Did you enjoy hearing what she said?”
“Yes!”
“She is a remarkable lady.”
“Shes wonderful. Shes the most wonderful person Ive ever met.”
The Master sighed. In his black suit and black tie he looked as much like his daemon as anyone could, and suddenly Lyra thought that one day, quite soon, he would be buried in the crypt uhe oratory, and an artist would engrave a picture of his daemon on the brass plate for his coffin, and her name would share the space with his.
“I should have made time before now for a talk with you, Lyra,” he said after a few moments. “I was intending to do so in any case, but it seems that time is further on than I thought. You have been safe here in Jordan, my dear. I think youve been happy. You havent found it easy to obey us, but we are very fond of you, and youve never been a bad child. Theres a lot of goodness and sweetness in your nature, and a lot of determination. Yoing to need all of that.
Things are going on in the wide world I would have liked to protect you from—by keeping you here in Jordan, I mean—but thats no longer possible.”
She merely stared. Were they going to send her away?
“You khat sometime youd have<big></big> to go to school,” the Master went on. “We have taught you some things here, but not well or systematically. Our knowledge is of a different kind. You o know things that elderly me able to teach you, especially at the age you are now. You must have been aware of that.
Youre not a servants child either; we couldnt put you out to be fostered by a town family. They might have cared for you in some ways, but your needs are different. You see, what Im saying to you, Lyra, is that the part of your life that belongs to Jordan College is ing to an end.”
“No,” she said, “no, I dont want to leave Jordan. I like it here. I want to stay here forever.”
“When youre young, you do think that things last forever. Unfortunately, they dont. Lyra, it wont be long—a couple of years at most—before you will be a young woman, and not a child anymore. A young lady. And believe me, youll find Jordan College a far from easy place to live in then.”
“But its my home!”
“It has been your home. But now you need something else.”
“Not school. Im not going to school.”
“You need female pany. Female guidance.”
The word female only suggested female Scholars to Lyra, and she involuntarily made a face. To be exiled from the grandeur of Jordan, the splendor and fame of its scholarship, to a dingy brick-built bhouse of a college at the northern end of Oxford, with dowdy female Scholars who smelled of cabbage and mothballs like those two at dihe Master saw her expression, and saw Pantalaimons polecat eyes flash red.
He said, “But suppose it were Mrs. Coulter?”
Instantly Pantalaimons fur ged from coarse brown to downy white. Lyras eyes widened.
“Really?”
“She is by way of being acquainted with Lord Asriel. Your uncle, of course, is very ed with your welfare, and when Mrs. Coulter heard about you, she offered at oo help. There is no Mr. Coulter, by the way; she is a widow.
Her husband died very sadly in an act some years ago; so you might bear that in mind before you ask.”
Lyra nodded eagerly, and said, “And shes really going to...look after me?”
“Would you like that?”
“Yes!”
She could hardly sit still. The Master smiled. He smiled so rarely that he was out of practice, and ag (Lyra wasnt in a state to notice) would have said it was a grimace of sadness.
“Well, we had<u></u> better ask her in to talk about it,” he said.
He left the room, and when he came back a mier with Mrs. Coulter, Lyra was on her feet, too excited to sit. Mrs. Coulter smiled, and her daemon bared his white teeth in a grin of implike pleasure. As she passed her on the way to the armchair, Mrs. Coulter touched Lyras hair briefly, and Lyra felt a current of warmth flow into her, and blushed.
When the Master had poured some brantwijn for her, Mrs. Coulter said, “So, Lyra, Im to have an assistant, am I?”
“Yes,” said Lyra simply. She would have said yes to anything.
“Theres a lot of work I need help with.”
“I work!”
“And we might have to travel.”
“I dont mind. Id go anywhere.”
“But it might be dangerous. We might have to go to the North.”
Lyra eechless. Then she found her voice: “Soon?”
Mrs. Coulter laughed and said, “Possibly. But you know youll have to work very hard. Youll have to learn mathematics, and navigation, aial geography.”
“Will you teach me?”
“Yes. And youll have to help me by making notes and putting my papers in order and doing various pieces of basic calculation, and so on. And because well be visiting some important people, well have to find you some pretty clothes.
Theres a lot to learn, Lyra.”
“I dont mind. I want to learn it all.”
“Im sure you will. When you e back to Jordan College, youll be a famous traveler. Now were going to leave very early in the m, by the dawn zeppelin, so youd better run along and ght to bed. Ill see you at breakfast. Goodnight!”
“Goodnight,” said Lyra, and, remembering the few manners she had, tur the door and said, “Goodnight, Master.”
He nodded. “Sleep well,” he said.
“And thanks,” Lyra added to Mrs. Coulter.
She did sleep, finally, though Pantalaimon wouldle until she s him, when he became a hedgehog out of pique. It was still dark when someone shook her awake.
“Lyra—hush—dont start—wake up, child.”
It was Mrs. Lonsdale. She was holding a dle, and she bent over and spoke quietly, holding Lyra still with her free hand.
“Listen. The Master wants to see you before you join Mrs. Coulter for breakfast.
Get up quickly and run across to the lodging now. Go into the garden and tap at the French window of the study. You uand?”
Fully awake and on fire with puzzlement, Lyra nodded and slipped her bare feet into the shoes Mrs. Lonsdale put down for her.
“Never mind washing—thatll do later. Ght down and e straight back.
Ill start your pag and have something for you to wear. Hurry now.”
The dark quadrangle was still full of the chill night air. Overhead the last stars were still visible, but the light from the east was gradually soaking into the sky above the Hall. Lyra ran into the Library Garden, and stood for a moment in the immense hush, looking up at the stone pinnacles of the chapel, the pearl-green cupola of the Sheldon Building, the white-painted lantern of the Library. Now that she was going to leave these sights, she wondered how much shed miss them.
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