“No,” she said, “no, I don't want to leave Jordan. I like it here. I want to stay here forever.”
“When you're young, you do think that things last forever. Unfortunately, they don't. Lyra, it won't 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, you'll find Jordan College a far from easy place to live in then.”
“But it's my home!”
“It has been your home. But now you need something else.”
“Not school. I'm not going to school.”
“You need female company. 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 boardinghouse of a college at the northern end of Oxford, with dowdy female Scholars who smelled of cabbage and mothballs like those two at dinner!
The Master saw her expression, and saw Pantalaimon's polecat eyes flash red.
He said, “But suppose it were Mrs. Coulter?”
Instantly Pantalaimon's fur changed from coarse brown to downy white. Lyra's eyes widened.
“Really?”
“She is by way of being acquainted with Lord Asriel. Your uncle, of course, is very concerned with your welfare, and when Mrs. Coulter heard about you, she offered at once to help. There is no Mr. Coulter, by the way; she is a widow. Her husband died very sadly in an accident some years ago; so you might bear that in mind before you ask.”
Lyra nodded eagerly, and said, “And she's 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 anyone watching (Lyra wasn't in a state to notice) would have said it was a grimace of sadness.
“Well, we had better ask her in to talk about it,” he said.
He left the room, and when he came back a minute later 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 Lyra's 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, I'm to have an assistant, am I?”
“Yes,” said Lyra simply. She would have said yes to anything.
“There's a lot of work I need help with.”
“I can work!”
“And we might have to travel.”
“I don't mind. I'd go anywhere.”
“But it might be dangerous. We might have to go to the North.”
Lyra was speechless. Then she found her voice: “Soon?”
Mrs. Coulter laughed and said, “Possibly. But you know you'll have to work very hard. You'll have to learn mathematics, and navigation, and celestial geography.”
“Will you teach me?”
“Yes. And you'll 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 we'll be visiting some important people, we'll have to find you some pretty clothes. There's a lot to learn, Lyra.”
“I don't mind. I want to learn it all.”
“I'm sure you will. When you come back to Jordan College, you'll be a famous traveler. Now we're going to leave very early in the morning, by the dawn zeppelin, so you'd better run along and go straight to bed. I'll see you at breakfast. Goodnight!”
“Goodnight,” said Lyra, and, remembering the few manners she had, turned at 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 wouldn't settle until she snapped at him, when he became a hedgehog out of pique. It was still dark when someone shook her awake.
“Lyra—hush—don't start—wake up, child.”
It was Mrs. Lonsdale. She was holding a candle, 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 understand?”
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—that'll do later. Go straight down and come straight back. I'll start your packing 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 she'd miss them.
Something stirred in the study window and a glow of light shone out for a moment. She remembered what she had to do and tapped on the glass door. It opened almost at once.
“Good girl. Come in quickly. We haven't got long,” said the Master, and drew the curtain back across the door as soon as she had entered. He was fully dressed in his usual black.
“Aren't I going after all?” Lyra asked.
“Yes; I can't prevent it,” said the Master, and Lyra didn't notice at the time what an odd thing that was to say. “Lyra, I'm going to give you something, and you must promise to keep it private. Will you swear to that?”