“What do you think of the flowers, dear?” said Mrs. Coulter as sweetly as if nothing had happened. “I suppose one can't go wrong with roses, but you can have too much of a good thing….Have the caterers brought enough ice? Be a dear and go and ask. Warm drinks are horrid…”
Lyra found it was quite easy to pretend to be lighthearted and charming, though she was conscious every second of Pantalaimon's disgust, and of his hatred for the golden monkey. Presently the doorbell rang, and soon the room was filling up with fashionably dressed ladies and handsome or distinguished men. Lyra moved among them offering canapes or smiling sweetly and making pretty answers when they spoke to her. She felt like a universal pet, and the second she voiced that thought to herself, Pantalaimon stretched his goldfinch wings and chirruped loudly.
She sensed his glee at having proved her right, and became a little more retiring.
“And where do you go to school, my dear?” said an elderly lady, inspecting Lyra through a lorgnette.
“I don't go to school,” Lyra told her.
“Really? I thought your mother would have sent you to her old school. A very good place…”
Lyra was mystified until she realized the old lady's mistake.
“Oh! She's not my mother! I'm just here helping her. I'm her personal assistant,” she said importantly.
“I see. And who are your people?”
Again Lyra had to wonder what she meant before replying.
“They were a count and countess,” she said. “They both died in an aeronautical accident in the North.”
“Which count?”
“Count Belacqua. He was Lord Asriel's brother.”
The old lady's daemon, a scarlet macaw, shifted as if in irritation from one foot to another. The old lady was beginning to frown with curiosity, so Lyra smiled sweetly and moved on.
She was going past a group of men and one young woman near the large sofa when she heard the word Dust. She had seen enough of society now to understand when men and women were flirting, and she watched the process with fascination, though she was more fascinated by the mention of Dust, and she hung back to listen. The men seemed to be Scholars; from the way the young woman was questioning them, Lyra took her to be a student of some kind.
“It was discovered by a Muscovite—stop me if you know this already—” a middle-aged man was saying, as the young woman gazed at him in admiration, “a man called Rusakov, and they're usually called Rusakov Particles after him. Elementary particles that don't interact in any way with others—very hard to detect, but the extraordinary thing is that they seem to be attracted to human beings.”
“Really?” said the young woman, wide-eyed.
“And even more extraordinary,” he went on, “some human beings more than others. Adults attract it, but not children. At least, not much, and not until adolescence. In fact, that's the very reason—” His voice dropped, and he moved closer to the young woman, putting his hand confidentially on her shoulder. “—that's the very reason the Oblation Board was set up. As our good hostess here could tell you.”
“Really? Is she involved with the Oblation Board?”
“My dear, she is the Oblation Board. It's entirely her own project—”
The man was about to tell her more when he caught sight of Lyra. She stared back at him unblinkingly, and perhaps he had had a little too much to drink, or perhaps he was keen to impress the young woman, for he said:
“This little lady knows all about it, I'll be bound. You're safe from the Oblation Board, aren't you, my dear?”
“Oh, yes,” said Lyra. “I'm safe from everyone here. Where I used to live, in Oxford, there was all kinds of dangerous things. There was gyptians—they take kids and sell 'em to the Turks for slaves. And on Port Meadow at the full moon there's a werewolf that comes out from the old nunnery at Godstow. I heard him howling once. And there's the Gobblers….”
“That's what I mean,” the man said. “That's what they call the Oblation Board, don't they?”
Lyra felt Pantalaimon tremble suddenly, but he was on his best behavior. The daemons of the two grownups, a cat and a butterfly, didn't seem to notice.
“Gobblers?” said the young woman. “What a peculiar name! Why do they call them Gobblers?”
Lyra was about to tell her one of the bloodcurdling stories she'd made up to frighten the Oxford kids with, but the man was already speaking.
“From the initials, d'you see? General Oblation Board. Very old idea, as a matter of fact. In the Middle Ages, parents would give their children to the church to be monks or nuns. And the unfortunate brats were known as oblates. Means a sacrifice, an offering, something of that sort. So the same idea was taken up when they were looking into the Dust business….As our little friend probably knows. Why don't you go and talk to Lord Boreal?” he added to Lyra directly. “I'm sure he'd like to meet Mrs. Coulter's protegee….That's him, the man with gray hair and the serpent daemon.”
He wanted to get rid of Lyra so that he could talk more privately with the young woman; Lyra could tell that easily. But the young woman, it seemed, was still interested in Lyra, and slipped away from the man to talk to her.
“Stop a minute….What's your name?”
“Lyra.”
“I'm Adele Starminster. I'm a journalist. Could I have a quiet word?”
Thinking it only natural that people should wish to talk to her, Lyra said simply, “Yes.”
The woman's butterfly daemon rose into the air, casting about to left and right, and fluttered down to whisper something, at which Adele Starminster said, “Come to the window seat.”