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Chapter Five

The Cocktail Party

In the days that followed, Lyra went everywhere with Mrs Coulter, alreat many people, and they ht be a raphers at the Royal Arctic Institute, and Lyra would sit by and listen; and then Mrs Coulter ht meet a politician or a cleric for lunch in a smart restaurant, and they would be very taken with Lyra and order special dishes for her, and she would learn how to eat asparagus or what sweetbreads tasted like And then in the afternoon thereher expedition, and there were furs and oilskins and waterproof boots to buy, as well as sleeping bags and knives and drawing instruo to tea and meet some ladies, as well dressed as Mrs Coulter if not so beautiful or accoyptian boat ether, one with dangerous powers and qualities such as elegance, charrace Lyra would be dressed up prettily for these occasions, and the ladies would paraceful delicate talk, which was all about people: this artist, or that politician, or those lovers

And when the evening caain there would be lots of glamorous people to talk to and be admired by, for it seemed that Mrs Coulter knew everyone important in London

In the intervals between all these other activities Mrs Coulter would teach her the rudireat gaps in it, like a ely eaten by ht her in a piecemeal and disconnected way: a junior Scholar would be detailed to catch her and instruct her in such-and-such, and the lessons would continue for a sullen week or so until she "forgot" to turn up, to the Scholar’s relief Or else a Scholar would forget what he was supposed to teach her, and drill her at great length about the subject of his current research, whatever that happened to be It was no wonder her knowledge was patchy She knew about atoes and the four fundamental forces and other bits and pieces of experi about the solar system In fact, when Mrs Coulter realized this and explained how the earth and the other five planets revolved around the sun, Lyra laughed loudly at the joke

However, she was keen to show that she did know so her about electrons, she said expertly, "Yes, they’re negatively charged particles Sort of like Dust, except that Dust isn’t charged"

As soon as she said that, Mrs Coulter’s daeolden fur on his little body stood up, bristling, as if it were charged itself Mrs Coulter laid a hand on his back

"Dust?" she said

"Yeah You know, from space, that Dust"

"What do you know about Dust, Lyra?"

"Oh, that it cohts people up, if you have a special sort of camera to see it by Except not children It doesn’t affect children"

"Where did you learn that from?"

By now Lyra are that there was a powerful tension in the room, because Pantalai violently

"Just soet who I think it was one of the Scholars"

"Was it in one of your lessons?"

"Yes, itYes I think that was it This Scholar, I think he was fro to the Chaplain about Dust and I was just passing and it sounded interesting so I couldn’t help stopping to listen That’s what it was"

"I see," said Mrs Coulter

"Is it right, what he told ?"

"Well, I don’t know I’et back to those electrons"

Later, Pantalaimon said, "You knohen all the fur stood up on her daeht her knuckles hite You couldn’t see It was a long ti to leap at you"

That was strange, no doubt; but neither of them knehat to make of it

And finally, there were other kinds of lessons so gently and subtly given that they didn’t feel like lessons at all Hoash one’s own hair; how to judge which colors suited one; how to say no in such a chariven; how to put on lipstick, powder, scent To be sure, Mrs Coulter didn’t teach Lyra the latter arts directly, but she knew Lyra atching when she made herself up, and she took care to let Lyra see where she kept the cosmetics, and to allow her time on her own to explore and try thean to change into winter Froe, but it seemed small and quiet coht of Roger, too, and felt uneasy, but there was an opera to go to, or a new dress to wear, or the Royal Arctic Institute to visit, and then she forgot hi there for six weeks or so, Mrs Coulter decided to hold a cocktail party Lyra had the ih Mrs Coulter never said what it was She ordered flowers, she discussed canapes and drinks with the caterer, and she spent a whole evening with Lyra deciding whom to invite

"We must have the archbishop I couldn’t afford to leave hih he’s the most hateful old snob Lord Boreal is in town: he’ll be fun And the Princess Postnikova Do you think it would be right to invite Erik Andersson? I wonder if it’s about time to take him up"

Erik Andersson was the latest fashionable dancer Lyra had no idea what "take hi her opinion nonetheless She dutifully wrote down all the na the theainst them after all

When Lyra went to bed, Pantalaioing to the North! She’s going to keep us here forever When are we going to run away?"

"She is," Lyra whispered back "You just don’t like her Well, that’s hard luck I like her And ould she be teaching us navigation and all that if she wasn’t going to take us north?"

"To stop you getting impatient, that’s why You don’t really want to stand around at the cocktail party being all sweet and pretty She’s justa pet out of you"

Lyra turned her back and closed her eyes But what Pantalai confined and cramped by this polite life, however luxurious it was She would have given anything for a day with Roger and her Oxford raga the canal The one thing that kept her polite and attentive to Mrs Coulter was that tantalizing hope of going north Perhaps they would meet Lord Asriel Perhaps he and Mrs Coulter would fall in love, and they would get er from the Gobblers

On the afternoon of the cocktail party, Mrs Coulter took Lyra to a fashionable hairdresser’s, where her stiff dark blond hair was softened and waved, and her nails were filed and polished, and where they even applied a little makeup to her eyes and lips to show her how to do it Then they went to collect the new dress Mrs Coulter had ordered for her, and to buy soo back to the flat and check the flowers and get dressed

"Not the shoulder bag, dear," said Mrs Coulter as Lyra ca with a sense of her own prettiness

Lyra had taken to wearing a little white leather shoulder bag everywhere, so as to keep the alethio the cramped way some roses had been bunched into a vase, saw that Lyra wasn’t lanced pointedly at the door

"Oh, please, Mrs Coulter, I do love this bag!"

"Not indoors, Lyra It looks absurd to be carrying a shoulder bag in your own holasses"

It wasn’t so much her snappish tone as the words "in your own home" that made Lyra resist stubbornly Pantalai his back against her little white ankle socks Encouraged by this, Lyra said:

"But it won’t be in the way And it’s the only thing I really like wearing I think it really suits - "

She didn’t finish the sentence, because Mrs Coulter’s daeolden fur and pinned Pantalaimon to the carpet before he could move Lyra cried out in alarm, and then in fear and pain, as Pantalai, unable to loosen the golden rip Only a few seconds, and the monkey had overmastered him: with one fierce black paw around his throat and his black paws gripping the polecat’s lower limbs, he took one of Pantalaimon’s ears in his other paw and pulled as if he intended to tear it off Not angrily, either, but with a cold curious force that was horrifying to see and even worse to feel

Lyra sobbed in terror

"Don’t! Please! Stop hurting us!"

Mrs Coulter looked up from her flowers

"Do as I tell you, then," she said

"I proolden monkey stepped away from Pantalaimon as if he were suddenly bored Pantalaimon fled to Lyra at once, and she scooped hientle

"Now, Lyra," said Mrs Coulter

Lyra turned her back abruptly and slaed the door shut behind her than it opened again Mrs Coulter was standing there only a foot or tay

"Lyra, if you behave in this coarse and vulgar e shall have a confrontation, which I in Take off that bag this instant Control that unpleasant frown Never slauests will be arriving in a fewto find you perfectly behaved, sweet, charhtful in every way I particularly wish for that, Lyra, do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mrs Coulter"

"Then kiss me"

She bent a little and offered her cheek Lyra had to stand on tiptoe to kiss it She noticed how s smell of Mrs Coulter’s flesh: scented, but so on her dressing table before following Mrs Coulter back to the drawing room

"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 h ice? Be a dear and go and ask Warm drinks are horrid"

Lyra found it was quite easy to pretend to be lighthearted and charh she was conscious every second of Pantalaiolden , and soon the roo up with fashionably dressed ladies and handso canapes or s pretty anshen they spoke to her She felt like a universal pet, and the second she voiced that thought to herself, Pantalais and chirruped loudly

She sensed his glee at having proved her right, and becao to school, nette

"I don’t go to school," Lyra told her

"Really? I thought your ood place"

Lyra was mystified until she realized the old lady’s mistake

"Oh! She’s nother I’m her personal assistant," she said importantly

"I see And who are your people?"

Again Lyra had to wonder what she

"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 fro to froith curiosity, so Lyra s past a group of e sofa when she heard the word Dust She had seen enough of society now to understand when , and she watched the process with fascination, though she wasback to listen Thewo them, Lyra took her to be a student of some kind

"It was discovered by a Muscovite - stop , as the young woazed 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 ith others - very hard to detect, but the extraordinary thing is that they sees"

"Really?" said the young woman, wide-eyed

"And even s 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 hehis 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 ht of Lyra She stared back at hily, and perhaps he had had a little toowoman, 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 olf that co 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 daerownups, a cat and a butterfly, didn’t see woman "What a peculiar name! Why do they call them Gobblers?"

Lyra was about to tell her one of the bloodcurdling stories she’d hten the Oxford kids with, but the

"From the initials, d’you see? General Oblation Board Very old idea, as a ive their children to the church to be monks or nuns And the unfortunate brats were known as oblates Means a sacrifice, an offering, so of that sort So the sa into the Dust businessAs our little friend probably knows Why don’t you go and talk to Lord Boreal?" he added to Lyra directly "I’eeThat’s hiray hair and the serpent daeet rid of Lyra so that he could talkwo woman, it seemed, was still interested in Lyra, and slipped away from the man to talk to her

"Stop a minuteWhat’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 wo about to left and right, and fluttered down to whisper so, at which Adele Starminster said, "Come to theseat"

This was a favorite spot of Lyra’s; it overlooked the river, and at this tilittering brilliantly over their reflections in the black water of the high tide A line of barges hauled by a tugthe cushioned seat to make room

"Did Professor Docker say that you had some connection with Mrs Coulter?"

"Yes"