A School for Unusual Girls

by Kathleen Baldwin

  Presentable.

  “Ha,” I scoffed, and wished them best of luck in that endeavor. If presentable meant anything beyond making me clean and tidy they were going to be sorely disappointed. “My mother has tried for nearly sixteen years and met defeat at every turn.”

  The three of them gathered around, studying me as if I were a fireplace mantel they wished to decorate for Christmas. Miss Stranje tilted her head to one side, contemplating the daunting job before them. “Seraphina, you’re the artist. What color would suit her best?”

  “Let me see…” Sera tugged the bedroom drapes open wider, came back and inspected me under the full glare of the sun. Tapping her finger against her chin, she squinted at me. “Hmm, I should think blues would complement her eyes. As well as certain shades of green. We ought to steer clear of pinks. And avoid stark whites.”

  Jane sorted through my armoire. Apparently a servant had unpacked the contents of my trunks. “There’s not a stitch of blue in here. Or green.”

  Of course not. I could’ve saved her the trouble of checking. Everything I had was either white with purple sprigs or lavender. A color in which I looked abysmal. I’d begged my mother to allow me to stay in black. I hadn’t felt ready for half-mourning anyway. But she insisted that white or sprigged muslin were only suitable fabrics for a young lady. I’d always felt rather like a snow-covered strawberry toddling into the room wearing one of her frosty confections. My poor mother winced every time she saw me.

  Jane shut the doors on my wardrobe with finality. “Nothing in there will suit.”

  My mother would have burst a blood vessel if she’d heard Jane’s assessment of my wardrobe. “What?” she would cry. “All that money spent on seamstresses, for naught?” After a lengthy tirade, my mother would fall silent and fix me with an expression of painful disappointment. Her plan to marry me off to a duke doomed to failure. It was, after all, my fault.

  Jane did not lament. “You and I are much the same size. I have a blue-and-white striped sarcenet gown that would do very well for the occasion.” She collected it from her armoire, draped it across the bed and pulled it up under my chin. “See.”

  “Yes, just the thing,” Miss Stranje declared.

  “Humph.” Madame Cho gave us a curt nod and shuffled out of the room.

  Sera spoke directly to me, acknowledging me as a person, rather than a scarecrow they were attempting to dress. “It’s a lovely color on you. Brings out your eyes.”

  No matter how handsome the blue stripes might look on me, I knew I would never be anywhere near as beautiful as Sera.

  Maya dashed into the room, amber and scarlet robes billowing behind her, like wings on a brightly feathered bird. She rushed to Sera, breathing hard from her haste. She looked me over and confusion lit up her face. “She is not dying? A maid just told me—”

  “Heaven’s no.” Miss Stranje tsked. “She’s a bit dizzy, that’s all. Now, I really must attend to other matters. I leave you girls to figure out what to do with her hair.” She took one last look at me, frowned, and added, “I’ll send a maid to help.”

  I groaned.

  Jane pointed at the flute clasped in Maya’s hand and suggested, “We might try snake charming.”

  They chuckled behind their hands, but I wasn’t much amused at being likened to Medusa with a head full of snakes.

  Sera untied my ribbon, raked through the tangles with her fingers, carefully avoiding the bump that was still tender on the left side, and twisted my hair back. She scooped it up and turned every which way to see the effect. “Perhaps if we minimize any decorations near the neckline, her hair will form an attractive pattern to please the eye.”

  “Doubtful,” I grumbled. “My hair might poke someone’s eye out, but please it? Never.”

  They ignored me. Jane shook her head. “We could scrape it all back and leave a few curls around her face.”

  Sera let go and my hair tumbled out like Moses’s burning bush.

  “I have a pomade we might try,” Maya suggested.

  “It’s no use,” I said. “My mother has tried every possible pomade or fixative. Sugar water only makes it worse. Potato starch is a disaster. Lard. Beeswax. Duck grease and egg whites. Rose oil…” I stopped ticking off failed attempts to tame my hair and threw up my hands. “Unless you are a magician, all we can do is tie it back and hope for the best.”

  “Hope is the best kind of magic.” Maya trilled a few notes on her flute. “I will get the pomade. You will see.” From her armoire, she retrieved a filigreed chest painted bright turquoise, yellow-orange, and vivid red. Reverently opening it, she lifted out an earthenware jar of cream. It smelled heavenly.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Flowers from our garden in India. Ginger, almonds, and honeysuckle.” She breathed in deep over the jar. “The smell of home. Many women in my country wear this. It is an old recipe. My grandmother made it.” Maya’s gaze drifted to the far wall. I could tell she was seeing, not our sedate oak-paneled dormitorium, but the colorful blossoms of a faraway garden, and a grandmother who no longer lived.

  “I can’t take this.” I handed it back. “It’s too important to you.”

  She pushed the jar into my hands. “Use it. I will enjoy having the fragrance of home near me. Perhaps later you can help me make more.”

  I nodded, silently thanking her for such a kindness. Even if my hair could not be tamed, it would smell wonderful. Maya tucked up into the window seat and, bathed in afternoon sun, she played her flute while Jane and Sera wrestled with my obstinate locks.

  As they worked, I heeded Sebastian’s advice and asked, “Why did Miss Stranje have you all bound and gagged in the ballroom?”

  Maya stopped playing the flute. All work on my hair paused. It fell so quiet I could hear birds outside our window. Jane took a deep breath and smoothed pomade through my hair carefully avoiding the bump. “We were practicing.”

  “Practicing?” It made no sense.

  Sera laughed uncomfortably. “Escaping out of the ropes, of course.”

  “Exactly.” Jane brushed out a curl, and Maya’s flute rippled cheerfully as if they were done explaining.

  “Why?”

  Jane pinned down a curl and stood back with her hands on her hips. “Why must you ask so many questions?”

  Having heard that criticism all my life, I bit back my irritation and pushed onward. “It is a perfectly reasonable question. Furthermore, I don’t understand why you continue to protect Miss Stranje with your silence.”

  “Very well,” Sera said matter-of-factly. “We were practicing because one never knows when one might need to escape from being bound to a chair.”

  I’d never heard anything so absurd, but Jane nodded as if it was a completely rational explanation.

  “Tess is the only one who succeeded within the time limit,” Sera offered up this glowing praise. “Clever girl slipped out of the gag without even untying it.”

  “I would’ve done,” said Jane, “but my knots were so tight I broke a fingernail.” She held it up for us to commiserate.

  “See here,” I said, fed up with their lack of forthrightness. “You can stop pretending. I saw the skeleton in the cave. I demand an explanation.”

  “Demand?” Jane tugged on a lock of hair.

  “All right. It’s not a demand. I would very much like to know what’s going on here.”

  Jane smoothed down the hair she’d tugged. “Mollie, you saw Mollie. That’s the name we gave the bones.”

  Sera combed out a snarl. “That cave was used for smuggling long before any of us were born. In all likelihood that skeleton belonged to a smuggler from a hundred years ago, and judging by the size, it was a man.”

  “But…” I pulled away for a moment. “It had on a dress, a pink gown?”

  Jane smiled mischievously. “One of my castoffs. A few months ago Tess and I snuck down on a lark and dressed it. What did you think of the sign?” She whispered in a spooky voice, “Beware the hangman’
s waltz.”

  “A joke!” Angry, I stood up, scattering pins everywhere. “How could you? I was terrified.”

  Jane had the decency to look guilty. “Not a joke. Not exactly. It was meant to ward off intruders.” Under the force of my glare, she added, “Tess’s idea.”

  “I should’ve guessed.” My hands balled into fists.

  “A bit of fun, that’s all.” Jane picked up the scattered pins

  With a gentle hand Sera pressed me back into the chair, and pointed to the doorway. “Hush, Abigail is coming.”

  I sat and brooded silently. Nothing was as it seemed in this place. Everything was upside down and wrong side out. I felt completely at sea. After my disastrous experience in the rowboat, that phrase held considerably more meaning.

  Abigail came and went, carrying water and towels, bringing ribbons and combs, picking up hairpins, offering advice, and finally leaving us to our own devices.

  I’d had years of practice sitting perfectly still while my hair was being tugged, pulled, unsnarled, brushed, ironed, pinned, and plastered into place. Today, by far, proved the least painful and most successful. After they slipped the blue dress on me, Sera held up a mirror to show me their handiwork. My anger evaporated.

  I gasped. Surely another girl stared back.

  Unless Maya had charmed my stubborn curls with her flute playing, the pomade had worked a miracle. My rebellious frizzles were transformed into soft shiny waves. Jane had scooped up my curls and pinned them back loosely, allowing a fullness that flattered my face. Instead of looking like a garish sore thumb, the cornflower blue dress complimented my hair, and made me look like an exotic colorful bird. More like Maya, or Sera, or even Jane.

  “You are magicians,” I whispered, still scarcely able to believe it.

  “Very pretty.” Maya set her flute aside. “Well done, ladies.”

  Sera and Jane bowed like troubadours in a traveling circus. The clock on the mantel chimed and Jane immediately straightened. “It’s getting late. Has anyone seen Tess?”

  No one answered.

  “We can’t delay any longer. It would be just like Lady Daneska and her aunt to arrive early to catch us off guard.”

  “Go,” Maya said. “I will stay here and help Tess get ready.” She retreated to the window seat and draped her robes over her head, hiding under an elegant hood and made the song of a faraway songbird float from her flute.

  “Come.” Sera grabbed my hand. “We’ll wait and watch from the Hamlet hole.”

  Nine

  BATTLES IN THE DRAWING ROOM

  “Hamlet hole? Wait.” I slipped out of Sera’s grasp. “What am I supposed to do, exactly? And why does Lady Pinswary wish to meet me?”

  “I suspect her niece is behind this visit. Lady Daneska is curious,” Sera said.

  “Why should she be curious about me? And why did Tess call her a traitor?”

  Jane looped her arm through mine and tugged me to the door. “You ask a great many questions. We’ll explain everything later. For now, we really must go. I’m certain I heard someone in the main hall.”

  Thus far, in my experience here at Stranje House, people rarely explained later. They had more of wait-and-see-for-yourself policy. We hurried downstairs and turned sharply into an under-stair closet.

  “Come along.” Jane darted into the closet. Which could only mean it was another …

  “Oh, no.” I balked and clutched my skirts. Spanking bad luck these secret passages. “I don’t want to ruin your lovely gown mucking about in another narrow dusty—”

  “It’s all right.” Sera urged me forward. “Everyone knows about this one, even the servants. See. They’ve swept it.”

  The passage was narrow but tidy. We stopped in a nook barely wide enough for the three of us. “We call this Hamlet’s hole,” explained Sera. “You remember, in Hamlet how they hid behind a curtain or a screen to spy on one another?” She slid open a wooden panel to reveal a silk painting mounted across the opening. “This lets us see in, without being seen, and eavesdrop on the evil about to befall us in the drawing room.”

  “You do remember the scene in Hamlet where Polonius get stabbed hiding behind a curtain?” Jane hid her amusement behind her half smile.

  “That’s not funny.” Whatever evil was about to take place here had to do with me, not her.

  “Oh, piffle. One can choose to be sour and afraid, or we can poke fun at our trouble.” She demonstrated her philosophy with a finger to my ribs.

  “I doubt those are our only available choices.”

  In answer, she pressed her troublemaking finger to her lips warning me to be quiet.

  We studied Miss Stranje’s drawing room through the backside of an Oriental silk painting of two dancing cranes, a line of Chinese writing, and a few spindly trees. The brushstrokes hardly obscured our view at all. Darkness concealed us, but we had a perfect view of the sunny parlor. The gilded furnishings, the sea-blue Turkish carpet, the vase of flowers on the mantel, the entire tableau lay before us in impressive detail.

  Miss Stranje sat in a chair next to the fireplace with mending on her lap and a sewing box beside the chair. She looked the very picture of domestic tranquility—a clever ruse. The butler ushered in a guest that could not possibly be Lady Daneska.

  Our headmistress set aside her mending and stood to greet a young gentleman. He limped into the room and bowed curtly.

  “Oh, my,” Jane murmured. “Is that…? It is. It’s him, isn’t it?”

  “Lord Ravencross,” Sera mouthed in awe. “I knew it. He’s—”

  “So much younger than I thought he’d be,” Jane whispered. “And taller. So much more—”

  “Yes.” Sera took a quick breath. “Exactly as I’d imagined.” She exhaled slowly.

  Lord Ravencross wore a simple linen shirt with no vest, the way a young farmer would, rather than a lord. A plain brown coat strained over his muscular shoulders. His limp, rather than making him seem weak, made Lord Ravencross appear stronger, a man to be reckoned with, powerful. Dangerous. A man who could not be stopped, not even by a severe injury.

  No short stylish Beau Brummel haircut for him. His mane of dark hair had been raked back, soldier style, into a simple leather thong. He looked completely out of place in a drawing room. But he had those eyes, deep brown and wounded. The kind of eyes that made a girl wish he would turn and look at her. Only her. He could melt steel with those eyes. But right now they were rimmed with gray, and I guessed Lord Ravencross had been harassed all night by a guilty conscience.

  He stood at attention, like a young officer lecturing his troops. “Let us come straight to the point, Miss Stranje. I may have injured one of your…” His rigid posture broke and he hesitated as if searching for the right word. “Er, that is to say, one of your…”

  “One of my guests?” suggested Miss Stranje.

  “Guests?” He alerted on her terminology. “I thought they were your students. Thought you ran some sort of school for problematic chits?”

  She shrugged. “However do these rumors get tossed about? Do I look like a school mistress?” In that coy manner of hers, Miss Stranje settled back into her chair and gestured for him to be seated on the sofa.

  I swear I have never seen a man who looked as much like a trapped wolf as Lord Ravencross. He clamped his jaw tight and glanced wildly about the room as if the brocade couch had intentionally boxed him in. To make him feel more at home, the flowers would have to be thrown out, the damask curtains ripped down, and the whole place changed into a dark cave. “Confound it! Is the girl injured or not?”

  “Won’t you have a seat, my lord?” Miss Stranje waited very primly.

  He raked back a lock of hair that had escaped its moorings, and limped over to the couch, but did not sit.

  “Would you care for some tea?” Miss Stranje’s left brow cocked in an irritatingly smug manner and humor tainted her voice. “I daresay you’ll be more comfortable if you actually lower yourself onto the cushion.”


  He sat but refused tea. “Miss Stranje, I beg you will answer the question. Is the girl hurt or not?”

  She plunked down the teapot. “Yes, I believe she may be. Perhaps you ought to see her and judge for yourself.” She rang a hand bell and Madame Cho, who I suspected had been lurking in some hidden corner of the room, appeared almost instantly. “Please fetch Miss Aubreyson to the drawing room.”

  “No.” He shot up from the couch as if she’d dumped hot coals in his lap. His lame leg rammed into the tea table and set the china to clattering. He clenched his teeth and hobbled sideways to where there was more room to pace. “I don’t need to see her. If she’s injured, just tell me and I’ll pay for the damages.”

  But it was too late. Madame Cho had hurried away.

  “Ah, I see. You view the young lady as one would a chipped saucer.” Miss Stranje held up a cup and saucer, making a pretense of inspecting it. “You have the idea a few sovereigns will patch up the damage and ease your guilt.” She clucked her tongue the way one does at a naughty boy.

  “Guilt has nothing to do with it. The fault was not mine.” He waved away the cup she offered. “She ran into my horse. Not the other way ’round. Running like a ruddy savage, she was, and on my land, too.”

  “I see.” She set the cup on the table and laced her fingers neatly in her lap. “That explains your distress. A young lady running. Oh, my!” She sniffed and shook her head. “And on your land, too.”

  “That has nothing to do with it. You don’t understand at all, damn it. She fell, and I”—he stopped pacing and rubbed the back of his neck—“I may have been a trifle abrupt with her.”

  “You, my lord? Abrupt?” Miss Stranje asked, all innocence and sugar. “I cannot fathom such a thing.”

  “Must she tease him so?” Sera whispered in Jane’s ear.

  “It’s for his own good,” Jane answered in hushed tones. “Watch what she’s doing. It’s masterful.”

  Masterful? High praise to give a woman who was making her guest squirm. What earthly good would such treatment do him?

  Jane observed my confusion and leaned next to my ear to explain, “She’s helping him face what he did wrong.”