Once the lengthy business of introductions was completed and Mr. Arbuthnot’s health had been inquired into, conversation became general. The young gentlemen eyed the ladies with interest, and the young ladies eyed them, rather more surreptitiously, in return.
Mr. Arbuthnot abruptly turned to Miss Evans and offered to help her wind up her skein of yarn. Miss Evans had no need whatever to have her yarn wound, but she accurately interpreted this as a way of making clear to Mr. Arbuthnot’s friends that he possessed a prior interest in her company. She obligingly dropped her tidy skein on the floor, blocking the action with her skirts, and then began to rewind it on the proffered hands of her admirer.
“I must make myself useful,” he observed. “These ladies have been far kinder to me than I can ever repay, and, as you can see, one might as well lean for support on a broken reed as on me at present.”
“Perhaps we can make good your deficiency, Arbuthnot,” said Mr. Crabbe. “No doubt you are not yet capable of escorting them on their walks or running any little errands that might be required, but we should be honored to do so.”
“Yes,” put in Mr. Hadley, “and if the ladies wished an excursion to some local beauty spot—I suppose there must be one around here,” he said doubtfully, looking out on the dismal scene observable through the windows, “we should be delighted to convey them.”
“Or a little dance?” suggested Mr. Crabbe. “I am sure it would do you good, Arbuthnot, even tho’ you could not participate.”
The young ladies agreed to each and every suggestion, until Miss Quince pointed out that this was a school, and that lessons must be taught, long division comprehended, verbs memorized, and flowers arranged. Parties and outings with visitors, no matter how pleasant, must take second place in importance to the education their relations had sent them there to acquire.
“But, Miss Quince!” protested Miss Asquith. She smiled at the young men and continued with an innocence so wide-eyed that it struck misgivings into the hearts of several members of her audience. “Surely the fundamental reason our relations sent us to this institution of learning was—”
“To strive to become a source of pride and satisfaction to them, no doubt,” interposed Miss Quince hastily.
“To gain household skills that will prove of use when you return home,” added Miss Hopkins.
“To be virtuous, industrious and, above all, silent when your opinion is uncalled for,” finished Miss Winthrop with a glint of steel in her eye.
“Oh, of course!” Miss Asquith blushed. “I merely meant to say that, beyond those admirable goals, our relations wish us to acquire some polish in company and learn to move with ease in the greater world. And I cannot imagine how we could better achieve that than in the companionship of three such accomplished and well-mannered members of good society as these gentlemen. Only think, Miss Winthrop,” she added, “you’ll not need to pay Mr. Cruikshank to drill us on our dance steps if we are to be provided with proper partners at an actual dance!”
“Hmmp!” said Miss Winthrop.
Later, when Miss Asquith had moved away, Mr. Arbuthnot confided to his friends in a low tone, “That young lady seems all right, most of the time, and I daresay there’s no real harm in her. But she’s a humorist, I fear; a lady with an alarming wit.” And he shook his head.
“Indeed?” said Mr. Crabbe. “You interest me.” And withdrawing a monocle on a gold chain from his pocket, he screwed it into his eye, the better to observe Miss Asquith as she pilfered the slice of bread and honey from Miss Franklin’s plate behind that young lady’s back and began to eat it with an abstracted air.
5
AS THE SCHOLARS of the Winthrop Hopkins Academy made the acquaintance of Mr. Arbuthnot’s friends, one of their number was absent on a daily errand.
“Letter for you, Miss. Again!”
Miss Millicent Pffolliott blushed as she took the missive from Mrs. Hodges at the post office, feeling certain that the old lady’s sharp eyes could see right through the envelope. For Miss Pffolliott had a secret, and feared exposure above all things. The secret required that she volunteer to walk to the post office every day without fail to intercept the mail. The excuse she gave was the need of exercise—“I cannot lace my corset! I am growing stout!” This was nonsense, but since it meant that a servant need not be sent, her instructors were willing to allow her this indulgence.
Sometimes she thought her secret a glorious one, and sometimes she thought it dreadful; the feelings it aroused reminded her of the experience of jumping from the hayloft in the barn at her grandmother’s house as a child: one moment of glorious flight followed by a sickening crash and a broken leg.
Like many of the students’ at the Winthrop Hopkins Academy, Miss Pffolliott’s had been a solitary childhood. Her mother had died in childbirth after a hasty and ill-advised marriage, a marriage that made her grandmother’s mouth go tight and grim whenever it was mentioned. Within moments of her mother’s death, her father had sent his infant daughter away to be cared for by his wife’s family, and then seemed to forget her existence. He was reported to be charming, gay, and expensive in London, Bath, and the great cities of the Continent, but had never shown his face in unfashionable Scunthorpe, where his daughter was being raised. Miss Pffolliott could not even spin the fantasies of a lonely child round his portrait miniature, for she did not possess one. All she had of him was one letter, much read and reread, sent on the occasion of her sixth birthday, which exhorted her to be a good girl and to obey her grandfather (who had in fact succumbed to apoplexy three years earlier).
When her grandmother contracted the last illness of her life, she had enrolled Miss Pffolliott in the newly established Winthrop Hopkins Academy, dying but a few weeks later. Evidently, having foreseen her own demise, she had wished to provide some structure for her grandchild, knowing the girl’s father would not. Before sending her away she said, “Now, Millie, your grandfather wrote his will so that your father cannot claim a penny of our money. Mr. Trevelyan”—the lawyer—“will be constrained by the terms of the will, and neither you nor he will be legally able to make over any funds to your father. So if the rogue ever contacts you, remember that! You cannot give him money even if you wish to.”
However, after her grandmamma’s death she did not see nor hear from her father himself. She did hear from his lawyer, who directed her to write to him in the event she needed to contact her father, and that was all. Hers had been a life lacking in correspondence; she could count the letters she had received in seventeen years on the fingers of one hand.
And now, quite unexpectedly, there were a great many letters, and from a secret admirer.
They had begun two months after she had arrived at the school. The first came addressed in an unfamiliar feminine hand, and purported to be from an aunt on her father’s side. So little did she know of the man that she might have possessed any number of such aunts without being cognizant of it, so she accepted the letter with simple pleasure and sat down to read it openly and without disguise.
After that brief paragraph, however, the handwriting altered to a man’s vigorous script, explaining that the introduction had been written by a friend at his especial request. The true purpose of the letter was to state his unrestrained esteem and approbation.
You do not know me—may I call you my dear Miss Pffolliott?—yet I know you. At last I cannot refrain from telling you how much I admire and respect you. Your lovely face, your delicate, graceful form, that intelligent eye and placid brow that promise such riches of mind and heart! I can only beg you to forgive me for addressing you in this manner, without permission from your guardians.
The last line read: I shall write again, and can but hope you will forgive my audacity to the extent that you will not burn my message unread. It was signed Your Humble Servant.
As the letter had no return address, she was unable to reply and ask the gentleman to apply to h
er father before writing again. That she ought not to be receiving such missives without his knowledge she knew very well, but how could she approach such an intimate subject with a man she had never met and whose address she did not even know?
When the next letter arrived, she nearly wept with vexation, realizing that her proper course was, in fact, to burn it unread.
Yet that also seemed out of her power. No one ever had said such things to her before; she had never dreamt that such things could be said to her. Her grandparents had discouraged any feminine vanities, believing that her mother’s rash marriage and early death were entirely due to an appetite for admiration and flattery. They were unwilling to give any praise for her personal attractions beyond a grudging “You would do well enough, if only your hands were cleaner and your hair tidier.”
To be called lovely, delicate, graceful! Miss Pffolliott read and reread the words with greedy attention. When her eye fell upon the word intelligent, she hesitated and frowned. She was an honest girl, and glimpses in the mirror suggested that she was also a pretty one; but nothing in her observation of life had shown her that she was any cleverer than other girls. However, she reasoned, perhaps the fact that she questioned her own intelligence meant that at least she was more intelligent than those who did not. Beyond this point of deduction her wits would not carry her, and gradually she had begun to take her admirer’s evaluation of her worth as the correct one: she was both clever and beautiful.
To destroy another letter, which might contain repetitions of those assurances, or perhaps even something new of an admiring nature, was unbearable. In the end she had opened it, and the ones after that, and breathed deep the intoxicating fumes.
“Well? Aren’t you going to read your letter, Miss Pffolliott?” Mrs. Hodges’s gaze was intent.
Miss Pffolliott blushed again. “I—of course I will, later,” she stammered.
Mrs. Hodges produced a grubby-looking lemon drop and pushed a straight-backed chair toward her. “Have a sweetie, Miss, and take a seat,” she suggested in an insinuating tone. “Rest thyself after that long hot walk—reckon it’ll do you good. And you can have a peek at your letter whilst you sit. Is it from your mam and da, then?”
“No, no, thank you, Mrs. Hodges. I—I’ll go now. Good-bye!” She made her escape, heart beating loudly in her chest. Mrs. Hodges obviously suspected something and, starved for entertainment in Lesser Hoo, was anxious to pry it out of her. She walked quickly, waiting until she was out of sight of the keen eyes of the postmistress before secreting her own letter in her pocket, away from the half dozen other missives she carried back to the school.
When she arrived, the visitors had departed and the daily routine resumed. In intervals between her lessons, she felt the edge of the paper in her pocket for reassurance that it was still there. Its mere presence was enough to make her speak crossly to Miss Victor when she asked for help with an arithmetic problem. At last, after tea, she had a few moments of leisure alone in her room. She took it out and broke the seal. Carefully unfolding it, she began to read.
I find that I cannot bear the distance between us any longer. I have struggled with myself; I have tried to reconcile myself to merely corresponding with you, never to touch your hand, or to see your lovely face. But I must beg of you—
“Miss Pffolliott! Do come downstairs. Miss Briggs requires a partner for Italian grammar practice.”
With a tiny scream of frustration, Miss Pffolliott tried to shut out the intruding voice. What? What must he beg of her? But it was of no use. She had only time to run her eyes over the next half sentence—tho’ well do I know that I am not worthy of such a great—before she heard running footsteps approaching and she was forced to crush the partially read letter back into her pocket.
She stood and said, “Indeed, Miss Quince, I was just coming.”
Never did a list of irregular verbs last so long. Miss Briggs was unbearably stupid about them; she wandered unhappily amongst the conjugations of andare, cadere, and avere, and had to repeat every variation five or six times before she got it right (“I expect Italy is a perfectly horrid country,” Miss Briggs muttered rebelliously. “If I lived in it I should refuse to speak a word!”). And every time Miss Pffolliott moved, the letter in her pocket crackled in the most provoking manner.
But long before she was able to strain her eyes in the guttering light of the last half inch of candle at bedtime to read the remaining words, she had settled in her own mind what promise her secret lover sought to extract from her.
All that remained was for her to decide: would she, in direct violation of the rules of propriety and decorum, without proper supervision or the knowledge of those responsible for her welfare, consent to meet with him? And, who was he?
The last line of her precious missive read: Look for me when you least expect me!
Miss Crump, alone in the state bedroom down the hall, was already asleep and dreaming. In her sleep she contracted into yet a smaller and smaller area of the bed, until she became no more than a slight disturbance in the coverings on the northwest corner. She had been given the largest and finest room in the house, but she used so little of the space that she could hardly be said to be occupying it at all. Miss Asquith had on more than one occasion looked longingly at the shining, unused surfaces in this elegant chamber, but when she had ventured to hint to the only-too-obliging Miss Crump that they trade accommodations, Miss Evans had spoken to Miss Asquith quite sharply, and the suggestion was withdrawn.
Miss Crump had also received a letter that day, and reading it had caused her to dream. She dreamt of the governess who had had charge of her from the time she was ten years of age. It was not a comforting reverie on childhood past; in fact, rather the reverse.
“Jane, I want you to do something for me.” In the dream Miss le Strange was sitting in her high-backed chair in the library, the one that made her look like a queen in a fairy tale. Miss Crump’s heart turned over and she whimpered a little in her sleep.
“Yes, Miss le Strange,” whispered the dream–Miss Crump.
“I want you to climb to the top of the tower, Jane—”
“Oh no, please, Miss le Strange! Please, not again!”
Miss le Strange leaned back in her chair and regarded the child before her. “Now, Jane, you know we must overcome these foolish fears of yours. And the best way to do that is to face them! As I say, I want you to climb to the top of the tower and then, this time, I would like you to get quite up on top of the parapet and wave your arm. Wave hard! I shall come out and watch that you do it.”
“Oh, Miss le Strange! I cannot bear it!”
“Perhaps you think so, Jane, but you must,” said Miss le Strange, smiling. “I know best. Now run along. Wave hard!”
Weeping, little Miss Crump crept up the winding iron stairs of the tower, clinging to the wall to stave off the giddiness that always plagued her in high places. At last she reached the summit of the stairs. Pausing a moment to gather her courage, she took a deep breath and pushed open the wooden door and stepped out onto the roof. It was covered with slippery black slates, and the only protection from a fall was the low parapet that rimmed it.
She closed her eyes, then opened them and inched forward to the parapet. Miss le Strange was far, far down below, her face lifted to watch, red hair and white dress and bonnet standing out against the green lawn and the clipped hedges.
“Very good, Jane!” she called. “Come closer. Closer! That’s right. Now, I want you to step up onto the parapet. Go carefully! We don’t want you to fall!”
“Oh, Miss le Strange!”
“Do as I tell you, Jane! Do it now.”
The sleeping Miss Crump whimpered again. Her limbs twitched a little as, in the dream, she obeyed her governess’s command.
“Oh, hurrah, Jane! Very, very good! Wave to me!”
Miss Crump’s hand uncurled, lifted an inch, and t
hen lowered. Her entire frame was rigid against the horror of the drop.
“Let me think,” mused the tiny Miss le Strange below on the lawn. “What shall I have her do now? Perhaps . . . I think a pirouette. Jane, I want you to do a—”
“Miss? Excuse me, Miss,” said a voice. Mrs. Barclay, the housekeeper, had approached, and was standing behind the governess, her face expressionless. “Cook wishes to speak with you about the dinner, Miss.”
Miss le Strange frowned. “Now, Mrs. Barclay? As you can see, I am at a rather delicate stage of Miss Crump’s training. Cannot you attend to the matter?”
“No, Miss,” said Mrs. Barclay, staring at the ground rather than up at the terrified child outlined against the sky. “I think you should come, Miss.”
“Oh, very well, if you insist.” She called up toward the parapet. “Jane, come down, and do try not to be clumsy, I beg of you! Now, what is this nonsense, Mrs. Barclay?”
The dreaming Miss Crump, relieved of the prospect of doing a pirouette on the narrow ledge, woke panting, her brow and palms cold and clammy.
The servants had always done their best for the young mistress, but there was little they could do to protect her against the iron whims of Miss le Strange. Viscount Baggeshotte, awed by her lineage, which was of fabulous antiquity and intertwined with the ruling houses of three European nations, had granted her a magnificent salary and free rein over his daughter and the entire estate as well. Having entrusted Jane’s care to her, he had fled the harsh winters on the North Sea for his house in Bath. He only visited for a month every summer, during which time he vaguely applauded her efforts to embolden the small, sad mouse who was his daughter.
“Quite right, quite right! Can’t have the little beggar afraid of her own shadow! I’m certain you’ve got the right idea, m’dear. There’s good blood in you, Miss le Strange, and good blood will always tell. Glad you’ve undertaken the care of my girl, poor motherless child!”
A School for Brides Page 4