A School for Brides

by Patrice Kindl

  Into this idyllic scene two figures appeared on the high road that ran in front of the school. From small, indistinct dots they grew larger and clearer as they approached, resolving into Miss le Strange and her maidservant. They marched past the school grounds, turning their heads to stare at the group under the apple trees. Miss le Strange gave one curt nod to acknowledge the acquaintance, and then walked on.

  A cloud blotted out the sun; the doves stilled their cries. Miss Briggs’s song faltered and broke off. In the silence, it was possible to hear the rustle of the skirts of the interlopers and the muffled thud of their heels hitting the dusty road. Their backs, as they moved onward toward the village of Lesser Hoo, were rigid with disapproval and hostility.

  Miss Victor dropped her sketchbook and crayon and began to sniffle, her eyes welling up ominously. Miss Crump took the fine white shawl from her shoulders and wrapped it around her bonneted head so that she looked like an oddly shaped ghost cowering in the shadows. The ladies lowered their mending and watched the small parade as it dwindled again in size and disappeared around a bend. Even Miss Franklin paused in her furious scribblings and looked up to see them go.

  “Who was that lady, pray?” she inquired.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sakes!” cried Miss Asquith, exasperated with her friend. “That was Miss le Strange, author of all our woe. Do pay attention, Miss Franklin!”

  “So that is Miss le Strange,” Miss Franklin said thoughtfully.

  Soon thereafter, everyone present found a compelling reason to leave the sunlit orchard and return to the house. Apparently preoccupied by the discovery of Miss le Strange’s identity, Miss Franklin got up without remembering her notebook of formulae, leaving it abandoned under a tree. However, this was of no import, as Mr. Rupert Crabbe slipped it into his waistcoat pocket and followed after her.

  At the house, they discovered that Robert had been on the point of coming to fetch them, or at least to fetch Mr. Crabbe and his brother, Rupert. After the passage of Miss le Strange and her servant, the party had spied someone else approaching, this time on horseback, but it had been assumed that this person was riding on toward Lesser Hoo and would not pause. It was, however, a messenger, sent by express with a letter for Mr. Crabbe. The urgency of such a missive must be assumed; everyone save Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Rupert Crabbe, and Miss Asquith soon quitted the room to allow the brothers to discover in privacy whatever calamity it might reveal.

  Miss Quince paused at the doorway, calling in a low tone, “Miss Asquith, please come with us. We will commence our lessons upstairs in the music room.”

  Miss Asquith responded, “Pray do not press me, Miss Quince. I must know what the matter is, or die of my ignorance.” There was no sign of levity on her usually merry countenance, and her tone gave assurance of the gravity of her feelings.

  Sighing with vexation at her pupil’s willfulness, yet unable to avoid some stirrings of sympathy, Miss Quince remained in the doorway to ensure the propriety of such a conference, and thus was unable to avoid hearing all that passed.

  “I see it comes from our father’s solicitor,” said Mr. Rupert Crabbe. “Do open it, Henry, and end this suspense. Our father’s not writing it himself is such a frightful omen—tell me quickly! Is he dead?”

  A long silence followed this plea, as Mr. Crabbe perused the message. At last he handed the letter to his brother and said, “T’would be better if he were, I daresay, but he is not. Not yet, tho’ perhaps he soon will be, once the court of assizes has heard his case.”

  “His case! What can you mean, court of assizes? That is only for the most serious of criminal cases—you cannot be suggesting—!”

  “Stop arguing with me, Rupert, and read the letter. As I come to think of it, it is worse than that. It will have to be the Lord High Steward and the House of Lords,” growled Mr. Crabbe. His gaze lit upon Miss Asquith’s serious face, looking up at him with compassion and concern. “I do not grudge you hearing this, Miss Asquith. No doubt most of England knows it already. Our father has—”

  “He has killed Sir Grimm! After losing to him at cards! Sir Grimm, our old neighbor! Oh, the disgrace of it, and me a clergyman!” cried Rupert. “And he did the deed in front of witnesses, too!”

  Mr. Crabbe gestured toward his brother, who was clutching at his hair with one hand and crumpling the letter with the other. “As my brother informs you, we are now the sons of a murderer, and a murderer so addlepated as to commit his crime in front of two maidservants, the local doctor, and a justice of the peace.”

  “We are ruined! Ruined! We shall never be able to hold up our heads in public!”

  “Again, my brother expresses the matter concisely,” said Mr. Crabbe. “I hope you will understand that we must leave you, Miss Asquith, and—is that you, Miss Quince? Pray give our apologies to the other ladies, but we must be off at once.”

  Miss Asquith placed her hand on his arm and said, her eyes meeting his, “I am more sorry than I can say for your pain. I wish there were a way I could offer you some aid.”

  Mr. Crabbe looked down at her small white hand on his sleeve. “I—I thank you for that, Miss Asquith. However”—here he raised his gaze to hers again, his voice became more formal, and he moved away a space so that her hand fell—“I doubt anybody can do anything for us at present. We shall have to take the kicking fate has in store for us, I fear. Good-bye, Miss Quince, Miss Asquith. Rupert, come along.”

  Rupert looked distractedly about himself. “Wait!” he said. “I beg your pardon, brother; there is one thing I—” He darted into an adjoining room, but returned shortly.

  Miss Asquith, regarding him with pity, said, “I believe I know whom you seek. I will tell her that necessity prevented you from doing so. She is not someone who demands that the proprieties be observed—she will readily forgive you. Neither she nor I am conventional, you know. Now go, and do not worry any further about us. Good-bye, good-bye! Please travel safely, and . . . I pray your journey’s end will show you a better circumstance than you at present expect.”

  And with no more than a scant few words more, they were gone, and within an hour, gone altogether from the village of Lesser Hoo.

  Quite naturally, a great deal of curiosity about the nature of the events that had so abruptly deprived them of the company of the two brothers had been aroused, and after some deliberation, Miss Quince decided to reveal the shocking story, albeit in as dull and drab a way as possible.

  “I gather that the Baron is a man of very little self-command,” she said, “prone to any number of petty vices and a great source of worry to his friends. There was a quarrel, I believe, with the result that a gentleman has most unfortunately died, and the law is likely to make a great deal of tiresome fuss. Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Rupert Crabbe have quite properly gone home to try to lend some assistance in the matter. As soon as the House of Lords can be convened to hear the case it will all be settled, and none of us need give it any further thought.”

  Everyone exclaimed over the matter, but as Miss Quince had rather made it sound as if the Baron were a naughty child who had broken a piece of china in a fit of temper, the horror of the event was lessened. Mr. Hadley took himself off, feeling that he might be able to help his friends in arranging their departure, or at least in smoothing over matters with the Throstletwists.

  Miss Asquith had retired to her room after the two brothers’ departure, only pausing to squeeze her friend Miss Franklin’s hand and murmur, “They had to go, and immediately—Miss Quince will explain why. There was no time for farewells. He sought you, before they left, without success. But we will see them again, I assure you, my dear Miss Franklin.”

  Miss Franklin nodded and returned the pressure on her hand. “Perhaps we shall. You must go to your room and have a little weep. I do not find release in tears, myself, but I am informed that many women do. I will come to you later and see to it that you have something to eat and drink.”


  Miss Asquith thanked her friend and indeed did retire to her room for a short spell of tears, and remained there until the next day.

  Mr. Rasmussen soon called, eager to be introduced to the young ladies and to discuss the scandal, which formed the sole subject of conversation in the neighborhood. While he had already made the acquaintance of the three headmistresses, he was unknown to several of the students. They cast curious glances in his direction, which then slid over to Miss Pffolliott, who sat in a corner, paying great attention to a pelisse she was engaged in altering.

  Under the influence of these interested female eyes, Mr. Rasmussen expanded. He spoke of his estates, his travels, his friends in high places. He even, winking, hinted at conducting amours amongst the “ton,” the most fashionable set of people in England. Miss Winthrop and Miss Hopkins seemed willing to hear more, but Miss Quince soon quashed this subject of conversation, and so he reverted to the safer topic of well-known and well-born friends.

  “Knew that fellow Baron Hardcastle, father of your young friend, Mr. Crabbe. Knew him well, in fact; I went to school with him. What a rascal!” And Mr. Rasmussen laughed uproariously and slapped his knee.

  “Oh?” said Miss Quince in a chilly tone. “Then you are no doubt distressed at his current predicament.”

  “Ah, well! It won’t surprise anybody who ever met him that Hardcastle ended up in a deuced bad way. He always was a bit of a loose fish—no wonder then that he finds himself in hot water now! Pretty good, hey? Loose fish, hot water? What? What?” He laughed again. “And I expect the sons are no better than they should be either, hey? Personally, I shouldn’t believe a word either of them said.” Here he paused to look around and judge the effect of his words. Never a man sensitive to nuance in human expressions, he continued, “Pair of rapscallions, I should think, and they’ve been found out now with a vengeance. No one will pay either of them any mind in the future.”

  Miss Quince said, “No one, Mr. Rasmussen, save people of sense and observation, I suppose. We have been well impressed with both young gentlemen.”

  Miss Franklin cleared her throat. “As to the character of Mr. Crabbe the elder, I have no complaint to make, other than to a certain levity and lack of serious thought. However, I do rather object to the behavior of Mr. Rupert Crabbe.”

  The entire company regarded her with astonishment. Those who had thought about Miss Franklin and Mr. Rupert Crabbe at all had assumed that she, like Miss Asquith, must be in a state of deepest mourning at their absence.

  Miss Hopkins, suspecting that revelations of an indelicate nature were about to be divulged, made an attempt to head Miss Franklin off. “You shall tell us about that presently, my dear,” she said. “But I wish we could change the subject for now . . . What say you to, er . . . telling us about the calculations you have been working on . . . Oh! I suppose we shall have to send Mr. Rupert Crabbe’s telescope after him, shan’t we, and then you will lose the use of it. How unfortunate for you!” Miss Hopkins, who considered Miss Franklin’s calculations and her work with the telescope to be a monumental waste of time, was being less than honest here, but would much rather talk of the gentleman’s telescope than of any failings of the gentleman himself.

  “I am unable to refer to my calculations, or even to duplicate them using Mr. Rupert Crabbe’s telescope,” Miss Franklin said. “Apparently, in the moments after reading the letter from his father’s lawyer, he made arrangements with one of the maids to have his telescope conveyed to him at Yellering Hall. And then he pocketed the notebooks filled with my work and took them away with him as well.”

  “But . . . but why should he do that?” demanded a stupefied Miss Winthrop.

  “I expect he wanted to take credit for my discoveries,” said Miss Franklin. “And now, if you don’t mind, I believe that I, too, will retire to my room.”

  18

  MISS ASQUITH, UPON rising from her bed on the morrow, was all indignation and outraged friendship when she heard the tale of the perfidious Rupert Crabbe. The sheer effrontery of his actions was such that she almost agreed with Mr. Rasmussen that the entire Crabbe family was a band of knaves and rapscallions—but no, she could not think poorly of the elder brother, however wicked his relatives might be.

  Miss Hopkins and Miss Winthrop refused to believe that Mr. Rupert Crabbe’s carrying off seven or eight little booklets of Miss Franklin’s notations could be anything other than an error—perhaps he had mistaken them for his own work. Miss Asquith, however, required no proof from Miss Franklin that it was a deliberate act. Everyone knew those little books of hers; she had been chaffed about them often enough, and in Mr. Rupert Crabbe’s presence. He must know, as everyone did, that they were her astronomical observations and deductions.

  “Really, Miss Franklin, Miss Asquith, I am afraid that you both think rather too highly of the value of these little experiments,” scolded Miss Winthrop. “Why should a clever young man such as Mr. Rupert Crabbe wish to trouble himself with a few notations by Miss Franklin?”

  “Because clever young Mr. Rupert Crabbe was quite intelligent enough to recognize genius when he saw it,” retorted Miss Asquith. Remembering that she was a well-behaved and dutiful young gentlewoman, she added, “That is, if you please, Miss Winthrop.” She bobbed a quick, mollifying curtsy, then remarked, “No doubt he hopes to write a monograph and present it to the Royal Society using Miss Franklin’s discoveries, claiming they are his own.”

  “Oh, tosh!” said Miss Winthrop angrily. “What nonsense!” Miss Quince looked grave, but offered no opinion.

  Miss Franklin said calmly, “I ought to have kept a better watch on them. He had picked up one or two earlier and did not return them, so I should have known. I did not anticipate his abrupt departure, or that he would act so decisively.” Then she sat down and began to make up a new little notebook, laying out the papers, folding them, and sewing the spine with neat, precise stitches, as though losing weeks of work did not matter to her.

  “At least we have taught her to sew a straight seam,” murmured Miss Winthrop to Miss Hopkins. “If you recall what a hodgepodge her needlework was when she came here!”

  Miss Asquith waited until the conversation had drifted to other topics and she and Miss Franklin were alone and unobserved in their corner. Then she said, “I do not wish to tempt you into the ‘slough of despond,’ dear Miss Franklin, but surely you must feel something in this matter! I know that you were uncertain about Mr. Rupert Crabbe’s true intentions, and it appears you were in the right there, as I was wrong. But, even if your vanity and your heart are untouched, you must feel dreadful about losing the documentation of so much patient thought and observation. If you desire not to speak of it, I will respect your wishes, but if it would ease your mind or heart to unburden yourself to me, I am entirely at your command.”

  Miss Franklin was silent a moment. “You are very kind,” she began, and then, turning to study her companion with her large dark eyes, went on to say, “Yes, you are very kind, aren’t you? It is rather unfair of you to be kind to me, you know, Miss Asquith. The behavior of Mr. Rupert Crabbe had convinced me that I was right to turn my back upon any hope of love or trust in humanity. I have been sitting here congratulating myself upon becoming insentient—on growing a carapace as hard and impervious as that of a tortoise. And here you are, insisting upon acting as my friend, caring about my sorrows and disappointments.” She shook her head. “You are undoing all the good that Mr. Rupert Crabbe’s betrayal has done me. Perhaps I shall not be able to quite wall myself off from human affections. I shall have to leave one small chink in my armor open, for your friendship.”

  Uncertain whether to laugh or weep at this unexpected reproach, Miss Asquith begged her to at least give the assurance that her heart was not blighted. “For I feel most dreadfully guilty at having encouraged you to expect a declaration from him. I was wrong, and I regret it bitterly.”

  “I do
not think you were wrong, Miss Asquith—your name is Emily, is it not? May I call you by it? Mine is Rosalind, and I hope you will so address me.”

  “Oh, pray do! But what do you mean, Rosalind?”

  “I believe he had in fact decided to make me an offer. My fortune is ample, and I suppose he assumed I would make a useful assistant in his scientific studies, in between bearing his children, managing his congregation, and sewing his shirts. If I should manage to make any discoveries worthy of publishing, he could always write them up and claim the credit, as it would have been his legal right to do.

  “It was the news of his father’s crime that caused him to abandon that plan. He knew my mother would never consent to a marriage with the son of a notorious gambler who had killed a man in a brawl. No, not even tho’ he was the son of a peer of the realm. Perhaps,” she said with a slight smile, “Mama might allow me to marry the elder of the Crabbe brothers, he who will be the baron one day, but never a younger son, a clergyman who is apt to lose his position after all this scandal.”

  Miss Asquith’s hands twisted in her lap. “But you of course—”

  Miss Franklin laughed. “Fear not! Even if I had had it in mind to be so faithless a friend, Mr. Crabbe the elder has never once looked at another woman so long as you were in the room. No, Mr. Crabbe and I should be unsuited to each other. It was only Rupert Crabbe I ever thought of.”

  She sighed. “I will own, Emily, that my vanity, if not my heart, was touched. I wondered if I could subjugate my will to a man’s, in return for the comfort of being a natural, a normal woman, and living the life of a wife and mother. Yet, while I could tell that he was considering making me an offer, I could not decide if there was any real affection in the impulse, or merely calculation. He valued me, yes: I am young, attractive, with considerable mental attainments and a substantial dowry. But I could not tell whether or not he loved me. Being genuinely loved would have compensated for some sacrifice of independence on my part.