A School for Unusual Girls (3 page)

Miss Stranje allowed an inordinate amount of time to pass before pronouncing judgment upon me.

“I knew it.” Mother collapsed against the back of her chair in defeat and threw up her hands. “It's hopeless. Nothing can be done with her.”

Miss Stranje rose. The black bombazine of her skirts rustled like funeral crepe. “On the contrary, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. I believe we may be able to salvage your daughter.”

Salvage
? They spoke of me as if I were a tattered curtain they intended to rework into a potato sack.

“You do?” My mother blinked at this astonishing news.

“Yes. However”—Miss Stranje grasped the edge of her desk as if it were a pulpit and she about to preach a sermon condemning us all to perdition—“you may have heard my teaching methods are rather unconventional. Severe. Harsh.” She paused and fixed each of us with a shockingly hard glare. “I assure you, the gossip is all true.”

For the first time that day, my mother relaxed.

I, on the other hand, could not swallow the dry lump of dread rising in my throat. Miss Stranje's sharp-eyed gaze seemed to reach into my soul and wring it out.

She bore down on my father. “Mr. Fitzwilliam, you may leave your daughter with me under one condition. You must grant me authority in all matters pertaining to her welfare, financially and otherwise. Should I decide to lock her in a closet with only bread and water for sustenance, I will not tolerate any complaints or—”

“Heavens, no. You can't do that.” Mother swished her hand through the air as if swatting away the idea. “It won't work. Don't you think we would've tried something so simple? It's no use. You can't leave her in solitude to think. She'll simply concoct more mischief while she's locked up. You'll have to come up with something more inventive than that.”

Lips pressed thin, Miss Stranje sniffed. I wasn't sure whether she was annoyed about Mother interrupting or about being saddled with such an intractable student. “Furthermore,” she said with a steady calm, “if I deem it necessary to take her to London to practice her social skills, you will not only permit such an excursion, you will finance the endeavor.”

“More coin?” My father ran a finger around the top of his starched collar. “Already costing me a king's ransom.”

“The choice is yours.” She plopped a sheaf of papers on the corner of the desk nearest him. “You must sign this agreement or I will not accept your daughter into the school.”

He glanced at me and his angry scowl returned. His nostrils flared. I groaned, knowing the smell of ash and burnt hay still lingered in his nose. He would sign.

“Won't sign unless I have some assurances you can do the job.” He sat back, arms crossed. “We stated quite clearly in our letters, we expect some kind of guarantee. I'm no stranger to the rod. Went to Eton. Got beat regular. All part of the training.”

The lump in my stomach turned into a cannonball, and my backside began to hurt in anticipation.

“Women are too weak for this sort of thing.” He glared sideways at my mother. “How do I know a female like yourself can administer proper punishment, when punishment is due?”

Miss Stranje got all prickly and tall. She didn't look weak to me. Not by half.

“I assure you, sir, although I always abide by the law and never use a rod that is thicker than my thumb—”

“Proof, Miss Stranje.” Father leaned forward and tapped the stack of papers. “I want proof that you can make something of her. Then I'll sign your blasted papers.”

Miss Stranje tilted her head and studied him, the way a wild turkey does before it tries to peck your eyes out. In the end, the headmistress stepped back and lifted the oil lamp. “As you wish. I believe a visit to my discipline chamber is in order.” She ushered us to the door. “You, too, Georgiana, come along.”

She led us down long twisting stairs, deep into the bowels of Stranje House. Damp limestone walls, gray with age and mold, closed around us, swallowing us in chilly darkness. Deeper and deeper we went. It was the hellish kind of cold, a moist heavy chill, as if the underbelly of the house had been cold for so long it had seeped into the stones permanently. It sucked the warmth straight out of my bones. We emerged in a dank hallway and shuffled through the musty passageway until the headmistress finally stopped in front of a heavy wooden door. The hinges creaked as she opened it, and we were met with the sound of human whimpering.

Miss Stranje swept her hand forward, welcoming my parents into her dungeon just as if it were a prettily decorated parlor.

Mother marched straight in, glanced about the room and shook her head. “I'm afraid there's not much here we haven't seen before.” She pointed to a pale white-haired girl who was strapped waist, shoulders, and head to a thick oak slat. “See here, Henry, this is a common backboard. Very good for the posture. They had one at my finishing school. I daresay every lady in the
ton
has spent time in a similar device.”

The girl's blue eyes opened wide and flittered fearfully as we drew close. Her forehead had been buckled so tightly to the backboard that red marks welted on each side of the leather strap. She stood perfectly still as Miss Stranje addressed her. “Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam, may I present Miss Seraphina Wyndham.”

Seraphina did not speak, nor did she greet us with a genial smile. She simply mewed like a strangled kitten.

Next to Seraphina stood a large steel mummy case. I'd read about Egyptian artifacts but had never seen one. Except I quickly realized the coffin was not from ancient Egypt, not with that type of a clasp. I leaned closer, thinking I heard something inside.

Breathing.

I jumped back. “Something's in there.”

“Someone,” Miss Stranje corrected. Holding her lamp aloft, she peered into one of the eyeholes. The metal coffin reverberated like a dull bell when she rapped on the front. “Lady Jane? Are you—”

A sharp yowl echoed inside the metal sarcophagus.

“No need to move about. Those tines are extremely sharp. I only meant to inquire after your health. I couldn't help but notice a small quantity of blood seeping out of the bottom of the case. Are you well?”

Of course, she wasn't well. Blood trickled out of the metal seams onto the floor. “This is barbaric!” I backed away from the horrid mummy case and the even more horrid Miss Stranje.

“Well enough.” Lady Jane's surly response reverberated eerily from the casket.

“Well enough,
thank you,
” Miss Stranje corrected. “One must be courteous regardless of the situation.”

There was no answer.

“This is cruel.” I glared at the headmistress. “You can't do this to a member of the nobility.”

“Can't I?” She cocked her head at me, quizzically, like a raven right before snapping up a beetle.

A small Oriental woman padded silently out of the shadows and whacked the mummy case several times with a bamboo stick, setting off a sickening chime. I flinched as Lady Jane shrieked in pain and then obediently responded, “Well enough,
thank you
.”

My mother's only comment was, “Well now, that
is
something I haven't seen before.”

Miss Stranje inclined her head to the Chinese woman and turned to my parents. “Mr. Fitzwilliam, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, allow me to present Madame Cho. She assists me here in the discipline room and also instructs the girls in Asian history.”

Small and old, Madame Cho looked crafty as a black cat. She bowed slowly and stiffly as if the effort cost her ancient bones much pain.

My parents walked on without acknowledging her, following Miss Stranje to examine a rack of various sized training rods and lashes.

Swift as a thief, Madam Cho straightened.
So much for her old bones
. Her obsidian eyes reminded me of a lizard's as she examined me with ruthless assessment. I edged away and joined my father who stood toying with the end of a whip that hung on the wall. He fingered the knots tied in the leather thongs at the beating end of the whip. Glancing sideways at me, I wondered if he might be troubled by the idea of my back, lashed and bleeding.

“
Father?
” I whispered, praying for a reprieve.

Then I remembered how, after the fire, he'd chased me with his riding crop. His face hardened into the same angry mask he'd worn that day.

He let go of the whip and rubbed his palms against the side of his coat. “I've been too soft on you,” he said under his breath, and turned his back on me.

Mother stood in front of a small medieval stretching rack. The relic must've dated clear back to the Inquisition. She seemed alarmed to find such an evil contraption housed in a girls' school. But as she rubbed her fingertips together I realized she wasn't alarmed, merely perturbed that dust had smudged the tips of her glove.

I wanted to scream.
No, no, no!
People do not do this anymore. Not to their daughters. Not to anyone. And yet here we were, standing before implements of reform that even the despicable Miss Stranje had not invented; whips, paddles, various length training rods, and other devices, like the backboard, that were in use all over England.

I swallowed the pincushion of fear stuck in my throat and, marshaled every ounce of courage I had left, to ask, “You don't actually use this rack, do you?”

Miss Stranje turned to me, hideously pleasant, as if merely commenting on the weather. “I find it remarkably effective.”

Father headed for the door. “I've seen enough. I'm ready to sign those damnable papers of yours. I want to be rid of this place.”

Rid of me
.

Mother and Miss Stranje hurried after him. I stared at the shackles on the rack, stunned that my parents would leave me at the mercy of this awful school. I'm not given to outbursts of weakness, but I began to tremble stupidly and my feet seemed frozen to the cold stone floor.

Hope does not shatter all at once. The mind plays tricks.

For several moments I felt certain Stranje House was no more than a ghoulish nightmare. Any moment, I assured myself, my maid Agnes would throw back the curtains and I would awaken in my own bedroom. The world would turn right again. Sanity would return. The sun would glint through my windows. The mantel clock would tick steadily and reliably, not like the panicky thumping of my heart.

But I did not wake up. Not until Madame Cho swatted the back of my legs with her stick and pointed to the door. “You go.” Then she turned and beat on the mummy case. My stinging calves roused me out of disbelief.

I ran.

My slippers skidded against the stone floor as I dashed out of that ghastly room. Faint candlelight trickled from the discipline chamber, but not nearly enough to penetrate the thick darkness in the hallway. Still I ran. Straining to see my way through the inky blackness. A junction in the corridor confused me. Which way were the stairs? Behind me, Madame Cho's banging mingled with yelps of pain. I shook my head. This wasn't a girls' school. It was a madhouse.

I had no idea what Napoleon intended to do about his imprisonment on Elba, but as for me, I planned to escape.

 

Two

SECRETS

I rushed down the corridor until I found an opening in the stone wall. Candles in the discipline chamber did not reach this far down the hallway. The only light came from wisps of moonlight filtering through a small mullioned window high on the wall. A narrow staircase curled up into thick impenetrable darkness. This had to be the right way, so I stepped up into utter blackness.

Moisture from damp moldy stones seeped onto my fingers as I trailed them along the wall, guiding myself as I climbed. I waved my other hand in front of my face brushing away cobwebs and spiders that dangled from the low ceiling. I had to catch up to my parents, but every step increased my uneasiness. Realizing that this couldn't be the right stairwell, I slowed my frantic steps and considered turning back. Except that would do no good. Only the discipline chamber lay behind me.

A faint glimmer caught my attention. Straining to see, I groped the wall and came upon what appeared to be a small door with a weak golden light wavering around the edges. Hopeful it might lead back to the normal part of the house, I pushed. With a loud scraping noise, the door cracked open. I shoved harder. Small pebbles and stones grumbled beneath the wooden panel and pattered on my head. Finally, it opened wide enough that I could squeeze through.

A flurry of high-pitched squeaks startled me—the unmistakable sound of bats. I covered my face and shuddered. They flapped crazily, fanning my nerves to the edge of panic, before they fluttered away. Once they quieted, I peeked out and found myself hunkered on a small ledge high on the wall of a rough-hewn chalkstone cave.

I inched to the lip of the alcove and accidently knocked stones loose with the toe of my shoe. Two seconds later a splash echoed. Far below, a hissing oil lamp hung on a docking post. It sent orange light and shadows sneaking across the walls of the cave. Seawater sloshed in through a narrow opening and splashed against the cavern walls, knocking against a dinghy tied to the post.

I'd read about smuggler's caves in North Devon and Cornwall, and everyone knew they existed along the southern coast near Penzance and St. Ives, but I hadn't expected one here. Yet, surely, this must be a smuggler's cave, and as evidenced by the boat and lantern, in recent use.

Spiders of apprehension skittered up my spine. What sort of girl's school was this? I had to find my parents before it was too late. Surely, knowledge of a smuggler's cave would dissuade them from leaving me here.

I wriggled back through the makeshift door and dashed up the passageway. A few moments later, I heard something.
Voices
. Indistinct at first, but as I darted up the steps, they grew louder. A man's voice, an irritated man, and that could only be one person. With a flood of relief, I shouted, “Father! I'm coming. Wait for me. Please!” The walls muffled my cries, sucking the sound into all the musty crooks and crevices. I called again, and raced through the dark to catch them.