Jane Ashford (12 page)

Walking back to the school building, Thalia wondered about his odd remarks. What had he meant? She was far too engrossed in her own concerns to notice a little group of pupils loitering in the front hall when she entered. She went directly to the stairs and up to her bedchamber, but they lingered to whisper eagerly together, then moved en masse to one of the parlors. There a tall blond girl sat down at the writing desk and began avidly to compose a note. When she had finished and read it over, she laughed. “I shall have John take it into town first thing tomorrow,” she told the others. “I’ll give him a shilling, and he’ll deliver it by hand. Then we’ll see something.” She laughed again, and one by one her friends joined her, but most of them sounded more nervous than amused.

When Thalia came down to breakfast the next morning, she noticed Lady Agnes Crewe in the front hallway, in earnest conference with John, the school’s footman and general message carrier. As she looked, Lady Agnes gave him an envelope and some coins, saying, “You’ll hurry, won’t you?”

“Yes indeed, miss,” replied John, fingering the money appreciatively. “It’ll be there before the cat can lick her ear.”

“Good.” Turning, Lady Agnes caught sight of Thalia on the stairway. She started a little, then recovered and began to turn away.

“Good morning, Lady Agnes,” said Thalia with some amusement.

The girl looked sharply up at her, then returned the greeting before walking hurriedly away in the direction of the dining room. As Thalia followed more slowly, she wondered what kind of mischief the other was up to. For there was no doubt that she was plotting something; Lady Agnes was never so intent as she had been just now unless she was up to something devious.

Breakfast was a pleasant meal. Thalia was in a happy mood, and she had an interesting conversation with Miss Reynolds, on her left, about the pianoforte and its origins. Euphie’s interest in music had meant that her sisters also learned a great deal about it, and Miss Reynolds was pleased to find such a knowledgeable party beside her. Their talk lasted through the meal, until Miss Chadbourne rose to go out. As Thalia followed her, she saw Lady Agnes stop before Miss Chadbourne and drop a small curtsy. This was so unusual that she increased her pace slightly and came up with them in time to hear the girl say, “I wondered if I might see you today, Miss Chadbourne? There is something I want to talk over with you.”

The headmistress showed no signs of surprise. “Certainly, Lady Agnes. You may come up at two, after luncheon.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” The girl dropped another curtsy and walked away.

“Odd,” murmured a voice near Thalia’s ear, and she turned to find Miss Hendricks, the painting teacher, next to her. “I would wager that our Lady Agnes is going to tell tales on someone. It is one of her favorite little nastinesses, though she has never gone so high as Miss Chadbourne before. I sincerely pity her victim. Miss Chadbourne has very rigid ideas of propriety.”

“We should do something,” replied Thalia. “Perhaps I should speak to Lady Agnes and find out what it is. We don’t want any of the girls wrongly accused.”

“Oh, I doubt it will be wrongly. The little Crewe is usually careful to be sure. But you stay clear of it. You’ll only be pulled into the row yourself if you interfere.”

“And what does that matter, if I can help?”

Miss Reynolds merely looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. “You’re a kind person, Miss Hartington,” she said as she turned away. “Do as you like. But I warned you.”

Thalia went to her classroom somewhat troubled as a result of these incidents. She was not sure what she should do. Lady Agnes sat in her customary place in the back of the room and smiled complacently through the session. Thalia felt a growing urge to wipe the smug look from her face, but she could think of no way to do so.

The morning passed placidly, with no untoward event marring Thalia’s classes. Indeed, Mary Deming came up after the first to tell her how much she had enjoyed the poetry they read. In Thalia’s weeks at Chadbourne, Mary had devoured every book she possessed and was well on her way to becoming a fine student of literature.

“Those last three lines,” she said to Thalia when the rest of the fifth form had filed out, “they are so beautiful I thought I should burst into tears when you read them aloud.”

“They are fine,” agreed Thalia.

“And you read them so well. How I wish I could do so.”

“I have told you that it is merely a matter of practice, Mary. Why not try some reading by yourself, in your room?”

The younger girl flushed. “Actually, I… I have. Once or twice. But it sounded so foolish.”

“It does, at first. But if you keep at it, you will soon be declaiming like an orator.”

Mary laughed. “I? But I shall keep trying, Miss Hartington. Perhaps I can improve, at least.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Mary turned to go, but at the doorway she paused. “I wanted to tell you that I… I love your class. It is the best in the school, and I am so glad you came here.”

“Why, thank you, Mary.”

The girl ducked her head shyly, blushed, and left the room.

Thalia smiled to herself as she readied her papers for the next class. Mary was a sweet child; it was hard to believe that she and Lady Agnes Crewe were of the same universe, let alone the same age. Thalia wondered what had happened to each to make them so different.

When her morning classes were over, Thalia went up to her room to fetch Juvenal and take him down to the kitchen for his meal. She had just deposited him there and was walking back toward the dining room when one of the maids stopped her. “Here you are, miss. I’ve been looking everywhere. A lady has called for you. She’s outside in her carriage.”

“Outside? But it’s chilly.”

“I know, miss. But she wouldn’t come in. She asked that you come out and speak to her. Here’s the card.”

Thalia took the small square of pasteboard and read it. “Lady Constance Elguard.” Her cheeks flushed a bit and she caught her breath. “Oh.” She turned quickly back toward the stairs. “I’ll get my shawl.”

In three minutes Thalia was at the front door, her shawl wrapped around her. The school was going in to luncheon, but she ignored them. She would go without her meal, since Lady Elguard had been so kind as to call.

A luxurious private chaise stood outside, and Thalia went directly up to it. As she reached the gravel of the drive, the window was put down and a woman of about fifty looked out. “Miss Hartington?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. And you are Lady Elguard. It is very kind—”

“One moment,” interrupted the other, and put the window back up with a snap.

Thalia blinked, but at once the door of the chaise opened and Lady Elguard stepped down. Thalia caught a glimpse of a younger woman inside the vehicle, pale and sitting very straight, before she turned her attention to James’s mother. Lady Elguard was a tall woman, with prominent bones in her face and gray hair dressed in fashionable ringlets. Her clothes were good, but somber, and her eyes a piercing light gray. At the moment, she was looking Thalia up and down appraisingly.

“Pretty,” she said finally. “But that was to be expected.”

Thalia stared at her.

“Come,” said the older woman. “It is too cool to stand about here. Let us walk up and down.”

“But won’t you come in for a moment?” replied Thalia. “You must be chilled after your drive.”

“I won’t,” snapped Lady Elguard. “I told the maid so already.” She began to walk, and Thalia went with her perforce.

There was a short silence. Thalia, more and more puzzled, did not know what to say. But she was about to venture a commonplace remark on the weather when Lady Elguard snapped, “I have heard all about my son’s entanglement with you.”

Thalia stopped dead and stared at her.

The other faced her grimly. “I believe in plain talk, Miss Hartington. And I see no reason to mince words. You needn’t play the innocent, either; you know very well what I mean.”

Thalia shook her head slightly and started to speak.

“Oh, stuff, of course you do. Don’t playact with me. I have come to tell you that you won’t succeed. You may have fooled my son, but you won’t me. He’ll never marry you, and you may as well give it up.”

“M-marry,” stammered Thalia. In her astonishment, she couldn’t seem to put three words together.

“Of course marry. My son is destined for a great career in the church, Miss Hartington, and he must have a wife who can forward that career. No penniless little schoolmistress is going to stand in the way.” Lady Elguard looked her up and down again. “However pretty,” she added.

Thalia drew herself up. “You have made a mistake,” she said tightly. “There is no question of marriage.”

“Indeed? And I suppose you will say next that you did not entice my son into clandestine meetings, or spend hours alone in his company?”

The word “entice” made Thalia’s green eyes flash. “I did
not
.”

“I see you are a liar as well as an adventuress, Miss Hartington,” answered Lady Elguard coldly. “I have nothing more to say to you. You understand my position.” And she turned and went back to her carriage, leaving Thalia standing rigid in the drive.

The chaise drove smartly away, and after a moment, Thalia shuddered slightly and turned toward the school, walking automatically, as if in a daze. She went through the front door and toward the stairs. Suddenly noticing the babble of voices from the dining room, she stopped, put a hand to her mouth, and then ran up the stairway as quickly as she could. The idea of seeing anyone now was insupportable.

In her room, she threw off her shawl and sank onto the bed. She could still hear Lady Elguard’s harsh words ringing in her ears. Who could have given her such a mistaken impression of Thalia’s friendship with her son? Surely not Mr. Elguard himself; he could not.

And as she went over the scene once again in her mind, Thalia suddenly blushed crimson. Perhaps she had been a bit heedless to meet Elguard all alone. Not the first time, of course; she had not planned that. But the second—it had been perhaps a bit unconventional. Then her chin came up. Had she been living elsewhere, she might at any time have driven out with a young man in an open carriage, and stopped for tea, too. She had seen nothing wrong with the outing at the time, and she did not now. There hadn’t
been
anything. And she had certainly not been “setting her cap” at Mr. Elguard. No such thought had entered her mind!

With this, Thalia’s embarrassment dissolved in outrage. How dared that woman come here and talk to her in such a way? What right did she think she had? She got up and began to pace the room. Nothing seemed more important at that moment than that Lady Elguard should see what a monstrous mistake she had made, and be sorry!

A sharp rap on the door halted Thalia in mid-stride. She went over and pulled it open, revealing one of the maids outside.

“Miss Hartington, Miss Chadbourne wants to see you in her study as soon as possible,” said this girl.

Thalia heaved an angry sigh. She did not feel at all like speaking to Miss Chadbourne. But there was no avoiding it. “Very well,” she answered. “I shall be there directly.”

“Yes, miss. She said at once, miss,” added the maid with relish.

“Thank you,” snapped Thalia.

The girl left reluctantly; Thalia resisted an impulse to kick the door shut behind her. She went to the small mirror on the wall, smoothed her hair, and started off to Miss Chadbourne’s study downstairs.

Thalia was admitted immediately, to find the headmistress seated behind her broad desk looking very grave. She indicated a chair, and Thalia took it.

Miss Chadbourne’s fingers drummed briefly on the desktop. “There is no pleasant way to approach the subject I wish to talk about,” she began, “so I shall simply tell you that reports have reached me that you have been spending your holidays in the company of a young man. I do not, of course, put any faith in gossip. I have summoned you to ask if this is in fact true.” She looked at Thalia steadily.

Thalia’s mouth tightened. Someone had been very thorough. “It is not,” she snapped. “I went walking on Thursday afternoon two weeks ago and happened to encounter Mr. James Elguard in the countryside near here. Last Thursday, we went for a drive. That is all.” She looked at Miss Chadbourne defiantly.

The older woman sighed. “I see.”

There was a pause; then Thalia added, “I have done nothing wrong.”

The headmistress looked at her. “Do you remember the talk we had when you arrived, Miss Hartington? I expressed some concern then about your adjustment to our life here at Chadbourne.”

“I remember, but—”

“Well, I think we face here an example of what I meant. Certainly in terms of your upbringing and the circles in which you might have moved, you did nothing wrong.” She looked up. “Though it was perhaps unwise to begin an acquaintance with a young man in such an unconventional way. But my staff here at Chadbourne cannot behave as young ladies in society might, surrounded as they are by the protections of family and custom. They, all of us, must hold to a higher standard. And by that standard, I judge you behaved wrongly.”

“But it was nothing. It meant nothing.”

“I believe you. But you see, we are set up here as guides to a group of very young ladies. We are in a sense models for them. And if they knew that you met a young man, alone, they might feel that they can do so as well. And we could not have
that
, could we, Miss Hartington?”

A sort of generalized despair settled over Thalia. Though she knew she had done nothing wrong, she could foresee endless petty indignities arising from this event. For a few hours of pleasure, she was being outrageously punished, and there seemed to be nothing she could do about it, for she was dependent upon Miss Chadbourne’s goodwill for her living. Choking on the words, she murmured, “I suppose I was unwise.”

“I’m glad you see that. And I know the meetings will not recur. We will not talk of them again.”

This was clearly a dismissal, and Thalia rose. “Who told you?” she asked.

“I think it best not to say, Miss Hartington. It might cause ill feeling.”

So it was someone at school, concluded Thalia, and then, in a flash, it came to her. Lady Agnes, of course. This explained her behavior yesterday. She turned back to the headmistress. “But if it was someone here, and I assume it was, will there not be talk among the pupils?”

Miss Chadbourne looked grave again. “That is one of the reasons such conduct
is
so unwise. Girls do talk; we can’t stop them.”

Thalia nodded. She would get no help here, she saw. She turned and left the room, closing the door carefully behind her. She must steel herself to whispers and sneers, she realized. Lady Agnes would waste no time in spreading this story. The next few days would undoubtedly be very horrid indeed.