Simply Perfect (5 page)

Claudia was very afraid that Flora might talk too much. However, she was pleased to hear that even in the excitement of the moment the girl spoke with a decent accent and correct grammar—far differently from the way she had spoken when she arrived at the school five years earlier.

“I do indeed,” he said, “though I cannot say that I regarded my first tutor as a saint when he taught me to read. He used the rod far too often for my liking!”

Edna giggled.

“Well, that was silly,” Flora said. “How could you learn properly when you were being beaten? And even worse, how could you
enjoy
learning? It reminds me of the orphanage when we were taught to sew. I never did learn properly, and I still hate sewing. We never
ever
got beaten at school, and I will never
ever
beat my pupils no matter how badly behaved they are or slow to learn. Or my children—if I ever have any.”

Claudia pursed her lips. Flora
was
running on rather. However, her passion was to be commended.

“I can see,” the marquess said, “that you will be a superior governess, Miss Bains. Your pupils will be fortunate children. And you, Miss…?

He looked with raised eyebrows at Edna, who blushed and giggled and looked as if she wanted nothing more than for a black hole to appear at her feet to swallow her up.

“Wood, your grace,” she said. “I mean, my lord.”

“Miss Wood,” he said. “Are you to be a governess too?”

“Yes, my lord,” she said. “I-I mean your grace.”

“I believe,” he said, “that titles must have been invented to confuse us all horribly. As if the fact that most of us are blessed with at least two names is not challenge enough for those who meet us in the course of our lives! And so you are to be a governess, Miss Wood. And doubtless a superior one too, well educated and well trained at Miss Martin's School.”

He looked immediately at Claudia in such a way as to signal to Edna that she need not feel the necessity of composing a reply to his observation. It was, Claudia admitted grudgingly, thoughtful of him.

“Miss Martin,” he said, “I came to see if the three of you are ready to retire for the night. If you are, I shall escort you through the crowded dining room and up to your rooms and see that no one accosts you on the way.”

“Thank you,” Claudia said. “Yes, it has been a long day, and there is another facing us tomorrow.”

And yet after escorting them upstairs past several groups of loudly talking men and seeing Flora and Edna safely inside their room with the door shut, he did not immediately hurry off back downstairs.

“Of course,” he said, “it is still rather early, Miss Martin. And weary as I am after such a long ride, I feel the need to stretch my legs before I lie down. You may feel a similar need and an additional one to draw fresh air into your lungs. Would you care to accompany me on a short walk?”

She would like no such thing.

But her dinner was still sitting heavy in her stomach even though she had not taken large helpings of anything. And she was still feeling cramped from the journey with as much distance again to travel tomorrow. She craved fresh air and exercise.

She could not go walking alone in a strange town when it was already dusk.

The Marquess of Attingsborough was Susanna's friend, she reminded herself. Susanna had spoken highly of him. The only reason she could possibly have for
not
going with him was that she did not like him, though really she did not know him, did she? And that he was a man—but that was patently ridiculous. She might be an aging spinster, but she was not going to dwindle into the type of old maid who simpered and blushed and generally went all to pieces as soon as a male hove into sight.

“Thank you,” she said. “I will fetch my cloak and bonnet.”

“Good,” he said, “I will wait for you at the head of the stairs.”

3

Miss Claudia Martin, Joseph noticed, wore the same gray
cloak and bonnet she had worn all day. Once they were outside the inn, they walked along the street beyond the stable yard until they turned onto a narrower lane that would take them out into the country. She strode along at his side, making it unnecessary for him to reduce his stride. He did not offer his arm. He sensed that it would be the wrong thing to do.

It was already dusk, but it would not be a dark night, he judged. Now that it was too late for the sun to shine, the clouds had moved off and the moon was already up.

“Perhaps,” he said, “tomorrow will be a brighter day.”

“It is to be hoped so,” she agreed. “Sunshine is always preferable to clouds.”

He did not know quite why he had invited her to walk with him—except that her school interested him. She had never shown one sign of liking him.

“I trust your rooms meet with your approval,” he said.

“They do,” she said. “But so would the other rooms have done, the ones I reserved, the ones overlooking the stable yard.”

“They might have been noisy,” he said.

“They
are
noisy,” she told him. “I have stayed in one or other of them before.”

“You
like
noise?” He turned his head to look at her. She was gazing straight ahead, her chin up, her nose in the air. Good Lord, she was annoyed. With
him
? For insisting that she be treated with courtesy and respect at that inn?

“I do not,” she said. “Neither do I like the light of a dozen lanterns shining into my room or the smell of the stables. But they are only rooms and only for one night. And they
are
what I reserved.”

“Are you
quarreling
with me, Miss Martin?” he asked her.

That brought her head around. She looked at him with steady eyes and raised eyebrows, and her pace slowed somewhat.

“Your carriage is very much more comfortable than the hired one would have been,” she said. “The rooms in which the girls and I have been placed are vastly superior to the ones that had been assigned to us. The private dining room was a great improvement upon the public room. But these are all details of life that are not strictly necessary. They are what you and your class take for granted, no doubt. I am not of your class, Lord Attingsborough, and have no wish to be. Moreover, I am a woman who has made her own way in life. I do not need a man to protect me or an aristocrat to procure special favors for me.”

Well! He had not been so roundly scolded since he was a boy. He looked at her with renewed interest.

“I must apologize, then,” he said, “for wishing to see you comfortable?”

“You must do no such thing,” she said. “If you do, I shall be forced to admit how very ungracious my own behavior has been. I ought to be grateful to you. And I am.”

“No, you are not,” he said, grinning.

“No, I am not.”

She almost smiled. Something caught at the corners of her mouth. But clearly she did not wish to show any such sign of weakness. She pressed her lips into a thin line instead, faced front once more, and lengthened her stride.

He had better change the subject, he decided. And he must be very careful to do Miss Martin no favors in the future.

“All the girls in the class I saw this morning seemed sad to see Miss Bains and Miss Wood leave,” he said. “Is there never conflict between the paying pupils and the charity girls?”

“Oh, frequently,” she said, her voice brisk, “especially when the charity girls first arrive, often with poor diction and unpolished manners and very frequently with a grudge against the world. And of course there will almost always be an unbridgeable social gap between the two groups once they have left the school and taken their divergent paths into the future. But it is an interesting lesson in life, and one I and my teachers are at great pains to teach, that we are all human and not so very unlike one another when the accidents of birth and circumstance are stripped away. We hope to instill in our girls a respect for all classes of humanity that they will retain for the rest of their lives.”

He liked her answer. It was sensible yet realistic.

“What gave you the idea of taking in charity pupils?” he asked.

“My lack of fortune,” she told him. “My father's property was entailed and went to a cousin on his death when I was twenty. My portion was modest, to say the least. I could not distribute largesse as I might have done if I had had limitless funds. And so I had to find a way of giving to others that involved service rather than money.”

Or she could have chosen not to give at all.

“And yet,” he said, “it must cost you dearly to educate these girls. You have to house and clothe and feed them. And their presence at the school presumably precludes that of other girls whose parents might pay.”

“The school fees are high,” she told him. “I make no apology for that fact. We give good value, I firmly believe, and any parents who think otherwise are perfectly at liberty to send their daughters elsewhere. And the school does have a very generous benefactor, who is unfortunately anonymous. It has always weighed heavily upon me that I have never been able to thank him in person.”

They had left the town behind them and were on a dirt path that wound its way between low hedgerows with fields and meadows beyond. A slight breeze blew in their faces and lifted the brim of her bonnet.

“And so,” he said, “you have paying pupils and charity pupils. Have you ever aimed at further diversification? Have you ever had any pupils with handicaps, for example?”

“Lameness, do you mean?” she said. “Or deafness? Or mental slowness? I confess I have not considered it. There would be all sorts of challenges to face, would there not?”

“And you are not up to them?” he asked.

She considered her answer as they walked onward.

“I do not know,” she said. “I have never been confronted with such a possibility. I suppose most parents with handicapped children—especially if they are girls—consider them incapable of learning in any normal way and so do not even try to enroll them in a school. If any
did
try and came to me, I…well, I do not know
how
I would respond. I suppose it would depend upon the handicap. A lame child might be easily educable though she might not be able to dance or participate in any vigorous games. A deaf or a mentally slow child might not. It is an interesting question, though.”

She turned her head to look at him with grave but perhaps approving eyes.

“It is one I must ponder more deeply,” she said.

“I must be sure to ask you again if I see you after we arrive in London, then,” he said, smiling at her. “Did you always want to be a teacher?”

She considered her answer again. She was not, he concluded, a woman given to frivolous conversation.

“No,” she said eventually, “not always. I had other dreams as a girl. But when it became obvious that they were not to be realized, I had a choice. As a lady and the daughter of a gentleman of property, I could have remained at home to be supported by my father. And I suppose after his early death my cousin would have felt obliged to continue to support me. Or I could make a life for myself. I chose the latter course. And then there was a further choice—to be a companion or a teacher. For me it was really no choice at all. I could not
bear
to be at the beck and call of a silly, crotchety old lady for twenty-four hours of every day. I took a position as a governess.”

A dog barked in the distance. The dusk deepened around them.

She had dreamed, then. She had not always been as prosaic as she seemed now. She had dreamed presumably of marriage, perhaps of love too. Why had she abandoned that dream even before the age of twenty? She would not be bad-looking even now if she would just allow herself to relax and smile now and then. She might have been pretty as a girl. And she had admitted to a modest portion. There must have been men who would have responded to a little encouragement. Or perhaps there had been a specific dream, a specific man…

It really was none of his business, was it?

“A governess?” he said when it seemed that she would not continue unless prompted.

“To a family of three energetic young children at first,” she said. “I adored them. Unfortunately their father was posted to India only four months after I had joined them, and they went with him. Then I worked with an atrociously badly behaved girl who believed that her elevated rank gave her license to treat the rest of humanity exactly as she pleased.”

“Which was not very well at all?” He grinned down at her.

“That would be an understatement,” she said. “And when I reported honestly to her brother on the difficulties she presented to the effective accomplishment of my duties—I was
not
complaining, merely giving the weekly report he had demanded—but
when
I did, he informed me that he paid me very well indeed to educate his sister and that if I did not enjoy being treated like a worm then I must simply do something about it.”

“And did you?” He continued to grin. She was fairly bristling with indignation at the remembered scene. Her stride had lengthened. He doubted she even saw any of the darkening scenery around them.

“I walked out in the middle of one afternoon,” she said. “I refused to accept a carriage ride or a letter of recommendation or even the week's salary to which I was entitled. And a month later I opened my school in Bath.”

“I daresay,” he said, “that showed them you were no worm, Miss Martin. Well done.”

She laughed suddenly and unexpectedly and her steps slowed.

“I suppose,” she said, “they spared me not a moment's thought once I had disappeared down the driveway—or even before I had disappeared, for that matter.”

“It sounds to me, though,” he said, “as if they did you a favor without ever intending it.”

“That is what I have always believed,” she said. “I believe that life is very generous with us once we have shown the will to take a positive course. It is very ready to keep on opening doors for us. It is just that sometimes we lose our willpower and courage and prefer to stay on the familiar, safe side of each door. I might have cowered in that employment for a long time and been miserable every moment and then perhaps have moved on to another similar one, all confidence in myself and all joy in my chosen career lost forever.”

“And
does
it give you joy, then?” he asked her. “Teaching, I mean, and running your school?”

They had reached a sharp bend in the lane. Ahead of them a wooden stile separated the path from a darkened meadow beyond. They stopped walking by unspoken consent, and he set one elbow on the top bar of the stile and one booted foot on the bottom rung.

“Yes, it does,” she said briskly after giving the question some consideration. “I am happy. One of my reasons for going to London is to inform my man of business that I no longer need the assistance of my benefactor. The school is paying for itself and providing me a little profit besides to put by for my old age. I am contented.”

“I envy you,” he surprised himself by saying.

“I think that hardly likely, Lord Attingsborough,” she said rather sharply as if she believed he mocked her. In the growing darkness it was impossible to see her face clearly.

He laughed and pointed to the west.

“We have not seen the sun all day,” he said, “but at least we have been granted the remnants of a sunset to admire.”

She turned her head away to look at the thin, fiery line of red and purple stretched across the horizon and then up at the dark sky, which was filled with stars and a moon almost at the full.

“How absolutely beautiful,” she said, her voice somehow different, warm and feminine and filled with a nameless longing. “And I have been talking all the time and missing it. How much beauty we allow to pass us by unheeded.”

“Indeed,” he said, looking down at her.

There was something unexpectedly appealing about a woman who had stridden out to meet life head on and believed passionately in the tasks she had set herself. Not
physically
appealing, perhaps, though she was not exactly an antidote, but…

Well, he was not sorry after all that he had invited her out for this walk. Apart from the scolding, he liked what he had heard from her. Which gave him some faint hope…

She sighed, her face still lifted to the sky.

“I did not even realize,” she said, “how much I needed this walk. It is far more restoring to the spirit than an early retirement to bed.”

Was she
really
happy? he wondered. Did she ever feel nostalgia for any of her girlhood dreams? But life was made up of a succession of dreams, some few to be realized, most to be set aside as time went on, one or two to persist for a lifetime. It was knowing when to abandon a dream, perhaps, that mattered and distinguished the successful people in life from the sad, embittered persons who never moved on from the first of life's great disappointments. Or from the airy dreamers who never really lived life at all.