Lessons After Dark

by Isabel Cooper

  “They’ll eat on their own. God willing,” said Mrs. Edgar with the first real emotion Olivia had heard from her, “there won’t be any more incidents tonight. Mrs. Grenville said she’d introduce you tomorrow and take you ’round the place as well.”

  It was an utterly offhand comment, but it almost made Olivia slump against the wall with relief. “That would be very kind of her,” she said, fumbling for words. “Please thank her for me. And thank you too.”

  “Of course, ma’am,” said Mrs. Edgar, neither smiling nor frowning. “Just follow me, and I’ll show you your room.”

  Olivia followed, half-blind with joy. She could stay. She could teach and learn in her spare time; more than that, there’d be a steady wage, ready meals, and a roof over her head she needn’t worry about losing every month.

  She hadn’t let herself realize just how much the position meant to her or how terrified she’d been when she thought the Grenvilles might send her away. Now clarity had arrived all at once. Olivia was surprised to find anger came with it.

  “How long has Dr. St. John been here?” she asked.

  “Hmm? About two weeks, ma’am. Keeps to himself a fair bit—when the students allow it. Without any other teachers here, it’s fallen to him to keep the children in line when the Grenvilles are occupied.”

  “I’ll do my best to relieve his burden,” Olivia said and tried to sound pleasant.

  The vicar of her girlhood and Dr. Gillespie, her old mentor, would have reminded her that forgiveness was divine. Even Olivia’s common sense told her Dr. St. John’s concern was understandable. However much it embarrassed her to admit it, he thought his employers were being practiced upon. Loyalty was a virtue.

  It was all very good in the abstract. It was harder to let go the time, short as it had been, where her hopes for the future had suddenly seemed to slide just out of reach. Harder, too, to overlook the look of disgust on the doctor’s face or how bare his attempt at civility had been.

  He hadn’t even let her try to explain.

  None of that mattered, Olivia told herself sternly. She was a grown woman. She could and would be reasonable and civil and too sensible to let resentment color her behavior toward a man who would be only a remote colleague. And she had plenty of other duties to occupy her mind.

  Dr. St. John, she decided, would be a very minor factor in her life.

  Chapter 4

  “You mean she’s going to be our teacher too? Not just for the girls?”

  It was probably Fitzpatrick speaking, Gareth thought. Fairley’s voice hadn’t changed yet, and Waite was more inclined to drawl. He looked up from his papers and sighed. That wasn’t the kind of question that began a short conversation. From the sound of it, the boys would need to learn several lessons in punctuality. “How to knock” would also be a decent subject to cover.

  “You can’t be serious!” That was Fairley. Gareth winced. He didn’t mind that his office had been hastily converted—that it was, essentially, a drawing room divided in two and refurnished. The room was clean, warm, and indoors, and it featured a total absence of scorpions: all a nice contrast to his quarters in Egypt. If the new walls and swinging door occasionally let a voice drift through, he wasn’t going to complain.

  The problem was, Fairley’s voice didn’t drift. It stabbed.

  “Oh, I most certainly can.” Waite said. “Though I generally try to remain otherwise. If you can’t laugh at life’s little surprises—”

  “A female teacher?” Fairley again, sounding even younger in contrast to Waite’s typical attempt at playing worldly. “As if we were in the nursery?”

  Gareth, getting to his feet, glanced quickly out the window. It was a clear day so far, with perhaps a wisp or two of cloud floating in the blue. Nothing outside would be terribly susceptible to Fairley’s moods. All the same, it was good to be certain.

  Through the window, he glimpsed a figure in blue and recognized after a second it was Mrs. Grenville, walking toward the stables with her husband beside her. She’d finished showing the Brightmore woman about the place, then. Gareth had seen them going out earlier but thankfully had been too far away to speak. Since then, he’d been conducting preliminary examinations on the students and administering vaccinations to those who needed it, which had kept him quite nicely in his office.

  Eventually, he would have to talk with Mrs. Brightmore. Eventually, he would have to die. Gareth saw no point thinking about either longer than was strictly necessary.

  Outside, Waite chuckled knowingly, or what he thought was knowingly: a seventeen-year-old boy trying to act like a thirty-year-old model of dissipation. At any rate, their temperaments were normal, whatever their knowledge might end up being. Gareth smiled, even as his throat tightened. Memory was really the damnedest thing that way.

  “Oh, cheer up, old man. There’s quite a bit you can learn from a woman, you know. Especially a woman like that.” Waite let out a low whistle.

  The smile died on Gareth’s face.

  “Really?” Fitzpatrick speaking again, his voice dropping. “You think—?”

  “Well, she’s probably here for the conventional things, you know. Shakespeare and geometry and that. Perhaps a little bit of contacting the spirit world. Women are good at that sort of thing, you know. Think how impressed she’ll be when she hears what we already know, or when Fairley here shows what he can do.”

  “She did get Lizzie down,” Fairley began.

  “Any half-bright sort of a girl can talk a child like Lizzie into behaving sensibly. I don’t think there’s much in her but—”

  The opening door cut off Waite’s speech. It almost hit him in the side, as well. Gareth hadn’t been intending the second effect, but he didn’t think he’d lose a great deal of sleep over it. “Gentlemen,” he said, slipping back into his orderly-commanding tone, “I believe we were supposed to begin ten minutes ago.”

  Fairley ducked his head and looked at his shoes, and Waite had the sense to stay quiet. The door had evidently made an impression. Fitzpatrick, though, spoke up. “We didn’t know you were in, sir.”

  “You could see the door,” said Gareth. “You have hands. Next time, I suggest you use them. Since you were suffering from so much suspense, however, we can begin with you.”

  Fitzpatrick winced but stepped forward.

  “By the way,” Gareth added, looking between all three boys. “I would suggest not underestimating the ability of any teacher at this establishment. Mrs. Brightmore is both intelligent and knowledgeable…and if the Grenvilles appointed her as your instructor, magical or otherwise, I would imagine it’s because they think highly of her fitness for the task.”

  He paused.

  “It is not one I envy her.”

  In his old life, he’d not had much cause to take such a tone, not even to issue many corrections. Most of the orderlies—most of the men—had known their job, tried their hardest, and not made much trouble, or not much that had been Gareth’s responsibility. Now it had been twice in two days. Not a good sign. In any case, he hadn’t lost the skill of it. Except for blushing, all three boys were studiously blank faced and still.

  Too still, in fact, for a mere dressing down, emphatic though it may have been. Waite wasn’t even looking at Gareth but past him—

  Oh, no.

  Now he was starting to smile a little. Not triumphant or smug, though. Embarrassed. Almost apologetic.

  Oh, no.

  It could have been Simon or Mrs. Grenville, and Waite might have been squirming because he’d been caught out by more than one authority at a time. If Fate had been kind, it would have been.

  Fate was hardly ever kind.

  Stomach sinking, Gareth turned away from the boys.

  He had to concede that Mrs. Brightmore did a very good blank face herself. A little flushed, obvious above the plain white shirtwaist she wore, but that could have been from the wind. She had clearly been outdoors. Little wisps of hair had escaped their knot and were clinging to the sides of
her neck. Other than that, she looked eminently respectable, she was certainly standing within speaking distance, and Gareth had made no effort to keep his voice down.

  He was generally quite good at hearing footsteps. Egypt had taught him that much.

  He had no idea how long she’d been there.

  As Gareth hesitated, Mrs. Brightmore glanced over the small and flustered group of boys, and back at him. Then she smiled. It was very polite, no hint of gloating in it, but he couldn’t read anything else in her face. “Good afternoon,” she said, and she might have been meeting an acquaintance at a garden party. “I seem to have lost my way to the library.”

  “Oh,” said Fitzpatrick, as apparently none of the others could speak. “Go back to the hall, only right instead of left. Ma’am.”

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Brightmore, ignoring the belated title. “I do hope you’re all well.”

  “Quite,” Gareth said and hoped it didn’t sound as strangled as he felt. “Thank you. Behind schedule, though, so please excuse us. Fitzpatrick?”

  Not waiting for the boy to respond, he turned on one heel and sought the refuge of his inner office.

  ***

  The “Charlotte” Fitzpatrick had mentioned the previous night turned out to be Miss Charlotte Woodwell, a tall young lady with curly black hair and vivid green eyes, apparently fond of aesthetic clothing and wandering the gardens in her free time. She was by far the oldest of the students, by the look of her, no more than eight or nine years younger than Olivia.

  “Hardly the model of a schoolgirl, I know,” she said with a wide grin and an easy shrug in response to the question Olivia had carefully not been asking. “But I don’t know nearly enough to teach, and I’ve been dying to learn for years. Packed my trunk and came down as soon as I heard about this place. I’ve got absolutely heaps of questions. So now you’re warned!”

  “I’ll do my best to answer them,” Olivia replied, smiling back. It would have been hard not to like the younger woman, and it was a relief to meet anyone remotely adult who was so straightforwardly glad to see her. Violet had been nervously cheerful, the Grenvilles had been kind, but it hadn’t been the same.

  She hadn’t even actually seen Mr. Grenville yet. “Reinforcing wards,” his wife had explained. “You’ll help eventually. Simon says the land’s got to get to know you first, though.”

  The tour she’d been given hadn’t been much help there. If the land was getting to know Olivia, she wasn’t reciprocating. Mrs. Grenville—a tall, thin woman with reddish-blonde hair and a sort of American accent—was friendly enough in a brisk way, and she certainly had been exact. Stables are there. Town is that way. Don’t go in the forest unless one of us is with you or you mark your path with a ball of string. It wasn’t her fault Olivia was used to streets with signs and a two-room flat. Nevertheless, the phrase “whirlwind tour” had never felt quite so accurate.

  She’d eventually managed to find the library. She’d gotten to do no more than stare at the shelves, somewhere between gluttony and lust, before Mrs. Grenville had found her again and taken her outside to make introductions. All the same, she’d gotten there. The process had proved unexpectedly gratifying too, if also confusing. She’d expected the boys to be skeptical about a female teacher. She hadn’t expected St. John, of all people, to set them right.

  “Woodwell,” Mrs. Grenville said, breaking into Olivia’s thoughts while they walked up the path away from the gardens, “will probably be the easiest to deal with. She’ll end up teaching in a year or two, or going into the field, depending on how things work out.”

  “Into the field?”

  Mrs. Grenville nodded. “You know what they’re here for, right?”

  “Yes.” If the letter hadn’t made that clear, the interview would have. “But—” Olivia began and then stopped. Somehow, she didn’t think but she’s a girl would hold much water with Mrs. Grenville. “But she’s very young. They all are.”

  “You send them to war and sea younger. Down the mines too, I hear, or into the factories, though that’s not so glamorous.”

  Memories of London came back. Pinched, smudged young faces above tattered clothing. Girls selling flowers and ribbons in dirty streets. Boys with brooms. Those weren’t the worst off, she knew, not by a good ways.

  “Not as young as Elizabeth,” said Olivia, though she wasn’t sure how she dared say it. Mrs. Grenville had a stare like a gauntlet when she wanted to. She also wasn’t sure what the woman had meant by you—America had both factories and armies, after all. “Or, um, Michael?” She recalled a tow-headed boy, all freckles and puppy fat, who hadn’t looked more than thirteen.

  “Fairley, yeah. We won’t take them that young, generally. Simon thinks it is too young to volunteer for this kind of service…except when it’s worse for them to go untrained.”

  “The levitation?”

  Mrs. Grenville nodded. “The levitation. Donnell does that when she’s upset. Fairley can make it rain.”

  “And the others?”

  “Nothing uncontrolled. Woodwell talks with animals, she says. Fitzpatrick and Waite don’t have any natural talents, but they want to learn. Like you and Simon.”

  Fitzpatrick’s first name was William, Olivia had learned a little while earlier, and the third boy was Arthur Waite. They were fifteen and seventeen, respectively, both dark haired. Fitzpatrick was slightly taller and broader shouldered, despite his youth, which would allow Olivia to tell them apart for the moment.

  “They’ll be the easiest to teach, then, I’d imagine,” Olivia said, hopeful despite what she’d heard from both young men earlier.

  “Probably. The most trouble otherwise, though.” Mrs. Grenville sounded perfectly casual when she spoke, even amused, and there was nothing in her expression to suggest she knew about the incident near St. John’s office.

  “Oh?” Olivia looked carefully off toward the house.

  “Seems likely. Woodwell’s old enough to have grown some brains, and Donnell’s scared of her own shadow. That’s its own issue, especially since she starts floating around when she gets scared. But she won’t give you attitude. Fairley might, but the naturals mostly want to get their powers under control. Waite and Fitzpatrick…” Mrs. Grenville pulled a face. “Recruits, right? Signed up of their own free will, and you’ve got to give them credit for that, but the problem is they know it.”

  She sounded very familiar with the situation. Her father had been military, Olivia thought, or maybe her first husband. Olivia wasn’t inclined to ask.

  Mrs. Grenville gave another shrug. “You might have to beat them back into place a few times. Don’t worry about it when it happens. The rest of us have your back.”

  Olivia took a few seconds to figure out what the other woman meant. She’d never heard the phrase before. When the meaning did become clear, she had the impulse to ask if “the rest of us” included Dr. St. John. Nothing about Mrs. Grenville encouraged idle questions, though.

  Besides, Olivia already knew the answer.

  Naturally, St. John had dressed down the boys. He’d had to. Olivia had realized that almost as soon as she’d headed back toward the library. A slight against one of the teachers was a slight on Mr. Grenville’s good judgment, and St. John was his friend, or so she’d heard from the servants. Letting the boys say whatever they were saying—Olivia had overheard only a little but could guess at the rest—would have undermined the whole order of the school.

  There was no point mentioning the incident, really. Waite, Fitzpatrick, and Fairley had learned their lesson, and if having to defend a woman he so clearly despised had pained St. John at all, Olivia couldn’t bring herself to be sorry for him. It repaid, a little, that half hour of terror she’d spent the night before.

  Still, she couldn’t help remembering the tone in St. John’s voice or the way the door had hit the wall when he’d pushed it open. Upholding authority was all well and good, but Olivia was surprised he’d be so vehement about it.

  Chapter
5

  Olivia held her first class in another one of the converted downstairs rooms, this one a small drawing room fairly near the library. The alterations here hadn’t been extensive, since there weren’t many students. Olivia’s five pupils had arrayed themselves over an assortment of yellow-cushioned couches and upholstered blue chairs. Someone had taken up the carpet, though. Olivia wasn’t sure whether they’d anticipated blood sacrifices or spilled tea or both.

  Either seemed likely enough.

  It had taken all she knew about disciplined breathing to get a good night’s sleep, and she hadn’t been able to eat much at breakfast. But now, as she faced the class, she felt no fear at all. Her nerves hadn’t vanished; they’d been transmuted, as they always were, into a fierce, cheerful energy that lifted her chin and straightened her back.

  Take the curtain up, Olivia thought as she smiled at the class.

  “Good morning,” she said. “We will begin with theory.”

  They were with her so far. Patient. Curious. Not enthusiastic yet.

  “This world has certain rules,” Olivia said. “Some are obvious and well known.” She held up her pen for a moment then dropped it. It hit the floor with a clack and rolled toward one of the couches, where Waite picked it up.

  The students’ faces showed a little more interest, as any physical demonstration would command. Olivia took a breath.

  Modulate the voice, a little louder than before, catch their eyes.

  “Some are less so.” She spoke the single word she’d been repeating in her head since she’d woken up.

  A foot away from her, a hand-wide pillar of bright blue fire burst up from the floor.

  Olivia kept her eyes on the students as they gasped and stared. She had to admit the reaction was satisfying. Well worth the effort, even though Enochian was even harder to master than Latin. But more to the point, she didn’t want to watch the fire. That would make her look uncertain. It was only after half a minute that she let herself glance over, and she made sure it was just a glance.