by Dunn
Amaryllis went downstairs with a slow step. It was true that she relied on Tizzy. There was a hollow space under her ribs when she thought of losing her. Her enforced departure from Hart Hall had come just at the moment when she might be thought to have outgrown the need of a governess, but she remembered with a shiver the anguish with which she had begged her father to let Tizzy stay. Of course, dear Papa had laughed and agreed without the slightest argument.
London would not have been bearable without Tizzy. She loved her aunt and realised with gratitude that Mrs. Vaux had not only guided her through the pitfalls of Society without a misstep but succeeded in turning a country miss into an elegant young lady. Yet it was to her governess she had turned when troubled or unhappy. She owed her more than could ever be repaid, and if she cared for Mr. Raeburn she should have him.
Miss Hartwell spent the next two hours dealing with her correspondence. It was gratifying to be able to turn down so many requests for places in her school. Had there been room in the house, she might easily have employed another teacher.
They dined, as usual, at six. Cook, having recovered her composure and being anxious to make amends for the teapot, had done wonders with the lamb. Ned, the gardener and handyman, had provided fresh, tender runner beans and a baby vegetable marrow. Ned preferred to let his vegetables grow as large as possible before he picked them, however tough or bitter they became, but the storm had torn his vines to pieces so the ladies profited by the destruction.
After dinner, Amaryllis took a pruning knife and went into the front garden to tidy the rain-battered rosebushes. The setting sun caught the scattered petals in its golden glow and turned them into a carpet finer than any out of Turkey. Pink, crimson, yellow, and a dozen shades of green, all the colours in the garden seemed exceptionally vivid. Amaryllis concentrated on her task, carefully cutting off the petal-less heads, breathing the mingled scents of flowers and rich brown earth.
“Miss Hartwell."
“Ouch!” Startled, she stabbed herself on a thorn, and turned to greet the vicar with a finger in her mouth. “Mr. Raeburn, it is most ungentlemanly in you to surprise a lady who is surrounded by rose thorns. Did you wish to see Miss Tisdale?"
“No, no, I have only a moment. Augusta expects me back for dinner. I hope you will not think me interfering, Miss Hartwell, but I feel I must warn you."
“If you mean to warn me against pruning rosebushes, you are too late."
“More serious than that, I fear,” he said with an unwontedly agitated look. “I greatly dislike speaking evil of anyone, but I cannot reconcile it with my conscience to leave you in ignorance."
“In ignorance, sir? You must not accuse a schoolmistress of ignorance, you know."
“It pleases you to tease, ma'am. I well know your playful humour, but I beg you will be serious. What do you know of Lord Daniel Winterborne?"
“Little enough. Only that he is, as I surmise, the son of Lord Bellingham and that he means to send his daughter to the Castle Hedingham Academy."
“He is a rake, Miss Hartwell. I have known him by reputation for many years though I have never met him before today. I have heard tales of him that I cannot repeat to a young lady of gentle birth."
“I thank you for your warning, Mr. Raeburn, but do pray be easy. It is my intention to teach his daughter, not to flirt with him. Besides, I did not like him above half. I am surprised to hear that he has the least success with females of any sort, since his manners are far from ingratiating. He was, in fact, abominably rude."
So, she thought as she watched him trudge down the muddy lane in his galoshes, Lord Daniel is a rake. She had best keep an eye on the older girls when he came to visit Miss Isabel.
Chapter 3
With two weeks to go before the beginning of term, Mrs. Vaux set in motion her last-minute preparations.
Several women were hired from the village, in addition to the two regulars, to clean the house from top to bottom. Sheets were counted, darned, ‘sides-to-middled,’ replaced, hemmed, and re-counted. Vast quantities of coal and candles were ordered and delivered and arrangements made with a local farmer to supply almost equally vast quantities of milk, butter, and eggs. Two housemaids and a kitchen maid returned from spending the summer with their families and set to with a will polishing silver and furniture.
One fine day, Miss Hartwell and Miss Tisdale escaped from the excessive domesticity by hiring a gig and driving into Colchester. Amaryllis enjoyed her rare opportunities to take the ribbons, even though the Bell's plodding nag could not have been more different from the matched greys she used to drive in Hyde Park. She did not miss them near as much as she did her favourite riding mare, but she had not ridden in six years. She sometimes wondered if she ever would again.
Miss Tisdale visited every bookshop in Colchester and returned to the gig, stabled at the Red Lion, followed by two boys laden with weighty packages. Miss Hartwell went straight to her banker and, after a half hour's consultation, emerged smiling. She proceeded to the best dressmaker in town, spending there considerably more time than she had with her banker and again smiling when she left. She was followed to the gig by a single boy—not that she had any fewer packages than Tizzy, but they did not weigh so heavy.
The ladies treated themselves to a late luncheon at the Red Lion. Miss Hartwell ordered cold chicken and bread and butter. Miss Tisdale, as usual, insisted on having half a dozen oysters because they were a local specialty, although she did not care for them in the least. She was swallowing the last of these, with a wry face, when Amaryllis made an announcement in a portentous voice.
“Tizzy dear, I have been extravagant."
Miss Tisdale choked. Red-faced, tears in her eyes, she coughed and spluttered, then reached for her cup of tea and recovered her breath.
“Oh dear,” she said guiltily, “so have I."
Amaryllis was skeptical. The governess's ideas of extravagance were unlikely to break the bank. “What have you bought?” she asked.
“Five novels! And then I saw a copy of Tom Jones, and I fear I simply could not resist it. It is a classic in its way, you know, though quite unsuitable for the girls."
“How wicked you are! I hope you mean to let me read it? I am no longer your pupil, after all."
“'Strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age.’ Hebrews 5, verse 14. If you promise not to tell Mr. Raeburn I have purchased it, I will lend it to you."
“I promise. He would be excessively shocked, I wager. Oh, don't look so troubled, Tizzy. I am roasting you. I daresay he would not care a rush, for he is not at all sanctimonious. I have bought ... But no, I believe my revelation shall wait until we are at home."
“Tell me at once, Amaryllis. It is most unfair, when I have confessed already.” Her pale eyes sparkled with amused indignation.
“Think how unfair it will be to my aunt if I tell you first. No, you must wait."
“Then let us leave at once. I cannot imagine what extravagance you have committed."
When they reached home, Ned came out with a gloomy face beneath his ancient cap surrounded by its fringe of snow-white hair. A small, weatherbeaten man of indeterminate age, he was the only male in the establishment and tended to be the butt of the pranks of the livelier damsels. He was never so happy as when they all left for the summer. The prospect of their return was responsible for his present, long-suffering air.
He carried the parcels up to the private drawing room, muttering about lumbago on the fourth trip up the stairs. Amaryllis tipped him a half crown.
Still in a teasing mood, she insisted on saving three mystery packages for last. Mrs. Vaux scarce glanced at the piles of histories, plays, and poetry as they appeared but pounced on the novels. She considered them the only literature fit for a lady of fashion, unlike Miss Tisdale, who read them with guiltily defiant enjoyment.
The room filled with brown paper and tangles of string as they unwrapped their new but practical and dull winter dresses of brown, black, and grey wool. At last
Amaryllis relented.
“This is for you, Tizzy,” she said. “I decided we had more than enough saved in our emergency fund, so I bought something impractical for once."
“Quickly, open it,” urged Mrs. Vaux, handing her the scissors as she struggled with a knot. “We have enough string saved, too. Do cut it."
The rustling paper parted to reveal a shimmer of lavender silk. “Oh no,” said Miss Tisdale, “you have given me the wrong parcel."
“No, that is yours,” Amaryllis assured her. “I stood in the middle of the shop with my eyes closed, picturing you in it. Hold it up and let us see if I was right."
“But I have not worn colours in twenty years!” Half reluctant, she drew it out and stroked it with apprehensive fingers. “Lavender!"
“The colour is perfect,” said Mrs. Vaux decidedly. As arbiter of taste for the household, she always had the last word on such subjects.
“How well you taught me, Aunt. Here is your reward."
Mrs. Vaux's new gown was deep blue with a light blue stripe, and Amaryllis had chosen a rich moss green for herself. As they were ready-made, none of them fit perfectly, but Mrs. Vaux vowed that the necessary alterations would be no trouble at all.
“But when shall we wear them?” she wailed. “They are not at all suitable for school."
“You know Mr. Majendie always invites us to his Christmas assembly at the castle,” Amaryllis reminded her. “This time we shall be properly dressed for a festive occasion. We shall positively dazzle our neighbours."
The widow looked up at her, caught her eye, and glanced at Miss Tisdale, who was still stroking the silk with reverent hands, her face dreamy.
“The vicar,” she breathed silently. “Of course."
Miss Tisdale stood up, hugging the gown to her flat bosom. “'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,'” she said. “Ecclesiastes 1, verse 2. But I do not care. Thank you, dear Amaryllis, it is simply beautiful!"
As she lay in bed that evening, gazing through her open window at the moon-bathed castle, Amaryllis wondered if it would go on forever, this life so drab that a new dress was a great event, a party still four months in the future a cause of excitement.
All the same, she decided, it was probably better than going to Philadelphia to sell nails and ... whatever else ironmongers sell.
The next day she wrote to her father. She was delighted to hear from him, glad he was doing well, and grateful for his invitation. However, she was too busy at present running a select seminary for young ladies of good family to consider joining him in America. She sent greetings to her Stepmama and her half-brothers and hoped to hear from him again before another six years had passed.
As she sealed it, she realised dejectedly that she might as well be writing to a stranger. The only thing she had in common with the Philadelphia ironmonger was the past.
The next day, she was distracted from her blue devils when Mr. Majendie's groom brought in a bundle containing the past two weeks’ issues of the Morning Post. The owner of the castle, an elderly gentleman both kind and learned, he had encouraged the school from the start. He sent his newspapers to keep them in touch with the doings of the Fashionable World. That, he was wont to say with a twinkle in his eye, was surely the most important part of any young lady's education.
The Morning Post was full of reports of the proceedings in the House of Lords over the Bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen Caroline. George III had died in January. The Prince Regent, now George IV, was desperately anxious that his estranged wife, whom he loathed, should not be crowned at his side. If the Bill passed in both Lords and Commons, she would forfeit her rights as Queen and be divorced into the bargain.
Mrs. Vaux pored over the sordid details with unabashed fascination. This was undoubtedly the sole topic of conversation among the ton and, though exiled for six years, she had spent most of her life in that world and still felt a part of it.
Miss Tisdale was clearly revolted by the testimony of the Queen's Italian servants who revealed, under close questioning, the state of dress, or undress, in which they had seen her and her ‘chamberlain,’ Pergami, on various occasions. Tizzy blenched when she read that Her Royal Highness's hand ‘was in the small clothes of Mr. Pergami,’ but she read on. This was history in the making, and it was the duty of any instructress worthy of the name to be fully informed.
Amaryllis had mixed feelings. Chief among these was outrage. George had taken countless mistresses over the years, not to mention his deceitful marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert. Many of the Lords now sitting in judgment had reputations that would bear no scrutiny. How dared they condemn Queen Caroline? Yet she had, it was clear, deliberately set out to embarrass her husband and cause a scandal by rampaging about Europe in black wig and short skirts and without doubt having an affair with her chamberlain. Papa's running off with the daughter of the Spanish Ambassador seemed a minor disgrace in comparison.
The day before school started, Amaryllis carefully locked up every newspaper in a cupboard in the private drawing room. Stained sheets and hands upon private parts had no place in the curriculum of her young ladies.
After that there was no time to feel blue-devilled. Carriage after carriage rolled up to the gate, and the house filled with gay, chattering voices as the girls unpacked their trunks and valises and bandboxes.
There were five new pupils. Two had older sisters and a third, a fifteen year old, already knew several of the girls. Miss Hartwell had received a note from Lady Carfax saying that her daughter Louise would arrive a few days late owing to a sprained ankle. Thus Miss Isabel Winterborne was the only one with whom Amaryllis need particularly concern herself.
She had not been greatly disturbed to hear from the vicar that Daniel Winterborne was a rake. After all, the Viscount Hartwell had been a rake himself, judging by his endless pursuit and conquest of women. During her years on the town she had been protected by her social position from the attentions of libertines. Now she was armoured in her concealing cap and her dark brown worsted dress. The most persistent of womanisers was hardly likely to make a respectable schoolmistress the object of his illicit affections.
Lord Daniel appeared shortly after three in the afternoon accompanied by a pale, thin child with ginger hair and huge dark eyes in a solemn face under her Leghorn bonnet. Her blue woollen dress was a size too large about her middle and much too warm for the day, which had turned hot after an early autumnal chill.
Ushered into Miss Hartwell's office, Isabel released her father's hand just long enough to bob a clumsy curtsy and whisper “How do you do,” then clutched it again. Her father looked equally anxious.
“How do you do, Miss Winterborne,” said Miss Hartwell, coming forwards with a smile. “Why don't you take off your bonnet and sit down, and we shall have some lemonade before I show you the rest of the school."
The child fumbled with her bonnet strings. Before Miss Hartwell could go to her aid, Lord Daniel was on his knees beside her untying them.
Daisy brought in a tray with a glass of lemonade, a pot of tea, and some biscuits.
“Will you take a glass of wine, my lord?” Miss Hartwell asked.
“Thank you, no. Tea will do very well, ma'am.” He stood protectively beside his daughter, his hand on her shoulder, his face set.
“For all the world as if he was leaving her in the lion's den,” Daisy reported to the kitchen.
“Pray be seated, sir. Miss Winterborne, I should like to ask you some questions. You can read?"
“Yes, ma'am. Papa taught me."
“Do you like to read?"
“Oh yes, ma'am! I often read to Papa in the evenings. We have read Robinson Crusoe and Macbeth and Childe Harold and Tom Jones..."
Lord Daniel flushed and scowled as Miss Hartwell looked at him with her eyebrows raised in disapproval.
“An interesting variety,” she responded, hoping that the little girl had not understood the half of what she had read. “And can you sew?"
“I hemmed a handke
rchief for Papa. He carries it always with him."
His lordship's hand went to his breast-pocket as if in confirmation.
“Embroidery?"
“No, ma'am. My Nan only knows plain stitching,” confessed Miss Winterborne worriedly.
Miss Hartwell's gentle questioning continued. As she had begun to suspect, the child was well versed in such subjects as might interest a gentleman. Otherwise, she was ignorant of all except the little she had picked up from her nursemaid.
Meanwhile, Lord Daniel was growing visibly impatient. “Enough of this interrogation!” he broke in roughly.
She looked at him coldly. “We must not keep you, my lord. I am sure Miss Isabel is over her first shyness and will do very well on her own now."
“Isabel.” There was pain in his voice.
She rose and went to stand in front of him. “I must learn to be a lady, Papa,” she said gravely.
He hugged her close.
“I promise you, my lord, I shall neither eat her nor beat her.” Miss Hartwell intended to make her tone light, but it came out sarcastic.
“Beat her!” He jumped to his feet, outraged.
“I said I shall not. I really think it is time you left, sir, before we come to cuffs. Miss Isabel is perfectly safe in my charge, I assure you."
“I shall be here to see her on Sunday,” he said grimly, “and she shall return home immediately if she is not happy."
“As we agreed."
Miss Hartwell turned to fiddle with the papers on her desk, giving them a little privacy for their farewells. She heard the sound of his boots, then the door opening and closing again. He had gone without taking his leave of her.
She turned back to the girl. “I am sorry to disagree with your Papa,” she said gently. “He is only concerned for you welfare, I know."
Isabel's lips trembled. “It is not your fault. Papa has quarrelled with all the neighbours and his family, too. Nan says he carries on like a bear with a sore head. He will be so lonely without me,” she added desolately.
