Miss Hartwell's Dilemma (15 page)

“Oh yes, just like Papa. I heard Nan say that to Prosser once when she was complaining.”

“I think you are very fond of your Nan.”

“Yes, I am, but I should so like to have a proper Mama,” said Isabel with a sigh.

Lying in bed that night, curled up under the covers with the curtains pulled close against the cold, Amaryllis wondered whether Bertram had already found himself a new ladybird since his return to England. How odd it was that a man could court one woman while making love to another. For the first time she wondered whether her father had mistresses while her mother was still alive. Gentlemen, for all their talk of honour, really had the oddest morals.

Doubtless Lord Daniel had much more time to visit his chère amie since he had sent Isabel to school, Amaryllis realised. In effect, her services were allowing him to enjoy the strumpet’s charms at his leisure. How dare he use her school for such a purpose! Too furious to think rationally, she lay glaring at the ceiling until she fell asleep.

Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh insisted on struggling down the stairs and into her carriage for the brief ride to church the next day. Miss Tisdale had taken half the girls to the early service so that Amaryllis could accompany her godmother. Thus, she was absent from the house when Lord Daniel picked up Isabel.

Her ladyship entered St. Nicholas Church like a battleship towed by a pair of tugs, Amaryllis and her aunt, and followed into harbour by a flotilla of lesser ships sailing in pairs. Massively magnificent in maroon and grey stripes, she captured every eye in the congregation, and when the organ began the first hymn, her imperious baritone captured every ear.

After the service she retired once more to the private drawing room, where Amaryllis and Mrs. Vaux took turns to attend her. Amaryllis found it easy to avoid meeting Lord Daniel when he brought Isabel back, but the afternoon seemed endless. By dinnertime, she was heartily glad that she had refused her godmother’s kind offer of a home when her father absconded.

The evening passed no faster. Tizzy joined them in the drawing room, sitting modestly in a corner as a governess ought and speaking only when spoken to. Amaryllis deplored this behaviour but made no protest. There was not the slightest likelihood of changing her ladyship’s views.

As Tizzy herself said, “‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?’ Jeremiah 13, verse 23.”

However, Amaryllis did insist on going herself for the usual checks on the common-room. On her third visit, she opened the door to find most of the young ladies gathered about the hearth, giggling and whispering. They hushed each other at her appearance and parted as she approached. On the hearth-rug lay an extraordinary animal. Its body was plump and rather shapeless, with long, dark, glossy fur. Its eyes glinted silver in the flickering firelight, and from its head grew three tall...purple...plumes...

“Oh, you wicked children,” gasped Miss Hartwell, collapsing with laughter into a nearby chair. “I quite thought you had discovered a new species of animal.”

Louise Carfax came to stand before her, her face half-guilty, half-revelling in the success of her creation. “It was me, Miss Hartwell,” she confessed. “I didn’t damage them, honestly. I stuffed the muff with a pillow. The eyes are buttons. I sewed them on, but they will come off easily. And the feathers were just pinned on the hat so I can put them back.”

Miss Hartwell shook her head and summoned up a frown. “You had better do so immediately,” she advised, “before her ladyship’s maid discovers your depredations. Off you go, quickly now, but I shall ring a peal over you tomorrow.”

She went back to the drawing room, wishing she could tell Tizzy and Aunt Eugenia about the latest evidence of Louise’s ingenuity. She had scarcely sat down when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” she said.

Miss Gribbins marched in, towing by the ear an alarmed Louise who cradled her creature in her arms.

“My lady,” she uttered in tones of absolute outrage, “I found this young person sneaking into your ladyship’s chamber with this!” She pushed the child forward and stood with arms akimbo.

Amaryllis jumped up, but before she could intervene an unfortunate impulse caused Louise to thrust the animal towards Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh while making a noise vaguely like a barking dog. Amaryllis raised her eyes to heaven. Was it ingenuity, or rather suicidal tendencies?

Her ladyship’s cheeks were purple and she was making gobbling noises in her throat. Louise looked aghast, as if everything had come about without the least volition on her part. Mrs. Vaux appeared puzzled, and Miss Tisdale was biting her lip in her corner, obviously doing her best not to guffaw.

Amaryllis stepped forward, removed the beast from Louise’s arms, and handed it to Miss Gribbins.

“I’m certain your skills are equal to restoring all to normal,” she said soothingly, pushing the abigail gently but inexorably towards the door. She turned to Louise, took her hand, and led her towards Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh.

“Godmama, allow me to present to you Miss Louise Carfax. She is Lord Pomeroy’s niece, you know.”

Her ladyship blinked. Her alarming colour began to fade towards her more normal carmine. She threw a glance of reproachful comprehension at her goddaughter.

“How do you do, my dear,” she said to Louise with an assumption of complaisance. “I am well acquainted with your grandmother, Countess Tatenhill. Lady Caroline is your mother, I believe?”

Amaryllis breathed a sigh of relief.

Chapter 11

When Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh’s carriage drove up before the school on Monday morning, the news had quickly spread. By the time she emerged from the house in her refeathered hat and bearing her once-again eyeless muff, a rabble of small boys was waiting to watch her departure. Footman, coachman, and outriders haughtily ignored this unwanted audience.

Her ladyship, seated in the coach, passed her reticule to her dresser. “Gribbins, some sixpences.”

With a regal gesture she cast the silver into the crowd, rewarding the lower orders for displaying the proper awed gratitude for her presence among them. The ragamuffins stopped squabbling over the coins to cheer as the carriage rolled down the street.

Amaryllis went back to her class, feeling sadly let down. She had not exactly expected her godmother’s visit to resolve all her doubts and vacillations, but it was dispiriting to find herself in just the same state of indecision. Neither threats nor promises could push her into marriage with Bertram, and, she was forced to acknowledge, learning that Lord Daniel was divorced in no way decreased his attractiveness. For her own peace of mind, she would just have to avoid him in future.

In the common-room after dinner, Isabel came to sit beside her.

“Papa said yesterday that I may take some of my friends to Wimbish again next Sunday if the weather is fine. May I?”

Amaryllis could think of no good reason to refuse. She need not go herself. Tizzy could chaperone the young ladies just as effectively.

“Very well. Whom do you wish to take with you this time?”

“I shall invite different people, to make it fair, but I should like Louise to come again. Some of the girls have been out with their own visitors, so they will not mind, do you not think, ma’am?”

“I expect that they will survive the disappointment,” she said gravely, hiding a smile at Isabel’s certainty that the excursion was a treat worth fighting over. She was aware of a strong desire to go herself, but it would not do. “It is Miss Tisdale’s turn to go with you, I believe.”

Isabel looked dismayed. “Oh but Papa particularly said to ask Miss Hartwell,” she said doubtfully.

Amaryllis’s breath caught in her throat, but she replied with tolerable composure, “Perhaps your Papa is not acquainted with Miss Tisdale yet. It is you and your friends he wishes to see, and it would not be fair for me to have all the outings, would it?”

“No... but I should like you to come.” The child looked up at her pleadingly. “Could you not come too?”

“No, my dear. I cannot leave Mrs. Vaux alone all day.”

She was almost relieved when, towards the end of the week, the weather deteriorated to the point where any sort of travel could be undertaken only with the greatest difficulty. For three days rain fell in torrents, lashed by gale-strength winds. She was not at all surprised when, on Saturday afternoon, a sodden, mud-covered groom arrived with a message from Lord Daniel. Daisy brought the note to the music room, where Amaryllis was teaching the steps of the Sir Roger de Coverley to eight breathless young ladies.

“He says the roads are so bad it would take us five hours to get to Wimbish, if we ever did arrive,” announced Isabel, scanning the damp paper. “Oh,” she added, disappointed, “he will not come himself tomorrow either.”

“If you was to see the sorry state the groom’s in, miss,” said Daisy, “you wouldn’t be surprised. A gentleman wouldn’t want to present hisself in that condition. ‘Sides, there’s trees down across the roads all over, by what he do say. Took him three hours a-horseback.”

“See that he is fed and his clothes dried before he starts back,” ordered Amaryllis.

“He’s by the kitchen fire now, miss, but he won’t stop. Seems his lordship said to go to one of the inns in the village, hoping as how it might be drier by morning. He’ll dry hisself there and do but wait to see if miss has a message to go back.”

“You will not wish to keep the poor man waiting in his wet clothes, Isabel.”

“No, ma’am, but may I go and thank him for coming? I expect it is Jem, and he is a particular friend of mine.”

“Be quick then. We cannot dance the Sir Roger with one missing.”

Isabel scampered off, returning a few minutes later while the groom left with instructions to “give all my love to Papa.”

It was still pouring the next morning, and Amaryllis decided it was impossible to take the girls to church. There were plenty of umbrellas, but they would be undoubtedly be blown inside out in no time. She sent Ned with a message to Mr. Raeburn, asking him to come to luncheon and read a few prayers or whatever he thought suitable. She had, after all, told all her young ladies’ parents that regular churchgoing was part of the curriculum.

The vicar responded that, much as he would have enjoyed lunching at the school, the shrieking of the wind was making Miss Augusta vapourish and he did not like to leave her. Amaryllis exchanged a significant glance with her Aunt Eugenia and went to the music room to look out some books of hymns. Mrs. Vaux followed her.

“I have had no chance to tell you,” she said, “but I managed to pop out to see Augusta for a few minutes last Sunday while you were attending Cornelia.”

“Did you know this about the gales upsetting her, then?”

“No, though I have frequently heard people say that high winds bring on the tic, so perhaps it is true that she is vapourish. Only how it helps to have poor Mr. Raeburn dancing attendance I cannot understand. Perhaps I ought to go to her this afternoon.”

“Dearest Aunt, I cannot allow you to go out in this weather. You would certainly blow away, unless you were drowned in a puddle first. Tell me what you discovered last week.”

“It is the most amazing thing, Amaryllis. Augusta is positively terrified of disease, but she cannot stop her brother visiting the sick. You know how conscientious he is. So when he comes home from a visit, she makes him wash himself and his clothes with peppermint camphor.”

“That explains the odour of sanctity then. What a disappointment. However, I am sure we can exploit Miss Raeburn’s fear of sickness, if I can think how.”

“I have a plan,” said Mrs. Vaux modestly, “only I expect it will not answer. You are much more ingenious than I, my love.”

“Tell me,” encouraged Amaryllis.

“I thought I might tell Augusta that we are tired of being schoolmistresses and mean to turn the house into a fever hospital instead. I daresay she will not care to live so close to a fever hospital.”

“Aunt Eugenia, you would not!”

“Once she has removed to London, we need not do it,” the widow pointed out.

“I never guessed you had such an imagination, or such impudence,” said Amaryllis, grinning.

Mrs. Vaux blushed but went on boldly, “Or perhaps I should tell her we mean to run a Bedlam?”

Her niece regarded her in stunned silence for a moment, then shouted with laughter.

“Augusta has not mentioned specifically that she is afraid of lunatics, but many people are, you know.”

“Can you imagine my godmother’s face if rumour reached her that we intended to turn her house into a Bedlam?”

Mrs. Vaux giggled. “She would have an apoplexy,” she admitted. “You do not think it a good plan, then?”

“I think it a splendid plan, only I believe I shall try to come up with something a little less drastic. There is no hurry, after all. Aunt Eugenia, Godmama told me that if...when I marry she will make you an allowance so that you do not have to continue at the school.”

“She will? How…how very kind. I hope she does not mean for me to live with her?”

“No, no, do not look so alarmed. I am sure she will give you enough to rent a small house and have a companion to live with you.”

“You may be certain I shall never treat a companion as Cornelia treats hers. If Tizzy does not marry after all, perhaps she will come with me. Only what will become of the school?”

“By then it will be a fever hospital, so we need not worry about it. Oh, I suppose it will close down, unless Godmama chooses to rent the house to someone who will run it. But perhaps I shall not marry Bertram. For all I know, he will cry off when he learns of Papa’s new occupation.”

“Fustian! He did not care before about Henry’s misdeeds, so why should he now? You have not told him yet?”

“No,” said Amaryllis slowly, “the moment never seemed quite right.”

“Then write to him, my love,” said Mrs. Vaux comfortably. “Depend upon it, that will bring him rushing to your side to reassure you.”

Amaryllis immediately decided that nothing in the world should make her write to Bertram about her father.