Read A School for Unusual Girls Online
Authors: Kathleen Baldwin
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To Brett, my real-life hero.
Words make such weak meals, but let me try â¦
You live the truth of love. Day in. Day out.
And through the long night.
You believed in me when I did not.
Even after all these years, when I see you
I still want to run and fling myself into your arms.
Â
~London, April 17, 1814~
“What if Sir Isaac Newton's parents had packed him off to a school to reform his manners?” I smoothed my traveling skirts and risked a glance at my parents. They sat across from me, stone-faced and icy as the millpond in winter. Father did not so much as blink in my direction. But then, he seldom does. I tried again. “And if the rumors are true, not just any schoolâa prison.”
“Do be quiet, Georgiana.” With fingers gloved in mourning black, my mother massaged her forehead.
Our coach slowed and rolled to a complete standstill, waylaid by crowds spilling into Bishopsgate Street. All of London celebrated Napoleon's abdication of the French throne and his imprisonment on the isle of Elba. Rich and poor danced in the streets, raising tankards of ale, belting out military songs, roasting bread and cheese over makeshift fires. Each loud toast, every bellowed stanza, even the smell of feasting sickened me and reopened wounds of grief for the brother I'd lost two years ago in this wretched war. Their jubilation made my journey into exile all the more dismal.
Father cursed our snail-like progress through town and drummed impatient fingers against his thigh. We'd been traveling from our estate in Middlesex, north of London, since early morning. Mother closed her eyes as if in slumber, a ploy to evade my petitions. She couldn't possibly be sleeping, not while holding her spine in such an erect fashion. She refused herself the luxury of leaning back against the seat for fear of crumpling the feathers on her bonnet.
Somehow, some way, I had to convince them to turn back. “You do realize this journey is a needless expense. I have no more use for a schoolroom. I'm sixteen, and since I have already been out in societyâ”
Mother snapped to attention. “Oh, yes, Georgiana, I'm well aware of the fact that you have already been out in society. Indeed, I shall never forget Lady Frampton's card party.”
I sighed, knowing exactly what she would say next.
“You cheated.”
“I didn't. It was a simple matter of mathematics,” I explained for the fortieth time. “I merely kept track of the number of cards played in each suit. How else did you expect me to win?”
“I did not
expect
you to win,” she said in clipped tones. The feathers on her bonnet quivered as she clenched her jaw before continuing. “I expected you to behave like a proper young lady, not a seasoned gambler.”
“Counting cards isn't considered cheating,” I said quietly.
“It is when you win at every hand.” She glared at me and even in the dim light of the carriage I noted a rise in her color. “And now, given your latest debacleâ” She stopped. Her gaze flicked sideways to my father, gauging his expression. I would've thought it impossible for him to turn any stonier, but he did. Her voice knotted so tight she practically hissed, “I doubt I shall
ever
be allowed to show my face in Lady Frampton's company again, or for that matter in polite society
anywhere
.”
Trumped. She'd slapped down the Queen of Ruination card,
Georgiana Fitzwilliam, the destroyer
. I drew back the curtain and stared out the window. A man with a drunken grin tipped his hat and waved a gin bottle, as if inviting us to join the celebration. He tugged a charwoman into a riotous jig and twirled away.
Lucky fellow
.
“Bothersome peasants.” My mother huffed and adjusted the cuff of her traveling coat.
Peasant
was her favorite condemnation. She followed it with a haughty sniff, as if breathing
peasant
air made her nose itch. A roar of laughter rocked the crowd outside entertained by a man on stilts dressed as General Wellington kicking a straw dummy of Napoleon.
“Confound it.” Father grumbled and consulted his pocket watch. “At this pace we won't get there 'til dark. All this ruckus over that pompous little Corsican.
Fools
. Anyone with any sense knows Bonaparte was done for a month ago.”
Without weighing the consequences, I spoke my fears aloud. “One can never be certain with Napoleon, can they? He may have abdicated the throne, but he kept his title.”
“
Emperor
. Bah! Devil take him. Emperor of what? The sticks and stones on Elba.” Father bristled and puffed up as if he might explode. “General Wellington should've shot the blighter when he had the chance. Bonaparte is too arrogant by half. The man doesn't know when to give up. Let that be a lesson to you, Georgie.” He shook a finger at me as if I were in league with the infamous emperor. “Know when to give up, young lady. If you did, we wouldn't be stuck here in the middle of all this rabble waiting to get across London Bridge.”
Never mind that during the last ten years Napoleon Bonaparte had embroiled all of Europe in a terrible warâtoday I was the villain.
But I forgave my father's burst of temper and heartily wished I'd kept my mouth shut. His anger was understandable. My brother Robert died in a skirmish with Napoleon's troops shortly before the Battle of Salamanca. Reminders of the war surrounded us. Perhaps if we had been the ones burning Napoleon in effigy it would have been liberating. Although it had been more than two years, each redcoat soldier who sauntered past, each raucous guffaw jarred our coach as if we'd been blasted by the same cannonball that killed Robbie.
My father would never admit to a weakness such as grief. I didn't have that luxury. Gravity could not explain the weight that crushed my chest whenever I thought of Robbie's death. He had been the best and kindest of my brothers. We were closest in age. I hardly knew my two oldest brothers; they'd been away at Cambridge and had no interest in making my acquaintance. Robbie, alone, had genuinely liked me. He never looked at me as if I was an ugly mouse that had crawled out from under the rug. I missed how he would scruff my unruly red hair and challenge me to a chess game, or tell me about books he'd read, or places he'd visited.
Napoleon stole him from us.
If we'd been home, Father would've stomped out of the house and gone hunting with his beloved hounds. Some hapless hare would've paid the price of his wrath. Instead, this laborious journey to haul me off to Stranje House kept him pinned up with painful reminders. Unfortunately, Napoleon wasn't present to shoulder his share of the blame. Father furrowed his great hairy eyebrows at me, the troublesome runt in his litter.
If only I'd had the good grace to be born a boy.
What use is a daughter?
How many times had I heard him ask this? And answer.
Useless baggage
. Three sons had been sufficient. Even after Robbie's death, Father still had his heir and a spare. I was simply a nuisance, a miscalculation.
The leather seats creaked as I shifted under his condemning frown. He'd never bestowed upon me more than a passing interest. Until now. Now I'd finally done something to merit his attention. Not as I'd hoped, not as I'd wished, but I had finally won his notice. He squinted at me as if I was the cause of all this uproar.
I swallowed hard. “We could turn back and make the journey another day.”
My father growled in response and thumped the ceiling with his walking stick alerting our coachman. “Blast it all, man! Get this rig rolling.”
“Make way,” the coachman shouted at the throng and cracked his whip. Our coach lumbered slowly forward. With each turn of the wheel, my hope of a reprieve sank lower and lower. Before we crossed the bridge, I took one last look at the crowds milling on boardwalks and cobblestones, reveling and jostling one another. One last glimpse of freedom as I sat confined in gloomy silence on my way to be imprisoned at Stranje House and beaten into submission.
With a weary huff my mother exhaled. “For heaven's sake, Georgiana, stop gawking at the rabble and sit up like a proper young lady.”
I straightened, prepared to sit this way forever if she would reconsider. She sniffed and pretended to sleep again.
We passed the outskirts of London with the sun high above us, a dull brass coin unable to burn through the thick haze of coal soot and smoke that hung over the city. We traveled south for hours, stopping only once at a posting inn in Tunbridge Wells to change the horses and eat. As evening approached, the sky turned a mournful gray and the faded pink horizon reminded me of dead roses. Except for Father's occasional snoring, we traveled in stiff, suffocating silence. Two hours past nightfall, we turned off the main road onto a bumpy gravel drive and stopped.
Sliding down the window glass, I leaned out to have a closer look and inhaled the sharp salty tang of sea air. The coachman clambered down and opened a creaking iron gate. A rusty placard proclaimed the old manor as
STRANJE HOUSE,
but I knew better. This wasn't a house. Or a school.
This was to be my cage.
“It must be well after eight. Surely, it's too late to impose upon them tonight. We could stop at an inn and come back tomorrow.”
Father hoisted his jaw to an implacable angle. “No. Best to get it over and done with tonight.”
“The headmistress is expecting us.” Mother straightened her bonnet and sat with even greater dignity.
Our coachman coaxed the team through the entrance and clanged the gate shut behind us. The horses shied at the sound of barking in the distance, not normal barkingâhowls and yips. Seconds later, dogs raced from the shadows. It might have been two, two dozen, or two hundred. Impossible to tell. They seemed to be everywhere at once, silent except for their ferocious breathing. One of them pounced at the coachman's boot as he scrambled to his perch.