Chapter 15
“And so that is that,” Claudia said with a sigh as she stepped inside the school with Susanna and the door closed behind them. “Too many good-byes. It does nothing to buoy the spirits, does it?”
They had just said good-bye to Frances and the Earl of Edgecombe, who had insisted upon giving them a ride back from the Upper Rooms in their own carriage despite Claudia’s protestation that she and Susanna were perfectly capable of walking.
The Edgecombes were leaving Bath for London early in the morning.
And before they all left the Upper Rooms, they had said good-bye to Anne and David, who were also setting out in the morning with Mr. Butler for their new home in Wales.
“But it was very good,” Susanna said, “to see Anne so happy—and David too. Mr. Butler must have been kind to him.”
“Well, now it is back to business,” Claudia said briskly, taking off her cloak and looping it over her arm.
“We have a school to run, Susanna. I happened to mention to Miss Thompson after tea that I was looking for another teacher and was quite taken aback when she expressed an interest in the position for herself.”
“Did she really?” Susanna asked.
“The duchess has persuaded Mrs. Thompson to take up residence in a cottage close to Lindsey Hall,” Claudia said.
“Miss Thompson is expected to move there with her, of course, but she says she feels she will be losing some independence when she leaves their own cottage and village behind. She will feel like a poor relation of the Duke of Bewcastle, she says. I can well understand that that would be a ghastly fate indeed. But it is interesting, Susanna, that she may prefer to teach here. I have asked her to drop by tomorrow or the next day. I really took to her. She has interesting conversation and has read widely. She also has good sense and a dry wit.”
“Has she taught before?” Susanna asked, looking back as she proceeded up the stairs on the way to her room.
But Claudia was prevented from replying by Mr. Keeble, who was clearing his throat in such a pronounced manner that it was obvious he had something of import to say to them.
Agnes Ryde, one of the new charity girls, had had an almighty tantrum, it seemed, and reduced Lila Walton to tears and consequently aroused the wrath of Matron, who had sent the girl to bed in the middle of the afternoon and promised dire consequences as soon as Miss Martin returned.
Claudia sighed.
“Thank you, Mr. Keeble,” she said. “This is returning to reality with a crash, is it not? Where is Anne when I most need her? She did have a special gift with difficult girls.”
“She did,” Susanna agreed as she removed her bonnet. “But I have an understanding of what it feels like to be a charity girl here, Claudia. I have seen something of my old self in poor Agnes, I must confess. Let me go up and talk to her.”
“Poor Agnes indeed!” Claudia said, tossing her glance at the ceiling. “But go if you wish, Susanna. Matron does seem to have tied my hands. If I go up, I shall be obliged to do something horribly dire like confining the girl to her bed and to dry bread and water for at least the next week.”
Susanna chuckled at the unlikely image, squared her shoulders, and continued on her way upstairs, prepared to do battle.
Lila, as junior teacher, had the unenviable task, once Susanna’s own, of teaching elocution to those girls who needed it.
And Agnes Ryde needed it more than anyone else.
She had arrived at the school at the end of August with such a thick Cockney accent that no one understood a good half of what she said.
And since she was resistant to changing her accent in order to talk as if she had two plums in her cheeks like a real nob—her words—Lila was not exactly her favorite teacher.
Susanna did not find the minor crisis at the school unwelcome.
It pushed everything else from her mind for the next hour, while she sat in one of the dormitories beside Agnes’s bed, at first talking to an uncommunicative ball of hostile girlhood turned toward the wall and then gradually moving into something resembling a conversation after Agnes had rolled over to face her and eye her with open suspicion.
“You was a charity girl, miss?” she asked.
“I was indeed,” Susanna said, wisely ignoring the girl’s grammar.
“So was Miss Walton, as she would be very ready to admit. We have both been where you are now. It is not the most comfortable place to be, is it? I can remember believing at one point that I must have been brought here only so that everyone else could laugh at me.”
“Everybody does laugh at me,” Agnes said fiercely. “Next time I’ll pop ’em a good one, I will…miss.”
“Everybody?” Susanna raised her eyebrows.
“Are you quite sure it is everybody? It is not just two or three girls who do not know any better than to want to bring misery upon a fellow pupil? I remember Miss Martin once giving me a piece of advice. The next time one of the paying pupils taunted me by telling me it must be nice to have my fees paid for me by strangers, I should smile back as if I had not noticed the sarcasm and agree warmly that yes, it was very nice indeed. Where would they take the taunting from there? she asked me. And she was perfectly right. It worked like a charm. Much better than hitting out would have done. That was what they expected me to do. That was what they hoped I would do so that they could run crying to one of the teachers and get me into trouble.”
By the time she went back downstairs Susanna was feeling exhausted but satisfied that yet another problem had been sorted out.
But then she had to assure a tearful Lila Walton in Claudia’s private sitting room that of course she was not a failure, that teaching was always three parts instruction and one part dealing with the various crises that inevitably arose when so many diverse humans lived in close proximity to one another.
And of course a teacher could not always be popular.
“It is just what I have been telling her,” Claudia said.
“Now, we will have a cup of tea together and you can have an early night, Lila. And I will take your study hall for you tomorrow evening so that you may have some relaxation time. I daresay I ought to have brought Cecile Pierre in to give you a hand today even though I had declared it a holiday from classes, since Susanna and I were both going to the reception and Mr. Huckerby and Mr. Upton were to attend too. Call it learning to swim by being tossed into the deep part of a lake, if you will. You did remarkably well aside from the unfortunate incident with Agnes. The school is still standing, is it not? It is not burned down to the ground or reduced to rubble by cannon shot. All the girls are still living and breathing—at least, I have not heard anything to the contrary.”
Lila laughed and took a cup of tea from Claudia. Fifteen minutes later she was on the way up to her own room, clearly relieved that the day was finally over.
“Academically Lila does very well indeed,” Claudia said after she had left.
“In other areas she is still fragile. She may discover that teaching really does not suit her at all, though I still have hopes that she will settle. I have high hopes that Miss Thompson will come here. She is older and more mature. Did you like her, Susanna?”
“Yes,” Susanna said, getting to her feet to pour them each another cup of tea. “Though I did not talk a great deal with her. She has a twinkling eye, though. I always trust people with twinkling eyes.”
Claudia laughed.
“Her sense of humor will be put to the test if she comes here,” she said, “though it would be a decided asset. Would it be possible to teach successfully if one did not have a healthy sense of the ridiculous? I very much doubt it.”
They sipped their tea and lapsed into silence—and Susanna’s thoughts inevitably drifted to the afternoon and to Viscount Whitleaf and the waltz they had danced together.
And to the cheerful way in which they had taken their leave of each other afterward.
She had refused to feel tragic at the time, and she refused to feel it now.
It had after all been good to see him again and to know that it was concern for her—and his possible responsibility toward her—that had brought him.
But now there was an inevitable ache of emptiness inside that was very difficult to ignore.
“I am very sensitive to undercurrents,” Claudia said. “It is another asset for a teacher, I firmly believe. I can sometimes sense things that are brewing long before they bubble to the surface and cause trouble or even disaster.”
Susanna sipped her tea. She did not know quite where this observation was leading.
“You met Viscount Whitleaf when you were staying at Barclay Court this summer,” Claudia said.
“Yes,” Susanna said warily. “He was staying at Hareford House. The younger Mr. Raycroft is his friend. You have met him and his family, I believe.”
Claudia nodded. She had spent a few days at Barclay Court earlier in the year, before Frances left for Europe.
“My first impression of the viscount,” Claudia said, “was that he was conceited—as well as wondrously handsome, of course. Both the Earl of Edgecombe and Miss Thompson assured me that I was mistaken. Neither you nor Frances expressed any opinion, however. And then you proceeded to eat half a cucumber sandwich and perhaps a third of a currant cake and maintain an uncharacteristic near-silence throughout tea. And Frances did not do much better. She was watching you almost the whole time, a look of troubled concern in her eyes. Indeed, I am not even sure it was undercurrents I felt. It was something altogether more overt than that.”
It would be pointless, Susanna decided, to pretend she did not know what Claudia was talking about. They had known each other a long time. They had been friends for a number of years since she grew up. They had been even closer since Anne left.