Chapter Six
A week after the night in the garden, Petalia concluded that if the children remained indoors much longer, the schoolroom would either break them or be broken by them.
The improvement was real, but it was fractional, and fractional improvements in confined spaces had a way of becoming explosive.
Mary had not tried to bite anyone since Petalia’s first day, which Mrs Holroyd considered a triumph large enough to deserve its own psalm.
Declan had begun to volunteer occasional sentences, usually about maps, boats, or the proper storage of powder.
Mary had written copywork three mornings in a row, though the sentence I shall not spill ink had been followed by a small sketch of an inkpot overturned upon a judge.
Petalia counted all of this as progress.
She also counted the damp patch on the schoolroom ceiling, the closed windows, the children’s restless feet, and the way Mary looked towards the grounds whenever a bird crossed the glass.
Declan kept drawing coastlines because no actual horizon was available to him.
Mary turned every lesson into a conquest because the room offered nothing else large enough to withstand her.
They needed air.
They needed space.
Most inconveniently, Petalia needed the Duke’s permission.
Lady Maria had returned to London two days earlier after announcing that her presence was no longer required.
Bellamy had not come to Wrenfield. The country butler, Pritchard, was a thinner, more cautious man whose expression suggested he considered all new arrangements temporary until disaster confirmed them permanent.
Mrs Holroyd could approve a change in luncheon, but not a change in the children’s daily boundaries. For that, there was only Ashbourne.
Petalia delayed for one morning and then despised herself for it.
At ten o’clock, while the children copied a short sentence from Robinson Crusoe, Mary because Petalia had selected one involving a boat, Declan because he had corrected the punctuation and then accepted responsibility for doing it properly, Petalia left them with Nurse Ellis and crossed the house towards the study.
Pritchard stood near the hall table, sorting letters with the caution of a man handling minor explosives.
“Mr Pritchard,” Petalia said. “Is His Grace in the study?”
The butler looked at her, then at the letters, as if hoping correspondence might supply a safer answer. “His Grace is engaged, miss.”
“I expected he would be. I require only a few minutes.”
“May I ask the nature of the matter?”
“The children’s education.”
Pritchard’s caution deepened. “I shall inquire whether His Grace may receive you.”
“Thank you.”
He returned after a short interval, during which Petalia had time to reconsider the request, reject three possible openings, and remind herself that children did not benefit from adults who retreated at the first closed door.
“His Grace will see you,” Pritchard said. “If you will come this way.”
***
The study was a large room overlooking the lower lawn, with shelves on two walls and a desk positioned to command the door without admitting that it had been arranged for that purpose.
Ashbourne sat behind it with a column of correspondence in his hand.
He did not rise when she entered, though his gaze moved over her face with quick attention before returning to the page.
“Miss Winthrop.”
“Your Grace. Thank you for receiving me.”
Pritchard withdrew and closed the door.
Ashbourne placed the correspondence on the desk. “I understand this concerns the children’s education.”
“It does. I would like permission to take them outdoors for lessons two afternoons a week, weather permitting.”
“No.”
He answered before she had fully finished the sentence.
Petalia clasped her hands in front of her and waited.
Ashbourne looked back at the letter as if the matter had been settled. When silence continued, he lifted his eyes again. “Was there something else?”
“Only the reason for the refusal, Your Grace.”
“The reason is that I have refused.”
“That is the fact of it, yes. I was hoping for the reason beneath the fact.”
His expression did not alter, but she saw the irritation arrive. “The children are not to wander about the grounds during lesson hours.”
“I do not propose wandering. I propose instruction in the kitchen garden and lower park, under my supervision, two afternoons a week to begin with. If the experiment proves disruptive, I will revise it.”
“The schoolroom exists for lessons.”
“The schoolroom is useful for some lessons. It is currently less useful for others.”
“Children have been educated indoors for generations without suffering permanent injury.”
“Yes, and many have been bored indoors for generations with remarkable consistency. I am not arguing against rooms, Your Grace. I am arguing for occasional air.”
He leant back slightly. “The Devonshire wind is not a tutor.”
“No, but it is an excellent assistant in natural history.”
“That was not an invitation to be clever.”
“I apologise. I thought it was an invitation to explain.”
For a moment, they regarded one another across the desk.
Petalia had known this would not be simple, but she had not expected refusal to be quite so immediate. Immediate refusals were often less reasoned than defensive. With children, one did not attack them directly. With dukes, she suspected the principle remained useful.
“If your objection rests upon some danger in the grounds of which I am unaware,” she said, keeping her voice even, “I will of course defer to your judgment. I am new to Wrenfield, and there may be areas unsuitable for the children. If that is the case, I would be grateful to know them.”
Ashbourne picked up a paperknife and set it down again. “The weather changes quickly.”
“Then we will go out only in settled weather.”
“The lower ground grows wet after rain.”
“Then we will avoid it after rain.”
“Mary will run.”
“Mary runs indoors already, where the furniture is less forgiving than grass.”
“Declan dislikes exertion.”
“Declan dislikes purposeless exertion. He walked the length of the schoolroom yesterday to prove my copy of Mr Crusoe’s island was incorrectly shaped.”
Ashbourne’s gaze sharpened. “He did?”
“With considerable feeling.”
“Declan rarely shows considerable feeling.”
“I suspect he shows it most readily when adults are not staring at him in the hope of seeing it.”
Ashbourne absorbed that with no visible pleasure. “You have been here a week, Miss Winthrop.”
“Yes.”
“You speak as if you have studied my children for years.”
“No. I speak as someone who has spent a week paying close attention, nothing grander than that.”
The paperknife turned once beneath his fingers. “And what has this week of attention taught you?”
Petalia could have retreated into safe phrases. She chose not to. Safe phrases had their uses, but they did not open locked doors, and the schoolroom had begun to feel like one.
“It has taught me that Lady Mary has too much force and too little field for it,” she said.
“She is turning the schoolroom into a battlefield because it is the only territory given to her. It has also taught me that Lord Declan has made a refuge of books, maps, and silence. That refuge should not be taken from him, but it might be given windows.”
Ashbourne said nothing.
Petalia continued before courage could cool.
“The lower park would allow us to make maps. The kitchen garden would allow botany and measurement. Weather observations would serve geography. The children could keep a small journal. Lord Declan has an interest in voyages, and Lady Mary has an interest in conquest. I see no reason not to educate both tendencies.”
The corner of Ashbourne’s mouth shifted despite himself. “You propose to educate conquest.”
“If it cannot be suppressed, it may at least be made literate.”
“Mary is six.”
“Many conquerors begin early.”
This time, the almost-smile came closer to existing, though he suppressed it with an effort Petalia found more visible than he likely intended.
“You make it sound reasonable,” he said. “That is not always the same as being reasonable.”
“Then tell me where it fails.”
“The grounds are not kept as they should be.”
“I have noticed.”
His eyes moved to her sharply.
Petalia did not soften the observation into an apology. “There are loose stones near the east path, and the gate by the kitchen garden does not latch properly. The lower lawn is safe enough in dry weather if we keep clear of the rose beds and the wall beyond them.”
At the mention of the rose beds, the room changed by a degree.
Ashbourne looked towards the window. From where Petalia stood, she could not see the bed he had been digging that night, but she knew it lay somewhere beyond the angle of the glass.
“The rose beds are not for lessons,” he said.
“Then we will keep clear of them.”
“You ask few questions about them.”
“I have found that people answer unasked questions when they are ready, and resent asked ones when they are not.”
His gaze returned to her. “Is that a governess’s maxim?”
“No. A poor woman’s survival.”
The answer was too plain. She saw him register it, and she wished for one moment that she had chosen the governess’s maxim instead. But he did not pity her. That, unexpectedly, was a relief.
“You mentioned botany,” he said after a moment. “Do you have sufficient knowledge for instruction?”
“For children of six and nine, yes. My father was a clergyman in Hampshire, and he taught me in the garden at Selborne when I was Mary’s age. He believed a child who could name a thing was less likely to fear it and more likely to notice when it suffered.”
Ashbourne looked down at the correspondence on his desk, though Petalia had the sense he was no longer reading a word of it.
“A clerical philosophy,” he said.
“Possibly. Also, a useful one.”
“And did you become less afraid after naming things?”
The question was quieter than she expected. She might have answered lightly, but the study did not feel like a room for lightness just then.