Chapter Four
Petalia opened the schoolroom door and found, at once, that the reports had not exaggerated the difficulty so much as organised it politely.
Lady Mary Ashbourne sat on the floor in a tangle of muslin and temper, with torn pages scattered around her like the remains of a small paper storm. Her dark curls had escaped their ribbon, and one shoe had been discarded beneath the table for reasons known only to herself.
Lord Declan stood at the far window with his back to the room, one hand resting lightly on the sill. He was slight for nine, neatly dressed, and so still that at first glance he might have been part of the furniture, if furniture could listen with suspicion.
Mrs Holroyd remained in the corridor. “Shall I send a maid, miss?”
“Not yet, thank you,” Petalia replied. “If I require rescue, I shall try to make the signal dignified.”
The housekeeper’s mouth moved again, almost but not quite into amusement. Then the door closed, and Petalia was alone with her pupils.
She set her bag on the desk, removed her gloves, and placed them beside the inkstand. She did not hurry. In schoolrooms, haste was often mistaken for fear, and fear was a scent children detected more quickly than hounds.
“Good afternoon,” she said. “I am Miss Winthrop.”
Mary stared at her from the floor. “We know.”
“That is useful. It saves me from introducing myself twice.”
“You may go away again.”
“I may, at some later hour, but I have only just arrived and dislike inefficient departures.”
Declan did not turn from the window, but his shoulders altered by a fraction.
Petalia bent and picked up one of the torn pages near her boot.
She had expected sums, copywork, or a spelling exercise. Instead, she found the ragged half of a carefully drawn island. A creek curved inward towards a mark that might have been a hut, and near the tear, in a precise young hand, someone had written powder, shot, hatchet, three knives.
“That is unfortunate,” she said.
Mary lifted her chin. “It was only a stupid map.”
“No,” Petalia replied, fitting the torn half against another piece on the floor. “It is a very practical map. Though if this line is meant for the creek, the storehouse has been placed much too near the water. Mr Crusoe would have lost half his powder at the first great rain.”
Declan turned from the window.
It was not a dramatic movement. He did not smile, or run forward, or reveal sudden delight. He simply turned his head, and then his body followed, as if Petalia had spoken in a language he had not expected anyone else in the room to know.
Mary noticed the movement at once. Her eyes narrowed.
“You know Robinson Crusoe?” Declan asked.
His voice was quiet, but it was clear. Petalia looked at him only as long as courtesy allowed and then returned her attention to the torn map.
“I know enough to mistrust any man who thinks a list of provisions may be improved by poor storage.”
“The powder matters most,” Declan said. “If it is spoilt, he cannot hunt.”
“Quite so. Though I have always thought the hatchet nearly as important.”
Declan’s expression did not change into a smile, but something in his face lit briefly and then was shuttered.
Mary came off the floor in one quick movement. “It is a stupid book.”
Petalia gathered two more pieces of the map. “That may be. Stupid books often have loyal readers.”
“Declan does not talk to governesses.”
“Then I am honoured to have been mistaken for someone else.”
“He is my brother.”
“So I had understood.”
“You must not answer him.”
Petalia glanced at Mary then. The child stood with both fists clenched, eyes bright, mouth set in a shape too fierce for six and too frightened for anyone who cared to notice. This was not merely rudeness. It was ownership, defence, and jealousy braided together.
“Lady Mary,” Petalia said evenly, “I generally answer people who speak to me. I shall answer you as well, when you choose to speak in words rather than declarations of war.”
Mary crossed the room so quickly that Petalia had only a heartbeat’s warning. The girl seized her wrist, head dipping with unmistakable intent. Petalia withdrew her hand just before Mary’s teeth reached the glove.
“No,” she said.
The word was quiet, not sharp, but Mary froze as if a louder command would have been easier to defy.
Petalia lowered her hand to her side. “You may dislike me. You may refuse your sums. You may tell me I am the worst governess ever sent into Devonshire, though I would advise you to gather more evidence before settling upon so large a claim. But you may not bite.”
Mary’s face flushed. “Why not?”
“Because people are not furniture, fruit, or enemies in a naval engagement.”
Declan spoke from near the window. “Robinson Crusoe bit nothing.”
Petalia turned to him. “A point in Mr Crusoe’s favour, though I cannot say the same for all his decisions.”
Mary looked between them. “I hate Robinson Crusoe.”
“That is allowed,” Petalia said. “Hatred of fictional castaways is not against my rules. Biting is.”
“I bit Mrs Holroyd.”
“So I have gathered.”
“She cried.”
“I imagine it hurt.”
“Are you going to cry?”
“Not over a bite that failed to arrive. I reserve tears for more substantial disappointments.”
Mary seemed to consider this and find it unsatisfactory. She kicked one of the torn pages towards the grate. Petalia reached it before the paper touched the ash and set it on the table with the others.
“We shall begin,” she said, “by determining what has been destroyed and what may be repaired.”
“I shall destroy it again.”
“Possibly. Then I shall repair it again, or we shall all become very tired of the exercise.”
“I do not do lessons.”
“Noted. Lord Declan, do you do lessons?”
Declan looked at Mary before answering. “Sometimes.”
“An honest answer. I appreciate those. Lady Mary, do you prefer sums, copywork, reading, or geography?”
“None.”
“That is not among the choices, but I shall add it to the list under protest. Lord Declan?”
“Geography,” he said, after a long pause. “If it is proper geography. Not lists of counties.”
“A reasonable distinction. Lists of counties have defeated many spirits. We shall use the map, then. Lady Mary, you may dislike geography from the floor or from a chair, but you may not place the remaining fragments near the fire.”
Mary remained standing for several seconds, perhaps waiting for Petalia to demand obedience more dramatically. When no demand came, she dragged a chair out from the table, sat in it with unnecessary force, and folded her arms.
That was the first victory of the day, and Petalia was careful not to look pleased.
The morning proceeded by inches. Mary refused to hold a pencil, then held one only to tap it against the table.
Declan silently repaired the torn map with grim concentration, redrawing the creek and the small storehouse beside it.
Mary spilt sand from the pounce pot across the desk.
Petalia swept it into a neat pile and asked whether Lady Mary preferred mess as a principle or merely as an experiment.
“As a principle,” Mary said.
“Then you are consistent, which is more than can be said for many philosophers.”
“What is a philosopher?”
“A person who thinks very deeply and is often wrong at length.”
Declan’s pencil stopped for half a second.
Mary looked suspicious. “Is Papa a philosopher?”
“I have not known His Grace long enough to say.”
“He thinks at length.”
“Then we shall wait to judge the other half.”
By noon, Petalia had secured no copywork from Mary, two corrected coastlines from Declan, and a promise from both children that ink would remain in the bottle until after soup. It was not much, but it was more than the room had possessed when she entered.
Mrs Holroyd met them in the kitchen with soup already set out at a long, scrubbed table. Several servants found reasons to glance in and then find reasons to be elsewhere. Mary saw every look. Her mouth curved into a small, terrible smile when Mrs Holroyd drew her bandaged hand closer to her apron.
Petalia placed a spoon beside Mary’s bowl. “You may sit here, Lady Mary. Lord Declan, beside her, if you please.”
Mary climbed onto the bench. “Mrs Holroyd is afraid of me.”
The housekeeper stiffened.
Petalia stirred her soup once and spoke before the room could grow worse. “Fear is an expensive thing to purchase. I would not spend effort cultivating it unless you are quite certain it is the reputation you want.”
Mary’s smile faltered. “I want people to leave me alone.”
“That is a different wish from wanting them afraid.”
“It works.”
“Briefly. Then it leaves one with cold soup and no friends.”
“I have Declan.”
Declan looked into his bowl.
“Yes,” Petalia said. “And I imagine Lord Declan would prefer warm soup to a reign of terror.”
Mary looked at her brother. “Would you?”
After a pause, Declan said, “The soup is good when it is warm.”
Mrs Holroyd turned away very quickly, but not before Petalia saw her expression shift.
The afternoon was harder. Mary seemed to resent the kitchen not going badly enough and returned to the schoolroom with renewed purpose.
She tore the edge of a practice sheet, dropped a pencil, refused to read, announced that governesses smelled of lavender and old bread, and accused Petalia of liking Declan better.
Petalia answered each charge as if it deserved exactly the amount of attention required to keep the room upright.
“I do not smell of lavender,” she said while setting a fresh page before Mary. “Old bread is possible after the journey, though regrettable. As for liking Lord Declan better, I have known him only three hours and cannot responsibly rank anyone before tea.”
“You talked to him about Robinson Crusoe.”
“Because he spoke to me about Robinson Crusoe. You may introduce a subject if you wish one discussed.”
“I hate you.”
“That is a subject, though not one with much room for development.”
Declan, who had been silent over his Latin, murmured, “The powder would spoil near the creek.”
Mary glared at him. “Do not talk.”
He pressed his lips together.
Petalia did not intervene at once. She had learnt that not every silence required rescue; some required room. After a moment, she placed the repaired map between them.
“The powder is safer now,” she said. “Any further improvement may wait until the Latin sentence is translated and Lady Mary’s line of copywork is attempted.”
“Attempted?” Mary asked.
“Attempted. I am not greedy on the first day.”
“If I write it badly?”
“Then the paper will survive. It has known worse.”
Mary looked at the page, the pencil, and Petalia. Then, with the air of a soldier surrendering a fort only to burn it later, she wrote three uneven words.
Declan translated one Latin sentence.
Petalia accepted both accomplishments with measured seriousness and no applause.
Late in the afternoon, when the light had begun to thin and the schoolroom fire needed stirring, Mary set down her pencil and asked the question as if she had been carrying it since morning.
“Are you going to leave when Papa dismisses you, or are you going to die first?”
Declan went still.
The room seemed to draw itself tight around the words. Petalia took one breath, because answering too quickly would make a performance of courage, and answering too slowly would make fear visible.
“I do not intend either,” she said. “I do not intend to leave, though intentions are not promises. I do not intend to die, though that is somewhat less under my control than leaving. For now, I can honestly promise that I mean to be here tomorrow morning.”
Mary’s eyes searched her face. “Only tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is a real promise. Forever is a word adults use too carelessly.”
Declan turned his head fully and looked at her. He did not speak, but his attention was no longer hidden.
Mary pushed at a torn scrap on the table. “The others said they would stay.”
“Then they should not have said it unless they knew they could.”
“Papa made them go.”
“Then that is something I shall have to discuss with His Grace if the occasion arises.”
Mary stared. “You will discuss Papa with Papa?”
“I find it fairest to discuss people with themselves whenever possible.”
Declan lowered his gaze to the Latin book, but this time, Petalia saw the brief movement of his mouth. Not quite a smile. A beginning, perhaps.
By supper, Mary had written six words, Declan had corrected the map, and Petalia had neither been bitten nor dismissed.
She ate alone in the schoolroom by lamplight after the children had been taken to the nursery.
Her feet ached, her head ached, and her heart, though she would have considered the phrase sentimental in anyone else, felt as if it had been required to stand at attention all day.
She was halfway through a modest plate of cold chicken when Edmund’s voice carried from the corridor beyond the door.
“When was the schoolroom chimney last swept?”
A servant answered too softly for Petalia to hear.
“That is not an answer. Have it seen to before the week is out. The wind comes down that flue in the evenings.”
Another murmur.
“And the window latch?”
Petalia set down her fork.
His voice remained gruff, impersonal, and entirely outside the room. “Then repair it. Miss Winthrop cannot teach in a draught.”
Footsteps moved away.
He did not come in.
A few minutes later, Mrs Holroyd entered with a small dish of pudding Petalia had not asked for.
“Cook had extra,” the housekeeper said, placing it on the table.
“How fortunate.”
Mrs Holroyd adjusted the dish by a fraction. “His Grace thought the wind was up.”
“Did he?”
“So he said.”
Petalia looked towards the closed door, then back at the pudding. “This house has a remarkable number of indirect weather reports.”
Mrs Holroyd’s face remained solemn, but her eyes softened. “You will find, miss, that His Grace speaks most plainly when he is pretending to discuss something else.”
Petalia picked up her spoon. “Then I shall have to listen very carefully.”
After the housekeeper left, Petalia ate the pudding without comment.
On the table beside her, Declan’s repaired map lay weighted beneath the inkstand, and Mary had left her six crooked words on the page rather than tearing them apart.
For the first day, that would do.