A Proper Education for Girls (32 page)

Alice held the photographer at arm's length as he swayed back and forth in front of her. With her free hand she reached beneath her workbench, pulling out a small portfolio. She handed it to him. “Your trunk is in my room,” she said. “I shall have Sluce take it to you immediately.”

Mr. Blake swiped the portfolio out of Alice's outstretched hand as a starving man might seize a slice of bread. He wrenched it open. Two immense sepia nipples stared at him like a pair of accusing eyes. He slammed the portfolio closed, before staggering out of the darkroom into the cool, leafy calm of the temperate house.

A
LICE POURED
M
R.
Blake a glass of water.

“Thank you,” he said at last.

“And I thank you, for your most gallant behavior toward me when I presented myself in your rooms. And for denying I had done so to my father.”

“He remains convinced about what he saw.”

“He has no proof.”

“He doesn't need any.” Mr. Blake sat up. “Alice, I came to tell you that Cattermole is coming. He has something planned for you, with your father's permission, but I have no idea what it is.”

“Dr. Cattermole has always been interested in me. I believe he also wishes to make me the subject of one of his photographs.”

Mr. Blake flinched. “He does?”

“So his wife tells me. She says that he is most professional and scientific in his approach.”

“You must on no account agree to be photographed by him.”

“Then perhaps I should come with you to London.”

“But I can't go to London. I am to display my photographs of the Collection in bound volumes. I cannot refuse.” He took her hand again. “I have no money to support a wife and must earn my keep and yours.”

But Alice did not appear to be listening. “Of course,” she said. “When shall we leave?”

“After I have finished my commission here. As soon as your father pays me.”

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
, a package arrived from Kushpur. Alice could hardly take her eyes off it as she sipped her tea, but she said nothing when her father entered the breakfast room. He had been diligent in checking for correspondence from India, whether it bore Lilian's handwriting or not. More than once he had flourished a torn-open letter beneath her nose, before tossing it onto the fire. Was there a chance that he might overlook a package? She
waited in silence, her eyes now fixed intently on the untouched plate before her.

That same morning, however, a team of laborers had arrived from the village to dig a pit in the park at the front of the house. It was this pit that was to act as the crucible for Mr. Talbot's artificial volcano, and the men were already gathered in the stable yard at the back of the house awaiting instruction. The previous afternoon one and a half tons of sublimed sulfur and a similar quantity of iron filings had arrived and were now stored in the washhouse near the kitchens. Such was Mr. Talbot's excitement at the advancement of his plans that he did not even notice the package addressed to Alice that lay among his post on the breakfast room sideboard. In fact, part of the reason Mr. Talbot overlooked it was because it was not a package, as such, but a tube, which had rolled to the back of the sideboard and was not in his immediate line of vision—especially as he was in a hurry and did not even sit down for breakfast. Alice hardly dared to breathe as her father stalked into the breakfast room, seized his mail, and immediately headed back out again to supervise the destruction of the park outside.

“Cattermole is due to arrive this morning,” he bellowed over his shoulder. “Alice, make sure his rooms are ready. And you might come and see me in my study later this afternoon. I have something I must explain to you.” Without waiting for a reply, he was gone.

Alice seized the package as soon as she heard the door to her father's study slam closed. With her aunts gathered around her in a whispering escort, she carried it off to the private sanctum of the hothouse.

The aunts crowded round as Alice unwrapped the tube-shaped package. It was made of thick card, rolled up and wrapped in some sort of canvas and then sealed at either end with wax. This well-sheathed package had then been covered in brown paper and tightly tied with string. Clearly, whatever was inside, Lilian had been determined to keep safe and dry.

Not wanting to damage the contents, Alice scrabbled ineffectually with her fingernails at the waxy seals. The aunts inched forward,
until Alice could feel Aunt Statham's tea-drenched breath on her cheek and hear the creak of Aunt Pendleton's stays as she leaned closer.

“Stand back!” cried Alice, reaching for her short-bladed pruning knife.

The knife sliced though wax, canvas, string, and paper in an instant. Alice tore away the wrapping and peered into the tube. At first, it seemed to be empty. Then she realized that what lay within was rolled up tightly and pressed against the inside. She inserted a finger and thumb and slowly pulled a large, thick sheet of paper into the light. She recognized what it was even before it had been unfurled.

“It's a painting,” said Aunt Statham quickly. “A watercolor probably. Watercolors were always Lilian's favorite.”

Alice unrolled the paper with shaking hands. Aunt Statham was right. It was a painting. In fact, it was four separate paintings, as the paper had been divided into quarters, each of which contained one of Lilian's characteristically detailed plant illustrations. One showed small pink and white flowers on long thin stalks, another a winding tendril of tiny leaves with small, pale, star-shaped blooms. The third showed bright yellow flowers on individual sticklike stems. The final segment of the paper contained a hairy, angular plant, its leaves small and pointed, its flowers tiny purple knots. They stared at the paper in silence.

“Are they Indian plant species?” said Aunt Lambert at last. “I don't recognize any of them if they are.”

“No,” said Alice. “They are not.”

“Then what are they?” said Old Mrs. Talbot. “The poor child. Why has she sent us this?”

“They don't look very interesting,” agreed Aunt Statham. “Why didn't she send us something beautiful, something glorious and majestic?” She poked the painting with a scrawny finger. “That one looks like a weed. Or something cows eat.”

“Is there anything else in the package?” said Aunt Rushton-Bell.

Alice shook her head.

“Perhaps she has gone mad,” said Old Mrs. Talbot shakily. “Like Ophelia. Oh, Alice! Your poor deranged sister. Who would have thought it?” Tears appeared in her rheumy eyes.

“She would not be painting like this if she were mad,” said Aunt Lambert. “Nor would she have had the presence of mind to package it up so securely and post it to England. For goodness' sake, Connie, you always look on the black side of things.”

“Besides, Connie dear,” said Aunt Pendleton gently, “that would be rosemary and rue, wouldn't it? ‘For remembrance?’ We could all do with a little of that these days, I'm sure. But these flowers of Lilian's are quite different from Ophelia's.”

Alice stared at the painting. “Like Ophelia, in one sense,” she said. “But she's not mad.” She laughed. “Oh no, Lilian is most definitely not mad.”

T
HE DAY OF MR.
T
ALBOT'S EVENING OF EXPERIMENT
, Enlightenment, and Amusement was upon them. Everything was as he could wish it—the sulphur and iron filings had been mixed with water and buried in a huge pit beneath the ground; the ballroom had been transformed into a museum and lecture room; the invitations had been sent out and replies received. Dr. Cattermole had arrived and been most impressed with his friend's preparations. He had brought with him a number of photographs that showed some aspects of his work in the mortuary and also a range of glass jars containing formaldehyde, within which viscous yellow liquid bobbed all manner of medical monstrosities.

“I have exhibited a number of these at the Medical Society over the years,” he confided to Mr. Talbot. “I have a two-headed baby, you know!”

Alice had not been present at dinner.

“A headache,” Aunt Lambert said.

“Perhaps I should see her,” Dr. Cattermole offered, rubbing his hands together.

“You needn't trouble yourself,” Aunt Lambert said hastily. “I'm sure it's nothing. A good night's rest is all she needs.”

B
UT
A
LICE DID
not appear at breakfast either. There was nothing Aunt Lambert could say to stop Mr. Talbot and Dr. Cattermole from going to see for themselves what ailed her.

Alice was not in her room. She was not in the hothouse. Mr. Talbot muttered angrily at the inconvenience of having a disobedient daughter. With Dr. Cattermole in his wake, he stalked up and down the numerous corridors and staircases of the great house in search of her.

At one point they rounded a corner and almost knocked down Mr. Bellows (whose presence in his house Mr. Talbot had once again forgotten). It appeared that Mr. Bellows had seen no one but Sluce for a number of weeks, and his appearance had deteriorated to the extent that Mr. Talbot was at first quite alarmed to find what looked like a vagabond on the top floor of his house. Mr. Bellows's voluble explanation of his progress with the flying machine served only to irritate Mr. Talbot further, as he could make little sense of what Mr. Bellows was talking about.

“Yes, yes,” he snapped. “Very good. Perhaps you would offer us a demonstration of some sort next time the wind is favorable.” And he invited Mr. Bellows to attend the meeting of the Society for the Propagation of Useful and Interesting Knowledge that was to take place later that day. “If I can find my daughter.”

M
R.
T
ALBOT AND
Dr. Cattermole found Alice seated at her desk in the bamboo thicket beside the jungle parlor. Aunt Pendleton dozed noisily in a chair positioned above one of the cast-iron heating vents in the floor. The peach tree dangled its fruits precariously over her head.

Alice had been up on the walkway that ran around the top of the conservatory when her father and his friend had first come looking for her. Knowing how much he hated the broiling heat of the hothouse, she had not expected them to return.

“There you are,” grunted Mr. Talbot irritably. “Come with us.”

“Never mind that, Talbot,” said Dr. Cattermole, stepping forward. “We've wasted enough time already and I have still to put my specimens in some sort of order. Miss Talbot. Alice, if I may. Let us get to the point. There are some facts concerning your health, both mental and physical, that can no longer be ignored.”

Alice looked from her father's flushed and angry face to Dr. Cattermole's, and back again, but said nothing.

“As you are aware,” continued Dr. Cattermole, “it has long been your father's wish that you should be educated, that you should be fully cognizant with the contents of his Collection and what they signify. And yet, as time has passed it has come to the attention of both your father and myself that this form of education—the amassing of knowledge of a distinctly
unladylike
nature—has led you down a most unfortunate mental and physical pathway. The education of a woman is all very well. We would not, after all, want the mothers of future generations to be ignorant of the principles of morality and goodness that form the very best gift that womankind has to offer society. And yet, this education must be of the right sort. I refer, of course, to the importance of the various womanly arts—cookery, needlework, attention to religious devotion.”

“Cookery and needlework?” said Alice, mystified and a little bored by Dr. Cattermole's detailed lecture.

“Indeed.” Dr. Cattermole nodded. He looked at Alice closely. “My dear Miss Talbot—and I have told your father the very same thing—it is
miseducated
women who are responsible for much of the downward tendencies of our middle-class society.”

“I had no idea, Cattermole,” muttered Mr. Talbot guiltily. “There didn't seem any harm in it.”

“Not at first, perhaps,” said Dr. Cattermole. “But the behavior of your daughter Lilian should have alerted you to the errors of so liberal an education. Latterly, her sexual appetite was quite un-governed; her desire to question, and challenge, your authority knew no bounds. Was this the behavior of a woman who excelled in moral sense and goodness?”

“I suppose not, since you put it like that,” said Mr. Talbot.

“What has a liberal education got to do with sexual appetite?” said Alice, curious now, despite herself.

Dr. Cattermole pursed his lips. “I would not expect you to understand. I'm sure I need say no more.”

“You need say a lot more, I should think,” said Alice. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Dr. Cattermole is quite plain in his meaning,” barked Mr. Talbot. He cleared his throat and swabbed anxiously at the collar of his shirt with his handkerchief. “But Alice can be saved, Cattermole, can she not?”

“Perhaps.” Dr. Cattermole gazed at Alice until she could no longer meet the cold blue eyes that glittered behind his winking spectacles.

She shuddered, turning her attention to the palm tree that reared behind him. The palm tree had been planted by her mother only a week after the hothouse had been completed. That was almost thirty-five years ago now. With no tropical storms to blow it down and no one wanting its wood for houses or boats, the palm had thrived. It was now brushing the upper panes of the hothouse roof with the wide fronds of its outstretched arms. Alice wondered how long it would be before she had to cut it down. Then again, perhaps she should simply allow it to burst through the glass to the outside air. After all, what did it have to lose?