A School for Brides (18 page)

At dinnertime, perhaps in an attempt to break the tension and lead everyone's thoughts and feelings in a new direction, Mr. Arbuthnot and Miss Evans formally announced their engagement. The news surprised no one; they had been waiting for confirmation of Miss Evans's father's approval. However, a letter had arrived that afternoon giving his consent, and, having crossed that not-very-daunting hurdle, the young people were free to announce their happiness to their friends.

Miss Evans's father had, in fact, been delighted; Mr. Arbuthnot's family and estates were rather better than what he might have expected to get for his daughter through marriage. He rarely thought about her from one month to another, but by this feat she had managed to elevate her position in his esteem tenfold, and, had his natural indolence not been so great, he might have exerted himself to the trouble and expense of traveling twenty miles to tell her so.

Everyone was pleased for the young couple; they were acknowledged to be uniquely suited to each other. With upright characters, good moral sense, and an almost total lack of imagination, they were certain to make a united and devoted pair.

At nineteen, Miss Evans had been the oldest of the students; it was fitting that she should be the first to wed. The younger girls smiled and whispered in one another's ears and wondered when it would be their turn. Miss Franklin alone could not comprehend how Miss Evans could let anything interrupt her schooling—she did not mean to leave them until she had mastered Italian, did she?

“Indeed she does,” said Mr. Crabbe, laughing. “They will travel to Italy itself, and that will be a much better method of perfecting Miss Evans's Italian than any tutor.”

Oh, how delightful! Italy! All that could be wished for!
As her fellow students expressed their envy and delight, Miss Asquith leaned in to speak privately to Miss Franklin.

“I understand that your studies are all-important to you, but will you not admit that marriage and family have their own value in the lives of
both
men and women? After all, if there were no family life, quite soon there would be no human life at all. Children must be born to replace those who die!”

Miss Franklin smiled. “Oh, Miss Asquith, of course you are in the right, yet I cannot help but feel that the minds of these young women are being wasted, trained for nothing but household management and child-rearing.”

“When
you
marry, of course, you must choose someone who shares your interests and intellect. He must be a scientist like you, one who can appreciate your mental endowments as well as your more personal charms.” Here Miss Asquith looked at Mr. Rupert Crabbe, who was sitting alone in a corner, regarding the celebrations with an air of benign detachment.

Miss Franklin blushed and looked down at her lap. The heightened color was not flattering to her rather severe beauty; too, it appeared to be a source of discomfort, and she pressed her palms to her flaming cheeks.

“I have always believed it best that I not marry at all,” she said, not meeting Miss Asquith's eyes.

“Ah, but that is easy to say when one has not met a gentleman who would make a good husband, is it not?”

“Perhaps. I do not know. I do not feel certain of Mr.—of the gentleman's motives and feelings.”

“In that case, allow me to explain them to you: he likes and admires you very much. Why, he barely even speaks to anyone save yourself and, rarely, his brother. When I attempt to make a little polite conversation with him, he looks at me as if I were speaking in ancient Egyptian. But with you, he is at ease—the two of you are generally so deep in discourse that I am amazed to have this opportunity to converse with you whilst he is present.”

“I—I do not know.” Miss Franklin shook her head.

“And I tell you, I
do
! I advise you to prepare your mind for a proposal, my friend!”

THE LAST DAYS
of October were waning, but the weather was still warm, with one fine, dry day succeeding another. A few days after the announcement of his engagement, Mr. Arbuthnot demanded to be allowed out of his invalid chair. Leaning on two sticks and aided by his betrothed, he staggered some five paces across the parlor floor before staggering back to his seat. Flushed with triumph and the unaccustomed exertion, he asked to be wheeled out-of-doors, and he and Miss Evans settled down in a spot in the sun-dappled shade of the orchard by the high road.

When the gentlemen from Yellering Hall came to call, as they did most afternoons, they and the rest of the school went in a body to join the couple for a nuncheon alfresco. Thanks to the efforts of Miss Quince and the distraction of the Arbuthnot and Evans engagement, the affair of the missing necklace had dropped into the background of everyone's mind.

Several of the ladies, both the younger and the older, sat in the sun and sewed. Miss Franklin bent over a small hand-stitched notebook, writing line after line of densely spaced prose interspersed with numbers, Greek letters, and arithmetical symbols, flicking the pages over as they were filled. The gentlemen lolled about doing not much of anything, a little stupefied by the autumnal sunshine with its false promise of endless warm days to come. Miss Victor was engaged in sketching a ragged clump of Michaelmas daisies as Miss Briggs sang an old country ballad about doomed lovers. Her fresh young voice lofted up over the little gathering and blended with the sound of the wind stirring the fallen leaves and the calls of doves.

Into this idyllic scene two figures appeared on the high road that ran in front of the school. From small, indistinct dots they grew larger and clearer as they approached, resolving into Miss le Strange and her maidservant. They marched past the school grounds, turning their heads to stare at the group under the apple trees. Miss le Strange gave one curt nod to acknowledge the acquaintance, and then walked on.

A cloud blotted out the sun; the doves stilled their cries. Miss Briggs's song faltered and broke off. In the silence, it was possible to hear the rustle of the skirts of the interlopers and the muffled thud of their heels hitting the dusty road. Their backs, as they moved onward toward the village of Lesser Hoo, were rigid with disapproval and hostility.

Miss Victor dropped her sketchbook and crayon and began to sniffle, her eyes welling up ominously. Miss Crump took the fine white shawl from her shoulders and wrapped it around her bonneted head so that she looked like an oddly shaped ghost cowering in the shadows. The ladies lowered their mending and watched the small parade as it dwindled again in size and disappeared around a bend. Even Miss Franklin paused in her furious scribblings and looked up to see them go.

“Who was that lady, pray?” she inquired.

“Oh, for goodness' sakes!” cried Miss Asquith, exasperated with her friend. “That was Miss le Strange, author of all our woe.
Do
pay attention, Miss Franklin!”

“So that is Miss le Strange,” Miss Franklin said thoughtfully.

Soon thereafter, everyone present found a compelling reason to leave the sunlit orchard and return to the house. Apparently preoccupied by the discovery of Miss le Strange's identity, Miss Franklin got up without remembering her notebook of formulae, leaving it abandoned under a tree. However, this was of no import, as Mr. Rupert Crabbe slipped it into his waistcoat pocket and followed after her.

At the house, they discovered that Robert had been on the point of coming to fetch them, or at least to fetch Mr. Crabbe and his brother, Rupert. After the passage of Miss le Strange and her servant, the party had spied someone else approaching, this time on horseback, but it had been assumed that this person was riding on toward Lesser Hoo and would not pause. It was, however, a messenger, sent by express with a letter for Mr. Crabbe. The urgency of such a missive must be assumed; everyone save Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Rupert Crabbe, and Miss Asquith soon quitted the room to allow the brothers to discover in privacy whatever calamity it might reveal.

Miss Quince paused at the doorway, calling in a low tone, “Miss Asquith, please come with us. We will commence our lessons upstairs in the music room.”

Miss Asquith responded, “Pray do not press me, Miss Quince. I
must
know what the matter is, or die of my ignorance.” There was no sign of levity on her usually merry countenance, and her tone gave assurance of the gravity of her feelings.

Sighing with vexation at her pupil's willfulness, yet unable to avoid some stirrings of sympathy, Miss Quince remained in the doorway to ensure the propriety of such a conference, and thus was unable to avoid hearing all that passed.

“I see it comes from our father's solicitor,” said Mr. Rupert Crabbe. “Do open it, Henry, and end this suspense. Our father's not writing it himself is such a frightful omen—tell me quickly! Is he dead?”

A long silence followed this plea, as Mr. Crabbe perused the message. At last he handed the letter to his brother and said, “T'would be better if he were, I daresay, but he is not. Not yet, tho' perhaps he soon will be, once the court of assizes has heard his case.”

“His case! What
can
you mean, court of assizes? That is only for the most serious of criminal cases—you cannot be suggesting—!”

“Stop arguing with me, Rupert, and read the letter. As I come to think of it, it is worse than that. It will have to be the Lord High Steward and the House of Lords,” growled Mr. Crabbe. His gaze lit upon Miss Asquith's serious face, looking up at him with compassion and concern. “I do not grudge you hearing this, Miss Asquith. No doubt most of England knows it already. Our father has—”

“He has
killed
Sir Grimm! After losing to him at cards! Sir Grimm, our old neighbor! Oh, the disgrace of it, and me a clergyman!” cried Rupert. “And he did the deed in front of witnesses, too!”

Mr. Crabbe gestured toward his brother, who was clutching at his hair with one hand and crumpling the letter with the other. “As my brother informs you, we are now the sons of a murderer, and a murderer so addlepated as to commit his crime in front of two maidservants, the local doctor, and a justice of the peace.”

“We are ruined! Ruined! We shall never be able to hold up our heads in public!”

“Again, my brother expresses the matter concisely,” said Mr. Crabbe. “I hope you will understand that we must leave you, Miss Asquith, and—is that you, Miss Quince? Pray give our apologies to the other ladies, but we must be off at once.”

Miss Asquith placed her hand on his arm and said, her eyes meeting his, “I am more sorry than I can say for your pain. I wish there were a way I could offer you some aid.”

Mr. Crabbe looked down at her small white hand on his sleeve. “I—I thank you for that, Miss Asquith. However”—here he raised his gaze to hers again, his voice became more formal, and he moved away a space so that her hand fell—“I doubt anybody can do anything for us at present. We shall have to take the kicking fate has in store for us, I fear. Good-bye, Miss Quince, Miss Asquith. Rupert, come along.”

Rupert looked distractedly about himself. “Wait!” he said. “I beg your pardon, brother; there is one thing I—” He darted into an adjoining room, but returned shortly.

Miss Asquith, regarding him with pity, said, “I believe I know whom you seek. I will tell her that necessity prevented you from doing so. She is not someone who demands that the proprieties be observed—she will readily forgive you. Neither she
nor
I am conventional, you know. Now go, and do not worry any further about us. Good-bye, good-bye! Please travel safely, and . . . I pray your journey's end will show you a better circumstance than you at present expect.”

And with no more than a scant few words more, they were gone, and within an hour, gone altogether from the village of Lesser Hoo.

Quite naturally, a great deal of curiosity about the nature of the events that had so abruptly deprived them of the company of the two brothers had been aroused, and after some deliberation, Miss Quince decided to reveal the shocking story, albeit in as dull and drab a way as possible.

“I gather that the Baron is a man of very little self-command,” she said, “prone to any number of petty vices and a great source of worry to his friends. There was a quarrel, I believe, with the result that a gentleman has most unfortunately died, and the law is likely to make a great deal of tiresome fuss. Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Rupert Crabbe have quite properly gone home to try to lend some assistance in the matter. As soon as the House of Lords can be convened to hear the case it will all be settled, and none of us need give it any further thought.”

Everyone exclaimed over the matter, but as Miss Quince had rather made it sound as if the Baron were a naughty child who had broken a piece of china in a fit of temper, the horror of the event was lessened. Mr. Hadley took himself off, feeling that he might be able to help his friends in arranging their departure, or at least in smoothing over matters with the Throstletwists.

Miss Asquith had retired to her room after the two brothers' departure, only pausing to squeeze her friend Miss Franklin's hand and murmur, “They had to go, and immediately—Miss Quince will explain why. There was no time for farewells. He sought you, before they left, without success. But we will see them again, I assure you, my dear Miss Franklin.”

Miss Franklin nodded and returned the pressure on her hand. “Perhaps we shall. You must go to your room and have a little weep. I do not find release in tears, myself, but I am informed that many women do. I will come to you later and see to it that you have something to eat and drink.”

Miss Asquith thanked her friend and indeed did retire to her room for a short spell of tears, and remained there until the next day.