A School for Brides (8 page)

Miss Asquith replied, “Yes, a brewer of beer may even earn a peerage by a little judicious assistance to the political party in power, whereas a distiller of gin—” She broke off as, much to the surprise of both ladies, Mr. Crabbe returned, apparently unquenched and unsnubbed, with an opened letter in his hand.

“Do you know, Miss Franklin, I believe I have taken your conversational measure and I hope soon to be in a position to supply you with a worthy partner.”

Miss Franklin raised skeptical eyebrows, but Miss Asquith obliged him by inquiring, “No, really? Who?”

“My brother, the Reverend Mr. Rupert Crabbe, who is rector at Stonyfields, in the West Riding. I have just received a note informing me that he has some business connected with our father that he needs to discuss with me, and my hostess, Lady Boring, has been kind enough to invite him to stay at Gudgeon Park. Being an unmarried clergyman with an ample living and a small parish, he has little to occupy his time and has taken up a study of the natural world. He owns a telescope, I believe, and collects rocks and observes birds and comets and so on. I feel certain you will have much to discuss.”

“A telescope! Is it a reflector or a refractor? And what are its dimensions, do you know?” Miss Franklin asked. Mr. Crabbe, however, disclaimed any knowledge about the sort of lens owned by his brother. “Oh, in any case, I do not suppose he will bring it with him,” she said wistfully. “One could not wish it to be damaged, but how I should love to see and use it!”

“I shall make a point of telling him that he must on no account show his face without it,” said Mr. Crabbe.

Miss Franklin blushed, her breath caught with emotion, and her speech became most charmingly confused. “Oh, you mustn't—I pray you, Mr. Crabbe—But perhaps he would allow me to examine—Oh, it is good of you!”

Mr. Crabbe smiled benevolently upon her and then cast a triumphant glance in Miss Asquith's direction.

“I believe I win this round?” he murmured.

“You do, sir,” Miss Asquith admitted. Then, in a louder voice, she continued, “It
is
very good of you, Mr. Crabbe—poor Miss Franklin is quite thrown away on us. Bringing your brother into our circle will give her someone to talk to. I am astonished at how much that circle has enlarged since poor Mr. Arbuthnot had his accident, and now you propose to enlarge it yet again!”

“Yes, and I believe there is a stranger at the inn in Lesser Hoo, as well,” Mr. Crabbe replied. “Of quality, my valet tells me, so perhaps that circle may expand even more.”

Half the room away, two pairs of eyes were raised at this remark, and two pairs of ears tuned to his words. Miss Pffolliott pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, blotting out the words that trembled on her lips:
A stranger at the inn!
Miss Crump said nothing, but melted back still farther into the protective environs of her wing chair.

However, there was no further discussion about the stranger, and the two ladies were left to their hopes and fears.

MR. GODALMING, WHO
farmed some three thousand acres outside of Lesser Hoo and was magistrate for the district, regarded the arrival of these alien gentlemen with disapproval. He was a rather ugly man of few social attainments, but yet was inclined to feel that his three thousand acres and healthy income entitled him to a handsome and accomplished wife. He had looked upon the Winthrop Hopkins Academy as his own private hunting preserve, so to speak, and resented the intrusion of others who might be more accomplished sportsmen, and so carry off all the game.

For a time he stayed away, hoping they would soon leave. When, after nearly a month they had not, he called at the school at a moment he thought it likely he would find them there as well. Once introduced, he made a number of disparaging remarks about the counties of their births, and the inferiority of southerners in general and Oxford men in particular, and was ignored for his pains. Attempts to turn the subject of the conversation toward his one area of real expertise were in vain; no one seemed to care twopence for sheep and their care.

At length he went away, feeling abused. He had not the same leisure as the newcomers; it was mid-September and the grain fields were being harvested. Being a gentleman, he did not wield a sickle or handle the grain himself, but he was a concerned and knowledgeable landowner. He had strong opinions about the proper ways to bring in the crops, and could not be spared during this most critical period in the agricultural year. His wheat, oats, and barley stood second to his wool, mutton, and fleeces in the profits produced by his estate, and he was too good a farmer to allow social affairs to distract him when his attention was required in the fields.

The stranger at the inn was soon discovered to be a man of middle age, though giving the impression that he wished to be thought younger than his years.

“Dyes his hair and wears a girdle,” murmured Robert in Miss Asquith's ear, having ascertained these details from the maid at the Blue Swan whose job it was to clean his room. The young ladies were in their backboards again, which made it rather awkward as she leaned in to listen. “And he's a great one for the lasses, says Mary,” he added. “Can't leave a female alone in a room with him, she says.”

“What are you telling Miss Asquith, Robert?” demanded Miss Winthrop. “It is not suitable for you to hold
private
discourse with any of our young ladies. What were you saying?”

“Oh, Miss Winthrop!” said Robert, whose natural friendliness and convivial spirit often led him into these sorts of errors. “I'm so sorry, Miss.”

“It was my fault,” interposed Miss Asquith, straightening up and pivoting toward her instructor. “I had begged him to hide the last biscuit in the Grecian urn in the hallway for me so that I might eat it later in my room—these backboards cause one to be so clumsy that I could not contrive it myself—and I did not care at all that
poor
Miss Mainwaring would go hungry to bed with no biscuit. He was very properly declining to perform such a wrong act.”

Miss Winthrop, who had little difficulty in thinking the worst of Miss Asquith, was ready to accept this version of events until Miss Asquith added, “And then he suggested, most respectfully, of course, that I should no longer walk in the ways of darkness but seek the light, and lift up my eyes from earthly pleasures. It was
most
edifying. Personally, I think the entire incident speaks very well of Robert, but of course if you believe that propriety is of more importance than the salvation of my eternal soul, Miss Winthrop, why then I have nothing further to argue in his defense.”

“I believe nothing of the sort!” snapped Miss Winthrop.

“Oh, Miss!” cried Robert. “I never! That is—Pardon me, I shall try to do better, Miss Winthrop. Forgive me.” And he withdrew to the corner of the room, standing at rigid attention, his face a blank and his inner turmoil only betrayed by the tiny eruptions of hilarity that escaped him from time to time.

Both Miss Crump and Miss Pffolliott were relieved by the news of the stranger's sex and age, though neither rested entirely easy. Miss Crump merely supposed that her terrifying governess would arrive in a few days' time; her ordeal was prolonged, rather than ended. Miss Pffolliott, though at first thankful that she need not immediately fear an importunate suitor appearing at the school (for a mysterious admirer
must
be young, if not positively handsome) became, before long, somewhat annoyed.

If the stranger at the inn was not her secret lover, then
why
was he not? Her admirer could not be a local man—none was in a position to address her, other than the unappealing Mr. Godalming, and surely
he
was not writing her secret letters! She could not imagine anyone less likely than Mr. Godalming to be involved in a possible tryst.

Miss Pffolliott knew that the inn possessed very few rooms for the use of travelers. If Miss Crump's governess and accompanying servant (for it had become general knowledge that Miss le Strange was likely to appear at any moment) were to arrive before her admirer, there would be no rooms left for him.

It was most tiresome. She became so annoyed with the man's dilatory behavior that she resolutely shut her mind against him. She found herself able to concentrate on her studies for the first time in weeks, sitting down to a lengthy list of dreaded long division problems with such grim determination that by morning's end she could point with pride to a much-smudged slate with several completed examples, one of which even had the correct answer.

One day near the end of September the gentlemen arrived earlier than usual, and in a state of some perturbation. They had been made to feel rather in the way at Gudgeon Park. The Baroness was indisposed—indeed, it appeared likely that she would be a mother before the day was out. The doctor had been duly sent for, but he proved to be unavailable, as he had been called out on a similar mission to Crooked Castle, the home of Mrs. Fredericks.

Lady Boring was therefore obliged to make do with the services of a midwife rather than a fully credentialed physician. This threw her into such a fury, on top of the pangs of imminent motherhood, that the Park, as large as it was, seemed far too small to contain her guests in any degree of comfort.

Since the gentlemen were unable to intrude at Crooked Castle, knowing that similar events were on the move there also, they had gone out to do a little hunting in the rain, and now, disconsolate and wet to the skin, appeared at the school hoping for shelter from both the meteorological and the maternal tempests that seemed to have overtaken the neighborhood. Here, happily, they were welcomed and given hot drinks and seats by the fire.

“I suppose we ought to push off and go back home,” Mr. Hadley said uneasily. “We ought to have left before now, really. Boring's got enough on his plate with the Baroness and a new member of the family without having guests in the house.”

The assembled company greeted these words with alarm and dismay, while being unable to deny their truth. The young men were enjoying Lesser Hoo, and the young ladies had come to feel that the Winthrop Hopkins Academy without their enlivening influence would be a dreary place indeed. The older ladies, too, had had high hopes that matrimony would deprive them of a few of their pupils, if only the gentlemen could stay a few weeks longer. True, the income of the school would be smaller in the short term, but the disposal of perhaps as many as
three
of the older pupils in advantageous marriages would be an excellent advertisement.

“Oh, but—but, Mr. Hadley,” Miss Mainwaring said shyly, “my aunt Fredericks has discussed this with Lady Throstletwist. And Lady Throstletwist has instructed me, in the event you found yourselves not entirely comfortable at Gudgeon Park, to tell you that you must on no account think of leaving the neighborhood, but come to stay with them.”

Sir Quentin and Lady Throstletwist were an elderly couple who did not entertain often; it was obvious that the offer had been made because Mrs. Fredericks's niece had expressed a liking for Mr. Hadley's company, and Mrs. Fredericks was determined to keep him in Yorkshire. The obedience of the Throstletwists would not have been a matter for debate; Mrs. Fredericks was a lady with some force of will.

The cheer that these words produced was universal. The young ladies in general were pleased to continue receiving visits that distracted them from their studies. Miss Evans, whose acquaintance with Mr. Arbuthnot was not in any danger of interruption until he regained his full strength, was nevertheless pleased for his sake that he should continue to have his friends nearby. And even Miss Franklin smiled upon Miss Asquith's happiness; she was beginning to discover a real liking for the girl, frivolous creature though she was.

The kindness of the Throstletwists was favorably commented upon, and Miss Winthrop volunteered to visit Yellering Hall and inform them that they would soon be entertaining two young men—nay, three, if Mr. Crabbe's younger brother were to be counted—of whom they had only the slightest acquaintance.

“Oh, you mustn't do that,” murmured the young men, while obviously hoping she would, and Miss Winthrop determined to call upon the Throstletwists and remind them of their duty the moment it stopped raining quite so hard.

In celebration of this happy resolution, an impromptu country dance was got up in the school parlor, with Miss Briggs on the pianoforte and the dancers treading on one another's toes and tripping over the furniture in the too-small room. Despite these difficulties, however, they took great delight in the exercise and one another's company, and danced until a wind from the sea blew the rain and clouds away, revealing a bright moon that peered in at them from the windows and drenched the scene with its silvery light.