Jane Ashford (13 page)

Thalia stiffened. She would at least be sure the girl did not get the satisfaction of seeing how very much she cared. She would act as if nothing had happened and ignore any remarks others dared make. But as she walked back toward her room, tears threatened. How very uncomfortable this place would be for her now. She longed for her sisters, and even, briefly, for her aunt. Things had seemed so much simpler only a few days ago.

Thalia passed a miserable evening. She had returned to her bedchamber after her interview with Miss Chadbourne and sat there through the afternoon with only Juvenal for company. She began a letter to Aggie, but could not go on with it. The events of the day were too fresh and painful to relate, and she was incapable of commonplaces. She nearly did not go down to dinner, but her hunger after missing luncheon and her conviction that not going would show everyone that something was indeed wrong forced her downstairs. She went in at the last possible moment, just before Miss Chadbourne, and kept her eyes on her plate throughout the meal. She imagined that she heard some whispers, but it seemed that the story had not yet made the rounds of the school, and she slipped away later
without comment.

Upstairs again, she tried to read, and returned to her letter without success. Finally, despondent, she put down her pen. “Oh, Juvenal,” she said to the kitten, who was curled comfortably before the fireplace, “what a wretched tangle this is. What am I going to do? I cannot stay in my room forever.”

Juvenal looked up and fixed his golden eyes on her face. Then he rose and came over to rub against her ankle.

Thalia laughed a little. “Yes, that’s all very well, but it does not answer my question, does it?”

“Rrrroww,” responded Juvenal.

The girl sighed. “I may as well go to bed. Perhaps in the morning I can think what I should do. Should I start to look for a new post? I was just getting accustomed to this one.”

The cat made no reply, and Thalia rose and began to get ready for bed. She lay down soon after, but she did not sleep for hours. Instead, she went over and over the events of the day and tried to find some solution to the problems they had created.

As soon as she entered the dining room the next morning, heavy-eyed from lack of sleep, Thalia knew that Lady Agnes had done her work. There was a hush when she came through the doorway, then a few giggles, and finally murmurings from all sides. None was audible, and no one offered to accost her, but it was clear that nearly everyone in the room was discussing her affairs.

Thalia faltered only briefly; then she put up her chin and walked proudly to her place, trying to show by her bearing that she was utterly unconcerned with what they might think. As she took her place, it was immediately clear that the teachers had also heard the story. Mlle. Benzoni turned her head away in a marked manner; Miss Allen looked at her plate; and Miss Eliot stared at her with severe disapproval, as if to show that she, as teacher of deportment, had the best right to condemn Thalia.

Miss Chadbourne came in and signaled the beginning of the meal. As they sat down, Thalia caught a sympathetic glance from Miss Hendricks and an embarrassed one from Miss Reynolds beside her, and she seated herself quickly, avoiding other eyes.

When the food came, she ate quickly. Miss Chadbourne initiated a very dull discussion of expenditures for supplies at the top of the table, for which she was very grateful. Under cover of this, Lucy Anderson squeezed her hand under the table. “I think they are all beastly,” she whispered, “and so do some of the others. What a tempest in a teacup!”

Thalia nodded, not daring to look at her for fear she would show something of what she felt at this open sympathy.

At a pause in the conversation, Mlle. Reynaud, the French mistress, leaned forward from her seat beside Miss Chadbourne and addressed Thalia down the table, a thing she had never done before. “Ah, Miss Hartington, I did not expect you would come down this morning. So brave of you.” Her tone was acid, and her faded eyes showed an avid curiosity.

“Why not?” answered Thalia, with as much nonchalance as she could muster. “I do so every day.”

“Naturally,” added Miss Chadbourne, in accents that let everyone know there was to be no talk of what had happened.

Mlle. Reynaud subsided, and a little while later, breakfast ended. Thalia rose with relief and turned to leave. How she would face her classes, she did not know, but it could not be any harder than this meal had been.

Lady Agnes and her group were gathered near the doorway. As she passed them, Thalia braced herself. “Good morning, Miss Hartington,” said Lady Agnes in a poisonously sweet voice.

“Good morning,” she replied, and raising her eyes, she met the younger girl’s squarely, trying to put all the contempt she felt for her in one glance.

But Lady Agnes was not so easily affected. She held the gaze for a moment, then laughed falsely and looked away.

Thalia was about to move on when a breathless voice behind her said, “Oh, Miss Hartington, there is something I particularly wanted to ask you.” She turned to find Mary Deming standing there, spots of red burning in her thin cheeks. “Would you care to come into Bath with me this Sunday afternoon?” continued Mary in a burst. “My mother is coming for a visit, and I should so like to introduce you to her. I have written her all about you and how much I like your class.”

Thalia, realizing that the girl had successfully vanquished her shyness and made this public offer to show that she set no store by the gossip, was touched. “Thank you very much, Mary,” she answered. “I should be honored to meet your mother.”

Lady Agnes tittered. “I daresay,” she whispered quite audibly.

Mary gasped, the red fading from her face.

But Thalia turned calmly to look at Lady Agnes, then turned back to add, “It would be a privilege to meet the woman who instilled in you such consideration for others and true good manners. Would that we could see such more often.” And with this, she swept out.

But the satisfaction of having set down Lady Agnes was short-lived. By the time she reached her room once more, Thalia was at once crushed and blazingly angry. What a petty, mean place the Chadbourne School turned out to be. All these women with nothing better to do than talk scandal. Yes, and fabricate it, she added to herself. “I have done nothing improper, Juvenal. Nothing. Whatever story that spiteful little creature is spreading.”

Reluctantly she gathered up the books and papers containing the lessons for the day and started back downstairs. There was nothing to do but face this unpleasantness and get it over as soon as possible. But at the head of the stairs, she paused. Sounds of unusual commotion drifted up the stairwell. Someone was shouting—a man. This was so odd that she almost forgot her own dilemma; she walked down, listening closely. She had reached the landing when she realized with a shock that she knew the voice. It couldn’t be, but it was, Mr. Elguard.

“I most certainly shall see her,” he was saying. “And if you do not go and fetch her straightaway, I shall go myself.”

“You wouldn’t!” responded a maid’s voice, sounding dumbfounded.

“Try me!” was the response.

Thalia nearly ran down the remaining stairs. “Mr. Elguard,” she said when she reached the hall. “What are you doing here? You must go away at once.”

The man turned quickly at the sound of her voice. “Ah, there you are. You can run along now, girl,” he told the maid.

The servitor threw him one wide-eyed glance and fled in the direction of Miss Chadbourne’s quarters.

“I came as soon as I discovered what my mother had done,” continued Elguard. “I cannot tell you how mortified I feel. I want to apologize for her.”

“There is no need. Please, you must go.” Thalia looked around anxiously. She thought there were some students listening in the corridor, but she could not be sure.

“Nonsense. I have something to say to you. Let us go somewhere where we can talk privately.”

“We cannot. And we have nothing to say. It is kind of you to have come, Mr. Elguard, but there was really no need. Please do go.”

Ignoring this, he went to a door leading off the hall and flung it open, revealing one of the parlors. “Here, this will do. Come along.”

“No. I cannot. I was on my way—”

But he grasped her wrist firmly and pulled her into the room, closing the door behind.

“There. Gods, what a noise they make over nothing in this place. How can you endure it?”

This echoing of her own thoughts might have drawn Thalia at any other time, but just now she was too concerned over his presence in the school and the effect it was likely to have on her position. “That is quite true,” she retorted, “but the noise you have heard thus far is nothing to what will arise if you do not leave at once. You needn’t say anything to me. Just go.”

“Oh, no, I have a great deal to say.”

“It doesn’t matter. I am not angry with your mother. She—”

“Well, I
am
. And now will you hold your tongue for one moment and let me speak?”

Startled, Thalia fell silent.

“Thank you. Now, first, my mother somehow got quite the wrong idea about you and our meetings. Before I even had the chance to mention it, she was flying up into the boughs.”

“One of the students told her.”

“Indeed? Well, that explains it, then. A vicious little cat, I suppose. At any rate, my mother spoke to you with quite the wrong view of the situation, and I apologize for her. I shall talk her round, and when she has the chance to know you, to see what you are like, everything will be well.”

“That seems unlikely,” responded Thalia dryly, “either that she will know me better or that things will be well. She prefers that you spend your time with ladies more socially and financially acceptable than I. It is very reasonable. I understand.”

“It is not reasonable! Don’t you begin, now. It is odiously starched-up and grasping and… and despicable.”

But Thalia hardly seemed to hear him. “A bishop’s daughter would be just the thing, I think. Yes. You must be on the lookout for a bishop’s daughter.”

“Stop it!”

She blinked.

“I am the one to decide whom I shall ‘look out for.’ And it will not be a bishop’s daughter. I have an income of my own and no need of a rich wife. I shall be perfectly comfortable with my living.”

“Comfortable,” echoed Thalia mockingly. “Poor stuff.” Even as she said it, she wondered at herself. Why was she speaking to him so coldly? He had not been the one to hurt her.

Mr. Elguard seemed of the same opinion. “Will you stop? Why do you answer me so contemptuously? I have done nothing.”

Thalia looked at him. His handsome countenance was flushed with emotion, and his gray eyes burned.

“I disagree completely with my mother, as I have told her. I also told her I was coming here today, whatever she may think, to ask you to be my wife.”

Thalia’s eyes widened, and she stared at him in astonishment. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. And at just this moment, the door of the parlor opened again, and Miss Chadbourne sailed grimly in.

The headmistress looked from one flushed face to the other. “This is highly irregular,” she said, “highly irregular. I must ask you, young man, to leave at once. We do not allow male visitors here at Chadbourne.”

“Respectfully, ma’am, I don’t care a straw what you allow. I came here today to ask Miss Hartington to marry me, and I don’t intend to leave until she gives me her answer.”

“Indeed?” Miss Chadbourne looked at Thalia, then back to Mr. Elguard. “Well, well.” She sighed. “Things weren’t done so when I was a girl,” she added, and she turned to leave the room. At the door, she paused. “I give you ten minutes, no more. This
is
, after all, a girls’ school.” And she was gone.

James Elguard laughed. “An impressive woman.”

But Thalia was too preoccupied with her own inner turmoil to heed this. “Mr. Elguard…” she began, and stopped.

“Yes? Will you marry me, Miss Hartington?”

She took a breath. “Of course I will not. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. If you are offering for me out of some mistaken notion that I was… was compromised by one afternoon ride in an open carriage, I tell you now that—”

“—that that is idiotic,” finished the man. “I couldn’t agree more. And naturally my motives are very different. I have already told you that I have never before met a girl like you, so intelligent and interested in the things that interest me. I think we should suit admirably, and I want you for my wife. I have never enjoyed a day more than the one we spent together.”

Thalia bit her lower lip. It was hard to maintain her composure in the face of statements like this. “It… it is impossible,” she faltered. “You must see that it is. I will not marry you against your family’s express wishes. I will not be called a scheming—”

“No one will dare say any such thing,” he snapped. “My mother put this in your mind, I know, but she will be brought to see her mistake. And she is not all my family, you know. You must meet my father and uncles and… and everyone. They will all like you immensely.”

Thalia shrugged. “I think not. They want a good match for you, and they are very right.” He started to speak, but she held up a hand. “And in any case, this is all beside the point, Mr. Elguard. I hardly know you. We have spent perhaps four hours together in our lives. I could not marry a stranger. I… I…”

“Do you feel that I am a stranger?” he asked in a quieter voice. “Odd. I feel I have known you forever.”

Thalia looked at the ground.

“Well, if that is all,” he went on, “I can wait until we are better acquainted.”

“We won’t become better acquainted,” Thalia burst out. “Please go now, Mr. Elguard, and don’t come here again. It is impossible, wrong. Please.”

“I don’t see that at all. If we could see each other—”

“We cannot. I have a position here, and—”

“If you are trying to tell me that you would rather be a schoolteacher than marry me, you may give it up. I don’t believe you. I may not be a nonpareil, but I can offer you more than this.” He gestured at the room around them. “Come, we both know what a place this is, after what has happened in the last few days.”

“I would never marry simply to escape the school,” said Thalia.

He came closer and looked down at her. “You speak so positively. Does it truly not matter to you whether you meet me again? Is the interest all on my side?”

Thalia hesitated. This sort of question was not only new to her, it was for some reason very difficult to answer. She started to reply that indeed it did not matter to her, but then she met his eyes and paused again. That was not precisely true, and she had an idea that he knew it. She had never met a young man she liked more. But the memory of her encounter with his mother made her straighten. She would not be put in such a position, to be judged and condemned by all his friends. “That’s right,” she said, trying to keep looking him in the eye. “It doesn’t matter. Now, will you please go?”