The Education of Portia (10 page)

"Please Papa may we not stay?" Melicent's words were followed swiftly by
reinforcement from the other two sisters. "Please Papa, please."

The viscount looked harassed. "But your rooms are not prepared!"

"There are beds; we could help make them up. The lack of decorating is no bar to our
comfort." Sabina was as eager as her younger sisters. "We can make lists to add to your
notes."

"I can thleep in my chemise," Penelope offered. "And Ruff would be delighted!"

"I had arranged to attend at the theatre with a party of friends," Stadbroke was
weakening; it was apparent in his tone.

Almost Portia could pity him. He stood little chance of success against his three
determined offspring.

"You may go to the theatre anytime. We are so very busy that you have not the
opportunity to have us all to yourself so very often." Melicent was firm and judicious.

Genuine amusement, and unaffected love, softened the viscount's angular face.

The change made Portia catch her breath.

"That is true, Mel, very true. But what shall Miss Crossmichael do?"

"She could thleep in her chemise," Penelope said.

The viscount turned a chuckle into a cough.

Portia felt herself colour an almost certainly unbecoming red. She hurried into speech.
"If Lord Stadbroke will return you to Hornsey on the morrow, there can be no objection to your
staying for a visit."
And I hope that disrupts your evening plans completely
, she thought
with unusual venom. "Will you send for my carriage, please, Lord Stadbroke?"

The viscount's eyes were still alight with laughter when he bade her farewell at the front
door of his house half of an hour later. His daughters were loud in their regret that she would not
overnight with them.

"I must meet Mr. Dent at the Fox and Grapes and we must return to Mansion House."
Portia bade the viscount a stilted farewell, and accepted his footman's help into her carriage.
With an effort she directed her thoughts away from the Perringtons, to her brother.
I hope his
news may not be dire
.

* * * *

One glance at Caldwell's face told Portia that her hopes were unrealized and her fears
fulfilled. With the city traffic about them however, their intercourse had to wait. Portia was fully
occupied in bowing to those of her acquaintance who spied her within her closed carriage.

Despite her prosaic calling, she was respected by her pupils' parents and not without her
own circle of friends and connections in town. A drive such as this down Bond Street, even
though she sat well back so as to be out of sight, ensured that one would encounter
acquaintances.

Caldwell sat sunk in depression in his corner of the carriage and did not speak until they
reached the edge of the city. Then, with the clamour of the streets reduced, they were able to
talk.

Portia kept her voice low, for her coachman must not have gossip to relay to his fellow
servants.

"What has happened, Cal? You are so out of countenance as to frighten me."

He roused himself from some unhappy reverie with a travesty of a brave smile. "My
father, when accused of misrepresentation, revealed his true colours."

"And?" Portia's concentration on her step-brother was undisturbed by a light rain that
began to patter on the carriage roof.

"He wants money."

"Well, that is not unexpected. And perhaps it is his due. He did provide for us..."

"Grudgingly and inadequately, and only until you received your inheritance. And that
was so modest that his continued support would have been welcome. He should have paid for my
schooling, not you."

"What amount does he need?" The carriage lurched over the softening ruts in the road
and they both reached for the hand straps for support.

"I don't know that he needs anything. It is what he wants, and his method of obtaining it,
that is our problem."

Portia could feel her patience strained by the obscurity of his explanation. "Caldwell!
Explain, please." Her tone never failed to galvanize her students.

It did not fail her now.

"He wants ?100. Each quarter--" Caldwell was concise and impassive.

Portia was struck dumb by the enormity of the demand. She understood then that Cal
was not apathetic but was in the grip of a profound anger. "But...but that is a fortune. We can
spare nothing like that amount of money. Had we funds like that, we should both be managing
things quite differently than we are."

"We shall have to find it, Port." Her brother met her eyes then, his own full of regret and
apology. "If we don't, he threatens to tell the
ton
that we are in no way related, that our
connection is unsavoury and disreputable in the extreme. He will broadcast that we are in fact
cohabiting, and placing their daughters in the most compromising and scandalous of
situations."

Revulsion overwhelmed Portia. This was her worst nightmare, all her fears and concerns
combined in one horrific threat. "But...but he knows that is a lie. He knows--he must know--how
we feel about each other. That we are more siblings than those joined by blood, that any other
relationship would be abhorrent to us."

"He knows. He knows it all very well. But that will not prevent his spreading his nasty
tales."

"It will ruin us. It will destroy your career, and be the end of Mansion House
Establishment for Young Ladies." Portia lapsed into despairing silence, and the minutes and
miles sped by in the rocking carriage. The rain was harder now and it was quite dark without.
Portia could not have told whether it was night or full daylight. Her eyes were full of tears,
though in general she despised them. She thought of Heloise, dependent upon her employment,
and of Gavrielle, of Miss Gosberton, Mr. Billockby and the other teachers, as well as the matron,
the housekeeper and the other staff all of whom needed their positions for survival. One man's
greed could deprive them all of their livelihood. It was so terribly unjust.

Portia roused when they turned at the corner of Cress Lane. The signpost of which
Hornsey was justifiably proud flashed past the coach window, pale in the rainy dusk. "We must
do nothing immediately," she told her step-brother. "We shall reflect on the matter, think about
it, discuss it."

"I cannot see that there is anything to consider," Caldwell said with grim maturity. "We
have no choice but to pay his demands."

"There must be another choice," Portia declared as the carriage turned into the drive of
Mansion House and then drew up before the door. "There is always another choice."

There was no opportunity to examine the matter further; in the bustle of arrival,
Caldwell slipped away. Portia knew that he would lose himself in painting, submerging all
concerns in his art. She could wish that she had so powerful an opiate.

Instead she had her staff to interview. She ushered Mrs. Yaxham and Mrs. Shap into her
study, where she removed her bonnet and cloak, and drew off her gloves, conscious of a
pervasive weariness.

The housekeeper's report of the day's activities was succinct. She divulged that meals
had been prepared and consumed without incident, that the afternoon's activities had occurred
without mishap and that Madame and her daughter had recently gone home. She advised that the
junior girls had retired for the night, and Miss Gosberton was overseeing the senior girls'
recreation in the parlour.

The matron had less happy news. Henrietta Cathcart had been ill--a surfeit of sloe jam
was the suspected culprit. Portia commiserated with the lady's concern, and in her turn told of the
Perrington girls' absence for the night. She bade the ladies a good evening, and managed a smile
on their departure. She took her
chatelaine
from the top drawer of her desk and fastened
it to the band of her mulberry merino gown. It jingled satisfying as the chains settled
themselves.

Then she made her way to the parlour where she heard all the news and reports from
various of her senior pupils. As soon as she could, she bade them a good night and urged them to
seek their beds within the hour. Miss Gosberton assured her that she would see to it.

Portia took a candle in a chamberstick from the hall table, lit it at the Argand lamp that
stood there, and checked the locks on the stout front door. Her familiar evening round had begun.
A quick observation of each ground floor room told her that everything was in readiness for the
next day. She made her way upstairs to ensure that all was well in the junior dormitory. As she
passed, she glanced in each classroom, at the fittings she had purchased, the pictures she had
chosen, the appurtenances she had acquired to better educate and inform the young minds
entrusted to her. All was well but for the dark threat that now hung over everything. Her step
faltered. She took a deep breath and went on.

The dormitory was quiet; she paused for a moment listening to the deep, even breathing
of the children.

Her children, she thought. The only ones she was ever likely to have. And wasn't it a
noble calling to nurture so many minds rather the few that one's own body could produce? She
had always thought so. She had always delighted in the youngsters that had passed through her
classes, the young intellects she had stimulated.

Now she was vaguely dissatisfied at the thought of a future peopled by others' children.
A wish for her own offspring bothered her anew and, for some reason, her thoughts travelled to
the Perrington sisters. Were they even now having supper with their father? Had he forgone his
trip to the theatre? Did they like their new chambers in their new house and was Ruff indeed
delighted by their presence?

She withdrew her thoughts with a grimace. The Perringtons were not her children either,
and she had best quash all maternal desires once more. She closed the door to the dormitory
softly and made her way back downstairs, reaching her study just as the parlour door opened.
She closed her door quickly, unwilling to engage in further conversation.

Portia listened to the senior girls chatter and giggle their way upstairs as she settled
herself at her desk. Her mind still showed a disturbing tendency to dwell on the Perringtons, and
she called herself sternly to order. She had more important things to consider than Lord
Stadbroke and his daughters. There was a vast quantity of clerical work--marking of papers,
balancing of household accounts, correspondence--to be done. And there was lesson planning
and scheduling to check as well as lists to con. She might not have an artistic preoccupation, but
she could lose herself in work. There was never a dearth of it.

* * * *

Portia was up betimes the following morning escorting her pupils to Matins at the
church presided over by its vicar, Rev. Sainsthorpe, who also instructed the girls in studies of
religion and Latin. The rain of the previous evening had subsided, to be replaced by a sullen sky
and a chill autumnal wind. Portia found her mood very little better than the previous evening; she
had suffered a disturbed night. When Caldwell joined them at the front door, she saw that he too
had not slept well.

They met Heloise and her daughter at the gate of their cottage next door to the school
property, and processed in an orderly fashion into the stone Gothic structure which had served
Hornsey for several centuries. Portia was preoccupied during the service and would have been
hard put to recite the text or the essence of the vicar's learned sermon.

Fortunately Heloise, on their return to the school for a nuncheon, did not have the
sermon in mind.

"Gavrielle tells me the girls did not return from the city with you, but spent the night
with their father. Where did you encounter him? What a coincidence! Did you see his house? Is
it very grand? Was he dismayed by your meeting? Was it
convenable
for him to
entertain his daughters, do you think? When will they return? Will you entertain him then?"

Portia thought she had rather deal with the sermon than Madame's onslaught of
questions, queries and wonderings? She answered as best she might, in an undertone, and with
no more than a modicum of detail until they returned to the house. The sight of the housekeeper
and maids waiting to take cloaks and usher young ladies into the dining room was very welcome.
She slipped away as Caldwell joined her friend in the entry, and closed her study door on all the
ensuing hubbub.

She heard the noise subside as the young ladies undertook their light repast and had just
put off her bonnet when Lord Stadbroke was announced. Dismay knotted in her stomach. Rather
than sit behind her desk as she had been going to, she peered in the glass of her
secretaire
, which stood her in stead of a mirror, and poked a wayward curl under her
cap. A wan reflection peered back at her; her restless night was writ on her face and she looked
more plain even than usual, she decided. Her thoughts still were occupied with Caldwell's
disclosures and various mad solutions to their problem. The last thing she wanted was to
entertain the viscount.

But Stadbroke, accompanied by his hound, was even at that moment being ushered into
her study. She summoned a smile, straightened her back and offered her hand.

He held it for a moment longer than necessary and she thought he looked unusually
uneasy beneath a forced
bonhomie
. "I have brought back your pupils, Miss
Crossmichael! Their eagerness to return speaks well for your establishment. They've joined the
other students."

She said nothing.

"I've said my farewells. They are all impatience to visit Hill Street again."

His joviality rang false to her ear. Her own response was cool. "How nice for you, my
lord. It was fortuitous that the young ladies were able to overnight with you in their new
home."

"Indeed, indeed, it was." The viscount fidgeted about the room followed closely by his
dog, who sniffed at Portia's prized possessions, his paws treading faint damp marks on her
carpet. "I wondered if I might beg a moment of your time?"