A School for Brides (3 page)

“But you see, if we all married him,” persisted Miss Asquith, “we should be able to divide him up among us. Miss Victor, you would only have to spend one-eighth of the day with him.”

“I do think you are unkind about Mr. Godalming,” said Miss Pffolliott. “He's not so very dreadful, only rather unattractive to look at and inclined to talk about sheep. I don't mean that
I
want to marry him,” she added hastily. “But one could do worse.”

“Not much,” said Miss Evans, who would bring twenty thousand pounds and a respected family name to her marriage, and therefore rated her own worth pretty high.

“I agree with Miss Pffolliott,” said Miss Asquith. “One
could
do worse, and I expect I shall. I have quite given my heart to Robert.”

ROBERT THE FOOTMAN
stood in the doorway, beaming with pleasure at having a message to deliver that he knew would be so satisfactory to his hearers. “Miss Quince says that Annie and I are to assist you in taking off your backboards, as she is anxious to have everyone take a walk before the rains move in,” he said.

“Hooray!” cried Miss Asquith. “Robert, Annie, you are angels of mercy. Do get this Procrustean device off me, won't you?”

“Really, Miss Asquith!” protested Miss Evans. Miss Evans was quite firm about enforcing the rights of seniority, being the eldest student at the school. “I believe
I
should go before you.”

“Actually, Miss Crump takes precedence, doesn't she? As the daughter of a viscount, I mean?” Miss Asquith inquired.

Urgent murmurs could be heard from underneath Miss Crump's massive bonnet, the substance of which appeared to be that she did not
wish
to be first, and that no one should mind her in the least.

Miss Evans frowned. “Miss Asquith, you know perfectly well . . .” She halted, being unable to claim that a senior student occupied a higher rank than the daughter of a viscount.

Annie looked at Robert, waiting for instructions. As Miss Crump seemed distressed by the attention, he, being a natural gentleman, directed his assistant to set about releasing Miss Evans, who chafed her wrists and elbows gratefully.

“Sorry, Miss,” said Robert to Miss Asquith, who was impatiently dancing about him, causing her near neighbors to remove themselves to a safe distance. “I don't know what a Procrusty device is, but it'd be easier for Annie to help you, Miss, if you could hold a bit more still.”

Miss Franklin, a young lady with an alarming degree of scholarship, stifled a short bark of scornful laughter.

“Procrustes was a perfectly dreadful ogre,” Miss Asquith explained as Annie attempted to remove the device, “who captured travelers and either stretched them to make them taller or chopped their limbs off to make them shorter, so they would fit in his bed.”

Struck by this bizarre behavior, Robert frowned and paused in untangling the straps of Miss Evans's discarded backboard. “Is that so, Miss? In his
bed
, you say?”

“Oh,
do
hurry, Annie!” Miss Asquith gyrated wildly in her agitation.

“Yes, Miss,” said Annie, struggling to catch hold of the apparatus as it and its wearer whirled by.

“Why do you suppose he would do a thing like that, Miss?” asked Robert, his face wrinkled in puzzlement. “It doesn't make any sense.”

“Never mind, Robert,” said Miss Evans repressively. “There is no need for you to speculate about Greek mythology.”

“I'll tell you later,” Miss Asquith murmured and, satisfied, Robert began putting the room to rights and restoring the backboards to their usual cupboard.

Not only Miss Asquith had noticed the charms of Robert the footman. Mrs. Fredericks of nearby Crooked Castle, besides being stepsister to Miss Winthrop, was Miss Mainwaring's aunt by marriage. As she and her husband had been persuaded to invest in the school—which had the happy result of removing Miss Winthrop from their household—she considered that she had a right to an opinion on its domestic arrangements. She had, in addition, consented to send her niece as a day student. True, she felt a twinge of guilt at thus throwing the poor girl to the lions (in the person of Miss Winthrop). However, she considered it quite probable that her niece would learn something from Miss Quince, and also that the experience would at least serve as a distraction from her troubles.

“Engaging that boy Robert was a mistake, tho' he is a harmless enough creature,” Mrs. Fredericks said. “Why on
earth
Miss Hopkins and my stepsister require a footman is quite beyond me. And introducing an ornamental young man like that into a girls' school, when there are no other suitable objects for their fancy to light upon!”

Footmen were rather an extravagance; the government had levied a special luxury tax on male servants, as if Robert were a bolt of hand-painted silk or a thoroughbred horse. They were generally chosen for a handsome face and a shapely leg, and Robert possessed both. He had been a page at Yellering Hall, petted and made much of by Lady Throstletwist, and taught to read and write by the butler. As a result, he spoke with a much more refined accent than most of the local residents, and in general presented a genteel appearance. Miss Hopkins and Miss Winthrop felt he lent a fine air of distinction to the establishment, which he did, in the sense that wearing a diamond tiara lends distinction to a donkey. He wore (and took great pride in) a fine suit of livery in yellow silk, a powdered wig, and white silk stockings. He looked very elegant and very out of place handing the young ladies into the roomy old black coach that served them as a conveyance.

In short, he was more the sort of servant who should be employed at a nobleman's seat, not in a school in a remote village in Yorkshire. Between their specially designed backboards and their footman, the ladies considered their school the equal of any in London, or, if not quite that, then at least of any in York.

Luckily, Robert was a naïve young man, ignorant of his own value, having never ventured out of Lesser Hoo since birth. He delighted in his new position, opening and closing doors with a flourish and enthusiastically handing round the fish and fowl at dinner, and he regarded his wages of ten pounds per year as a treasure trove of unimaginable wealth.

As he was the only indoor manservant and the most presentable male for miles around, Robert's presence had a beneficial effect upon the behavior and personal grooming of the students. His cheerful, smiling face seemed to demand a smile in return, so the young ladies of the Winthrop Hopkins Academy returned his respectful bows and salutations with great cordiality and arranged their dress and their hair with much more care than they might have done at an entirely female institution.

“Could he not be a prince in disguise?” Miss Asquith wondered aloud as they donned cloaks and bonnets for their walk. “Hidden here by his royal parents for fear of schemers and poisoners at court? Perhaps he could rule over a tiny little kingdom on the shores of the Mediterranean, where they have palm trees and the winters are warm and sunny, instead of alternately raining or snowing as in Yorkshire.”

Most of the other girls applauded this happy invention and supposed it quite likely to be true, if only because he was so handsome and agreeable. His one disqualification as the hero of a romantic story was his contentment with his lot.

“He
was
a foundling,” observed Miss Briggs who, unlike the others, was a local girl, born and brought up in Lesser Hoo. “The vicar found him on his front step in a basket, and he gave the baby to the cook and butler at Yellering Hall to bring up.”

“There! You see?” said Miss Asquith.

Miss Evans, who was sensible and not at all romantic, discouraged this sort of talk. “What
I
see is that his mother was no better than she ought to have been and his father even worse, for all we know to the contrary. He is lucky to have achieved his position here, given such a disgraceful background. And if you go encouraging anybody here to fall in love with him, Miss Asquith, you will do him no favors. Why, he could be dismissed if any of you begin mooning over him.”

The girls sighed at this unsatisfactory conclusion, but admitted it to be just, so any admiration of Robert had henceforth to be indulged in private, or at least out of hearing of the hard-hearted Miss Evans.

They filed out of the house under the watchful eye of Miss Quince and prepared to enjoy themselves as much as they could on an overcast August day. Neat and tidy in a dove-gray dress and pelisse, Miss Quince led the way, followed by four pairs in an orderly line. Their small company presented a pleasing aspect; none were beautiful, but several were very good-looking, and all were strong and healthy (save perhaps for small, thin Miss Crump, who, shrouded as she was, might have had any sort of appearance).

As usual, Miss Quince sought to combine exercise with instruction, and was quizzing her pupils on the nomenclature of local plant life in French.
“Dites-moi, quel est le nom de ces arbres?”
she inquired, gesturing at some stunted-looking pine trees.

“Ce sont des pins, Mademoiselle!”
responded the entire group in unison.

“Et ces buissons?”
Here she thrust her walking stick into a thick mass of bramble bushes.

“Buissons de—”
the girls began, but were interrupted by an agitated cry.

“Oh, I say, that hurt!” objected the bramble bushes. “Er, I mean,
pardonnez-moi, Mesdames . . .
er,
pourriez-vous me dire . . .
Oh, bother it all! Have I somehow been transported to the Continent? I mean,
French
! It's a bit much, on top of everything else!”

The younger ladies hastily removed themselves from the immediate area of the bramble bushes, while Miss Quince stirred them once again with her stick, more gently this time. A white and scratched face, topped by disheveled black hair, peered out through the leafy gap.

“Parlez-vous anglais?”
it inquired pitiably.

Miss Quince drew herself up. “Young man, come out of there
at once
! What do you mean by frightening us like that?”

“Oh, so you do speak English, Madame! Or, er, Mademoiselle? I say, can you see my horse anywhere?”

“I do
not
see a horse, sir,” said Miss Quince.

The young man uttered some sort of an exclamation that he promptly smothered, as it was undoubtedly profane. “Beg pardon, Madame! Only hope she's not injured. She's a fine piece of horseflesh, tho' a mite high-spirited, and I should hate to lose her.”

“
Will
you kindly show yourself, sir?” Miss Quince said. “Please, stand up and get out of that bramble bush.” Her earlier fright was making her irritable.

“Well, as a matter of fact, Madame . . . By the by, please allow me to compliment you on your excellent English. One would not know you for a Frenchwoman.”

The pupils of the Winthrop Hopkins Academy giggled. The gentleman in the bramble bush acknowledged them by doffing an imaginary hat and inclining his head. “Mademoiselles,” he murmured.

“I am
not
a Frenchwoman,” said Miss Quince with decision. “Nor are my pupils. But we
are
ladies, and as such you have no business sprawling in front of us on the ground in this way. Pray get to your feet.”

“My leg . . . Well, not to put too fine a point on it, Madame, er . . . Madam,” the gentleman said, “I think my leg is pretty well broken in half.” And he fainted.

“Oh!”

Miss Briggs, being a local girl, was sent off to fetch a surgeon, while Miss Asquith volunteered to go get Robert and Jim the groom to transport the wounded gentleman to the house. Soon enough, the men appeared with blankets, which they fashioned into a stretcher. Unfortunately, the young man had become entangled with the prickle bush, and he was roused from his merciful stupor as he was torn from its embrace. Miss Quince gathered her charges together and began to herd them away. They obeyed, but not soon enough to avoid hearing a cry of pain as the men jarred his broken leg whilst lifting him onto the blankets. The expected rain began to fall, which further reconciled them to a rapid return to the house.

Not until the young ladies sat down to their simple repast at eight o'clock in the evening did they learn anything more. The surgeon had come and, after a lengthy interval closeted first with the patient and then with the principals of the school, had left. Miss Quince had refused to discuss the situation, but instead produced a great deal of plain mending for them to work on, and proceeded to read
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
to a restless and agitated audience.

“Robert!” Miss Asquith whispered as they at last filed into the dining hall, “How is the young gentleman?”