Etiquette & Espionage (8 page)

The teachers exchanged looks. Apparently Pillover’s reliability was questionable. “A boy? I don’t know.”

“And there was the coachman.” Dimity would not let the matter rest.

“He was insensible for most of the event,” Sophronia pointed out.

“You’re a funny one, aren’t you?” The painted lady looked at Sophronia closely. “Why aren’t you defending yourself?”

Sophronia shrugged. “I have sisters. I know how this works.”

“Do you indeed?”

Sophronia said nothing else. Monique was covering up her trail as well as self-aggrandizing her own actions. Perhaps she’d given the prototype away to someone else beforehand. Sophronia intended to find out. What was the prototype, and where was it, and why did everyone want it so badly?
Some new kind of device for producing tea inexpensively?
In the Temminnick household, nothing was valued more than good quality tea.

Dimity opened her mouth to protest further, but Sophronia elbowed her in the ribs.

The painted lady said, “Shall we get on with official business? Where was I?”

The nun whispered something in her ear.

“Yes, of course! Welcome to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. I understand one of you is a covert recruit?”

Sophronia raised a tentative hand.

“Welcome, welcome! I’m Lady Linette de Limmone. I’ll be instructing you in music and several of the finer creative arts. This is Sister Herschel-Teape. She’s head of household management. And you are?”

“Sophronia Angelina Temminnick,” said Sophronia with a curtsy.

“Oh, dear,” said Lady Linette. “We are going to have to work on that curtsy.”

“Dimity Ann Plumleigh-Teignmott,” said Dimity, with a better curtsy.

I must ask her to teach me the way of it. It seems a powerful weapon
, thought Sophronia.

“

Dimity squeezed Sophronia’s hand. “Good luck.” She followed the dumpy nun out of the cavernous room.

The painted woman raised the lantern and looked Sophronia over.

“Well, well, let me see. You’re… how old, girl?”

“Fourteen, my lady.” Sophronia couldn’t believe that a woman with that much face paint was a
real
lady. Mrs. Barnaclegoose had a teacup poodle named Lord Piffle; perhaps Lady Linette’s was a similarly spurious title?

“Good bones, average height. I suppose there’s no hope of your growing into that chin?” Sophronia said nothing. “No? I thought not. Eyes, indifferent. Hair”—she tsked—“you’ll be
wearing curling rags the rest of your natural life, poor thing. The freckles. Well. The freckles. I’ll have cook order extra buttermilk. But you are confident. Shoulders back, girl, when you’re facing inspection. Confident is something we can work with. And Captain Niall likes you.”

Sophronia withstood the criticism with only a slight frown. She put her shoulders back as ordered. What she wanted to do was comment on Lady Linette’s appearance. So far as Sophronia was concerned, the woman’s hair was too curly and her skin too white, and she smelled overwhelmingly of elderflowers.
I wager she wouldn’t like it if I told her that to her face!

What she said instead was, “How do you know what the captain thinks of me?”

“If he didn’t think you’d suit, he wouldn’t have jumped you up. He has very good judgment, for a, well…” She paused, as though hunting for the right word.

“Werewolf?” suggested Sophronia.

“Oh, no. For a
man
. Now, child, come along. We have much to do, and it is getting late. I suppose you’re famished, and, of course, we’ll need to settle your luggage and such.”

“No luggage, my lady.”

“What?”

“Had to leave it behind with the flywaymen.”

“You did? Oh, yes, you did, didn’t you? How tiresome.”

“When I was driving the carriage.”

“When
you
were driving the carriage? I thought Miss Pelouse said…” A short pause. “Where was Miss Pelouse during all of this?”

“Well, either fainted in the road or crying in the carriage,
depending on which point of the story.”
All of it faked, if you ask me.
But something kept Sophronia from volunteering that information.

“Interesting. Well, Beatrice will sort it all out.”

“What does she teach?”

“Worried, are you? You should be. Professor Lefoux takes a firm hand. Although she’s too fearsome for the debuts. You won’t have her until later. If you stay, that is.”

Sophronia noticed that Lady Linette had neatly avoided answering the question.
What is Professor Lefoux’s subject? I still don’t know.

“Now, dear, we must press on. Do follow me.”

They emerged from the darkness of a passageway into the open air of one of the main decks—a wide semicircle of rough timber pl, dgh timbanks.

The school had floated quite high since Captain Niall had jumped them on board. It no longer bobbed through the low mists of the moor, but was instead well above them. Below now lay a mass of white cloud tops, and above was the starry night. Sophronia had never thought to see the other side of clouds. They looked as solid as a feather mattress. She clung to the rail, staring down, hypnotized.

“Amazing,” she breathed.

“Yes, dear. I assure you, you’ll become quite accustomed to it. I am pleased to see you are not afraid of heights.”

Sophronia grinned. “No, never that. Ask the dumbwaiter.”

And that was when the maid mechanical ran straight into her. It was a standard domestic model. Looking down at her feet, Sophronia noticed that the deck was inlaid with multiple
tracks. However, like the porter mechanical at Bunson’s, this one had no face, but only inner moving parts, completely visible to the outside world. It also had no voice, for even after it bumped into her and stopped, confused in its protocols, it neither apologized nor asked Sophronia to move.

Lady Linette said, “Really, dear, do get out of its way.”

Sophronia did so, watching with interest as the maid trundled on to the other side of the deck, where a hatch opened and it disappeared inside.

“What was that?”

“A maid mechanical, dear. I know you’re from the country, but surely your family cannot be so backward as that!”

“No, of course not. My family has a butler, an 1846 Frowbritcher. But why doesn’t yours have a proper face?”

“Because it doesn’t need one.”

Sophronia was a little embarrassed, but it had to be said: “But her
parts
are exposed!”

“Mmm, yes, shocking. But you had best get accustomed to the style. Very few of our mechanicals are standard household models.”

They wended their way up several sets of stairs, into and out of long corridors, and over other decks—some of wood, a few of metal, and one that seemed, most illogically, to be made of stone. Sophronia had boarded the airship under the back section of the long dirigible caterpillar, and they now were crossing through its center.

The interior decoration looked much as Sophronia imagined one of the great Atlantic steamers, except that the entire place seemed to have been attacked by a grandmother—the
kind of grandmother who knitted horrible small booties for workhouse orphans and made jelly for the deserving poor. Railings and finials supported crocheted antimacassars in mauve and chartreuse. A medieval suit of armor in the corner of one corridor was decorated liberally with ribbon flowers. Sophronia paused to examine it, only to find tiny mechanical devices hidden within the flowers. Suddenly, the outrageous chandeliers at each junction took on sinister aspects.
Are those glass baubles decorative or deadly? They are rather knifelike. Can one call a chandelier sinister?

“The back end of the school grounds,” explained Lady Linette, “is for group and recreational activities. That is where we take meals and regular exercise. The middle section is comprised of student residences and classrooms, and the front is for teachers and staff. That is where we are heading now.”

“Uh, why?” Sophronia wanted to know.

“To meet Mademoiselle Geraldine, of course.”

cr width=
“The real one this time?” asked Sophronia, a little snidely. And then, when her stomach rumbled, she added, “Will there be food?”

Lady Linette seemed to find this funny.

Sophronia couldn’t understand Lady Linette. She had a French name, yet her accent was English. Sophronia thought she detected a certain burr that suggested the north country, or possibly the East End.

“Now, be certain to remember which way we are going, Sophronia. It is easy to get lost. The school grounds are rather convoluted. The most important thing to note is that you must be on a middle level or higher to get between sections. Very
high up, however, is not recommended. Once you get to the squeak decks, the way between the sections is not suited to proper attire. Ah, here we are. You see this red tassel here? It marks the teacher’s section. You are not permitted to roam anywhere freely at night, and during lesson time you are restricted to certain areas. However, you can
never
enter the tassel section without an adult escort.”

Sophronia nodded. She wondered
how
the restrictions were enforced. Which was the moment she realized she was intrigued enough to give this abnormal finishing school an opportunity to prove itself worthwhile.

“Very well, Miss Temminnick. Tell me a little about yourself. Are you well-educated?”

Sophronia considered this question seriously. “I don’t believe so.”

“Excellent. Ignorance is most undervalued in a student. And have you killed anyone recently?”

Sophronia blinked. “Pardon?”

“Oh, you know, a knife to the neck, or perhaps a cleverly noosed cravat?”

Sophronia said only, “Not my preferred diversion.”

“Oh, dear, how disappointing. Well, don’t you fret. We shall soon find you some useful hobby.”

Lady Linette stopped in front of a fancy-looking door decorated in gilt and navy leather and boasting a particularly large number of tassels. She knocked sharply.

“Come in, do!”

Lady Linette motioned for Sophronia to wait, then went inside alone, closing the door behind her.

After determining that she couldn’t overhear anything through the door, Sophronia nosed about the hallway. The lighting was fascinating. Gas pipes were inset into the wall, and little lamps hung all along the ceiling like so many tiny parasols. It must be expensive, not to mention dangerous, to run gas through walls. Essentially, every corridor they walked along was liable to explode.

Sophronia was near the end of the passage, up on tiptoe to examine one of the parasol-shaped lights, when another maid mechanical came trundling down the hallway. It carried a tray laden with tea and companion comestibles. However, upon sensing Sophronia, it paused and let out a little whistle of inquiry.

When Sophronia did not respond, it whistled again, imperiously.

Sophronia had no idea what to do. The mechanical was between her and the gilt door.
No Lady Linette to come to the rescue.

The whistle turned into a very loud shriek, like that of a boatman, and Sophronia guessed that this was how restrictions were enforced.

Halfway down the hallway, a door banged open and a gentleman emerged. He was improbably mediocre in size, shape, and looks. His nondescript features wa filepos-id="filepos127147">t featuere only emphasized by the addition of a fantastic crimson velvet top hat. The face under the hat, Sophronia saw, did not look at all pleased.

W
hot, whot?” the man muttered, as if hard of hearing.

He was very pale and boasted an unassuming mustache, which was perched atop his upper lip cautiously, as though it were slightly embarrassed to be there and would like to slide away and become a sideburn or something more fashionable. He wore a pair of spectacles and squinted through them at Sophronia.

“Who goes there?” He had a funny way of talking around his teeth.
As if they pose an inconvenience.