The Education of Portia Page 2

  Portia regarded them thoughtfully, and they returned her scrutiny without dissimulation. Sabina, the eldest of the three, already showed a charming figure and her piquant face, with her father's dark eyes, would only gain in beauty as it gained in maturity. Melicent, the middle child, was inclined to moodiness; Portia had heard of hints of drama already. No doubt the avid intelligence that peered at her from a triangular face would enhance an elfin charm in later years. The smallest girl, Penelope, had displayed none of the homesickness that she might have expected from any other eight-year-old. The child had taken to dormitory life with sturdy independence--as her father had indicated she would--and had already begun to gather her own coterie about her.

  Examining the threesome, Portia experienced again that strong sensation of familiarity their father had engendered. And suddenly the reason for it came to her. She had encountered the viscount before--long before--during her single Season in the heart of the beau monde. She had had that season eleven years previous; it had been just three unfortunate months in the bosom of society. Being tall and thin--all awkward angles and corners--and shy, she had not garnered any notice and certainly no popularity. She had been a hanger-on at the season of her cousin who, being both vivacious and pretty, had taken. At every ball, every rout, and every call she had had time to watch her cousin with yearning and observe all the other bright and beautiful creatures enjoy themselves.

  Yes, she had seen both the viscount and his wife during that season. The encounter she best remembered had been at a ball--which one she could not now have told--but at a great, glittering affair that she had experienced from its margins. The Viscount Stadbroke--he'd been the Honourable Ingram Perrington then--had been the darling of the ton and he had looked the happiest, most carefree, young man in it. He was then only a few years wed to the beautiful Honoria Wickson, and the grace and gaiety with which he had danced with his exquisite wife, and showered attentions upon her, had stayed with Portia in all the long years since. Hidden in her subconscious yes, but nevertheless that vision had stayed with her.

  She had wanted, during that humiliating season, to be the lovely Mrs. Perrington, to be the cynosure of all eyes, and the darling of a virile and attractive husband. She had dreamed dreams then that she had long since dismissed and she had entertained fancies and fantasies that even then she had known would not come true.

  No wonder the Perrington girls were handsome; their mother had been a beauty. She remembered that lady's loveliness with a familiar wistful pang. She would not permit herself to envy others' beauty, but she would always regret her own lack of comeliness.

  Her calm good sense reasserted itself and satisfaction with her current situation flooded back. Her recent impressions of the viscount made nonsense of her former immature daydreams; he was no longer her beau ideal. She could smile at her youthful self.

  "Miss Crossmichael?"

  "Ma'am?"

  She heard absently the interested query in the elder girls' voices, but it was Penelope's impatient tug on her gown that finally caught her attention. That hasty pull at her plum-coloured merino skirt which set her keys to jingling brought Portia back from her reflections to her own parlour, in her own school, and to her prosaic life.

  "My dears! I was wool-gathering. You must forgive me." She waved the girls to seats and took her own place behind the tea tray. "Now, how do you go on? Have you everything you need? Do you miss your home and your papa?" She poured out for them, watching them unobtrusively. They were consulting in unspoken language about their response. Young ladies, in her experience, were remarkable communicators.

  Finally, Sabina spoke. "We do miss our home, ma'am, but we have come here precisely so that we need not yearn for our father this winter."

  Portia was briefly at a loss. She passed her young guests the plate of raspberry tarts for which her cook was rightly renowned, and assumed an enquiring air.

  "Papa ith an ornament to society. And a pillar of government," young Penelope explained earnestly as she chose a sweet. Her gaze strayed to the cluster of suspended keys and watch that included her etui at Portia's high waist.

  "Last winter, he left Stadley Place in October to attend at Parliament, and from then to the end of May we saw him only at Christmas." Melicent frowned ferociously.

  "Lincolnshire is a vatht distance from London, Mith Crothmichael." Penelope was possessed of an occasional lisp--caused by half-emerged front teeth--which disturbed her not at all. It did not either interfere with her careful consumption of her chosen tart.

  The lisp bestowed a droll charm upon her words that made Portia wish to smile. But anger with the viscount overrode all other emotions. How could he desert these delightful children? An ornament to society, indeed! No doubt the viscount was in search of another wife, for surely he would want a male heir. That would be the reason he had left his daughters in Lincolnshire, so that he could search London unencumbered for a second lovely lady.

  "We asked if we might come, with Miss Thripton, to stay in our new Hill Street house, but he refused us permission." The injustice of the viscount's prohibition evidently rankled with Melicent. She broke her own tart into shards upon the fine china plate she held.

  "We thought all last winter that if only we were at least near London, we could see Papa much more frequently. Attendance at a school seemed our best possibility for a removal from Lincolnshire." Sabina took control of the conversation with a minatory look at her younger sisters. "We heard of your school, Miss Crossmichael, from the cousin of one of my dearest friends. She said everyone who attended here had the most wonderful times, and learned more than they could have imagined. Mansion House School seemed a quite perfect answer to our needs."

  "When he was at home in the summer we plagued him the entire time, pleaded and begged." Melicent said with smug satisfaction. "We were determined to come south with him. He soon agreed."

  Portia thought that it would take someone experienced indeed in the ways of children to withstand the machinations of these three. She hoped her own knowledge was sufficient to the task. A chuckle threatened her composure; she turned it into a cough. "I am very happy that we may be of service. I think though that I had rather have pupils come to me because they wish to learn what we have here to teach." She tranquilly drank her tea, and allowed her words to be digested.

  "Oh we do want to learn!" Sabina was quick to understood the delicate criticism and even quicker to counter it.

  "Miss Thripton doesn't teach German or astronomy," said Melicent, proving that she had studied the curriculum of the school. She chewed the fragments of her tart thoughtfully.

  "Yet Miss Thripton may suffer because of your attendance here. Did that occur to you? Why should your father continue to employ her if you are here at school?"

  Penelope's round eyes grew yet more round. "He wouldn't...he couldn't. Oh, Mith Crothmichael, he would not send her away, would he?"

  Even Melicent looked concerned.

  Sabina said, with a worried frown, "We have been selfish. She seemed so supportive, so certain that we were right in wanting to be nearby to Papa." She set her teacup on the Pembroke table that sat beside the sopha on which she perched.

  "I think Miss Thripton would put your needs beyond her own interests. But perhaps a letter to your father asking if you have endangered Miss Thripton's livelihood might be in order." Portia made her suggestion with a show of disinterest.

  She was rewarded by an immediate response.

  "Yes!" Sabina rose.

  "Oh yeth." Penelope's lisp seemed quite uncontrollable, sometimes much in evidence, sometimes unnoticeable. She hurried to the door without requesting permission.

  "May we be excused?" Melicent was the only one to recall her manners.

  "You may." Portia watched the girls hurry out. Sabina followed her younger sisters and closed the door carefully behind them.

  She had poured herself a second cup of tea when the door reopened. Penelope's small dark-haired head appeared around the edge. "If we are nearby to Papa though, surely he must come, do you not think?" she asked.

  "I cannot imagine that he would stay away," Portia said, her reassurance genuine. She would herself see that the viscount visited his delightful offspring, if she had to.

  * * * *

  When the Perrington girls had been with her three weeks, Portia began to wonder if indeed she would have to summon the viscount to visit his daughters. She mentioned the matter at the regular Friday afternoon meeting of her teaching staff attended by the dancing master, the local rector who instructed in Latin and religious studies, the arithmetic and natural sciences' mistress, the long time needlework and pianoforte mistress, the languages' mistress, and of course Portia's brother. All the young ladies of the school were encouraged to undertake quiet pursuits overseen by the matron and housekeeper while their teachers held their discussions in Portia's study.

  "Does anyone know if the daughters of Lord Stadbroke have received a communication from their father?" Portia asked. She looked at the paper before her upon which she had been making notes. At an earlier meeting with her housekeeping staff, she had approved the purchase of two new sets of linen and had informed the cook that though the students' dislike of mutton was indeed reprehensible, they must replace mutton stew with some other dish. Just moments ago she had sanctioned a new course of advanced mathematics which Miss Gamston highly recommended. Her tidy handwriting recorded the details, but she was not aware of them. Her attention was upon the failings of Lord Stadbroke.

  Her staff rustled their papers and shuffled their feet but Madame Heloise Montlucon, the mistress of French and Italian, was the only one who volunteered any knowledge of the matter. "One of them has received a letter each week in turn. I believe it means a great deal to them; they huddl
e over the notes with such eagerness. Gavrielle has had snatches of the viscount's tidings related to her."

  Madame, a widow of some five years standing with a daughter of twelve, was also Portia's very good friend. She was a small, pretty woman of some two and thirty years, with curling hair, a neat figure, close acquaintanceship with the ton, and a penchant for gossip. Although an émigré of a dozen years, she had still a pronounced accent and a habit of sprinkling her native language throughout her conversation.

  "He should have visited by now," Portia said. "How are his daughters dealing with their class work?"

  There was a general agreement among the teachers that the young ladies were the equal of, if not superior to, the other students.

  "Very well, I think that is all for today then," Portia dismissed her staff with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. She rose as they did, and became aware that her brother and Heloise showed no signs of departing.

  Miss Gosberton--Portia's own teacher when she had begun to study at the school--turned back at the door from the small crowd of masters and mistresses. "Oh, Miss Crossmichael, the pianoforte needs tuning."

  "Thank you, Ada, I shall send a note to our excellent Fishling. We cannot teach the young ladies proper pitch if we cannot trust our instruments." She bent to add to the notes on her desk, then moved to shepherd the stragglers out of the door. A sigh of relief escaped her as she turned back to the two remaining.

  "This viscount has you agitated, cheri," Heloise remarked with curiosity from her seat near the fire. "I can sympathize; he is very attractive. I was delighted to tour him about the day he first visited. My correspondents tell me he cuts a great dash in town. The ton is wild for him: his fine house, his handsome horses, his charm, his dancing. He was from society for years, immured in Lincolnshire, and is only recently returned. Shall we seek to impress him?" She raised her dark brows in a distinctly continental inquiry.

  From where he stood at the terrace doors, Caldwell Dent snorted inelegantly.

  "We shall seek only to give Lord Stadbroke nothing of which to complain," Portia said, with a snap. "It seems to me that he would have no hesitation in doing so. While I would complain of him: his style of life, and his neglect of his children." She gathered her papers together and tapped them to a tidy pile upon her desk.

  "Neglect is a harsh word." Dent crumpled his own papers in his hand and crossed the room to pause by Madame Montlucon's chair. "Madame M. is the only parent I know who sees her child every day and that is because Gavrielle is right here in the school, her mother's place of employment."

  The French mistress rose and rapped his arm with a roll of documents she carried. "You, sir, are impertinent! But correct. You know it is so, Portia. The children of England's aristocrats and even its gentry do not regularly encounter their parents. And how should they? Those adults are busy with all that is in the beau monde. You were part of that world, cherie, do you not recall it?"

  "I scarcely knew it, Heloise. I was hardly a part of it; I stalked its fringes. My uncle was a Scottish peer; I only accompanied my cousin, his daughter, through her London season on sufferance. She took, I did not. I suppose it is an enchanted world, but now I see those who suffer for it. The Perrington girls long to see their father. He should be aware of it, but he is just another arrogant aristocrat."

  "Such venom, cherie. You sound like the revolutionaries I heard in my childhood," Heloise said. "Did you meet the viscount during your season?"

  Portia was appalled at her loss of composure. Now she had revealed to her astute friend her disproportionate interest in Stadbroke and his children.

  Caldwell gave her a moment's respite. He was struggling with laughter. "Portia, a revolutionary? You know better than that, Madame M." He continued more seriously, "I can say nothing against Stadbroke. He seemed a good enough sort when I met him on the steps."

  "You met him?" Portia turned on her brother in astonishment.

  "I did. Did I not mention it? We enjoyed a brief exchange of views. He has been vetted by both Madame and me, Port; he is no ogre." Caldwell wandered to the terrace doors again, stared at the increasingly sere garden, and came back to perch on the corner of Portia's desk.

  "Just neglectful. Yes, I did meet him once in my youth; he has no recollection of it. I shall not mention it to him, but I will demand his attendance upon those poor children." Portia clung stubbornly to her annoyance.

  Heloise regarded her friend with lively curiosity and something of perplexity. "Do write to him then, my dear. I certainly would not hesitate to communicate with the viscount had I a reason. But I shall go now to Gavrielle, so that she may not also think herself neglected." Heloise fluttered her fingers in farewell to both sister and brother, and whisked out the door.

  Abandoning her desk, Portia crossed the chamber and seated herself on the Sheraton sofa which she had bought for herself on the first month her school had turned a profit. It had been an extravagance that never ceased to please her. From it, she regarded her brother. She strove to regain the serenity on which she prided herself.

  "Do you suppose she truly finds Stadbroke attractive? Would she really welcome the opportunity to become further acquainted with him, do you think?" Caldwell, who had risen on Madame's departure, flung himself down again this time in a winged chair by the fire.

  "I don't know, Cal. I shouldn't suppose so. You know she is very attached to you." She smiled at the young man with whom she shared so many memories. They were not all pleasant. "I would not refine too much upon it. You know Heloise loves to tease you, and me. Now, have you any concerns about the week just past, or the one to come? Have you enough time to devote to the portrait of Lady Mottingham?"

  "Of course I do. You are ridiculously generous with me, you know that."

  Portia did know it, but it was her pleasure to be indulgent of her step-brother. His widowed father had married her widowed mother when Portia was but ten and Caldwell only four. She had delighted to have a sibling, even without the relationship of blood, and through the vicissitudes of life with a weak mother and a venal father, they had formed a close and constant bond.

  Caldwell had early showed signs of artistic talent and now at four and twenty he was a talented portraitist. Portia was determined to give him every opportunity to develop his skill and advance his career. She was happy to provide him with a home in return for the lessons he taught in drawing and watercolour and astronomy to her students.

  "You deserve every benefit I can bestow upon you," she said.

  "Well, the least I can do is see off this viscount if he gives you any trouble!"

  They grinned at each other in mutual charity.

  But Portia returned to worry at the matter of the Perringtons. "I am overstating my concern, I know it. But the girls are charming and they deserve his consideration." She became aware that her step-brother was not listening. "Enough of Stadbroke however. I have known you these twenty years and I can tell when something is bothering you. What has happened, my dear?"

  Caldwell sobered immediately, got to his feet and stalked again to the window that overlooked the gardens. He stared again at the last bedraggled flowers and was silent for a long moment. Then he turned and said, "I have had word, a letter, from my father."

  Whatever she had expected, it had not been that. Portia goggled inelegantly at him. "Step-father? But it must be five or more years since we have heard from him. What does he want? Why now?"

  "I do not know. I cannot even guess how he came to have my direction. But he wants to meet with me, as I am 'his only son and therefore dearer to him than anyone on this earth'." Caldwell paced the India carpet, his agitation evident in every tense muscle.

  "That rings true of his hypocrisy. When?"

  "He says he will write again. I can only hope he will not do so. I have no inclination to attend him." Caldwell paused by the fire.

  Portia was briefly silent, thinking anxiously. "I think you must if you receive another communication, Cal," she said at last. "He might be ill, or in some difficulty. Despite his faults he is still your father."