Barbara Metzger (9 page)

Letters? What letters?

Heaven had to take some getting used to. This time her robes seemed to be choking her, tightening around her neck. But then, right before she was about to lodge a complaint, there was Fanny, her personal angel. In a few minutes Rosellen could breathe, she could swallow, she could even speak a little.

"Are you finding things odd here. Fanny?” she asked.

"Only how you can't lift a hand to hold your spoon, but you manage to get all twisted up every time I turn my back. Brung you some nice porridge, I did, and a surprise."

Rosellen was finding enough surprises, thank you. Gruel, in Heaven? Surely the heavenly host could manage better than that. She pushed the spoon away.

Fanny was too excited to notice. “A grand coach pulled up this morning, miss, and you'll never guess, but a liveried footman stepped out and asked for you! I thought Miss Merrihew would have a spasm, that he wasn't come about some wealthy new chit for the school. He insisted this come right into your hands, he did, so she let me bring it. You should've seen him, tall and handsome, with a white wig and dressed all in gold."

"That must have been Gabriel then. Not a wig. Did he have a horn?"

"What, to blow for the tolls? That'd be the coachman's job or the guard's. You ain't listenin', miss. I hope that fever didn't leave you dicked in the nob, ‘cause I don't know what you keep blatherin’ on about. Miss Merrihew won't be happy iffen you ain't fit to teach the young ladies next week. But here, see what the fellow brung you. He didn't wait for a reply, neither, so you can't send it back, whatever it is."

Fanny placed a small pouch on Rosellen's chest. She clucked her tongue when Miss Lockharte made no move to open the strings. “Lud, I'd have to be half-dead before I let the thing sit like that,” she said impatiently.

All dead, Rosellen didn't care, still worrying over why Gabriel would let a coachman blow his trumpet.

Fanny took the pouch back and opened it herself. “Coo, miss, look at this! It's a regular fortune! Near fifty pounds, I swear! You're rich!"

Rosellen always thought you couldn't take wealth with you, not that she had any to take. Now she was in funds, and defunct. What a shame. “Too late,” she murmured.

"Never too late to be lyin’ in clover, that's what I say."

"Clouds, not clover.” Though perhaps clover wouldn't be quite so difficult to tame as her cantankerous clouds.

"You sure found the silver linin’ with those letters, miss."

"Letters?"

"Lud, don't you remember anything? You was feverish and delirious, I s'pose, but you was determined to write those letters, iffen it took your last breath.” It must have.

Rosellen wasn't in Heaven at all. She'd merely stopped off there on her way to Hell. Miss Lockharte opened her eyes to find Miss Merrihew and her brother standing over her, shouting at each other. At least they were both dead, too, and couldn't make any other young woman's life miserable and short. She wondered just what she had done so wrong in her twenty years that she deserved to be tormented in eternity.

Rosellen blinked, hoping to have even the suffocating clouds back, but no, the two sets of beady eyes were still there, the prune faces, the nasal, whining voices. They both wore black, relieved only by the reverend's white neckcloth, which was tied almost tall enough to hide his weak chin. The vultures had come, Rosellen thought, come to peck at her. Well, she wouldn't listen. She might be in Hell, but no one could force her to hold conversation with the other fiends. She didn't think so, at any rate.

"I don't care what her condition,” Miss Merrihew was insisting. “I want her out of here."

For once Rosellen agreed with the headmistress, but she didn't believe either of their wishes would hold any weight in purgatory.

Mr. Merrihew was arguing that tossing her out wasn't good enough. “The wench will talk. She knows too much. With the epidemic and the school shut, who is to know what happens to the bitch?"

"All those other people she wrote to, that's who. We don't even know the half of them, or what she said. I just want her away from my school."

"But she can ruin us."

"Not if she hasn't already, and not if she knows what's good for her."

Rosellen thought it might be good for her to convince these two demons to leave her alone, that she had no interest in spending eternity listening to their ghoulish grievances. “Go to Heaven,” she said with a weak giggle at her own wit.

Miss Merrihew looked down and jabbed her bony finger into Rosellen's chest. “Aha, so you
were
pretending to be asleep! I knew it, you sly, deceitful chit. You've played that hand one too many times, missy."

With each word she spoke the headmistress poked at Rosellen again, until she felt like a pincushion, a live pincushion. “I ... I ... didn't die?"

"Why, I'll bet you were never sick at all, just malingering to avoid your duties. You are an ungrateful wretch, Miss Lockharte,” Miss Merrihew shouted. “I was the only one who would take you in after your disgraceful conduct in London. I should have known better, but your uncle begged me.
He
didn't want you and now I understand why. You are not to be trusted, and I will not keep a viper like you next to my bosom."

One more sharp jab and Rosellen would not have any bosom at all. She tried to roll out of range, but the spadelike finger kept digging into her flesh. All she could manage was a confused whimper.

"Well you might snivel, you conniving hussy, but that will avail you nothing. I won't keep you here for another day. You are dismissed, Miss Lockharte, terminated, turned off. You have been disloyal, dishonest, and a bad influence on the students."

"And her handwriting has deteriorated considerably, too,” Mr. Merrihew put in. “Not at all up to the standards of the Select Academy."

"Quite right, Jonas. I am ashamed that anyone saw those dreadful scribbles.” Miss Merrihew crossed her arms over her own flat chest, to Rosellen's relief, but the headmistress was not finished. “How dare you send those letters behind my back? And how dare you tell me how to run my school, as if some impertinent chit from a vicarage knows the first thing about educating proper young ladies. And writing to Lord Vance! Why, I am mortified that one of my instructors should bother our patron with such nitpicky complaints."

Ah, Rosellen thought, her memory jogged by the grating voice, like chalk on the blackboard, like pencil and pen scratching out line after line on parchment,
those
letters.

"Don't you know your place at all, girl?” Miss Merrihew shouted. “You will soon, for it is not here. I want you gone by morning."

Morning? Rosellen hadn't thought to live till morning. Obviously she had. It remained to be seen whether she'd live through another day, which, from the smirk on Mr. Merrihew's thin lips, was not a foregone conclusion. The sooner she was away from the school, the better, if only she could hold her head up. “I ... I don't think I can manage, ma'am."

"Humph! Miss Prunes and Prisms doesn't think she can manage, Jonas! This is not a hotel, miss. You've already been in the infirmary for two weeks without doing a bit of work, and that is two weeks too long. I've paid for the physician, the medicine, and the servants to wait on you. That, of course, will come out of your last quarter's salary. No, I do not care if you drag your sorry self through the streets, you'll be off the premises and out of my sight tomorrow morning. I'd toss you out tonight, but I know what's proper."

While Rosellen's mind was spinning, she could hear hasty whispers above her.

"...out of town,” the hatchet-faced cleric was urging. “We don't want her wandering around Worthing talking to anyone."

Miss Merrihew nodded. “Thank you for reminding me of my Christian duty, Jonas. Out of the goodness of my heart, Miss Lockharte, and not because I think you deserve it, I shall order the school's cart to deliver you to Brighton in the morning. There you may find employment or you may fall by the wayside. I do not care which."

Rosellen knew she could not possibly leave in the morning. Where would she go? She had to make plans for her future, now that she was to have one, and she had to regain some of her strength. Her fuddled mind might be clearing, but she was still weak as a thrice-brewed tea leaf. As far as she could gather, she'd been lying there for two weeks, in a fever, a drugged stupor, or a near comatose sleep of exhaustion. She'd had precious little in the way of food, water, or exercise. She doubted she could comb her hair, much less take a cart to Brighton.

"I ... I should like to stay a day or two longer, Miss Merrihew, with your permission. I can pay for my keep."

"And I should like to know how, missy.” Miss Merrihew smiled. A shark's grin held more congeniality.

"I have fifty pounds."

Mr. Merrihew snickered. “Where would the likes of you be getting fifty pounds?"

"From the messenger who came. He must have been sent from my uncle.” Rosellen wasn't clear on all the details or on precisely how many letters she did write.

Miss Merrihew shook her head, not disturbing a single hair of her tightly braided bun. “No messenger came for you. Your uncle certainly never wrote. He washed his hands of you two years ago, lucky man."

"There was a messenger,” Rosellen insisted, “in gold livery. He came in a grand carriage."

"You were delirious, girl. Imagining things, the same as you imagined all those other accusations you made.” Miss Merrihew looked pointedly toward her brother, the corrupt cleric. “No one will believe you."

Rosellen was scrabbling around in her rumpled bedclothes, searching for the pouch she remembered. “Fanny brought it up. She can tell you."

"Fanny was dismissed this afternoon for insubordination. I cannot have my maids going behind my back, accepting bribes to disobey my rules. She was off the school grounds without permission. That would have been enough to cost her her position, without her flirting with tradesmen to do your dirty work. No, she is gone, and you will be gone. That is final."

Miss Merrihew took her brother's arm on the way out of the room. As she passed through the door, almost out of Rosellen's sight, she called back, “And do not expect to be waited on like visiting royalty anymore. If you want something, you can jolly well fetch it yourself.” Rosellen wanted her money back.

Rosellen was right; she couldn't manage. Miss Merrihew was right; she'd be gone. The headmistress sent Cook to help. Cook was a large, wild-haired woman in a soiled apron who smelled of stale cabbage.

"Tell folks there be vermin in my kitchens, will you?” She pulled the brush through Rosellen's hair as if she were plucking a chicken, then tied it back with a string from her pocket—one that might have trussed that same chicken, Rosellen thought with a shudder. Then her coarse hands stripped off Rosellen's nightgown and tugged a crumpled gray uniform over her head. Woolen stockings, a limp chip straw bonnet, and worn shoes completed Rosellen's ensemble. “Say as how I serve tainted meat and pocket the difference?"

"I only suggested to Miss Merrihew..."

Cook propped Rosellen against a wall, not quite accidentally bumping her head. Rosellen sank down as if her knees were made of mashed potatoes, without Cook's lumps. She could only watch from the floor as the angry servant crammed her belongings into a satchel, tossing Rosellen a flimsy spencer.

"I ain't no fancy Frenchified chef, but I set a decent table. Not good enough for a fine lady like you, eh? Where's all your fine airs now, missy, that's what I'd like to know. You'll be missing my cooking soon enough, I'll warrant, when you ain't got no breakfast in your stomach."

Rosellen struggled into the light wrap, for she was already chilled, no fire having been lit in the sickroom. She felt sick to her stomach, too, wondering what was to happen to her. No, she wasn't going to miss Cook's greasy eggs and burned toast.

Cook slammed Rosellen's lap desk into her arms, then pulled the drooping girl to her feet. She half pushed, half pulled Miss Lockharte down the stairs and out the back door, where Jake was waiting with the school's pony cart. Cook tossed Rosellen and her possessions into the back of the cart, on the bare wooden slats, next to some empty crates.

There was no good-bye, no hamper of food for the journey, not even Fanny's address. Jake, the academy's man-of-all-work, didn't know it either.

"It's a rum go for both of you, I be thinking, miss,” he said, handing a blanket back to Rosellen when he saw how she was shivering in her thin clothes. It was the horse's blanket, she realized instantly, but welcome all the same. She huddled under it, queasy from the cart's jolting movement, wondering if she was better off now that she wasn't dead.

Jake helped her out of the cart when they reached the coaching inn at Brighton. She would have fallen except for his arm at her waist. He guided her to a bench outside the busy inn and placed her satchel and the desk next to her. “I don't know what's to become of you, miss, and that's a fact. But iffen I don't get back before nuncheon with the supplies, it'll mean my job, too."

"I understand, Jake. You've been more than kind."

He pressed a coin into her hand. “It ain't much, miss, but you was always decent, unlike them other teachers what thought they were better'n fresh bread. It ain't fair what they done to you, Miss Lockharte, but I can't make it right."

Rosellen looked down. The silver crown must be a fortune to Jake. She couldn't accept it. With a trembling arm, she held it out. “No, Jake, I'll be fine. I'll just sit here and catch my breath and decide what's to be done. You keep it."

Jake backed away, touching the brim of his cap. “No, miss, I couldn't sleep nights, was I to leave you like that."

He did manage to leave her without the horse blanket. He couldn't let old Posy go cold, now, could he? Rosellen sat on the bench, too numb to shiver. She'd stay a little longer, gathering her wits, her stamina, and her courage. She couldn't gather what she did not have, though. Lud, what was to become of her?

She looked at the silver in her hand. One crown. Five shillings. She could purchase a cup of tea and a roll. She could use it to send a plea to Uncle Townsend. Or she could offer it to the next wagon driver that came by, in exchange for a ride. But to where?