The Education of Portia (16 page)

The tall case clock chimed three o'clock.

Sabina's mouth circled to a
moue
of dismay. "I am meant to be at a geography
lesson. Excuse me, Miss, please... But thank you for listening to me. I shall be brave, now that I
know there is no hope."

"You may go, my dear." Portia dismissed the child thinking to take Sabina's words to
her own heart. She would need to be brave, for there was no hope.

There was another knock. Caldwell opened the door in time to hold it for Sabina; she
thanked him in a trembling voice, and fled. His bow, unnoticed by her, was avuncular in the
extreme.

"The latest victim of your fatal charm, my dear," Portia said with a sorry attempt at
levity.

He grimaced at her. "I know it. It is easily the most difficult thing about teaching here,
Port. I shall be glad when I earn enough from my portraits to supply my wants. I enjoy teaching
but young ladies are sadly volatile."

Portia rebuked him gently. "Not all, Cal. You know that."

"You have never shown a sign of volatility," he agreed. "But you and Heloise are each
unique."

"Thank you, my dear, but save your flattery. Have you told Heloise of Mr. Dent
yet?"

"You would know if I had. Does she not confide everything in you? You must know
better than I how she feels about me." He took up his pipe from the mantelpiece, but made no
move to fill it.

"I betray no one's confidences," Portia said. "Is it as cold today as it appears? I've not
ventured out."

"No need to change the subject quite so drastically, Port. I was about to abandon it." His
young face took on an unusual grimness. "I have heard yet again from my father. He wants
another �100."

"Oh, dear heaven," Portia stared blankly at the wainscot on the far wall from her desk.
She saw nothing of its rich, gleaming oak. "It is Christmas, Cal. I am pressed for funds always in
fall term. I had dared to hope he had forgot us, or had a run of luck in some gaming hell."

"We could not be so fortunate. No, the demand and the threat is the same as before. We
did expect it." He looked mortified.

Portia's heart ached for him. He should not have to suffer so just when his career looked
so promising. "I have fifty pounds." She opened a drawer of her desk and drew out the stocking
purse in which she kept funds for the school's day to day management. She withdrew a roll of
banknotes and held it out.

He laid aside his pipe again and took the notes, though his every fibre seemed to resist
the outstretching of his hand. "I will repay you. I shall ask Stadbroke for an advance on my
commission. He will be coming soon to sit for his portrait with his daughters. It cannot be
thought strange; artists must buy supplies after all."

"I hate to be beholden to that man." Portia allowed the confusion of her emotions to
distil into venom.

"I cannot pretend to understand your antipathy to the viscount. Unless he has offered
you some insult?" Caldwell tapped the roll of notes into his left palm. "If so, he will answer to
me."

Insult? Was withdrawing her hair pins and threading his fingers through her hair with
something like wonder an insult? Dancing with her as though he enjoyed it, holding her hand,
twining his arm with hers during the movements an affront? Making her feel fully a woman and
fully alive an offence?

"No, of course not. He has not insulted me, merely irritated me. Never mind Stadbroke.
We shall pay Mr. Dent until we cannot. Then...then we shall have to think of something
else."

Madame popped her head in at the door. She grimaced on seeing the serious faces of the
study's occupants. "Secrets,
mes amis
? I take offence at being excluded from your
conclaves, I really do. If there is a problem, I might be of some assistance, you realize that? I am
not without ingenuity. It is money of course. It must be, for the students are well, the staff
without concern. Unless the difficulty lies with the so-delectable viscount and his delightful
daughters, it must be money."

"Delectable?" said Caldwell in a dumbfounded tone.

"He is very attractive,
mon pauvre,
" Heloise teased her devoted admirer. "And
vigorous and charming. Had Portia not already captivated him, I should be tempted to try my
own luck."

"Heloise, don't!" Portia said in a strangled tone. "We are not trying to exclude you. You
must not be offended."

"Well, I am clearly an outsider to your concerns. Oh, and I came only to say that dinner
is served!" She withdrew as abruptly as she had arrived, revealing a brief glimpse of the
hall.

Portia and Caldwell were left staring at each other.

Portia realized that there had been young ladies clattering down the stairs and streaming
into the dining room opposite her study, but she felt suspended in a dreamlike moment.

"I have not captivated Lord Stadbroke," she said in a shocked tone.

"And surely he has not captivated her," Caldwell said, sounding nearly as shaken.

The third time Stadbroke left London for Hornsey and his portrait sitting with his
daughters, he was surprised and more than a little concerned by the anticipation he experienced.
He was concerned because the anticipation had nothing to do with seeing his children, or
watching their portrait advance, but with seeing Miss Crossmichael...Portia. She occupied
altogether too much space in his thoughts, and try though he might to catalogue her negative
qualities, he always ended by remembering her swift intelligence, her touching,
not-quite-concealed vulnerability, and her pliant figure in his arms at the Christmas Ball.

His matched bays broke stride with his unconscious tug of their reins. It was an overcast
day, crisp and cold but dry. The Ruffian, seated at his side, uttered a short, sharp woof. "Very
well, I shall take more care," he told the beast. "But why my girls must now have you in the
painting, I shall never understand. Thank heaven they did not decide to have the whole damned
pack of hounds in it. I suppose I would not have refused them that either."

He took his thoughts in hand, and his horses. He almost could wish that he had not
thought of having his daughters and himself immortalized by Caldwell Dent. No, he didn't mean
that--he could not regret having a portrait of his daughters to capture the beauty and innocence of
their youth.

To include himself in the picture had been a selfish conceit, but likewise he could not
regret it. He had been the parent who could claim to have moulded them, if either mother or
father could ever claim it. Left to the care of nursery staff himself, he had vowed on marriage to
have more involvement with his own children.

Certainly, Celia had not wished for any involvement with the girls. She had undertaken
every social engagement in a fifty mile radius of Stadley Court, but she had seldom made the
journey above stairs to their own nursery. She had resented pregnancy and endured it sullenly.
She had displayed no interest in her babies or in their development. She would have left them
entirely to a nurse or a governess if he had not interfered.

And how they had argued about his devotion to his daughters. They had both been too
young and too immature to make a success of their marriage, he knew it now. He had often
regretted that he had given in to the pressures brought to bear by his own mother, and Celia's. He
had suffered much, he felt, at the hands of women's deceit. Even his attraction to Portia could not
convince him to make himself vulnerable to it again.

Thus armoured against Miss Crossmichael's appeal, he drew up before her establishment
and gave his carriage into the care of her groom. Ruff jumped down with every appearance of
eagerness and climbed the steps before he did himself. Upon his admittance to the house Ingram
surrendered his greatcoat and his beaver to the porter.

"I'm to show you to Mr. Dent's studio, my lord. The young ladies have been sent for."
The porter led the viscount to the stairs even as he spoke. Despite his recent resolution, Ingram
found himself craning his neck for a glimpse of the door of Portia's study, and scanning the
corridors for the sight of her graceful figure. Then he realized his actions and, full of censure for
his own weakness, he was delighted when Penny appeared at the end of the corridor.

She hurtled its length to leap into his arms. "I can show Papa the way, Mithter Euston.
You need not climb all the thtairth," she piped to the porter before strangling her father with an
embrace.

The old man grinned his thanks and turned back to retrace his steps.

"He thufferth with rheumatism thomething terrible, Papa. Sabina said that you said we
could ask Miss Crossmichael today, Papa, about Christmas. May we?" She squirmed to be set
down, and when Ingram released her she bestowed a rapturous welcome on Ruff. He licked her
face extravagantly. Casually she wiped her face with her sleeve and beamed up at her father.
"You like Mith, do you not Papa? She is lovely, you know; like the very best kind of
mama."

Stadbroke was flummoxed by his little girl's chatter. How could he respond? Could he
imagine Miss Crossmichael as a mother? Oddly enough, he thought he could. "And what do you
know of mamas, my love?"

"Well, I 'member our Mama only a little, telling us not to muss her hair or wrinkle her
skirts."

Ingram winced at the childish candour.

"And Mel and Sabby have told me how she would bring us bon-bons but was too busy
to spend much of her time with us. And the girls here talk of mamas who are unkind or
disciplining or pushing--do you know, Papa?"

Her bird-bright eyes twinkled up at him, and Ingram's heart contracted with a fierce
spasm of love.

"You underthtand me? Making their girls do things correctly always and punishing them
for mistakes?"

"I understand," he managed to say.

"Well, Mith Crossmichael asks only that we do our best at our lessons, and she makes
certain we are never too busy to read or sing. She is never too busy to talk to us and even takes
part in our games and romps. She is like you, Papa!"

Penelope caught his hand and tugged him up the second flight of stairs. "Mith would
like our conservatory, Papa. She is very fond of flowers." The Ruffian trotted obediently after
them, submitting to the pats and cries of joy that the girls who passed them bestowed.

Ingram began to enjoy these revelations about Portia Crossmichael. His daughters were
in good hands. And if Portia liked flowers, then certainly he must show her the conservatory of
the Hill Street house. They had not toured it on her first visit. He recalled Penny's comment on
that occasion about Miss Crossmichael sleeping in her chemise, and experienced a surprising
rush of heat.

His daughter recalled him to the present.

"Do you like sitting for our portrait, Papa? I do but Mel doesn't."

With gratitude Ingram seized upon Penny's prosaic words. They poured cold water on
his sudden fantasy. "You do very well...sit very still, my little eel. I think Melicent finds portrait
sitting annoying, but she will like the result as much as I shall."

"Ethpecially now that Ruff is to be in it."

Ingram took up his daughter's hand and squeezed it understandingly as they neared the
studio door.

A voice--Miss Crossmichael's--made intelligible by an excess of emotion, was audible
from just the other side. "We are precisely positioned where he wishes us. We can do nothing
other than pay his demands. Come down for the draft when you are finished this sitting." The
door opened and the speaker confronted them.

Ingram could have laughed at the expression on Portia's face if he had had any
inclination at all to merriment. But her words had been too serious, too distraught to allow of any
levity.

"Mith, did you thee my picture of the swans on the pond?" Penelope was unconscious of
any constraint.

Her unconcerned chatter gave Ingram a moment to watch the schoolmistress. Portia
recovered her equanimity so rapidly that he wondered if he had overheard her aright. Then he
caught the faintest glimmer of-- What? Fear? --in her eyes, and knew that he had not imagined
her distress. Something was sadly awry at Mansion House.

He made his greeting easy however. "Your servant, Miss Crossmichael." He put a
restraining hand on Ruff's collar, for the hound showed a determination to bound into the studio
and examine every oil and brush.

Dent came to usher them in. He looked taken aback at the sight of the dog, but
responded appropriately to Penny's sunny greeting.

"Ruff is to be in the picture, Mr. Dent!"

"If you will, sir," Ingram added.

The painter nodded his agreement with something of abstraction.

Ingram was aware that Portia was slipping away. Over his shoulder he said, "Miss
Crossmichael, will you stay for a moment?" As she re-entered the light-filled retreat, he saw fear
flare again at the back of her grey eyes. "My daughters have a request they would like to make of
you... And Mr. Dent," he hurried to add, regretting her concern.

The two older girls erupted into the room, and embraced their father and their dog with
enthusiasm. Ingram, watching carefully, could see no consciousness between Dent and Sabina.
He relaxed a little and watched Melicent politely greet her teachers. His little enigma, he called
her, and indeed she was often a puzzle.

Aware that his daughters were directing questioning looks at him, Ingram nodded his
permission.

The three girls turned to their schoolmistress. "We wondered if you, Miss Crossmichael,
and Mr. Dent would care to join us for dinner on Christmas Day." Sabina made the invitation
with great correctness and no untoward simperings to Caldwell Dent. She had told her father on
his last visit of her conversation with Miss Crossmichael, and he had been pleased to encourage
her brave recovery.

Portia seemed fully to have regained her equanimity and her smile embraced all three
girls. Ingram found himself wishing it included himself.