Curtsies & Conspiracies fs-2 Page 8

  “Can we swing by your aunt’s classroom on our way back?”

  “Need something?” Vieve’s mind ever jumped to supplies.

  “No. Didn’t you say your aunt and the visiting professor were holed up there?”

  “You want to see what they are up to?” Vieve changed course and headed toward the teaching area outside the tassel zone, rather than across to student residencies. Soon, they found themselves at the classrooms. The dark hallway was lit only by a small beam of light emanating from the crack under Professor Lefoux’s lab door.

  Sophronia went for Sister Mattie’s room.

  Vieve, confused, followed.

  Sister Mattie never locked her door. She maintained that if a student needed to pollute, cure, or improve nutritional health, she should do so with impunity. Or, as she put it, “One woman’s petunia is another one’s poison.”

  Sister Mattie’s classroom abutted Professor Lefoux’s. Sophronia made her way through it in the dark. This was not difficult, as she knew which plants were thorny and which were sticky. She ended up behind the rubber tree, where a small door let out onto a balcony covered in large pots of rhubarb and tomatoes, alongside foxgloves and rhododendrons. Sophronia brushed through, mindful that tomato leaves would deposit telltale yellow streaks on her dress. She climbed up and balanced precariously on the railing so she could lean over to the small round window of Professor Lefoux’s lab.

  She peeked inside. Under bright gas lighting, Professor Lefoux and Professor Shrimpdittle stood together over a large table spread with the parts of some disassembled apparatus. They were not working on the gadget. They were arguing. Sophronia fished in her reticule and brought forth her latest prized acquisition, an ear trumpet. It had taken a good many letters to persuade her mother that she was losing her hearing and in desperate need of the medical device. It was invaluable for eavesdropping, and she’d decorated it to look like a morning glory flower. She pressed the flared end to the glass and the nozzle to her ear.

  “… needs to be done!” Professor Lefoux was saying. Her words were almost indecipherable, her French accent was so strong.

  “That’s ridiculous. Breathing is irrelevant!” Shrimpdittle objected. His voice was one of upper-crust education, all toffy-nosed and toothy.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  Professor Lefoux went to open in.

  Monique de Pelouse came inside. Holy smokes! thought Sophronia. What’s she doing here? She whispered to Vieve, “Monique’s turned up. I thought she was in disgrace. Why on earth would they let her wander around after hours?” Sophronia felt unsettled, possibly even a little jealous. Monique knew more about what was going on than she did!

  The professors were obviously expecting Monique. For a moment, Sophronia wondered if the dismembered gadget was meant for her.

  “I’m to ask if it’s ready,” the blonde said. “Is it?”

  “Not yet,” Professor Lefoux answered.

  With no further exchange, Monique pirouetted to leave.

  “Wait a moment, Miss Pelouse. Was that you who set off the alarm?”

  Monique stuck her nose in the air. “Of course not. I have permission to be out. You know that; you gave it to me.” She gestured rudely with her thumb at Professor Shrimpdittle. “A couple of his charges thought it’d be fun to sneak out.”

  Professor Shrimpdittle looked contrite. “Oh, dear. I do hope Lady Linette isn’t upset.”

  Monique smiled evilly. “Not at all. She sent Professor Braithwope to handle the matter, knowing how little Bunson’s cares for vampires.” With that, she let herself back out of the room.

  Professor Shrimpdittle whirled on Professor Lefoux. “If your bloodsucker has harmed one hair on any of my boys’ heads!”

  “Professor Braithwope is a perfectly respectable teacher. Your boys should not have been out! You were told. They were told!”

  “I wager they only did it because your girls taunted them.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Algonquin. It’s what boys do!”

  “Who’s he feeding from? That’s what I want to know.”

  “As if I should inquire into your personal life and diet!”

  “Who is his drone?”

  Sophronia perked up. This was a question that troubled her on a regular basis.

  “None of your concern!”

  “I think it is my concern, with my boys on board! What if he goes for one of them?”

  “Professor Braithwope is a gentleman! Not to mention a vampire. He never goes anywhere without proper invitation. You should know that! His kind invented the concept!”

  “Well! I like that.” Professor Shrimpdittle’s tone clearly said that he didn’t.

  “So you should! Would you rather our school were so deep in the Picklemen’s keep we couldn’t claw ourselves away… like you? Going to sell this invention to them to keep it out of vampire hands? Or are they still after the valve?”

  Sophronia hissed back to Vieve, “I think that mini crystalline valve frequensor is involved.”

  Vieve’s eyes shone. “I’ve been researching that. The one you gave me, I think—”

  Sophronia held up a hand, back to eavesdropping.

  Professor Shrimpdittle said, “This is getting us nowhere. Perhaps we should stop for the night?”

  “I think that’s a capital idea.” Professor Lefoux was struggling to control her emotions.

  Until that moment, Sophronia would have said the austere teacher didn’t have emotions.

  “You should examine your loyalties, Beatrice. Someday you will have to choose.” Sophronia could hear the slamming of books as Shrimpdittle packed.

  “Choose?”

  “Between science and the supernatural.”

  “I wasn’t aware they were on opposite sides.”

  Sophronia heard the door slam.

  “Oh, that man!” Professor Lefoux exclaimed in French to the empty room. Then there was silence.

  Sophronia peeked through the window. The teacher was cleaning up the apparatus on the table, systematically putting everything away.

  Sophronia signaled Vieve.

  “Take a look,” she whispered, making room on the railing and assisting the smaller girl to look in. “What do you make of those parts?”

  Vieve didn’t answer, face pressed to the glass, until the gas in the room was turned off and the interior black.

  She swung her weight back and slid down off the railing. Sophronia followed.

  “I don’t know. It looks almost like armor, but for what? Undersea exploration?”

  “Perhaps it has to do with our trip? Perhaps we’re going to London because of your aunt or Professor Shrimpdittle and this invention.”

  Vieve considered. “It’s possible. It’d explain why they need the whole school—access to my aunt’s laboratory.”

  “You were saying about the valve?”

  “That one you gave me, I have to run further tests. But I don’t see how it can affect mechanicals or the oddgob.”

  “Keep at it, will you?”

  “Until I get caught or something more interesting comes along.”

  Sophronia patted her friend on the head in the manner of Soap, a thing she knew the girl found particularly annoying. “Good little inventor.”

  The 6th test

  GARNERING INVITATIONS

  The girls entered the breakfast room to find the postal steward calling names and passing out correspondences. Since they had gone to white, Captain Niall must have undertaken a run back to Swiffle-on-Exe to retrieve missives. The teachers were always saying that the captain was not an errand boy at the beck and call of young ladies’ whims, but on occasion he did perform groundside services made convenient by his land-bound state and supernatural speed.

  There was nothing for Sophronia, who sat bleary-eyed and exhausted at the end of the table while the other girls exclaimed. Her fellows exhibited new trinkets to their male dining companions and shared the latest gossip from home. It was an orgy of batted e
yelashes, and Sophronia was finding herself unable to cope with fluttering on only a few hours sleep.

  Felix Mersey ostentatiously picked up his place setting and moved it next to hers. “What’s wrong, pretty Ria? You seem to have lost your customary aloofness.”

  “Oh, do go away. I’m not up to dalliance this morning.”

  He pouted at her. “Is that all I am to you? A plaything, a speck of dust on a sunbeam, a bit of dandelion fluff on the breeze?”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly.” Sophronia hid a smile at such silliness. No sense encouraging the blighter.

  “Hard-hearted, that’s what you are.”

  “You’re an imbecile, you do realize?”

  Any further conversation was interrupted, as it was surely meant to be, by a squeal from Monique. It was emitted upon reading a gold-embossed letter and caught even Mademoiselle Geraldine’s attention from the head table.

  Felix moved hastily out of indiscreet proximity to Sophronia.

  “Miss Pelouse, have you something of note to share with the assembly?” wondered the headmistress.

  The blonde girl stood gracefully, glancing over the entire room with a beneficent smile. She looked like a queen addressing her subjects, holding her gold missive in one hand as though an award received from on high. Her dress that morning was of royal blue with butter-lemon stripes, a row of gold pom-poms down the front in increasing size. It was almost as though it were intended to match the letter.

  “Nothing of any consequence, Headmistress,” she said, blushing prettily. “It’s only that my dear mama has informed me that she intends to hold my coming-out ball when we arrive in town!”

  Pandemonium reigned. The announcement of a trip to London had been one thing, and the presence of boys another, but this was the Thing to End All Things—a ball!

  A breakfast selection of German sausage, broiled kidney, dried salmon, and muttonchops arrived, but few registered it. Some of the young ladies even ate the salmon without concern to vital humors—when everyone knew colored fish flesh could bring on an attack of hysteria.

  Sophronia refused to be ruffled. She ate the same thing every morning: porridge.

  Girls began to find excuses to call at Monique’s table to compliment the horrid girl on the cut of her dress or the size of her pom-poms, angling for an invitation.

  “What lovely earrings, Monique.”

  “Yes, aren’t they pretty? My father purchased them in Spain. Such an expense for little me!”

  “Did you do your hair differently this morning, Monique?”

  “No, but it is looking quite shiny, isn’t it?”

  Pillover glanced up from his plate of sausage. “What a revolting spectacle.”

  Sophronia privately agreed and contemplated breaking from her normal dietary routine and eating a sausage in order to cope.

  Monique, mistress of the British Empire at that moment, seemed willing to gratify all sycophants. Most of the older girls, cronies of hers, were told right off that of course, she could not do without them in attendance. A few of the middle girls were told they might be allowed in, but the debuts—who shared her table and chambers—were left in suspense.

  Preshea, at Monique’s right hand, smirked, anticipating an invite. “Can I pass you the butter, Monique? Would you care for a little more tea, Monique?”

  Agatha looked terrified and Sidheag indifferent; they’d rather not be invited. Dimity kept glancing in Sophronia’s direction as if she wished they were on speaking terms so they could discuss this new kink in the workings of life.

  Lord Dingleproops, Monique’s dining companion, paid her marked attention—to her evident enjoyment. Sophronia felt sorry for Dimity. Whatever false hopes he had once given her must now be crushed.

  The ordeal of breakfast eventually ended. As they rose and made their way toward the exit, Sophronia snaked up behind her erstwhile best friend and whispered, “I shouldn’t be too upset. Lady Dimity Dingleproops sounds quite ridiculous, anyway.”

  Dimity smothered a giggle and turned, eyes animated, prepared for a bit of a gossip—in that instant all ill feelings were forgotten. But Agatha, of all people, swooped in and linked arms with Dimity, practically dragging her away down the hall.

  Through the course of that day, Monique became increasingly intolerable. She had Preshea and others running errands for her, bringing her little gifts. She would send one girl off and then make some snide comment about the poor thing’s appearance and lack of funds. Then she was all sugar when the girl returned, bearing a posy of violets or glass of barley water.

  By the time Professor Braithwope’s etiquette class rolled around after sunset, everyone was beginning to show strain. The boys escorted the girls to the vampire’s door, but they had a lesson with Professor Shrimpdittle instead. Their presence made Monique worse. She latched herself onto Felix’s arm when he tried to leave her.

  “Abandoning me to monsters, my lord?”

  Felix chuckled. “Now, now, Miss Monique, I’m not so bad as all that. I never said they were monsters, only predators.”

  “You’re so wise,” simpered Monique, still clutching.

  Lady Linette paused in the hallway at the sight. “Miss Pelouse! How can you be so forward? Have you learned nothing? Lord Mersey, let go of her this instant!”

  Felix lounged against the wall insolently, still attached to Monique. “I’m afraid, my lady, you must persuade her to let go of me.”

  “It’s my ankle, Lady Linette. It’s feeling poorly,” professed Monique.

  “Oh, is it? Should I send you to matron?”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t trouble yourself. It isn’t that bad.”

  “I’m certain it isn’t. Now, let go of the young viscount this moment and behave like a proper lady!”

  Monique, pouting prettily, let go of Felix and marched into the vampire’s classroom with no sign of a limp. Felix made good his escape with a wink at Sophronia. Sophronia, smiling at both the rebuke and the wink, followed Monique.

  Monique sat down on a fainting couch next to Preshea, and before anyone else could take the opportunity, Sophronia sat down on her other side. She wasn’t really planning anything; she only wanted to make the older girl uncomfortable.

  Monique didn’t register Sophronia at first, engaged in an animated discussion with Preshea. The topic appeared to be Lord Dingleproops’s chin and whether its absence was all that important to the state of the Empire. When she turned to her left to find Sophronia sitting there primly, Monique twitched and made as if to rise.

  But Professor Braithwope started class, so the blonde contented herself with turning her back on Sophronia. Sophronia had Bumbersnoot the reticule with her and placed him on the carpet behind her feet, well concealed by copious skirts.

  If asked afterward, she would have explained, that there was no technical way to train a mechanical into any action outside its initial basic protocols. So it must have been without her knowledge that Bumbersnoot made his way from her skirts to Monique’s. She could never have known he would belch steam up the older girl’s drawers and deposit a pile of ash on her very expensive pink kid slippers. Never have known.

  Monique got the most peculiar expression on her face and let out a muffled squawk.

  She leapt to her feet and turned to glare at the obvious culprit. “Sophronia!”

  Realizing that Bumbersnoot must have done something, Sophronia used her foot to shift him back to his starting position behind her own skirts and looked up innocently at the raging Monique.

  Professor Braithwope whirled from where he was demonstrating entering and exiting a hive house with grace and concealed weaponry. He’d been using an arrangement of unstable top-hat boxes as steps and was not happy at being distracted. The act of whirling caused him to go through the side of one of the hatboxes in a manner most clumsy for a vampire.

  “Sit down this moment, Miss Pelouse!” he barked.

  “But Sophronia squirted steam up my drawers!”

  Dimity let out an unc
ontrolled giggle. Everyone else in the class looked either surprised or amused, according to their nature.

  “Whot, whot? I hardly see how she might have done that. She hasn’t moved.”

  Monique sputtered. Then, knowing she could not defend herself to the teacher, she sat back down and hissed in Sophronia’s ear. “You certainly won’t be invited to my ball!”

  Sophronia smiled. “My dear Monique, I never for one moment believed that I would.”

  “Unnatural girl!” Monique turned to glare across the room at Dimity, who had one gloved hand pressed to her mouth and dancing eyes.

  “And you! Why would I let you come either? Who are your parents? Nothing more than scientists who can’t decide which side they’re on. Not to mention the way you dress, like some market doxy!”

  Dimity’s eyes instantly filled with tears, and she let out a whimper, mouth still hidden under her hand.

  Sophronia sprung to Dimity’s defense. “As opposed to an eighteen-year-old girl who is only now having her coming-out ball, who failed to finish properly, and whose parents are quite probably in trade?”

  All the girls in the room gasped. Even Professor Braithwope was rendered momentarily speechless by such cutting remarks.

  The vampire recovered his power of speech. “Ladies! Manners, whot?”

  Dimity mouthed “Thank you” at Sophronia, which earned her a harsh look from the vampire.

  After that, class settled down, but something in the atmosphere had changed. As the class practiced walking up and down hatboxes, swinging skirts to conceal weapons in as elegant a manner as possible, Dimity came to stand firmly next to Sophronia.

  Professor Braithwope noticed and was perturbed, but he continued the lesson. “Any vampire may be addressed properly as ‘venerable one.’ Alternatively, you may use his title, if an aristocrat. All queens have titles; they are given a baronetcy if not already holding, although that has not been necessary for centuries. Very few women survive being bitten, so rarely is there a new queen. This is why there are always fewer female drones than males.”

  Sidheag raised her hand at that and asked, “Why bother?”