Etiquette & Espionage (28 page)

She saw a boot twitch as if it wanted to head out and trip her a second time. The boot was of peach-colored kid leather, with pink ribbons for laces and a shockingly high heel. The person attached to it was Monique de Pelouse.

Monique smiled sweetly at her and then turned and said in a very loud voice, “Isn’t it
so intelligent
of Miss Temminnick to wear blue? With her complexion, it really is the only safe color. How unfortunate the dress couldn’t be cut a tad more modern, poor dear.”

Sophronia, stewing gently in annoyance, went to sit at the other end of the table.
Why does Monique impose upon us,
she wondered,
just for torture? I know she’s been demoted, but I’m certain she could still sit with the senior girls. Give them the benefit of her scintillating conversation.

“Don’t worry, Sophronia,” said Monique, “I’m sure no one saw your gaffe.” At which Preshea tittered obligingly.

Sophronia didn’t point out that Monique had tripped her, as she knew it would only sound defensive.

Dimity said, “You’re not usually that clumsy.”

“No, that’s
my
role,” added Agatha with a shy smile.

Sophronia looked down the table at Monique. “You’re right, I’m not.”

Monique wasn’t finished, either. After tea, distracted by the prospect of a quadrille lesson with Mademoiselle Geraldine during which they had been instructed by Lady Linette to try passing secret messages without being caught by the headmistress, Sophronia and the others neglected to notice that Agatha wasn’t with them. The poor thing wasn’t
exactly
a friend, but they did try to keep an eye on her, as they might Bumbersnoot.

When Agatha finally joined them, some ten minutes late to class, her eyes were red. Mademoiselle Geraldine gave her a stern talking-to on the subject of tardiness, which started her crying.

“Now, dear, there is no use wasting tears on me; I’m not a man. Besides, you are clearly not the kind of young lady to cry with any form or grace. Your skin becomes blotchy.”

Monique slid into the room gracefully at that juncture and glided to the back of the assembled girls without being observed. She was used to manipulating Mademoiselle Geraldine.

“Yes, Headmistress,” Agatha replied, trying to stop her tears.

“No, no, not with the sleeve. Dear, how many times do I have to tell you? You must never wipe any part of your face with your sleeve. That is what a handkerchief is for. And even then we dab. Ladies
dab
! Where is your handkerchief?”

Agatha fished about hopelessly in her reticule.

“No handkerchief, Agatha Woosmoss? What kind of young lady of
qualit-tay
are you?”

“I am sorry, Headmistress.”

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Mademoiselle Geraldine turned to face the class. “Ladies, where do we always stash a spare handkerchief?”

“In our décolletage,” sang out everyone in unison.

The headmistress smiled brightly, tossing her red curls and thrusting her own substantial décolletage forward as if in agreement.

“She could stash a whole cotton mill in hers,” Sophronia whispered to Dimity.

Dimity pursed her lips to stop herself from laughing.

Mademoiselle Geraldine continued, “Show me, ladies!”

Obligingly, all the girls reached into their cleavage and pulled out squares of fine muslin. Being only thirteen or fourteen, few had sufficient cleavage to fish handkerchiefs out of, except Monique. Sidheag was a veritable beanpole. Sophronia felt her own wasn’t bad. Preshea, of course, was perfect. Dimity said she thought the smaller girl stuffed. “You understand. With rosemary sachets.” Dimity described herself as “lamentably undersized.”

Sidheag seemed to be having difficulty following Mademoiselle Geraldine’s instructions.

“Lady Kingair, where is your handkerchief?”

“Well, blast it. I put it in. It seems to have slipped down inside my corset.”

Mademoiselle Geraldine fanned herself. “Lady Kingair, there is no need to go into detail. A lady of
qualit-tay
does not mention such a thing out loud.”

“What? What did I say?” Sidheag was genuinely confused.

“Corset,” hissed Sophronia.

“Miss Temminnick! Not you, too.”

“I beg your pardon, Headmistress.” Sophronia executed an almost perfect curtsy. This seemed to mollify Mademoiselle Geraldine.

“She doesn’t have enough to hold it up, Headmistress,” said Monique.

“Hush now, Miss Pelouse. We do not talk about another lady’s endowments in public. Lady Kingair, my dear, did you put the handkerchief in before or after you laced this morning?”

“Before; otherwise I forget,” Sidheag answered promptly.

“Well, you must wait to put it in after. Then it won’t disappear on you. Miss Temminnick, lend Miss Woosmoss your spare, please? Then at least she will have something. Now, ladies, where was I? Oh, yes, the quadrille.”

Agatha took her place in the set with Sidheag and Dimity. Sophronia stepped in to be her partner and passed her the handkerchief. Agatha stuffed it down her bodice with a muttered “thank you.”

“Ladies, we begin with the
Le Pantalon
. And a one, two, three, four. Step forward, salutation to your partner—no, Miss Buss, you’re playing the man, remember? You bow.” The headmistress was making up the fourth in the other set with Monique, Preshea, and a mop dressed in a hat. They were having a much more difficult time trying to pass notes back and forth without her noticing. The mop, of course, was of absolutely no help.

“What happened, Agatha? Are you feeling quite the thing?” Sophronia asked when the dance permitted conversation.

“It’s nothing to concern you.”

“Let me guess—Monique?” While she talked, Sophronia
slipped Dimity a small, folded bit of paper. There was nothing on the paper; it was only for technique.

Sidheag said, “I saw that.”

Dimity whispered, “Perhaps note-passing is better done during
L’été
?”

Agatha said, answering Sophronia’s question, “She’s evil. And not in a good way.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing of import.” Agatha’s face was red. “Not for
you
, anyway.” The way she said it implied that Sophronia was somehow to blame.

They moved on from
Le Pantalon
to
L’été
. As Dimity had predicted, it was easier to pass the notes, but Agatha kept dropping hers. Every time she did so, everyone had to stop the pattern while she looked under her full skirts to try to find the scrap of paper. It was decidedly
not covert
. They had to pretend she was lacing her boot.

At the end of the hour, Mademoiselle Geraldine clapped her hands to get their attention. “That was adequate, ladies, but only adequate. You are to practice the first two sections of the quadrille ten times over this evening. In our next lesson, we will move on to the
La Poule
, so I expect you to have the
Le Pantalon
memorized.”

“Do you think,” Sophronia wondered to Dimity as they left the headmistress’s classroom, “that she realizes she is saying ‘the’ twice?”

Dimity raised an eyebrow. “Why, Sophronia, are you implying Mademoiselle Geraldine is not actually French? Shocking suggestion.”

“Any more than Lady Linette is a lady?” added Sophronia.

“Oh, come now, she could be a lady, you can’t be certain of that. After all, Sidheag is a lady, and no one would ever have guessed
that
.”

“Oh, thank you very much, Dimity,” said Sidheag from where she stalked along behind them.

Dimity tilted her curly head back and over one shoulder, looking up at the tall girl with a cheeky grin. “Oh, don’t pretend to be offended. I’ve figured you
all
out now. You’ll take that as a compliment. You don’t really
want
to be a lady. That’s your whole difficulty.”

Sidheag muttered something about who would want to be a lady when she could be a werewolf, which everyone politely ignored. Such an idea was patently ridiculous. Everyone knew girls couldn’t be werewolves.

It was Dimity who found out what happened to Agatha. Dimity might not be very good at finding out anything about prototypes, or world domination, or next day’s tea cakes, but she certainly had an ear for gossip.

“Did you hear Monique cornered Agatha in the hallway this afternoon? Apparently she said she wondered how someone of Agatha’s vulgar proportions even got admitted to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s. She said that Agatha probably wouldn’t be asked back after the winter break, even if she did come from a long line of intelligencers. She said you would take Agatha’s place, since there was no one better.”

“Oh, dear, no wonder Agatha was mad at me. It’s not true, is
it?” In normal finishing schools, the general attitude was the more students the better, but this one was different.
Perhaps on an airship number restrictions have to be followed.

Dimity chewed her bottom lip. “It’s possible. Not that you’d take her place, but that she might not make it through. I don’t mean to be unkind, but she really isn’t very good. She might be better off at a real finishing school, and even then… I mean to say, hav {n t that yoe you
seen
her? It’s not so much her figure as her confidence.” Dimity shook her curly head in sympathy. “If only her posture were improved.”

They heard a little gasp from the doorway and looked up to see Agatha’s round, crestfallen face as she ducked away.

“I thought you closed that!” Dimity said to Sophronia, horrified.

“I thought I did, too. Perhaps she’s not so bad an intelligencer as you thought.”

Dimity was clearly upset with herself. Dimity was many things, but no one would call her mean-spirited. “Should I go after her, do you think?”

Sophronia sighed. “Perhaps we both should.”

They went to knock on the other girl’s door. Sidheag opened it, wearing a sour expression.
Well, more sour than usual.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“We came to apologize.” Dimity looked hopeful.

“Well, it’s a bit late for that.” Sidheag crossed her arms over her bony chest and glared at them.

“Oh, don’t take that attitude with us, Sidheag Maccon. We know you’re not so bad as you make out.” Sophronia pushed
past the taller girl and into the room. Dimity followed, shutting the door firmly behind them.

Agatha and Sidheag’s chamber was much the same in structure and layout as Sophronia and Dimity’s. Which is to say it was small, with two beds, two wardrobes, and a vanity with a wash basin, and not much else. It did not, however, have Dimity’s touch. Dimity’s touch in their sleeping chamber involved draping brightly colored silk scarves on all the surfaces and pinning sparkly glass brooches to them. Sophronia didn’t mind, although she did think it made the place look a little like an opera singer’s boudoir.

Dimity approached the bed where Agatha lay facedown in a hunch, head buried in her pillow. “I’m sorry, Agatha, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Agatha didn’t move.

Sophronia came over and said, “Couldn’t you let us help you, just a little bit? I mean, we are
trying
with Sidheag.”

Sidheag snorted.

“Well, we
are.
She helps us with boy-type stuff, and we coach her in how to be a girl.”

Sidheag snorted again.

Sophronia gave her a look. “Well, we
do
. You’re simply bad at it!”

Dimity patted Agatha on the back. “We could do it with you, too.”

Agatha sniffed and rolled over. Her face was, as Mademoiselle Geraldine had pointed out, very blotchy indeed. “But what ca
n I exchange?” she asked shakily.

Sophronia and Dimity grappled for a reply.

Finally Sophronia said, “You’re good at sums and calculating household management. I heard Sister Mattie compliment you the other day. And we could all use help being more mild-mannered. You are particularly good at
that
.”

Dimity came in to assist. “Yes, I talk too much, and Sophronia is overly bold.”

“How kind of you to say, Dimity.” Sophronia raised her eyebrows.

“And of course Sidheag is perfectly hopeless,” added Dimity.

“Yes, thank you, Dimity.”

“Well, it’s true!” Dimi {tru>

Agatha started to chuckle damply. “There you go, talking too much again, right, Dimity?”

“See, that’s the spirit!” said Sophronia.