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You will be busy too and will soon make friends. Come, let us go to the window, and you shall wave to him.”
    As she expected, his lordship gazed towards the house before climbing into his carriage. He saw his daughter and waved back. Then the coachman urged on the horses, and soon they were out of sight.
    Miss Hartwell took Isabel up to her bedchamber and introduced her to two of the girls she was to share with. They were sisters, one her own age, the other sixteen and in her last year at school. Isabel was polite, solemn, and uncommunicative, and the others soon stopped trying to draw her out. After making sure the eldest was helping her to unpack and put her clothes away, Miss Hartwell left them.
    As she closed the door, she heard the younger sister whisper, giggling, “She has red hair!”
    “Hush,” said the older repressively. “Miss Hartwell has red hair, too. I have seen her without her cap and it is monstrous becoming, I assure you.”
    So much for eavesdroppers hearing no good of themselves, thought Amaryllis. As she passed the door of another chamber, she heard the voice of the fifteen-year-old new girl.
    “Tell me again about the teachers. Now I have met them I shall know who you are talking about.”
    Guiltily but irresistibly, Amaryllis halted and stayed to listen.
    “Miss Tisdale, that’s Tizzy, is shockingly strict. Mrs. Vaux is a dear. We call her Gardens because of Vauxhall Gardens, but she is the one who should be called Tizzy because she gets in a terrible tizzy if something goes wrong. Miss Tisdale stays calm through anything. Then Miss Hartwell, she is sort of aloof, if you know what I mean. But she’s kind, they are all kind. If I was in trouble like, oh if I had broke my leg or something, I would go to Tizzy.”
    “If you had a broken leg, you would not go anywhere.”
    “Well then, if you broke your leg. Tizzy would know what to do. But if I was really in the briars—if I was really unhappy—I should go to Miss Hartwell because I think she has been unhappy herself and she would understand.”
    Miss Hartwell continued down the stair with a thoughtful expression. Aloof, but kind and understanding—not a verdict she could quarrel with. A perceptive young woman, though her mode of expression had been far from elegant. Mrs. Vaux—Gardens—must set her some extra exercises in polite conversation.
    For the next couple of days, Amaryllis was busy working out a schedule of classes as they gradually sorted the girls into groups with comparable abilities in various subjects. By Thursday all was running smoothly.
    That morning she was in the music room, teaching Isabel Winterborne her first notes on the piano. The room ran the length of the house on the ground floor, with tall windows and French doors opening onto the back garden. Besides the pianoforte, it contained a harp, a couple of cabinets to hold music, and a large number of straight chairs.
    Isabel was picking out a five-note tune when Daisy knocked and came in.
    “It’s Miss Louise Carfax, miss. Her uncle just brung her, that’s Lord...” she peered at the card in her hand.
    A large figure appeared behind her and plucked the card from her hand.
    “That’s quite all right, m’dear,” said a deep, lazy voice. “I’ll announce m’self.”
    “I axed your lordship to wait below,” said the parlourmaid indignantly.
    “M’niece is waiting below, and you,” he pointed at Isabel, “may go and keep her company, miss, if you please. I want a word with Miss Hartwell, alone.”
    Isabel looked up at her teacher to find her gaping in stunned wonder, as if the large, fair gentleman were a ghost, while he held the door for her in a polite but definitely insistent manner. She slipped off the stool and left the room with all the dignity she could muster.
    As the door closed firmly behind her, Miss Hartwell found her voice.
    “Bertram!” she gasped.

 

Chapter 4
     
    “My dear girl , you are as white as a sheet.” Lord Pomeroy’s long