She heard Miss Tall say, as the two walked away, “Properly finish, my dear? What makes you think there is any way for you to finish at all, now?”
Sophronia decided to forget Monique for the time being.
“Well, it certainly appears that you two have had a very exciting journey,” said the nun.
“We didn’t faint!” protested Dimity. “Or, rather, Sophronia didn’t faint. I did, but only after we rescued Monique from the flywaymen! She told it all backward!”
“Do you have witnesses?”
“Well, my brother was there.”
The teachers exchanged looks. Apparently Pillover’s reliability was questionable. “A boy? I don’t know.”
“And there was the coachman.” Dimity would not let the matter rest.
“He was insensible for most of the event,” Sophronia pointed out.
“You’re a funny one, aren’t you?” The painted lady looked at Sophronia closely. “Why aren’t you defending yourself?”
Sophronia shrugged. “I have sisters. I know how this works.”
“Do you indeed?”
Sophronia said nothing else. Monique was covering up her trail as well as self-aggrandizing her own actions. Perhaps she’d given the prototype away to someone else beforehand. Sophronia intended to find out. What was the prototype, and where was it, and why did everyone want it so badly? Some new kind of device for producing tea inexpensively? In the Temminnick household, nothing was valued more than good quality tea.
Dimity opened her mouth to protest further, but Sophronia elbowed her in the ribs.
The painted lady said, “Shall we get on with official business? Where was I?”
The nun whispered something in her ear.
“Yes, of course! Welcome to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. I understand one of you is a covert recruit?”
Sophronia raised a tentative hand.
“Welcome, welcome! I’m Lady Linette de Limmone. I’ll be instructing you in music and several of the finer creative arts. This is Sister Herschel-Teape. She’s head of household management. And you are?”
“Sophronia Angelina Temminnick,” said Sophronia with a curtsy.
“Oh, dear,” said Lady Linette. “We are going to have to work on that curtsy.”
“Dimity Ann Plumleigh-Teignmott,” said Dimity, with a better curtsy.
I must ask her to teach me the way of it. It seems a powerful weapon, thought Sophronia.
“Ah, yes, Miss Plumleigh-Teignmott, we have been expecting you. Sister, if you would kindly get Miss Plumleigh-Teignmott settled. She knows everything already. Miss Temminnick, you’re with me, please.”
Dimity squeezed Sophronia’s hand. “Good luck.” She followed the dumpy nun out of the cavernous room.
The painted woman raised the lantern and looked Sophronia over.
“Well, well, let me see. You’re… how old, girl?”
“Fourteen, my lady.” Sophronia couldn’t believe that a woman with that much face paint was a real lady. Mrs. Barnaclegoose had a teacup poodle named Lord Piffle; perhaps Lady Linette’s was a similarly spurious title?
“Good bones, average height. I suppose there’s no hope of your growing into that chin?” Sophronia said nothing. “No? I thought not. Eyes, indifferent. Hair”—she tsked—“you’ll be wearing curling rags the rest of your natural life, poor thing. The freckles. Well. The freckles. I’ll have cook order extra buttermilk. But you are confident. Shoulders back, girl, when you’re facing inspection. Confident is something we can work with. And Captain Niall likes you.”
Sophronia withstood the criticism with only a slight frown. She put her shoulders back as ordered. What she wanted to do was comment on Lady Linette’s appearance. So far as Sophronia was concerned, the woman’s hair was too curly and her skin too white, and she smelled overwhelmingly of elderflowers. I wager she wouldn’t like it if I told her that to her face!
What she said instead was, “How do you know what the captain thinks of me?”
“If he didn’t think you’d suit, he wouldn’t have jumped you up. He has very good judgment, for a, well…” She paused, as though hunting for the right word.
“Werewolf?” suggested Sophronia.
“Oh, no. For a man. Now, child, come along. We have much to do, and it is getting late. I suppose you’re famished, and, of course, we’ll need to settle your luggage and such.”
“No luggage, my lady.”
“What?”
“Had to leave it behind with the flywaymen.”
“You did? Oh, yes, you did, didn’t you? How tiresome.”
“When I was driving the carriage.”
“When you were driving the carriage? I thought Miss Pelouse said…” A short pause. “Where was Miss Pelouse during all of this?”
“Well, either fainted in the road or crying in the carriage, depending on which point of the story.” All of it faked, if you ask me. But something kept Sophronia from volunteering that information.
“Interesting. Well, Beatrice will sort it all out.”
“What does she teach?”
“Worried, are you? You should be. Professor Lefoux takes a firm hand. Although she’s too fearsome for the debuts. You won’t have her until later. If you stay, that is.”
Sophronia noticed that Lady Linette had neatly avoided answering the question. What is Professor Lefoux’s subject? I still don’t know.
“Now, dear, we must press on. Do follow me.”
They emerged from the darkness of a passageway into the open air of one of the main decks—a wide semicircle of rough timber planks.
The school had floated quite high since Captain Niall had jumped them on board. It no longer bobbed through the low mists of the moor, but was instead well above them. Below now lay a mass of white cloud tops, and above was the starry night. Sophronia had never thought to see the other side of clouds. They looked as solid as a feather mattress. She clung to the rail, staring down, hypnotized.
“Amazing,” she breathed.
“Yes, dear. I assure you, you’ll become quite accustomed to it. I am pleased to see you are not afraid of heights.”
Sophronia grinned. “No, never that. Ask the dumbwaiter.”
And that was when the maid mechanical ran straight into her. It was a standard domestic model. Looking down at her feet, Sophronia noticed that the deck was inlaid with multiple tracks. However, like the porter mechanical at Bunson’s, this one had no face, but only inner moving parts, completely visible to the outside world. It also had no voice, for even after it bumped into her and stopped, confused in its protocols, it neither apologized nor asked Sophronia to move.
Lady Linette said, “Really, dear, do get out of its way.”
Sophronia did so, watching with interest as the maid trundled on to the other side of the deck, where a hatch opened and it disappeared inside.
“What was that?”
“A maid mechanical, dear. I know you’re from the country, but surely your family cannot be so backward as that!”
“No, of course not. My family has a butler, an 1846 Frowbritcher. But why doesn’t yours have a proper face?”
“Because it doesn’t need one.”
Sophronia was a little embarrassed, but it had to be said: “But her parts are exposed!”
“Mmm, yes, shocking. But you had best get accustomed to the style. Very few of our mechanicals are standard household models.”
They wended their way up several sets of stairs, into and out of long corridors, and over other decks—some of wood, a few of metal, and one that seemed, most illogically, to be made of stone. Sophronia had boarded the airship under the back section of the long dirigible caterpillar, and they now were crossing through its center.