Rebel With A Cause

Miranda’s family were used to a certain position in society. But things were about to change . . .

MIRANDA gazed at the kedgeree in front of her, her heart sinking as she heard a rustle of silk enter the room.

“There you are!” “Good morning, Mama. And where else should I be but at the breakfast table?”

“I had thought you might be in your room, reflecting on your behaviour last night. Your father is displeased with you.”

“Papa’s always displeased with me, Mama,” Miranda pointed out. “There seems to be no help for it.

“Anyway, I was perfectly civil to that odious man.”

“Don’t be pert with me, Miranda! Your behaviour showed a lack of decorum!”

“Decorum!” Miranda muttered under her breath.

“Yes, my girl, decorum! It took your father weeks to arrange last night’s party.

“You had no business to sabotage it in that way!”

“No business?” Hot roses were rising in Miranda’s cheeks.

Her mother cautioned her with a look as Marie came in with a rack of hot toast.

“No business?” Miranda hissed again as Marie removed the empty milk jug and left the room hurriedly.

“How can you say I had no business?

“It would be me who would have to face that man each day at breakfast, and me who would endure his dreary tales at dinner.

“As for waking to see his bulbous nose and popping eyes on the pillow beside me each morning . . .” She shuddered. “Not to mention his clammy hands.”

“Miranda, do not be so vulgar.”

“He’s ancient, Mama.” Lady Samantha grasped her daughter’s delicate shoulders beneath her thin wrap as though to shake her, but loosened her grip suddenly and changed tack.

“It’s normal for a husband to be a little older than his wife,” she began in a more conciliatory tone. “He must guide her and protect her.”

“A little older?” Miranda shrugged her mother’s hands off her shoulders impatiently.

“He must be five-andtwenty years older than I – possibly more.”

Her mother gave an artificial laugh, though she looked as though she was doing rapid calculations in her head.

“He’s probably older than you,” Miranda added hotly.

“You do exaggerate,” her mother said, narrowing her eyes. “Besides, you must marry someone.

“And soon,” she declared.

“Mama, for heaven’s sake, this is 1903. Women have their own lives and their own ambitions.

“And,” Miranda added, as her mother made to interrupt, “I am barely nineteen.”

Her mother sighed. “Exactly my point. How many of your father’s acquaintances have you now snubbed?

“We have not been invited to dine with Lord Arbuthnot once since you rejected his son so summarily. It was high-handed of you.”

“Would you have accepted such a man, Mama?”

“Lord Arbuthnot’s son?” “No. I was referring to last night’s brutish excuse for a man. Would you have accepted him when you were my age?”

Her mother gave a little start of indignation.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Miranda said in a resigned voice.

“You were surrounded by so many beaux that you could pick and choose, as you often remind me.

“Well, I refuse to marry him and there’s an end to it.”

“After last night’s fiasco I am quite sure he will not ask you. Your father is beside himself.”

There was a pause.

“If only you would do something with your hair,” Lady Samantha wheedled.

“You could at least let Marie put rags in it at night.”

“I could never consider a man as a potential husband who married me because I had curls, Mama,” Miranda retorted.

“Why can’t you accept that any man wants a pretty woman at his side?

“No man marries a girl for her brains, Miranda.”

“Then I shall remain an old maid, Mama. And very happily.”

Miranda glanced over her shoulder at her mother’s retreating silk skirts, which managed to convey her annoyance in their outspoken swish.

Then she stood up, went to her room to pick up her needlework box and made her way to the schoolroom.

The small room at the top of the house was still known as the schoolroom, even though Miranda’s two elder sisters were both married, and their parents had dismissed the governess as soon as Miranda reached fifteen.

Only her younger brother, Jolyon, who was seventeen, still had a tutor.

As Miranda let herself into the room, Mr Edward Fordcombe was frowning at Jolyon’s translation of the Latin text in front of him.

“You will never be ready for Oxford if you make basic errors with second declension nouns, Jolyon. You must knuckle down!”

Jolyon looked up and winked at Miranda, who sat down by the window and idly spun the old globe on the shelf beside her.

Mr Fordcombe sighed and looked at her.

“Good morning, Miss Miranda.”

“I hope you don’t mind if I sit quietly in the corner and embroider, do you, Mr Fordcombe?

“The light is so good from this window.”

“Not at all. We’re just about to start working on mathematics,” he replied with a small smile.

“What kept you?” Jolyon asked his sister, raising an eyebrow. “Fordy’s been keeping my nose to the Latin grindstone for ages – probably so you wouldn’t miss a mathematics lesson.

“Though why you should want to learn algebra I can’t imagine.” Miranda did not reply. “Jolyon,” the tutor began, “have you finished those equations I set you as preparation for this morning’s lesson?”

Without looking up from the desk, Jolyon held out an exercise book and Mr Fordcombe glanced down the columns, tutting briefly.

“I believe you dropped this yesterday,” Miranda said, reaching into her needlework box and retrieving a few sheets of paper covered with densely written figures, which she handed to the tutor.

“Thank you, Miss Miranda.” He glanced over the sheets and suppressed a smile.

“Excellent. I thought I’d lost them,” he added unconvincingly. Jolyon snorted. “When are you going to give up this charade you use to conceal the fact that Miranda is learning mathematics in secret?”

He looked up at the clock on the schoolroom wall.

“Speaking of which, I have an assignation myself. Would you excuse me a little early, Fordcombe?”

The tutor looked at Jolyon warily.

“How much earlier?” Jolyon smiled lazily.

“About now would be perfect, sir.”

“I couldn’t possibly agree to that, as you know full well. But ask your mama’s permission and I shall release you happily.”

“What if I were to let slip that Miranda was up here doing her embroidery? I doubt Mama would wish you to be together unchaperoned.”

“Jolyon!” Miranda spluttered. “How dare you suggest that I would need a chaperone?”

“I am merely concerned for your reputation. After all, we both know that our parents have great hopes for you.”

He adopted a high voice and gave a passable impression of his mother.

“You must marry, Miranda. And soon. Your father is relying on it!”

Jolyon resumed his normal voice and raised an eyebrow at Mr Fordcombe.

“And I can assure you, I’m afraid, that a tutor is not what she has in mind.”

“You wouldn’t tell Mama; I know you wouldn’t,” Miranda snapped, her voice not coming out as calmly as she had hoped. Mr Fordcombe frowned. “And I can’t let you go without teaching you, as you know. I can’t be a party to such an arrangement.”

“Oh, hang it all,” Jolyon said with a lopsided grin. “We’d better do some algebra then, if you’re determined to be awkward.”

“Page eighty-four,” the tutor said coolly.

Miranda lifted her embroidery hoop out of her box and glanced fleetingly at the start she had made on a tray cloth.

It was not making the progress her mother would expect. She had better do some actual embroidery this evening.

For now she took a small notebook out from under the strands of silk and opened it.

Algebra was her favourite branch of mathematics, and she lost herself in the

“How many of your father’s acquaintances have you snubbed?”

mesmerising perfection of the neatly balanced sides of the equations as she listened to Mr Fordcombe’s careful explanations.

His voice was slightly louder than was necessary, given Jolyon was sitting only a couple of feet away from him, so that she wouldn’t miss a single word.

Once or twice, when Jolyon was puzzling over a complicated exercise, the tutor looked over to where Miranda sat and raised his eyebrows to check her comprehension, and she nodded imperceptibly.

The hour designated to maths passed quickly, and it was with regret that Miranda gathered up her embroidery and put it back in her sewing box.

Mama would be expecting her downstairs to help arrange flowers or something equally dull.

Jolyon looked up as she left.

“Sure you don’t want to stay for Ancient Greek?” he asked with a trace of bitterness. “You could outshine me in that as well.

“What was the point in you getting all the brains in the family? You’re hardly going to need algebra when you’re married to some titled stuffed shirt that Pater digs up . . .”

****

Jolyon’s last words were still ringing in

Edward Fordcombe’s head as he gathered his books and papers after the morning’s tuition was over.

His shoulders slumped. If only things were different.

If your father had been different, do you mean, a voice in his head asked. If your mother had survived?

He squared his shoulders. It wouldn’t matter if things were different. Miranda would never notice him.

She had her sights set on higher things.

He’d never before come across a girl who preferred mathematics to dancing, or who would rather curl up with a treatise on philosophy than read a novel.

She had her heart set on going to Oxford, but he was sure her father would never allow it. If he refused to pay the fees, how could she go?

He’d been lucky. When he’d applied to Oxford he’d managed to win a scholarship, but did they even exist for women?

It wasn’t that long ago that women had first been admitted to the university at all, and even after all that fuss in Parliament they could only attend lectures and not yet be awarded degrees.

It was desperately unfair. He would willingly pay whatever it cost for her to realise her ambition, but a tutor’s salary did not run to such acts of gallantry.

Besides, he had other commitments.

Miranda had a better brain than any of the young men he’d ever tutored. She was certainly twice as clever as her brother.

She had a quiet beauty, with her calm grey eyes and smooth dark hair, that entranced him.

There were steps outside the schoolroom and the door opened suddenly.

“Mr Lansdowne,” Edward said in surprise.

He could not remember his employer coming up to the schoolroom before. “How can I help you, sir?” Henry Lansdowne looked over his shoulder and a moment later Jolyon appeared behind him, looking irritated.

His father gave a nervous cough and turned back to the tutor.

“I merely wanted to know how the boy was getting on. Oxford, you know. It must be time to approach them.

“Magdalen, I thought. My old college,” he added smugly. “Wonderful place. Sets young men up for life, you know.”

Edward did know. It was shortly after he left Oxford that his life had been turned upside down, and he’d applied – not knowing what else to do – for a job as tutor to a family of boys.

“Well,” Edward began cautiously, “Jolyon might be better advised to wait another year until his –”

“Wait? Why on earth should he wait? The sooner he finishes his education and gets on his feet . . .

“No, he doesn’t need to wait. I believe there are scholarships available, aren’t there? Didn’t it say in your references that you’d had one?”

“I did, sir, but –” “Well, then, that’s what we’ll do. There can’t be any doubt.”

His employer was looking around the room restlessly, and his eyes slid over the bookshelves and focused on the globe in the corner.

He walked over to it and gave it a spin, just as Miranda had done, and the thought of her gave Edward courage.

“I do not believe Jolyon is ready to apply for Oxford, sir. His grasp of Latin and Greek is not up to the level they would expect.”

“Not up to the level? Then you must concentrate on them for the next few weeks.

“Preparing my son for Oxford is your responsibility. You must ensure that he’s up to standard in all his subjects.

“He’s a highly intelligent young man; he’ll soon catch up.”

Edward swallowed. “We’ve been concentrating on mathematics, sir, as that also is a weak spot.”

“Weak, did you say?” Mr Lansdowne roared so loudly that Edward had to stop himself from stepping back from the man.

“I believe,” Edward said firmly, “that it would be wiser for Jolyon to wait.

“And,” he added, “to apply himself to his studies, sir.”

Jolyon, who had been taking an intense interest in the room’s threadbare carpet, suddenly interrupted.

“I’m not cut out for all this book stuff, Father. I can’t see the point.

“Why don’t you let Miranda go instead? She’s brighter than I am. She can hold up the family honour.”

Henry turned to his son, incredulous.

“Miranda? Have you lost your mind, boy? I have paid for years of tutoring.

“How do you think your sister would fare with only a rudimentary knowledge gleaned from that idiotic governess?

“The idea’s preposterous! Anyway, what would she want with all that learning?

“She’ll be married by the end of the year, if I have any say in the matter!”

“But you don’t,” a voice said from the doorway. “I wish to go to Oxford to study mathematics.”

Henry whipped round and glared at his daughter, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

Miranda glared back and stood her ground.

Edward watched her, an odd sensation in his chest. It felt like pride.

“What have you come up here for? You have no business in the schoolroom!”

“I came,” Miranda began, her voice still calm, “to see what all the noise was about. Mother was concerned.”

Edward watched as the two of them continued to glare at each other.

Then Henry glanced at Edward, who looked away quickly.

Henry coughed again and spoke more quietly.

“You cannot seriously imagine that I could countenance your going to university.

“I’ve read about the sort of women who go. Bluestockings to a man.

“Woman,” he corrected himself. “I’m not paying out good money for that.

“That’s not the sort of woman you want to be, Miranda,” he said more gently.

“Any man would be proud to have you as a wife.

“You haven’t been brought up to addle your brain at some university.

“Most girls of your age can’t wait to have a home of their own, and perhaps a title.

“Lord Hurstwood’s son is keen, and your mother has invited them to luncheon next week. Now, be a good girl this time, won’t you?”

“A title?” Miranda repeated, rolling her eyes. “What good is a title? I can’t see how it will affect you whether I marry a lord or a labourer.”

“Wouldn’t a toff or a tutor be more accurate?” Jolyon muttered.

Edward glanced sharply from his employer to Miranda, wondering if they had heard Jolyon’s aside.

Miranda’s cheeks were tinged with pink and Edward shot a warning look at Jolyon, who grinned wickedly.

“In any case,” Mr Lansdowne continued, evidently unaware of the exchange, “I came to discuss Jolyon’s future, not yours.

“Be good enough to go back downstairs and help your mother. She has a good deal to do, now there is only one housemaid.”

Jolyon’s head flew round to look at his father. “Who’s left?”

It was not an idle question and Edward raised an eyebrow.

He hadn’t known anyone was leaving the house. Not that he was always aware of what was going on with the servants.

His position was neither part of the family nor one of the servants, but he saw enough of the two housemaids and the cook to hear most of the belowstairs gossip.

“Is she being replaced?” Jolyon asked casually, recovering his composure and, Edward thought, steering the conversation away from his own future.

“That’s your mother’s department,” his father said abruptly. “Now Fordcombe, as I was saying to you . . .”

Father and son remained in the schoolroom for another half hour until the gong sounded for luncheon, and Edward was able to return to his own room.

No sooner had he shut the door than there was a knock and Marie entered with a tray.

“Shall I put it down over there, Mr Fordcombe?” she said, nodding towards the small table by the window.

“That will be fine,” Edward said, following her and sitting down, watching as she removed the cover from the dinner plate to reveal a generous helping.

“I told Cook you were fond of chops, so she gave you extra,” Marie said, smiling coyly.

So it wasn’t Marie who’d left then. Jolyon’s apparent anxiety at the loss of one of the housemaids in the schoolroom earlier floated back into Edward’s mind.

Perhaps his pupil had a particular interest in one of the housemaids.

This one, probably, judging by the smiles and dimples she was currently displaying.

The other – was her name Minnie? – had been older, Edward thought.

“Did I hear that Minnie had left?” he asked casually, taking a bite of potato.

Marie needed no encouragement.

“You did, Mr Fordcombe,” she said at once, giving him a meaningful look.

“She left yesterday. Gone to her sister’s who don’t live too far away. In tears, she was.

“She’d been here nigh on ten years. And no proper reason given.” Another significant look. “Mistress said now that it was a new century and there was more laboursaving devices, she don’t need so many servants.” She tutted. “Labour-saving devices! I suppose she means that carpet sweeper she bought a few months back.

“And it don’t clean as well I do with a dustpan and brush!

“What sort of reason’s that in all conscience? If you ask me, it’s money as is at the bottom of it all.”

“They mean to economise, you mean?” Edward asked.

“Indeed, Mr Fordcombe. There have been a few penny-pinching orders given lately.” “Really?”

“Oh, no-one calls them that, but why else would you turn a hard-working housemaid away?

“Cook was told not to serve lobster any more, and the mistress even told me not to light the fire in her sitting-room.

“Cook’s worked in several houses, and she says that if the mistress tells her not to buy beef, she’ll start looking for a new situation.”

Marie went away, leaving Edward to his thoughts.

It was unlike Mr Lansdowne to mention money, even obliquely, yet he had been insistent that Jolyon should apply for a scholarship, and that he wouldn’t pay for Miranda to go to Oxford.

Could Marie be right? Perhaps he should start looking for a new situation himself.

His tenure here would be short-lived when Jolyon either failed to make it to Magdalen, or – as seemed increasingly likely – refused to go.

He had a small sum saved – enough to see him through three or four months, if he was careful.

He supposed he could go to his father’s elder brother for help; his uncle James would not see him out on the street.

The last time Edward had seen his uncle had been at his aunt’s funeral, where James had made it clear that he disapproved of his brother’s lifestyle, revolving as it did around the local public house.

They had barely spoken since.

Lady Samantha was at her desk in her sitting-room examining a sheaf of bills.

She shivered and drew her shawl around her shoulders. Even though it was June, the room was chilly.

She could go into the drawing-room, where there would be a fire, but she didn’t wish to be disturbed. Particularly not by her husband.

But it was he who interrupted her minutes later, and with only a cursory knock on the door.

“It’s like an ice-house in here,” he said, throwing himself into her armchair. “Why hasn’t Marie lit the fire?”

“I asked her not to,” his wife said coolly. “We can barely afford the coal.”

“Oh, hang the coal!” her husband replied irritably.

“I’ve checked the accounts,” Samantha admitted. “We must economise.

“I am struggling to see where all the money is going.”

“It’s not a wife’s business to worry her head with the accounts, Samantha,” Henry blustered. “You must leave that to me.”

“It seems I can’t. I’ve already sent Minnie away; I can’t manage without Marie as well.”

“There’s no question of that, Samantha.”

“In that case, why can you not pay some of these bills?

“My allowance is covering more and more each month. I can’t wear the same hats for ever, Henry.

“Why can’t you use some of the money my father settled on me when we married? He was generous.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t want to think I couldn’t afford a fire in my own sittingroom!” Her cheeks were pink and Henry hesitated.

“We have often said that we must not fritter it away, but I can’t manage this house on a pittance!” she cried.

“You must allow me some more of what is, after all, my money.”

Henry flushed red. “We agreed when that ridiculous bill was passed that we would leave our financial affairs as they were, and that I would look after our money.”

“My money,” Samantha said under her breath. Then, louder, she added, “We were newly married when the Married Women’s Property Act was passed.

“My father begged me to put the money in a separate account. But I was young and in love, and –”

“And you’re not any more?” her husband growled.

Lady Samantha shut her eyes briefly.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said sadly. “But where has all the money gone?

“You must have spent most of it or we wouldn’t be in this fix.”

Henry looked out of the window thoughtfully.

“I have made a number of contributions to good causes. We can’t only think of ourselves, my dear.”

“Is all of this about your wanting a title?” Samantha asked, raising her voice.

“Have you been throwing money at charities favoured by the King so you’ll get a knighthood, for pity’s sake?”

“It’s all very well for you,” Henry said savagely. “You inherited a title! I am married to Lady Samantha, but I’m just plain ‘mister’. It’s humiliating.”

Samantha looked at him in disbelief.

“Will you promise to stop trying to buy a title?” she asked. “Will you promise not to pay large sums into these ‘good causes’?”

“Oh, yes,” Henry replied bitterly. “I can promise you that. Because there’s none of what you insist on calling ‘your’ money left.

“I don’t know where I’ll even get enough to pay Jolyon’s fees at university. Lansdowne assures me that he won’t get a scholarship!”

“None left? What will we do?” Samantha asked, her voice hollow.

“I should never have let Alice marry a clergyman. They’ll be no help to us. There’s only one thing for it.

“You’re going to make Miranda marry someone rich. And quickly,” Henry finished.

****

The next day Miranda was surprised to find that her mother was up, had

breakfasted and was tapping her fingers impatiently on the table.

“There you are!” she said, glancing at the clock. “I have rung the bell three times for Marie and there’s no sign of her.

“I’m beginning to think I should have kept Minnie and got rid of Marie.”

“What do you want Marie for, Mama? Is it something I can do for you?”

“It’s hopeless having only one maid,” her mother said, looking closer to tears than Miranda had ever seen her.

“Are you unwell, Mama? Should I call the doctor? Is that why you want Marie?”

“No,” her mother said crossly. “I wanted her to find your brother.

“Jolyon still hasn’t had breakfast, and he should be in the schoolroom in twenty minutes. I’ll go myself.”

“I can go – you don’t look yourself. I’ll make sure he’s up and dressed.”

Miranda left the room and made her way upstairs, wondering what her mother was so upset about.

It was clearly more than the fact that her son might miss his classes.

She had almost reached the landing when Marie appeared at the top of the stairs, pinning her cap on as she ran.

She came to a halt when she saw Miranda and stood back to let her pass.

“Morning, miss,” she said, out of breath.

“My mother has been ringing for you, Marie,” Miranda said. “Where have you been?”

She watched the maid closely.

“She wanted you to find my brother, I believe. To see why he’s so late for breakfast.”

Marie was blushing and Miranda’s heart sank. There was no reason why the girl should be on this landing before breakfast.

“You had better go downstairs. And straighten your cap.”

Jolyon came to the door when she knocked, a wide grin on his face.

“I suppose you’ve come to chivvy me down for breakfast so I won’t be late for my mathematics lesson.

“I couldn’t make head nor tail of yesterday’s equations,” he said happily, “but never mind. Not for much longer!”

“I thought Mr Fordcombe said you should wait a year before going to Oxford?”

She had clung to those words like a life raft. If Jolyon needed a year’s tuition, then she could go on seeing Edward each day.

It didn’t matter that he barely noticed her – she could continue to drink in his words, admire him from afar and, of course, be better prepared for Oxford herself.

But now it sounded as though Jolyon was going to Oxford this year after all.

Miranda hadn’t realised how much she was relying on knowing Edward was never far away.

If Jolyon was gone, then Edward would go, too.

She suddenly saw how much her days were measured by seeing him, by sharing smiles when no-one was about, by knowing he was close.

How had she not realised how much he occupied her thoughts?

Jolyon was waiting for a reply. She hadn’t a clue what he’d been saying.

“So when are you off?” she asked.

“Three days’ time,” he said happily.

She frowned.

“But the term doesn’t start until October.”

“Have you heard a word I’ve been saying?” Jolyon asked, still grinning.

“I’m going to Italy,” he explained slowly. “Father has decided that I’m too immature to go to Oxford this year.”

He pulled a face of mock outrage.

“I’m off to Italy to finish my education. I’ll be gone for a year.” His eyes were shining with excitement.

“And your precious Mr Fordcombe is coming with me!”

To be continued.