Gail Carriger - Etiquette & Espionage

She and the other debuts packed what few necessities they needed, knowing full wardrobes and shopping jaunts awaited them at home. They made their way to one of the main decks of the midsection of the ship alongside the other students. The deck soon became crowded with giggling girls, full skirts, and assorted fripperies, not to mention hatboxes, carpetbags, and parcels. Sophronia wormed her way to the front and watched with interest as the school came down so low as to allow a long, automated staircase to drop out from under its mid-deck. She bent herself double and nearly tumbled over the railing in an effort to see how it was managed. Sophronia spotted three sooties cranking it down and waved to them discreetly.

Carriages awaiting receipt of students were assembled on a sweeping brown patch of moor between the two schools. Some contained eager parents, but most were staff awaiting charges. There was also a large coach-and-four intended to take some dozen or so girls to the nearest train station.

Sophronia strained to see her own family crest—a hedgehog on the field of battle—on the side of a carriage. It was nowhere in sight, even with binoculars. Vieve had lent the binoculars to her on a semipermanent basis, a consolation prize from the young scamp upon taking back her obstructor. “To be sure,” the girl had said, “I need it far more than you, stuck on this ship all on my lonesome for the next two weeks. Here, take these instead.”

“Miss Temminnick, remove yourself from that indelicate position!” Lady Linette’s voice resounded from the other side of the milling throng.

Sophronia shied back from the rail. With a puff of steam and a clang of machinery, that very rail folded away, leaving the students faced with a long, rather grand, staircase-meets-ladder contraption.

It was a precarious descent for the girls, particularly the debuts, having to navigate a bobbing and shifting staircase with proper poise and carpetbags, but they managed it without upset—even Agatha.

Only when she was safely on the ground and milling through the flamboyance of the waiting conveyances did Sophronia spot their transport.

“Over here, Miss Sophronia!” Her old chum Roger the stable lad stood and waved at her from the farm’s pony and cart. It was terribly embarrassing; they would be traveling some fifty miles by cart. What if it rained?

Dimity, however, being a dear, sweet thing, said nothing disparaging. She declared in a shaky voice that it would be exhilarating to travel so far with an open top.

“You’re Miss Dimity?” asked Roger. “I’m to collect a Miss Pelouse as well. She here?”

“Oh, must we? Couldn’t you forget to, Roger, please?” asked Sophronia hopefully.

“More than my job’s worth, miss. Herself gave explicit instructions.”

At this juncture, Monique came up behind them and had histrionics. “Your mother sent us that ? Guests at a ball, and we must travel all day in that!”

“You invited yourself, Monique. You might have ordered your own transport. I suspect our carriage was needed for more important guests arriving from town at the station.”

Monique sputtered and, after much fuss, allowed Roger to haul her into the cart, only to sit with her back ostentatiously presented to all.

Sophronia looked back up at the school through her binoculars. She could just make out, peeking out a bottom hatch of the forward section, two small faces, one black and the other that of a grubby child, accompanied by madly waving arms—Soap and Vieve seeing her off in their own inimitable way. Well aware that they probably could not distinguish her in the crowd, she nevertheless waved gamely back.

Sophronia looked beyond the ship. She was certain the specks were closer, and equally confident they represented flywaymen.

“Ready, miss?”

“By all means, Roger.”

Dimity yelled, “Oh, wait, I forgot! Pillover. Can we bring him? I suspect Mama might have forgotten he needs a lift. She can be very absentminded when she’s being evil.”

Sophronia shrugged. “He’s small. All right with you, Roger?”

Roger was game. “The missus said to make certain to collect all of you, not that I couldn’t arrive with extras.”

Dimity scanned the crowd for her brother. “Oh, where is the furuncle?”

“Look for a crowd of Pistons,” suggested Sophronia.

“Oh, Pillover isn’t a member. He’s not dashing enough.”

“Did I say I thought he might be? There!” Sophronia pointed to one side, where a group of boys stood with indolent posture and dark attitude. They were all dressed in browns and blacks, their hair was slicked back with too much pomade, and there were evening top hats on their heads—even though they were not yet presented and it was not yet teatime.

“Who do they think they are?” wondered Sophronia.

“Pistons, of course,” replied Dimity.

Each boy wore a brass-colored ribbon about his hat and had a gear affixed to his waistcoat. One or two had some kind of decorative protective eyewear perched atop the brim as well. They all wore riding boots, although not a single saddle horse was to be found.

Sophronia said, in tones of mild shock, “Some of them look like they are wearing face paint.”

“Kohl, about the eyes,” explained Dimity.

“Roger, head toward those boys over there, would you, please?”

“The pansies, miss?” said Roger.

“I wouldn’t let them hear you say that if I were you.”

Roger guided the pony toward the group in question with an ill-disguised look of contempt.

Pillover was, indeed, at their center. He was sitting atop a small trunk, shrouded in his oversized oil coat and battered bowler, reading a grubby book while the boys around him heckled him as though he were an emu at the zoo.

Their behavior, however, altered drastically the moment a cart full of girls drew up alongside.

“Lord Dingleproops?” said Dimity in a very snooty tone of voice. “What are you doing to my brother?”

A lanky young man with ginger hair and a less than aggressive chin doffed his hat at Dimity and said, with a cheeky smile, “Simply having a bit of fun, Miss Plumleigh-Teignmott.”

His eyes scanned the cart, arrested briefly by Sophronia—who looked at him directly, without flinching, in a most unladylike manner—and then moved on to Monique. Monique, in the style of all older girls when faced with younger boys, pretended the entire crowd of Pistons did not exist. Her attention remained fixed on the road ahead, a pose that emphasized her fine features and the slenderness of her neck.

Sophronia remembered what Pillover had said about them. Nasty chaps. One or two of them were, unfortunately, good-looking. She exchanged glances with a dark-haired, pale-faced boy with sullen lips and a petulant expression. He met her gaze and then looked away, restless, like a wild creature. Sophronia thought he was beautiful. His almost gawky quality reminded her of Captain Niall. Was he what the scandal papers might call werewolf bait ? She said nothing to any of them. They had not been introduced. Instead she smiled her prettiest smile at Pillover.

What Sophronia did not know, and had yet to learn to control, was that her smile was rather more powerful than most. The face she saw in the mirror each morning was passingly pretty, if not terribly thrilling, but when she smiled with the full force of her personality behind it, she came over vibrant and striking. It was one of the reasons Monique disliked her so.

Pillover responded to the smile by closing his book and grinning back. His own dour expression, so obviously a mask for worry, briefly dissipated.

“Coming to the ball, Mr. Plumleigh-Teignmott?”

“Ball? If you insist.” Pillover slid off his trunk, and Roger jumped down to help him load it into the cart.