Page 1 of Lady Audacious
Chapter One
London, Summer 1819
‘Exactly so, Prudence. Cordelia stood to inherit nothing because she refused to flatter her father. Rightly so in my opinion. Being a king did not entitle him to his daughters’ unquestioning approval, and Cordelia stuck by her principles.’
‘That’s silly, Miss,’ Belinda said, tossing her head. ‘What harm could it have done for her to pretend she approved of her father, if that approval guaranteed her a wealthy and comfortable life? Don’t most women do that when they’re searching for a husband? Money and social position are their first priorities. It doesn’t seem to matter much what the men in question look like, provided they qualify in other areas.’
‘I think it a very great pity that the girls are obliged to be obsequious in order to stand any chance of inheriting anything,’ Beth said. ‘If they were boys, the inheritance would be carved in stone.’
Odile Aspen listened with pride as her class of senior girls entered into a lively discussion about the unfairness of the country’s inheritance laws. The debate had strayed away from King Lear’s daughters, but it was the last day of term so it seemed unimportant. Odile preferred not to temper their enthusiasm for any debate that encouraged them to express their individual opinions.
The bell sounded for the end of the final class of that year’s school, and this particular set of girls would be going home, never to return. They bustled from the room in a buoyant mood. Odile felt a moment’s regret at their leaving, but no more than that. She had taught them as much as they were ever likely to absorb, even if it wasn’t nearly enough to prepare them for life beyond the school gates.
Feeling a little disheartened—as she always did at the end of a school year—she left her now empty classroom, the sound of the departing girls’ excited chatter still ringing in her ears as she made her way up to her room on the second floor. She felt hollow, empty inside, as though life was passing her by. The small room had been her home since she herself had finished her education in this establishment but had stayed on to teach because the headmistress had a position to fill and Odile had nowhere else to go. With no experience of the world and no other way of making a living, it had seemed like an ideal arrangement.
She hadn’t known at the time, six years previously, that it would drain her soul and make her hanker after another sort of life—any life—that could never be hers. A life that was full of family, love and laughter—commodities that were sadly lacking in her own small world. Now, on the eve of her one-and-twentieth birthday, she felt deeply depressed, realising this was likely to be her life for the next forty years.
‘I have done nothing,’ she muttered, disgusted with herself for being so feeble.
Odile stood at her small window, watching the girls hugging one another as they made their farewells and were collected by parents in fancy carriages drawn by excellent horses and driven by liveried coachmen. All that ostentation would never entitle them to breach the boundaries of society’s elite, Odile knew, since they had committed the unpardonable crime of making their money through their own endeavours.
Odile could have told the ambitious parents that sending their daughters to Miss Mackenzie’s Academy for Genteel Young Ladies might afford them a good education but would do little to achieve their social ambitions. She wondered if the girls who were leaving today had already seen doors closed in their hopeful faces, accounting for the lively debate about the merits of King Lear’s daughters.
The school already had a sense of emptiness about it, even up here on the top floor where ordinarily only Odile and Miss Mackenzie herself ventured. Her accommodation was vastly superior to that of the rest of the teachers who lived two to a room in an annexe in the grounds during term time. Unlike Odile, they had families to go home to during the holidays. The favouritism that they assumed Odile enjoyed came at a heavy price, since she was constantly at the headmistress’s beck and call.
Odile contemplated yet another long summer with just Miss Mackenzie for company and her spirits sank even lower. The headmistress took advantage of Odile’s dependency upon her and Odile knew that complaining would result in the tedious lecture that the older woman trotted out at the least provocation. Teaching positions in respectable establishments were much sought after, Miss Mackenzie insisted. Odile was very lucky to have secured hers and had no cause for complaint.
And so Odile soldiered on for year after interminable year, keeping her mind occupied and ignoring the jibes often sent her way by the older girls who referred to her as ‘The Tree’. The other teachers more or less ignored her, thinking themselves superior simply because they were not stigmatised as orphans.
Odile was better read than all of them, and she liked to think that she was a better teacher too. She was certainly more in tune with the girls’ modern way of thinking and less concerned about adherence to rules that were often pointless, nearly always outdated and usually disregarded anyway by the majority of the girls. Odile kept up with current affairs and took every opportunity during the holidays to explore museums and art galleries, improving her mind and attempting to convince herself that she didn’t yearn for adventure.
She turned away from the window and caught sight of her reflection in the small mirror hanging from the back of her door. A round face and large silver-grey eyes stared back at her with just a hint of defiance. Her wide mouth curled upwards in a smile that supported that defiance. A defiance which she would never have dared to express to Miss Mackenzie for fear of losing her position and her home, such as it was.
She wondered if she had inherited her burnished gold hair from her mother. Did hers curl waywardly with a mind of its own too? Perhaps, but Odile assumed she would not have been required by her occupation to keep her crowning glory brutally scraped back into a bun so tight that it gave her a headache. Still feeling defiant, Odile removed the pins and shook her head, sighing with pleasure when the pressure was released from her skull and thick tresses tumbled down her back as far as her waist in a riot of unruly curls.
‘That’s better,’ she told her reflection, thinking she might even pass for being half-way pretty if she were ever allowed to wear anything that wasn’t uniformly grey. Her grey dress with its white collar was shapeless and made her look like an elderly housekeeper, as did the only two others dresses she owned. She longed for pretty things—silks, satins and lace—that she would never be able to afford and would have nowhere to wear them even if she could.
‘Self-pity does not become you,’ she told herself, searching about for an occupation that for once did not entail reading.
Miss Mackenzie would be expecting her downstairs for the traditional tea that they shared in the empty dining hall once the girls had departed. Sighing, she knew she would be made to regret it if she didn’t show her face. She could, however, express her individuality by leaving her hair the way that it was.
Miss Mackenzie offered a predictable scowl when she noticed Odile’s small act of rebellion. She pursed her lips and tutted her disapproval but refrained from comment.
‘Cook has managed not to completely ruin this cake,’ she said, picking up a large slice and taking an equally large bite from it. Miss Mackenzie was all for refinement, but didn’t practise what she preached, at least not when it came to food, which she appeared to absorb like osmosis and had a rounded figure to show for it.
Odile took up her seat across from the headmistress and picked up her napkin. She sipped at her scalding tea but had little taste for cook’s fruitcake.
‘A very satisfactory year,’ Miss Mackenzie said, just as she did at the end of every term. ‘Our girls are equipped to make their mark and we can be justifiably proud of cramming some knowledge into their vacant heads.’
‘A letter’s come for you, miss.’
Odile looked up in astonishment when Jed, the lad employed by Miss Mackenzie to do all the donkey work, stopped in front of her. She assumed the boy had made a mistake and that the letter had to be for Miss Mackenzie. No one ever wrote to Odile.
‘For me?’ She looked at Jed askance.
‘That’s wot Miss Fenchurch said,’ Jed replied, unable to read himself. ‘She found it on the hall table. Said it must have been overlooked wot with all the hubbub and I was to give it to you at once. So ’ere it is.’
Having said his piece and scratched his head for good measure, Jed sent a longing look at the cake and scuttled away again.
