Their dinner arrived just then, a beaming Mrs. Brewster herself bringing it. “You’re lucky to meet our Miss Abney, Mr. Newell. That school of hers keeps her away too much of the time. She’s a good friend to the inn and to Fenwick.” She patted Patience’s arm. “And good of you to pitch in like you are, Patience. Mr. Brewster is that impressed with it. ‘Never gets above folks, does Miss Abney,’ he said. ‘Dun’t ask charity even when she deserves it more than most. Willing to do her share.’”
Mortified as the innkeeper’s wife waddled off, Patience stabbed a fork into her pork pie.
“Well. You have supporters here, it seems.”
“The Brewsters are good folk. They see Fenwick on Sea as the next Brighton—don’t laugh! That may sound ambitious, but they are shrewder than you might think. The sea, with proper accommodations, could draw merchant families, and their concern that Fenwick provide refinement and real culture along with recreational activity is to their credit.”
“She sees your school adding that air of culture?”
Patience couldn’t hide her amusement. “Somewhat. I come once a month to tutor the servants here in elocution and, yes, reading. The Brewsters and some other town folk meet over dinner to talk about projects such as bathing facilities or sailing races in the summer. Folk truly would like to draw musical talent or a theater as well. I like feeling part of it; as if we’re building something.”
“I’m impressed.”
“I won’t say you should be, at least not yet. But someday.”
Their dinner had disappeared without talk of the boys. When Alice meekly brought tea, casting a wary eye at Mrs. Brewster, they ordered apple tarts, happy to linger.
“You never explained about January,” Newell pointed out.
“You may have gathered some of it. An orphaned charity case, a boy that can’t or won’t talk, smaller even than he is now… He couldn’t survive Spraggins.”
“You mean that literally?”
“I came upon Headmaster Bartram beating him with a staff as thick as your thumb—tiny January. It’s how I met Stump, actually. He was also a charity student and had assumed protection for January. He leapt at Bartram and got beaten around the head for his trouble.”
“You inserted yourself into it.” He said it with an absolute approval that filled her with pride.
“I did. I got a nasty welt on my cheek for my trouble, but he stopped and ordered me to leave him to it. I refused. He fired me on the spot, making it clear he didn’t care who my uncle was. I left and took Stump and January with me.”
“You got away with that?”
“It skirted legality, but truthfully the Spraggins so-called school was happy to be rid of the three of us. I sometimes fear the parish might come looking for them, but I doubt it.”
Astonishment suffused her dinner companion’s expressive visage. “Where did you go?”
“Home to the vicarage. Papa is used to all of us bringing home strays. He might have kept us, but I had ambitions.”
“Clearly! You are a wonder of nature, Miss Abney. Did your father help you found your school? I thought you called him impoverished.”
“You don’t miss anything, Mr. Newell. No. Not Papa. I did something I had never done before. I went to my cousin who had succeeded as earl. We knew each other from childhood for all we grew up in different worlds. Herbert listened politely. Laughed. And let me know his charity had limits. He gave me a ninety-nine-year lease on a small unentailed property just north of Fenwick on Sea, with a paddock, a pole barn and a ramshackle house just big enough for a boy’s school on the condition I never ask for more. I haven’t.”
“And the other boys?”
She shrugged. “Here and there. Walter and Peter were both tuition-paying students at Spraggins, God help them. It wasn’t difficult to convince their parents they would be better off elsewhere. Walter’s father had assumed he lied about treatment at Spraggins; Peter’s parents didn’t care, but when the boy begged to join us, they allowed it.”
“Did the school object?”
“Shrewd question. They minded losing paying students very much. Bartram never forgave me. When his hints about my honesty didn’t turn the parents’ mind, he fed rumors of immoral behavior. There was no rush of families to transfer to theAcademy.”
“No wonder the boys adore you.”
She waved the comment away. “Nonsense. They are just boys. My job is to civilize them.”
That made him laugh. “Cranford was a cozy family compared to Spraggins, but the job of civilizing boys went on vigorously there too. How do you manage it all?”
“Well enough. I have four day-students from Fenwick whose parents pay tuition. Froggy’s grandfather pays what he can, and Norb’s uncle as well. We raise chickens. The Queen’s Barque is a good customer for our eggs. A retired farmer and his wife come during the day to help and I do all the teaching. I would wish for a more advanced mathematics teacher and Latin for Peter, but we get by. I have plans to grow—or did.”
Memory of the roof coming down into the boy’s dormitory crushed her spirits. God only knew what she would find when they went back, and she couldn’t afford to brood about it until the storm abated.
