Winged Magic

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1882-1

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1882“Mina, you must help me!”

The door opened and a girl came rushing into the small bedroom.

For the moment she was too intent on what she was saying to notice the behaviour of the girl she was speaking to.

Then. when she saw that she was weeping, she said in a tone of consternation,

“What is the matter? What has upset you? It’s so unlike you to cry.”

She ran across the room and put her arms around her friend who was seated on the bed with her hands up to her face.

“Tell me what is wrong. I have never seen you like this before.”

Christine Lydford’s voice revealed her concern and her dark eyes were soft with compassion.

Very pretty with her dark curly hair and white skin, Christine just missed being beautiful, but she had a fascinating look of mischievousness about her expression that enchanted most people who saw her.

With a dimple on either side of her mouth, she always seemed to be laughing and she was undoubtedly the most popular girl in Mrs. Fontwell’s Seminary for Young Ladies.

Mina, who she was speaking to, made an effort to control her tears and then, taking her hands from her face, stammered in a tragic tone,

“My – father is – dead!”

”Oh, Mina, I am so sorry!” Christine exclaimed. “But how has he died and where?”

“I have had a letter from my Uncle Osbert,” Mina replied, “to say that Papa – caught something called – ‘sandfly fever’. He ran a very high temperature, there was no qualified doctor in that part of Egypt and – he died before my uncle could reach him.”

“I am so so sorry.”

Christine knew as she spoke what a blow this would be for her friend for Mina’s mother had died a year earlier.

Mina had told her that her father was so miserable and lost without his wife that he had gone off to Africa to study the wild life and in particular the birds, because as a hobby he was an ornithologist.

Mina therefore had been sent to school.

Someone had told Sir Ian Shaldon that Mrs. Fontwell’s was the best school for girls and he had sent his daughter to Ascot where the school was situated to await his return.

Mina had at first been lonely and intimidated by the other girls.

She had lived a very quiet life with her father and mother in the wilds of Lincolnshire and had never spent much time with companions of her own age.

She had therefore been grateful when Christine Lydford was kind to her and they had become close friends.

Actually Christine was nearly a year younger than Mina, but no one would have guessed it for in appearance Mina looked little more than a child.

Christine, owing to the fact that not only was her father, Lord Lydford, extremely rich, but she was an heiress herself having been left money by her grandmother, had a sophistication that Mina certainly lacked.

The other girls at the school had at first been amused at what they thought was Christine’s patronage of a new girl and then surprised when they became inseparable friends.

It was undoubtedly Christine who led, while Mina followed, but they were nicknamed ‘the inseparables’ and there was no doubt that Mina was protected from a great deal of subtle bullying by Christine.

Mrs. Fontwell’s Seminary was very different from any other school.

To begin with she only accepted pupils who came from the Nobility and, while her fees were exorbitant, she certainly gave good value as regards luxury if nothing else.

The pupils who could afford it were allowed to bring their own lady’s maids with them, have their own horses in the stables and pay for so many extra lessons that their bills increased term by term.

Nevertheless there was a waiting list and Mrs. Fontwell’s unusual methods of education, which made her the envy of other schools, certainly paid off.

Mina, as Christine sometimes said teasingly, had only been accepted by the skin of her teeth because her father was no more than a Baronet and, as her bedroom was one of the smallest in the school, it was obvious that the fees Mrs. Fontwell received from her were on the lower scale.

Christine, on the other hand, not only had a large bedroom with two windows overlooking the garden but also a sitting room attached to it.

Her lady’s maid turned her out looking so elegant that most days she might have been attending a garden party at Buckingham Palace rather than sitting in the classroom.

Mrs. Fontwell saw to it that even the classrooms were different.

Some of them were sitting rooms where the pupils when they were studying poetry or literature sat around in armchairs and there were no desks to give a scholastic appearance.

One of the most important rooms in the school was the ballroom where twice weekly the girls received dancing lessons from experienced teachers.

This, of course, was an extra like fencing, swimming and badminton, as were music, ballet and art.

In fact Mina, who could afford very few extras, often wondered what exactly was included in the basic fee.

Now, with a worried expression in her gentian blue eyes and her lashes wet with tears, she stuttered to Christine,

“It is not only that Papa is – dead which is making me so – unhappy – there is – something else.”

“What is it?” Christine asked.

“I have had a letter from my uncle – and so has Mrs. Fontwell, saying that, as Papa was in – debt when he died, I have to find myself some – form of – employment.”

Christine looked at her in astonishment.

“You mean you have to work?”

Mina nodded.

Then the tears came again as she sobbed,

“Mrs. Fontwell has a – suggestion as to what I should do – but I cannot bear it and yet I suppose I shall have to – accept.”

“To do what?” Christine asked.

She could hardly believe what she had heard for it was inconceivable that any of the girls at the school should ever have to work for their living or indeed in the world which Christine lived in be anything but wealthy.

Because at the moment it was impossible for Mina to speak, Christine merely tightened her arms around her to say,

“I am sure it is not as bad as you think it is. Tell me exactly what has happened.”

With an effort that somehow seemed pathetically brave, Mina wiped her tears away and after a moment said,

“My Uncle Osbert, who is the Colonel of his Regiment, says that now Papa is – dead and has left no – son, our house belongs to – him and he intends to – close it up.”

“Why should he do that?” Christine asked angrily.

“He is not married and is always with his Regiment and, of course, as he says in his letter, I could not live there – alone.”

“It sounds to me a rather high-handed, if not brutal way of behaving,” Christine remarked. “Go on.”

“He then said that he would settle Papa’s – debts, but all he could give me was an – allowance of fifty pounds a year until I – married, when I would – receive nothing.”

Christine made an inarticulate sound of disgust, but she did not interrupt and Mina went on in a small rather frightened voice,

“He then said that I must find – employment of some – kind and in his letter to Mrs. Fontwell he suggested that perhaps I could teach – children.”

“And what did the dragon’ say to that?” Christine asked.

“She said that I could stay here and teach the younger girls painting and music – and also look after their rooms.”

Christine stiffened.

“You mean wait on them as a maid?”

“I think that is what she – intends,” Mina replied, “because she said that she had wanted for some time to dismiss Miss Smith and, if I looked after the rooms, it would save the – wages of a – housemaid.”

“I have never heard of anything so disgraceful!” Christine cried angrily. “You are quite right, Mina. You could not bear it. We all know how she treats Miss Smith!”

As she spoke, the girls were thinking of the very junior mistress who was always in trouble with Mrs. Fontwell and trembled in front of her employer like a frightened rabbit.

Everything Miss Smith did was wrong, she was snubbed, scolded and found fault with until all the girls in the school were sorry for her.

At the same time, as they were also frightened of Mrs. Fontwell, who they called ‘the dragon’, no one was brave enough to stand up for her.

Christine was well aware that if Mina took Miss Smith’s place she too would be reduced to a frightened trembling wreck.

“It is something you certainly cannot do,” she said positively, “and you will have to tell the dragon so before she sacks Smithy.”

“That is another thing that is – upsetting,” Mina said in a low voice. “I asked Miss Smith a little while ago why she did not – leave and she said that she is an orphan and had – nowhere to go to. She was certain, if she did try to find another position, Mrs. Fontwell would not give her a reference.”

”That woman is a tyrant!” Christine asserted. “And, although poor Smithy has to put up with her, you certainly will never stay here in such conditions.”

“What else – can I do?” Mina asked in a frightened voice.

“You will come with me!”

Mina looked puzzled and Christine added,

“That is what I have come to tell you. I am leaving!”

“Now? At once?” Mina asked in a puzzled tone. “But the term has only just started.”

“Yes, I know,” Christine agreed, “but if you have had a disturbing letter, then so have I.”

Mina gave a little cry.

“I have been so selfish in talking only about myself! Tell me what has upset you.”

“It’s not exactly upsetting,” Christine answered, “but I did come to ask for your help. However, although mine is a difficult problem, yours is far worse and I intend to solve it for you.”

Mina gave her a watery little smile.

“You are so kind. But, of course, I must not– impose on – you.”

“You would never do that,” Christine said, “but let me tell you first why I am leaving.”

Mina wiped her eyes again almost fiercely with her handkerchief. Then, as Christine took her arm from her, she turned sideways on the bed so that the two girls were facing each other.

Christine drew in her breath as if what she had to say was very momentous.

Then she began,

“I have had a letter from my stepmother saying that Papa has been appointed Governor of Madras and she has to leave immediately to join him in India.”

“I am so glad about your father,” Mina exclaimed. “I am sure that it is a very important position and you must be very proud.”

“I would have been more pleased if he had taken me out to India with him as I wanted him to a year ago,” Christine replied. “But now it’s too late. I have plans of my own.”

Mina looked puzzled and then her friend gave a little laugh.

“Not that being in India would have been as amusing as it sounds. My stepmother would have seen to that!”

Mina knew how Christine hated her stepmother and was convinced that since she married Lord Lydford she had done everything to prevent him from being as fond of his only child as he would have been otherwise.

“As you know,” Christine went on, “when Papa first went to India, he was travelling about the country on a special mission for the Viceroy and he thought that owing to the heat it would be too tiring for Stepmama. Now she is going to Lord it as a Governor’s wife and she will put up with a great deal of discomfort for that!”

She spoke somewhat spitefully in a voice that Mina hated and instinctively she put her hand on her friend’s arm to say,

“Go on telling me what has – happened.”

Christine smiled.

“I know you dislike my ranting on about Stepmama, but wait until you hear the whole story.”

“That is what I want you to tell me.”

“Because she is going to India, Stepmama has made arrangements that I should leave here.”

“Leave?” Mina exclaimed in horror.

She thought that, having lost her father, if she had now to lose her only close friend, her life in future would not only be very lonely but empty.

“She informs me,” Christine went on, “that I am to go and live, properly chaperoned of course, with the Marquis of Ventnor.”

“But why?” Mina asked. “Is he a relation?”

Christine gave a scornful laugh.

“Not legally. He is in fact Stepmama’s latest beau!”