Page 2 of Lady Audacious
‘Most irregular,’ Miss Mackenzie said tutting, leaving Odile wondering if she was referring to Jed’s temporary presence in the dining hall or to Odile actually having the temerity to receive a letter.
Odile glanced at the missive Jed had put beside her plate. Sure enough, it was addressed to Miss Odile Aspen and written in a flowing hand that she didn’t recognise. Thinking it must be from a former pupil with news to impart, she broke the seal and gasped.
‘What is it, girl?’ Miss Mackenzie asked impatiently.
Odile didn’t respond immediately. Thinking she had misread, she scanned the contents more slowly for a second time before looking up at the headmistress, blinking.
‘It is from a firm of lawyers in Lincoln’s Inn,’ she said, staring off into the distance. ‘A Mr Sandwell of Messrs Sandwell and Sons invites me to call upon him at my convenience in order that I might learn something to my advantage.’
Miss Mackenzie looked most put out, and unless Odile’s eyes deceived her, a little anxious too. ‘It’s some sort of cruel prank,’ she said, ‘and you most certainly shouldn’t go. You will be disappointed.’
‘Well,’ Odile replied, recovering her composure as she folded the letter and slipped it into her pocket. ‘That’s as maybe, but I might as well go anyway out of curiosity if nothing else.’
‘If you have nothing better to do than to waste your time on a fool’s errand, you can be sure that I will find you an occupation.’
When did she not, Odile wondered, but she refrained from expressing that view. She also wondered why the headmistress had turned so pale. Odile craved adventure and this mysterious summons was as close to adventure as her dreary life was ever likely to get, so she would definitely call upon Mr Sandwell.
‘You will take care, my dear, won’t you?’ Miss Mackenzie, never the most affectionate of souls, placed a hand on Odile’s shoulder when they had finished their tea and stood up from the table. Odile blinked at her, wondering if her ears had deceived her. She could have sworn that Miss Mackenzie had just used an endearment. It was so unusual that she felt like recording the date in her journal.
‘Of course. I am only going to tidy the books away in the classrooms, Miss Mackenzie. I am sure I will not come to any harm.’
But Odile knew the headmistress had been referring to the mysterious summons from Sandwell and Sons, and wondered if she knew more about it than she was willing to admit.
At ten the following morning, Odile left the academy clad in the best of her grey dresses, thinking that anyone else would be hard pressed to tell the difference between it and the one she had worn the previous day. A small hat sat at a jaunty angle on top of curls that she had piled on top of her head but not pulled back into the tight bun that Miss Mackenzie deemed essential. Already she felt the curls slipping, their defiance in accordance with Odile’s state of mind.
The weather was as changeable as Odile’s mood—one moment gloriously sunny, the next cloudy enough to threaten rain—so Odile indulged in the extravagance of a cab to convey her from Hammersmith to Lincoln’s Inn. Deposited directly outside the doors to her destination, Odile paid her fare and alighted from the conveyance, filled with trepidation. She glanced up at the grand building with its glossy black front door and gleaming brass knocker and briefly wondered if she had come to the wrong place.
‘There must surely be some mistake,’ she muttered.
Only the thought of returning to her dreary routine and being obliged to tell Miss Mackenzie that she hadn’t found the courage to enter the premises drove her on. She sounded the knocker and the door was opened by a clerk, who gave her person an insolent look and demanded to know her business. Odile disliked being treated as an inferior and the clerk’s attitude drove her nerves away.
‘Have the goodness to inform Mr Sandwell that Miss Odile Aspen is here to see him,’ she replied, elevating her chin.
The clerk looked down his nose at her. ‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘I do not.’ She extracted Mr Sandwell’s letter from her reticule and showed it to the clerk. ‘Will this suffice?’
The man still looked highly dubious but opened the door wider and beckoned her inside. ‘Wait in here,’ he said with the minimum of civility, indicating a small and cheerless little room. ‘I will enquire if Mr Sandwell has time to see you.’
Odile sat on an uncomfortable wooden chair, tapping her fingers against its arms as she took in her surroundings. If this was the room in which the clients of such an apparently prosperous solicitor were ordinarily asked to wait, it did not inspire confidence. Its plain walls, empty fireplace and lack of basic amenities were rather unprepossessing. Odile closed her eyes and tried to think what changes she would make, given a free hand, to create a better and more welcoming atmosphere. It was a game that she often played, living the grand life vicariously through her imagination.
‘What the devil do you think you’re playing at, Cowper?’
Odile jolted out of her reverie when she heard the angry voice, at first thinking it was directed at her. Then she recalled that her name was not Cowper. But the clerk who had been so dismissive of her did answer to that name, it seemed.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Sandwell,’ he said. ‘I had no idea.’
An older gentleman whose whiskers were heavily threaded with grey and whose manner and avuncular smile instantly put Odile at her ease, walked into the room.
‘My dear Miss Aspen,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘This is the greatest pleasure, and I have waited a long time to enjoy it, I do assure you.’
Odile stood and returned his smile, taking an immediate liking to the gentleman. ‘Thank you, sir, but I am afraid you have the advantage of me. Until I received your letter yesterday, I didn’t know of your existence.’
‘That is a situation that I shall rectify immediately,’ he replied. ‘Come this way, if you please.’
Odile, more bemused by the warmth of her welcome than she was curious about her reasons for being summoned, walked past a room containing four clerks perched on high stools, scratching away with their pens. None of them looked up as she passed, presumably aware that gawping would be more than their positions were worth.
‘Now then, let’s make ourselves comfortable.’ Mr Sandwell led Odile into a large office with book-lined walls and full-length windows at one end. The sun had broken through the rain clouds and a thrush sat on a branch immediately outside, singing its heart out, which Odile took to be an auspicious sign. A huge desk with bundles of papers neatly piled upon it occupied the end of the room in front of the windows. Mr Sandwell ignored it and led Odile to comfortable chairs arranged around a decent fire the likes of which Miss Mackenzie would consider far too extravagant, accounting for the fact that teachers and pupils alike spent half the year with frozen fingers and toes and very often chilblains too. ‘Sit yourself down my dear, and make yourself comfortable. Cowper, some tea for my guest.’
