Still, she had Dimity.
As if in reply to this thought, Dimity grinned at her. “I’m glad you’re with me. I was so nervous about coming in alone. Everyone will know one another already.”
Sophronia crouched down and squeezed her friend’s hand. She was glad she had crouched, for with very little warning, the platform rocked from side to side and began to rise toward the airship above.
Monique gave a squeak of alarm as the jolt almost tumbled her over the edge. Acting as if it were all her idea, she also sat.
The platform picked up speed until it was racing along briskly. The underside of the airship looked to be of solid wood and metal construction. Our skulls would definitely not win any kind of encounter with it! Sophronia resisted the urge to raise her arms above her head to shield herself. Monique was sitting, unflinching, and Sophronia wasn’t about to give the girl any more ammunition.
She and Dimity exchanged terrified glances.
At the very last minute, a hatch snapped open directly above them and they sped inside the ship, out of the freezing evening air and into warm darkness.
The platform stopped. The hatch snapped shut behind them. All was black. After the violence of the wind, the sudden stillness was overwhelming.
Sophronia’s eyes adjusted quickly. They were in a large, cavernous room, like a barn, with beams and supports indecently exposed all around them. It was curved, however, like the inside of a very large rowboat.
They heard the chattering first: amiable but argumentative female voices. Then across from them, a door opened, and a beam of yellow light spiked through. Three silhouetted figures entered, one after another, all garbed in the voluminous dress of a modest upper-class Englishwoman. The first was of medium size and medium build, with a halo of blonde curls; then came a tall woman; and lastly a short, dumpy female.
Miss Medium held a lamp and was by far the best looking, although this fact was well-hidden under a quantity of face paint that might embarrass even an opera dancer.
Dimity was charmed. “Look at her cheek rouge!”
“Her what?” Sophronia was shocked. One ordinarily didn’t expect such an application of powder, except from women of ill repute. What kind of finishing school has a lady of the night on staff?
“Rouge—the red stuff on her cheeks.”
“Oh! I thought that was jam.”
“Oh, really!” Dimity tittered obligingly.
The short, dumpy female was wearing a religious habit of some approximation. The robes had been cut and pinned into a facsimile of modern dress, full skirts, ruffles, and all. Over her head she wore a hat that was part lace floof, part wimple.
Miss Tall was the only one of the three who actually looked the part of a teacher. Sophronia adjusted her assessment from merely “tall” to “impossibly angular.” Like a human hatstand. This woman was severely dressed, with a face that might have been pretty if all the lines resulted from smiling rather than frowning. As it was, she looked like a stoat with gastric problems.
Monique stepped down off the platform and approached the three women. “You said it was a simple retrieval operation. No danger!” She was not speaking in the manner of a student to her superiors.
The nun said, “Now, dear, please don’t carry on.”
“ ‘No difficulty finishing, Monique.’ That’s what you said!”
“Well, dear, it was your exam.”
“It’s a very good thing that I can keep a cool head in a crisis! We were attacked by flywaymen! I had to take measures to get us out of there safely.”
“Explain,” barked the tall one. Her accent was French in a way that suggested it was not fake. “And take off that ridiculous wig.”
“The coachman was incapacitated, and those two panicked.” Monique removed her wig, revealing that she was a blonde, and gestured with it at Sophronia and Dimity. “I had to take charge of the carriage and enact a daring escape. Unfortunately, we had to leave our belongings behind.”
Sophronia was flabbergasted by this parade of outright lies. Monique definitely had some kind of secondary agenda. What’s going on here?
Dimity said, “Oh, I say! That’s not at all what happened.”
“Those two made consistent errors in judgment and protocol. They even fainted at the wrong moments. They’re entirely at odds with me. I can’t think why. I’ve been perfectly civil to them the entire time. I believe that they want to take all the credit for my intelligent actions. They clearly don’t want me to finish!”
“What?” said Sophronia, so shocked she was moved to speak.
“Look at her, all innocence! She’s the crafty one. I’d watch her if I were you.”
“She’s lying,” said Sophronia flatly; there was no other response possible.
The painted woman interrupted. “The particulars matter not at this juncture. The question is, Miss Pelouse, do you have it?”
Monique gestured to her torn dress. “Of course I don’t have it! I’m not so idiotic as to keep it on my person. As soon as I realized what it was, and that you’d given me a dangerous finish, I secreted it away in a private location.”
Sophronia understood the undercurrent of that statement. She expected us to be attacked by flywaymen all along.
The bony female craned her neck forward and hissed, “Where?”
Sophronia frowned, trying to remember a time when Monique might have hidden something.
Monique shook her head. “Oh, no. When I’m properly finished, then I’ll tell you.”