Stranje House A School for Unusual Girls by Kathleen Baldwin Stranje House, School for Unusual Girls Kathleen Baldwin, page 2 Chapter 1 Banished London, 1814 “I’ll wager Sir Isaac Newton’s parents didn’t pack him off to a school to reform his manners.” I smoothed my traveling skirts and risked a glance at my parents. They sat across from me, stone-faced and indifferent to my arguments. “Do be quiet, Georgiana.” With gloved fingers my mother massaged her forehead. Our coach slowed and rolled to a complete standstill, waylaid by crowds spilling into the road. All of London celebrated Napoleon’s capture and imprisonment on the isle of Elba. Rich and poor danced in the streets, rejoicing together and singing songs around makeshift fires. Their jubilation made my journey to exile all the more dismal. My father drummed fingers against his thigh and muttered curse words about our snail-like progress through London. Mother closed her eyes as if in slumber, a ploy to evade my petitions. She could not possibly be sleeping while holding her spine in such an erect formation. She didn’t even allow herself the luxury of leaning back against the squibs for fear of crumpling the feathers on her bonnet. Somehow, some way, I had to make them see reason. “This is a pointless expense. Surely you realize I have no more use for a schoolroom. Next week I turn sixteen, and since I have already been out in society--” Mother snapped to attention, suddenly wide awake. “Oh yes, Georgiana, I’m well aware of the fact that you have already been out in society. Indeed, I shall never forget Lady Frampton’s card party.” Stranje House, School for Unusual Girls Kathleen Baldwin, page 3 I sighed, knowing exactly what she would say next. “You cheated.” “I did not cheat,” I explained for the fortieth time. “It was a simple matter of mathematics. I merely kept track of the number of cards played in each suit. How else did you expect me to win?” “I did not expect you to win,” she said in clipped tones. The feathers on her bonnet quivered as she clenched her jaw. “I expected you to behave like a proper young lady, not a seasoned gambler. I doubt I shall ever be able to show my face in Lady Frampton’s company again this age.” “Counting cards is not considered cheating,” I said quietly. “It is when you win at every hand.” Trumped, I sighed and turned to stare out my window. A man with a drunken grin tipped his hat and waved a gin bottle, as if inviting us to join the celebration. He tugged a charwoman into a merry jig and twirled away. I envied him. “Peasants,” my mother huffed and brushed out her skirts. Peasant was her favorite condemnation. She followed it with a customary haughty sniff, as if breathing peasant air made her nose itch. Father consulted his pocket watch and grumbled. “Confound it all. At this pace we won’t get there ‘til dark. All this hubbub over that ridiculous little Corsican.” Never mind that during the last ten years Napoleon, the little Corsican, had embroiled all of Europe in a terrible war--my father was being inconvenienced, kept away from his hounds and hunters. Unfortunately for me, Napoleon wasn’t present to receive his proper share of the blame. So, Father furrowed his great hairy eyebrows at me, his only daughter. The leather seats creaked as I Stranje House, School for Unusual Girls Kathleen Baldwin, page 4 shifted under his condemning frown. He wasn’t a bad sort, my father. So long as I didn’t bother him, he ignored my eccentricities and looked the other way. Today, however, he scowled at me. I’d wronged him. Regrettable, but true. A good share of blame for this dratted journey rested squarely on me, but certainly not all. “Surely you can’t hold me responsible for these impassable roads.” He growled in response and thumped the ceiling with his walking stick to get the coachman’s attention. “Move along, man. Blast it all! Get this trap rolling.” “Make way,” the coachman shouted at the throng and cracked his whip. Our coach lumbered forward with slightly more haste. As we plodded by, I studied the crowds milling on walkways and cobblestones. Happy people jostled one another, laughing and singing, while I sat confined in gloomy silence on my way to be imprisoned at Stranje House. With a loud huff my mother exhaled. “For heaven’s sake, Georgiana, stop gawking and sit back like a proper young lady.” Considering my present circumstances I had little choice but to obey. Although, I doubted I had the capacity for behaving like a truly proper young lady, at least not enough of one to please her. By the time we passed the outskirts of London and veered northwest, the sun hung low, too weak to burn through the haze. Periodically, fireworks lit up the darkening sky over the river like eerie orange lightning. After what seemed like hours we turned off the road onto a bumpy drive. The coach stopped and the footman jumped down to open a creaking iron gate. I leaned forward to get a glimpse of my prison. A rusting placard claimed the old manor was Stranje House, but I knew better. This wasn’t a house. Or a school. This was a cage. Stranje House, School for Unusual Girls Kathleen Baldwin, page 5 “I don’t need to go here. Truly, I don’t.” I hated the pleading quality creeping into my voice. Mother laced her fingers primly in her lap and glanced in the other direction. I cast my pride to the wind and bleated like a lamb before slaughter. “I promise to do exactly as you ask. Best manners. Everything. I’ll even intentionally lose at cards. I give you my word.” They paid me no heed. Stranje House loomed larger by the second. It seemed as if our coach bumped along faster than before. Was the coachman running the horses full out? Faster and faster we rumbled up the drive, until the speed of it made me feel sick to my stomach. The sprawling Elizabethan manor crouched on scraggily unkempt grounds. Dead trees stood among the living and stretched skeletal hands toward heaven. The old manor’s roof formed a black silhouette against the darkening sky. Its sharp peaks seemed like jagged scales jutting up from a dragon’s back. Fog and smoke swirled around the boney beast. Clasping my hands together to keep from shaking, I turned to my parents. “You can’t mean to leave me in this dilapidated old mausoleum. You can’t.” They refused to meet my frantic gaze. “Father?” “Hound’s tooth, Georgie! Leave off your grousing.” No reprieve. No pardon. No mercy. My heart sped up. Aside from occasional visits to my grandfather, or my uncle, this was my first trip away from home. I’d be on my own -- banished to this bleak heap of stones. All too soon our coach rolled to a stop in front of the dragon’s dark gaping mouth. Suddenly, I found it difficult to breathe. A very stiff butler opened the front door. I climbed out of the coach on wobbly legs, and followed him and my parents up a wooden staircase to the headmistress’s office. I held my head high as befits a woman going unjustly to the gallows. Every step carried me further from Stranje House, School for Unusual Girls Kathleen Baldwin, page 6 freedom, further from my home. He ushered us into a cramped dimly lit study where we seated ourselves on small uncomfortable chairs. The walls were lined with towering bookshelf. More books rested in haphazard piles on the floor, stacked like druid burial stones. Concentrating on anything, except my fate, I sat behind my parents and focused on the books nearest my chair. A decidedly odd assortment of titles, a translation of Beowulf, atop Lord Byron’s scandalous tale about vampires, The Giaour, beneath that lay John Donne’s sermons and a text on French mathematicians. Under other conditions I would’ve been itching to look in that last one. At the moment I could scarcely keep from gnawing my lip unto the point of drawing blood. The headmistress, Miss Emily Stranje, sat behind her desk, mute, assessing me with unsettling hawk eyes. In the flickering light of the oil lamp, I couldn’t tell how old she was. She seemed ancient one minute and youthful the next. I guessed she might’ve been pretty once, if it weren’t for her shrewd measuring expression. She wore her wavy brown hair pulled back in a severe chignon, but stray wisps defiantly escaped their moorings, giving her a wild animal-like appearance. I refused to cower under her predatory gaze. If this woman intended to be my jailer, I had to stand my ground now or it would be forever lost. “It was an accident!” I blurted and immediately regretted it. The words sounded defensive, not strong and reasoned as I had intended. My mother sat perfectly straight, primly picking lint off her gloves as if my outburst caused the bothersome flecks to appear. She sighed. I could almost hear her oft repeated complaint, ‘why is Georgiana not the meek biddable daughter I deserve.’ Miss Stranje arched one imperious eyebrow, silently demanding the rest of the explanation, Stranje House, School for Unusual Girls Kathleen Baldwin, page 7 waiting, unnerving me with every tick of the clock.