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‘For women, too?’
She faltered, glancing at Robert for support. He was standing a small distance away, looking out of the window as if he weren’t part of the conversation at all. How was she supposed to answer such a question? He might offer her some clue... Did he expect her to betray her real opinions and lie?
‘I believe that everyone has the right to an education, sir.’ She tried to keep her tone as respectful as possible.
‘Ha! Now you do sound like my daughter. She wants to start a school for the children who work in my yard.’
‘But that sounds like an excellent idea!’
‘Not a proper school,’ Violet explained hastily. ‘Just a room where they can come for an hour every day to learn how to read and write.’
‘Don’t let Felstone hear you say so!’ Harper gave a rasping laugh. ‘If he buys the yard those are his workers you’ll be taking away from their duties.’
‘Oh...I’m sorry, Mr Felstone.’ Violet seemed to diminish visibly.
‘Not at all, Miss Harper.’ Robert turned towards them at last, though his expression was unreadable. ‘It sounds like a laudable idea.’
‘Laudable?’ Harper barked. ‘So you wouldn’t mind losing a third of your workforce every day?’
‘I’d mind very much, but there are ways that it could be done. I’ve no objection in principle.’
‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t.’
Ianthe bristled indignantly, answering back without thinking. ‘I think that my husband’s done very well to achieve what he has without a formal education.’
‘Indeed he has.’ Harper regarded her sternly. ‘Though there are some things a man can’t learn by himself. Birth and breeding will out, Mrs Felstone.’
‘Of course.’ She swallowed a further retort. ‘And believe me, Mr Harper, I know how much my husband values good breeding. He was very keen to impress that upon me when we first met.’
‘Mmm.’ Harper looked slightly mollified. ‘And of course, marriage is a reforming influence. Just as long as it’s to the right woman. Who were your parents?’
‘My mother was a gentleman’s daughter from Pickering and my father was a gentleman himself.’ She had a feeling that describing him as an artist wasn’t going to raise the old man’s opinion. ‘Though he painted a little, too.’
‘Indeed? I thought he must have been in business. How else did you two meet?’
‘How?’ She baulked at the question. Robert had mentioned something about saying they’d had a long-distance courtship, though she hadn’t thought to discuss the details. Now she wasn’t sure what to say, but she had to say something!
‘We met through my brother,’ she ventured at last. ‘I lived with him after my parents died. He works as a clerk in an insurance company and, as you know, my husband does a great deal of business in London.’
There. She felt a rush of satisfaction. That was true, sort of. They had met through Percy, even if not in the way she implied.
‘You’re an orphan, then?’ The old man reached out a hand suddenly, grasping his daughter’s in a surprisingly firm-looking grip. ‘My Violet lost her mother when she was born. That’s why there’s only the two of us. Now she takes care of me.’
Ianthe smiled politely, feeling a spontaneous rush of sympathy for the other woman. Somehow she doubted that Violet had ever been given a choice about that.
‘Very well then, Mrs Felstone.’ Mr Harper gave an approving nod. ‘You may stay for tea. See to it, Violet.’
* * *
‘I know how much my husband values good breeding?’ Robert grabbed Ianthe’s waist, swinging her up and around in a circle the moment they were out of sight of the house. ‘It was all I could do to keep a straight face.’
‘Really?’ Ianthe looked surprised. ‘I’d never have known. I wasn’t even sure you were listening.’
‘Do you blame me?’ He lowered her back down to the ground, marvelling at how light she felt in his arms. ‘If I hadn’t kept out of it then I might have told him what I really thought of his breeding.’
‘So I was respectable enough for you?’
‘Above and beyond. You’re full of surprises, Mrs Felstone.’ He let go of her reluctantly, moving away as a man in a strangely familiar brown jacket rounded the corner of the street. ‘Now shall we take a walk down to the shore? I’d like to blow the cobwebs away. That house always makes me think of a graveyard.’
