Sophronia reached for her nose, wincing at the touch.
Monique stayed, expectant, her attention on Lady Linette. Monique’s posture was perfect, not a hair out of place. Her visiting dress was an expensive French design of printed blue muslin that looked almost like the pattern on Sophronia’s mother’s fine china. Her sleeves were wide and fringed. Perhaps the gown was a little too spring, but Sophronia realized with a jolt, they were headed into spring anyway. New Year’s was over.
A silent battle of wills occurred between Lady Linette and Monique.
The teacher nodded. “Very well. I pronounce you finished, Monique de Pelouse.”
The lovely blonde relaxed at that, as if she had been waiting a long time. Perhaps she had. Then, without another word, she strode from the room.
Lady Linette sighed. “Not that it matters anymore.”
Dimity said, bravely, “What about us, Lady Linette? Surely Sophronia deserves recognition, at the very least?”
Lady Linette gave a half smile. “She’s already finished, which I believe she knows.”
Sophronia nodded.
“And you and Miss Woosmoss as well, my dear. It was a brave rescue and a daring charge across the countryside on wolf-back. I could not have devised a more taxing exam.” Sister Mattie took pleasure in the pronouncement.
Lady Linette added, “Not to mention the initiative needed to seek help of a hive. Particularly after they once kidnapped you, Miss Plumleigh-Teignmott.”
Agatha smiled. “We’re finished?”
Dimity looked like she wanted to cry. “We’re really finished? Mummy will be so proud.”
Lady Linette patted Sophronia on the knee. “We shall overlook that you destroyed my entire school, shall we? Just this once, my dear. Try not to do it again to any other school, all right?”
Sophronia took the recommendation to heart. “I’ll certainly try, Lady Linette, but I’m not making any promises.”
That night was remembered in infamy as the Great Pickleman Revolt of 1854 and among the untutored masses as the Mechanicals’ Uprising. No household in England ever again employed mechanized staff. Most mechanicals were willingly destroyed in the space of six months. The government hunted down the rest. Bumbersnoot, the only mechanimal to survive eradication, was gifted to Queen Victoria in a secret ceremony. He was specially exempt from destruction. Due to Vieve’s modifications, he became the Royal Alarm Dog, in case mechanicals rose up again. Queen Victoria grew terribly fond of the little chap, and through him, dogs in general. As a result, the royal household kept a number of canines through the years, a passion that persists to this day. Rumor is that Bumbersnoot still rattles about, well loved and carefully tended, shedding small ash piles in Buckingham Palace—the old family retainer, just in case.
Poor Vieve never forgave England for the technological destruction. She stayed long enough to graduate with distinction from Bunson’s and then left in pursuit of further education at L’école des Arts et Métiers in France—still disguised as a boy. She eventually set up shop with her aunt in Paris, producing a respected line of domestic women’s gadgets, all of them highly functional and quite deadly. Sophronia, Agatha, and Dimity visited her establishment for all their needs—after all, ladies of quality always shop in Paris.
The school was demolished for scrap. There was no sign of Professor Braithwope, and no one ever saw him again. This was, perhaps, a good thing. If he survived, with so many kills under his cravat, even the most militant of hives would have called for his execution—he was no longer civilized. If, on occasion, Professor Lefoux returned from Paris, and took a long train ride, and then a long carriage drive far out into the wilds of Dartmoor, it was thought mere sentimentality for a life she had lost. If Swiffle-on-Exe heard rumors of a very odd hermit, no one connected the two. If, on the occasional evening, stories of that hermit wearing a top hat and waltzing with the rabbits percolated through the town, scaring schoolboys, he was thought no more than the local drunk. And then the local bogeyman. And then mere myth. For no one thought to wonder that their dancing hermit had lived a very long time, whot?
Mademoiselle Geraldine formally adopted Handle and saw him through medical training. Together, they immigrated to America—fewer vampires—where he wrote a popular, well-respected book in his later years entitled Plain Home Talk Embracing Medical Common Sense, directed at young ladies of quality. It went into multiple editions and allowed him to retire a wealthy man.