[X] A picture out of Better Homes and Gardens Magazine
Erina Pendleton.
Upon reflection, Dio could have picked someone worse to kiss, and it is she.
"Joanna! What a pleasant surprise! How are you?"
"All the better for seeing your smiling face, Erina."
Here's all you need to know about Erina Pendleton: after Dr and Mrs Vaughan moved away in the wake of Sarah's death, her father became the local physician. She lets her mother choose her clothes, the boys at school would walk all over her if you didn't keep them in line, and when she bows her head in church, she actually prays.
For some reason she thinks the two of you are friends. You haven't bothered to clear up this misconception because she seems to have made the same assumption about every girl her age. Her naiveté is in refreshing contrast with the usual clinginess of other girls making such claims on your time; it's almost as though she were some manner of circus exhibit, the Ideal Female As Imagined By Men. You find yourself perversely fascinated by her bizarre innocence.
"I still can't believe in only three weeks, you'll be in Naples," she says excitedly, leading you to the smaller drawing room (the larger is taken over by the adults), where a half-eaten tray of sandwiches and biscuits is laid out on the table. Seated around it are Petula, Geraldine-oh-don't-be-disky-call-me-Geri, and Annie, but your apologies at interrupting a pre-existing engagement are waved aside by your hostess even as the others struggle to maintain their smiles.
"Yes, do remember to write," Annie says pleasantly enough, though that could be because she's looking forward to never having to worry about you reporting her for inappropriate skirt-lengths ever again.
"I almost wish I were going with you," Erina says enviously. "Getting to breathe the same air as the Caesars, treading the same ground as da Vinci and Raphael – Mother says the Common School even has guest lectures from real artists every winter!"
You hum in accord. The CSfG poses as an arts' college for women in less supernatural company. "Professor de Owen told Father that this year they're inviting Mr Whistler – you recall, the one who did that charming portrait of his mother."
"How wonderful!" Geri gushes. "I didn't think you had much talent for art, Jojo."
And there you have everything you need to know about Geraldine Halliwell. If Erina is a sheltered girl who occasionally appears soft in the head, Geri is a tactless idiot whose only saving grace is her complete inability to feel malice.
You turn your grimace into something resembling an embarrassed smile. "I wouldn't have thought so either, but apparently Common has classes in music and dramatics as w-"
"Dramatics? How suitable, for a 'Common' school."
Ah. Petula.
Easily the single most fashionably-dressed woman in town (without a care in the world as to whether or not any of the clothes actually suit a girl of thirteen), Petula Clark is your pick for who will become 'queen' of Abney Park in your absence. It will be a brief reign, if the girl's mother has anything to say about it – every one of Petula's sisters so far have been married to upwardly mobile Londoners before their twentieth birthdays, and as Petula's the prettiest of the lot and the pampered youngest, Mrs Clark will undoubtedly spare no expense to break her previous record of three proposals at Laura Clark's nineteenth birthday party.
"Sad though it may be," you remark, helping yourself to a pistachio macaron, "we do not all meet the qualifications necessary to gain a scholarship to Beauregarde's."
Beauregarde's 'College' is the 'school' Petula will be 'attending' come fall. It is ever-so-conveniently located in Windsor, across the river from Eton. Yes. That Eton.
"True," she agrees, in that sickening parody of proper speech she always uses in public. "I suppose some have to make do with whatever poor talents the good Lord grants them. Please accept my congratulations, Joanna." She raises her teacup in a toast, smirking. "May your blue stockings bring you good fortune in the Neapolitan marriage market; it would be terrible if your bad luck should follow you-"
Erina's teacup misses the table by a fraction of an inch and drops with a thunk to the rug. "Oh my goodness," she says in dismay, "how silly of me. Jojo, would you fetch Adelaide and a damp cloth, please?"
Miffed at being denied the last word, you nonetheless make your way to the den at the back of the house, commonly used as a staging-room for parties.
Del's mother is the head maid, but the Pendletons do not keep a full staff, so really the only people dedicated to Erina's subset of the party are Del and a snub-nosed nonentity named Emma or somesuch. This last is who you direct to bring in the cloth; what you are about to say requires privacy.
The conversation you're about to have is likely to involve tears. The only question is if they will be yours, Del's, or both.
[X] What say?