The Façade of Quad in Nimrod ✓ | Satire, family drama, dark society

VIII

Monday brought Valerie's new tutor, Thomas Benedict, hired by her father without her consent, yet, Valerie trusted her father not to hire anyone bad. Still, she wished she did have a say in who she wanted. 

Thomas Benedict looked like someone who had been to a good school but decided to do something less useful with his life. That idea of hers came from the only-for-fashion pince nez eyeglasses and the dark green suit with the light green tie. He was tall and had a kind smile, but something about him made her feel uneasy. She suspected because her last tutor was an older woman and now it was a young man.

"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Valerie," he said, crinkling the corners of his eyes and giving a bow. Valerie curtsied but only after being prompted by her father. Nerves fluttered in her stomach making her forget her manners.

Mordecai didn't see the unease of his daughter. He introduced Thomas to the maids and servants of the house and announced he would be going out to work but would be back at two. Lunch was usually at twelve noon and "Mr. Benedict, you are very welcome to stay for lunch," Mordecai insisted.

With that, Valerie was left with the servants of the house, her aloof mother upstairs in her room, her brother moaning in his room, and Thomas Benedict still smiling kindly but making her nervous.

"Why don't you take me to the drawing room, Miss?" Thomas said. Valerie bit her lip and nodded her head. Nearly tripping over her feet, she took him to the drawing room where all her lessons would take place. There was a moan coming from upstairs as they passed the staircase. She worried Thomas would say something about it or ask her what was wrong with her brother, but he said nothing. She wondered if her father had said something already.

In the drawing room, Thomas made himself at home, taking off his jacket, loosening his tie just enough and taking out his notebooks, some beautiful feather pens, and bottles of ink. "We shall begin with Calligraphy, Miss. I have heard from your father you need to improve your hand."

Valerie didn't want to do Calligraphy. It was boring. She would rather do literature and read romance novels. She tried sulking, refusing to do her lessons, testing Thomas to see how far he would put up with her. She could be pretty stubborn.

"Well," he scoffed a little, adjusting his eyeglasses, "either Calligraphy or Maths, Miss Valerie."

He got her. She hated Maths. "Fine then. But make it interesting."

Thomas smirked. "We shall do the alphabet."

"But I know the alphabet! I'm sixteen!" She stiffened her arms and made fists, stomping her foot. "Are you ridiculing me?"

"Can you do it in Calligraphy?" His calm tone didn't change despite her trying to make him go her way. He came over with a piece of paper, some ink, and a pen. "If you can do that, we'll move onto something interesting, Miss."

Valerie scowled. This tutor was not like Polly, her last tutor who gave into anything she said. "Fine. Have it your way, this time. Just because you're my tutor, don't think you can order me around."

"It's not an order. It's a question. I'm asking if you can or cannot. You must show me then and we'll go from there."

As she grudgingly scripted out the alphabet—capital letters and small letters—Thomas watched her hand carefully and her mannerisms when she wrote. He was studying her and memorizing the way her hand moved across the paper for each letter to see where he could 'improve' on her.

Footsteps could be heard then thundering down the stairs. Henry was on his way out to try to make something of himself again. He hadn't told his father about what happened at work and how he didn't have work to go to anymore, but he couldn't let anyone in the house think that he had been fired. He had to keep going out to make it seem like he still had the job. The money, he would just find out another way to get it.