Chapter Thirty-Three
Miss Toogood made an appearance at the luncheon table. She seemed as calm and unflustered as ever—certainly Newingham and the girls saw nothing different about her—but to Octavius’s eyes she looked pale and tired. Fragile.
After luncheon, he drew her aside. “Pip . . . Miss Toogood, are you all right?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Can we talk?”
“We do need to talk.” Her expression was somber. “Will you meet me in the schoolroom in an hour?”
Octavius spent the next sixty minutes pacing the schoolroom. He didn’t have particularly warm feelings towards schoolrooms in general; they’d been the scene of thousands of hours of tedious lessons, far too many quizzes, tests, and examinations, plus the occasional painful punishment, but until this moment Octavius had never felt actual
