Chapter 15

"You said something similar in September," he said. "About governesses, I think, and expectations.""I said you were not a conventional inspector," she corrected. "Which is different.""Is it?""Marginally," she said, and the ghost of something, the beginning of something—not quite the full smile, but its architecture fully assembled. "Come and see the morning session, my lord. Thomas is presenting his map today, and I would like a second pair of eyes on whether the northern boundary is drawn to scale.""Is it drawn to scale?""Almost certainly not," she said, "but the spirit is excellent."He followed her out of the office and into the classroom, where thirty-seven of forty children were settling into their benches. And Thomas Buley was at the front of the room with the cartridge paper map and the expression of a seven-year-old about to do something he had been waiting a week to do.And Agnes Burch went to the front of the room and said, "Children, we have a guest this morning who is going to tell us whether Thomas's map is accurate."And thirty-nine faces turned to look at Rothwell with the various expressions of children encountering a new variable.And Thomas Buley said without preamble, "My lord, is the northern boundary of Durham County here, or here?" pointing to two positions on the map that were approximately an inch apart.Rothwell came to stand beside the map. He looked at it with genuine attention. "There," he said, pointing to one of the positions. "The boundary follows the river from this point, not the road."Thomas Buley absorbed this, made a correction with the stub of pencil he was carrying, and said, "Thank you." He then turned to Agnes Burch with the expression of a child ready for the next thing. "Miss Burch, is the river correct now?""Much better," she said. "Begin."Thomas Buley presented his map with the confidence of a seven-year-old cartographer who has been corrected by a Marquis, and has incorporated the correction, and is proceeding.And Agnes Burch stood at the side of the room, and Rothwell stood beside her. And the morning session began in the Rothbury Foundation on a November Thursday in exactly the way it began every Thursday, except that it was also entirely different. And the forty children could feel the difference in the room's quality without being able to name it, which was the way most real things were felt.

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