by Joan Smith
“Hired companions are usually paid, too.”
“Hired companions are always paid. It is implicit in the phrase, but I am not a hired companion.”
She attacked her meal. I sat without trying to nudge her into conversation. The chit had the manners of a guttersnipe the minute her father was away. I had dealt with many such an unruly noble brat in the past. Ingratiation was not the way to subdue them. Their ill manners must be met with firm control. I stared while she ate. She handled her cutlery like a lady but ate with more haste than was seemly. I let her see by the sneer on my lips that I was appalled at her manners.
“There is no need to gobble your food,” I said coolly. “Mrs. Irvine has not even come down yet.”
Bereft of a setdown the child said, “Then you will have time to change your gown, Miss Robsjohn. Or did you actually mean to go into the village in that gown?”
I wore a perfectly respectable sarsenet gown, plain but well cut. “No, I thought I might wear my tiara and diamonds.”
“I didn’t know schoolmistresses had tiaras.”
“There is obviously a good deal you do not know.”
“At least I know why you are here,” she flashed back.
“I should hope so. Your father made it perfectly clear, I think.”
“You hope to get an offer from him, but you are wasting your time, Miss Robsjohn. He never offers for my governesses.”
I found a smile more likely to infuriate her than a hot objection, and smiled. She rose with half her breakfast still on her plate and said, “I shall be in my room. Pray have me called when Mrs. Irvine is ready to leave.”
“You may speak to Petty on your way up.”
Her lips drew into a thin line that destroyed her looks, but she did not answer back. She left without saying more. I understood now why she had taken me in such violent dislike. She was afraid she might be saddled with me as a stepmama. I could hardly blame her, but still her atrocious manners must be brought under control.
Mrs. Irvine soon came down and heard the story while she ate. “I’ll just ignore her and act as though nothing is wrong,” she decided. There is a solid bulwark of common sense beneath Mrs. Irvine’s rough exterior.
“That will be best. Ah, here she is now!”
She appeared at the doorway already in her bonnet and pelisse, both the very latest word in fashion. “What a lovely bonnet, Lady Victoria,” Mrs. Irvine exclaimed with a smile.
This greeting met with the young lady’s approval. She had apparently decided to take Mrs. Irvine on as an ally, for she spoke to her in a friendly way about the bonnet while pointedly ignoring me. She told Mrs. Irvine the milliner in Chillingfold came from France and made a very decent bonnet.
It was Lord Marndale’s chaise that awaited us at the front door. Not the travelling carriage of yesterday but a lighter one, harnessed up with a team of grays. The day was fine, and the village only a few miles away. Barring a little constraint within the vehicle, the trip was pleasant, as was Chillingfold. A church with a lancet window was one of the prominent features of architecture in the village. Across from it was the village green, complete with duck pond. There were benches, and some ladies strolling about, showing off their new spring finery. The driver took the carriage to the inn and we alit. The Crown Inn, a drapery shop, a milliner, a cobbler, and a few other shops made up the core of the town with houses spreading beyond.
“What is your errand here?” I asked Lady Victoria.
“I need some embroidery threads,” she said, and headed across the street to the drapery shop. She deigned to tell Mrs. Irvine that she was making her papa a pair of embroidered slippers for his birthday. I bought a quite useless length of blue ribbon, and Mrs. Irvine succumbed to a pair of silk stockings. This done, we returned to the street.
The church was the next stop. The windows were odd, of stained glass but made up of little fragments. Lady Victoria explained that in medieval days the town was a glass-making center. From there we joined the other idlers on the village green. Before we had made half a tour we were joined by some friends of Lady Victoria’s.
A rough-and-tumble set of young ladies came running forward. Beneath their overly ornate bonnets wisps of dull blond curls peeped out. Their faces had the coarse-featured look and sallow complexions of the underbred. “Vickie! You’re back! How lovely. Desmond has gone into a decline worrying about you. Can you come home for lunch, or is your papa with you?”
I came to attention at these remarks. So there was a young man involved! And one that Marndale did not approve of. I doubted he would approve of these hoydens either. Though nominally ladies, they were extremely unfinished articles. I knew now why Lady Victoria had resisted my company. She wanted to consort with this pair of trollops and possibly meet Desmond. Her flaming cheeks were as good as an admission.
“Miss Robsjohn, Mrs. Irvine, I would like you to meet Miss Simon and her sister, Miss Bea,” Lady Victoria said. “They live near us, in that big red brick house we passed on the way into the village.” I remembered a substantial house but was curious to know more of their background.
“We come from London,” Miss Simon assured me.
Their papa, I assumed, had made his fortune in trade and retired to the country to become genteel.
“We are from Bath,” I replied, including Mrs. Irvine with a gesture.
“Oh lud! Poor you!” Miss Simon exclaimed. “Mama dragged us there last year for a holiday. I would as lief holiday in Coventry. It is dull as ditch water. More Bath chairs than curricles, and the gents all stiff as starch. They wouldn’t look at you twice if you danced a jig in church. And are you Vickie’s new governess?”
“Just friends,” I replied grandly.
“Is your papa home?” Miss Bea asked Lady Victoria.
“No, he is in London.”
The eyes of the Simon sisters turned to examine me. “Can you come home for a cup of tea at least?” Miss Bea asked Lady Victoria.
“Someone will be mighty hurt if you don’t,” Miss Simon tittered.
Lady Victoria did not even bother asking my permission for the visit. “I’m afraid not today. We have to be getting home.”
“Tomorrow then? Come for tea.” It was Miss Bea who urged this scheme. “We’ll be expecting you. Now don’t let us down.”
“I’m afraid it’s too early to make a commitment. So nice to have met you.” I put a hand on my charge’s elbow and led her away. The mutinous eye she turned on me clearly expected some outpouring of condemnation, but I refused to oblige her.
I said only, “How encroaching those girls are. One would think they owned you to hear them order you about. Incredible!” After that I ignored the incident as if it had never happened. We left the green very soon, and as we went for the carriage I said, “It is such a fine day, we should give you a driving lesson this afternoon, Lady Victoria. Does your father have anything suitable?”
A smile of surprise greeted this suggestion. “His curricle is at home. He won’t want us to use his grays, but we can use the older pair of bays. He took his better team to London.”
“Do you think he would object to my teaching you?”
“Oh, no! He has been promising to teach me himself forever, but he is so busy, you know. Are you a good fiddler, Miss Robsjohn?”
“I was fair to middling in my day. It will take me an hour to refresh my skills.”
“We’ll have lunch early. Papa says the best road for me to learn on would be the road to Willigan’s farm. There is very little traffic there except for an occasional haywain or dung cart or old Ned Willigan’s jig.”
The trip home was livelier and better-natured than the trip to the village, despite her loss of meeting with Desmond. I decided it was sheer boredom that led her into such unsuitable companions as the Simons. I must keep her occupied, and we would get on fine.
Chapter Seven
Marndale’s sporting carriage and second-best team of bays awaited us at the front door after lunch. His second-be
st team were still a friskier-looking pair than I had ever driven before. Their coats gleamed like polished mahogany in the sunlight, highlighting the swell of powerful chests and lean, long legs. With my heart pulsing in my throat, I went out to try my skill with them. If I failed, I would lose the vestige of respect I had gained from Lady Victoria. Mrs. Irvine came to the door to see us off with the plan of spending a quiet afternoon looking over the house after we left.
Though powerful and full of life, the pair were sweet goers with silk mouths. They responded to the lightest touch. I knew before I reached the main road that I had not lost my skill. How exhilarating it was to canter along with the sun beating on my shoulders and a smoothly-moving rig beneath me. I began figuring what corners I would have to cut to buy such a carriage for myself. It could only be done if I omitted the London holiday. There was a moment of panic when a coach and four were spotted in the distance galloping toward us at breakneck speed. As they drew nearer the coach got wider and wider till I feared I would have to go in the ditch to avoid a crash. But I pulled as far as I could to my side, the coach driver pulled to his, and we squeaked past without incident.
“Well done, Miss Robsjohn!” Lady Victoria exclaimed. “Just like Lettie Lade.”
“Who is Lettie Lade?”
“Haven’t you heard of her? She is all the crack in London. Sir John Lade’s wife—she is a famous whip, though not very good ton, Papa says. Too fast by half.” I saw I could learn a few things from Lady Victoria if I kept my ears open. I was entirely ignorant of the social on dits of London. “When can I try?” she asked soon.
“As soon as we reach Willigan’s road. Where do I turn off?”
“Just at that big elm tree by the corner. Turn right.”
The turn was executed without incident. I had managed two miles without disgracing myself, but my arms were fatigued from tension, and I was happy to turn the reins over to my charge. I showed her the proper way to arrange the leathers between her fingers to allow free and equal pressure on all reins.
“They are easy goers. Don’t yank on the reins to stop them but just pull gently.”
“Papa already told me that much. Giddap.” She gave them their head, and we were off at a stately trot.
Being young and full of confidence she was eager to see them canter, but I held her down to a trot on the first lesson. For an hour we drove up and down Willigan’s road. The lesson was enlivened by a meeting with two jigs and a farm cart, both of which she passed successfully.
“Can’t I let them canter, just the last mile?” she begged as we neared the end of the road.
“Very well, but pull in at the corner and let me drive home. The main road is too busy, but you’ll be driving it within the week. You have a natural talent.” She beamed with pleasure.
The canter was beyond her. The nags got out of rhythm, and we finished the lesson at an uneven, jiggling gait. I thought it a good lesson to us both. She must not have more confidence than skill, and I must not let her talk me into folly. I intimated the former in my schoolmistressy way.
“Oh, Jennie!” she laughed. “Don’t turn into a governess on me again.”
I was surprised at her calling me Jennie but pleased at her unconsciously friendly speech. “I heard Papa call you Jennie,” she said, with a curious light in her eye. “Do you mind my doing so, as you are a friend, not a governess?”
I was happy to be free of anything that smacked of the schoolroom and gave her permission. We got on better after the lesson. That evening Victoria (she asked me to call her so) and Mrs. Irvine and myself retired to a small, cosy saloon to chat while Victoria worked on her father’s slippers and I mended a rip under the arm of a favorite blouse.
“If it’s worn out, why don’t you throw it away?” she asked innocently.
“It is not worn out. A seam has split, that’s all. One does not discard perfectly good clothing.”
“It doesn’t look new. The nap is all worn off.”
“I’ve had it two years.” She laughed. “You don’t realize what a privileged position you hold, Victoria. Most young ladies have to count their pennies. It cost me a whole day’s work to buy the material for this blouse and three evenings’ labor to make it.”
“Did you make it yourself?” she asked, eyes wide. This was what impressed her and not the cost.
“Certainly I did. I did all my own sewing till I inherited a little money from an uncle.”
“You are so capable, Jennie,” she said, shaking her head in wonder. “I wish I could be like that.”
“What is to prevent it? You’re able-bodied and intelligent.”
“That is a very nice stitch you are setting there in your papa’s slippers,” Mrs. Irvine pointed out.
“And soon you’ll be driving well, too,” I added.
“Yes,” she said doubtfully, “but you are really independent. Papa has always taken care of me. You take care of yourself completely. You do your own hair. You don’t have a dresser or anything.”
“My circumstances were different from yours. We must each learn the duties we have to perform in life. For you that will be running a gentleman’s house. What you ought to do is spend some time with the housekeeper learning such things. I would be no help to you there. I would be happy, however, to accompany you in your charitable work while I am here.”
Her face was a perfect blank. “What charitable work?”
“Why, visiting your father’s tenants and the sick of the parish, helping out at the church, and the local orphanage ...” I continued with a list of the usual good deeds of a lady, but none of the items elicited any understanding.
She read the disapproval on my brow, and said, “I have been in the schoolroom till now.”
“Now that you are out of it you will want to assume the duties of a lady. One cannot be expected to be treated as an adult if she behaves like a child, can she? You must bear in mind that privileges impose an obligation, Victoria. How many girls do you think live in such a home as this, surrounded by every luxury? My room at the seminary was not much bigger than the clothes press in my room here, and I was not amongst the truly unfortunate. From my tiny stipend, earned by the sweat of my brow, I always designated a tithe for charity.”
She was aghast at this plain speaking. “No one ever told me! They have been treating me like a child!”
“Someone has dropped you the hint now. We shall see if you are mature enough to act on it.”
“I have dozens of gowns I should be happy to be rid of.”
“Silken gowns would not be much good to the poor, who do strenuous labor for a living. One cannot pick stones for the road or work in a dairy in a silk gown. Giving what you no longer want is not true charity, Victoria. You must give what will be useful—which is not to say you cannot give those excess gowns to some relative less favored than yourself.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow. And we shall visit Mrs. Munson, too. She had twins last week, Jennie. Would you not like to see them?”
“Indeed I would. Who is this Mrs. Munson?”
“She is a tenant.”
“I daresay she would appreciate a meal from your kitchen—soup or a joint or something of that sort —while she is unable to cook.”
A pensive look settled on her pretty little face. “I wonder how the family eat while she is in bed. They have no servants.”
I was happy to see I had directed her thoughts in the proper direction and encouraged her along these lines. It was arranged that our driving lesson the next day would take us to Mrs. Munson’s house, bearing food.
Lady Victoria took her new duties seriously. A hamper large enough to feed an army was delivered to the Munsons’ house the next day. The twins were delightful—boys with golden wisps of curls and faces like angels and tiny little fists. The mother looked more shocked than pleased to see us but thanked us very prettily. Victoria was allowed to hold one boy, I the other. The strength of the emotion that seized me as I held the infant was astonishing. I felt a fierce love
of it. How much stronger must the sensation be when a lady holds her own child in her arms?
I began to feel, over the few days before Marndale’s return, that Victoria had been a bud waiting to open. A little guidance was like sun and water to her better nature. Her hankering for my approval was almost pathetic. She would come running to me, telling me she was cutting flowers for the church altar, or sending some clothes to someone called Cousin Alicia, who apparently felt the lack of new gowns; and once she said she had set aside a tenth of her allowance to give the vicar to dispense to worthy parishioners.
“That was well done, Victoria. Don’t you feel the better for it?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, I never felt so happy in my life.” She did look more alive. Her eyes glowed, and her face had entirely lost its sullen look. “There is a great pleasure in doing good deeds. I am thinking of devoting my life to charity.”
I felt sure this white hot enthusiasm would dwindle to a more acceptable level with no urging from me, but the seed had been planted, and she would, hopefully, do as much as she ought.
We were now close enough that I ventured to quiz her about the Simon family. “Who is this Desmond the girls mentioned?” I asked calmly.
“He’s their older brother.”
“Handsome, is he?”
“He was sent to a good public school and has better manners, though he is not precisely handsome.”
“Is he a beau?” I asked quizzingly.
“Oh, no, I am just using him for practice when I make my curtsey next year.”
“That is rather cruel to Desmond, is it not? You might raise hopes that you have no plan to fulfill.”
“I never thought of that! I am so selfish!”
“A lady always treats others as she would wish to be treated if she were in their place. Now you would not want Desmond toying with your emotions, would you?”
“No, toying and playing are for children. I shall be a little cooler in future. Still friendly, for I must not hurt their feelings, but cooler. Perhaps you and I shall drop in one day,” she said, for all the world like a dowager arranging her strategy. “But I shan’t flirt with Desmond.”