B00BKPAH8O EBOK

by Winslow, Shannon

  She did not know her nieces and nephews as she ought. She spent her time and solicitude on somebody else’s children in their place, children who could be taken from her care at a moment’s notice upon their father’s whim. An involuntary shudder quaked through her. Looking at her three students there gathered, Mary realized she had in fact become quite attached to them, just as Jane had suggested. Not only to Grace, but to Gwendolyn and Michael as well, irrespective of the trouble they gave. For all she might have imagined herself remaining aloof, it was simply untrue.

  She could not have said how or when the change had occurred. The why of it was easier to develop. Who could look upon a motherless child and not be moved? Yet, when the time came, she would be expected to give them up entirely, to walk out of their lives forever. What a strange and unnatural position she had taken on as governess. She was now arguably closer to the Farnsworth children than anybody, yet she could never be considered a member of the family.

  Mary called her attention back to the schoolroom, and gently corrected Michael on a difficult word. Then she turned to her oldest pupil. “Did you understand what your brother read just now, Gwendolyn?”

  “How could I, when everybody in this play seems to talk and behave so very oddly?”

  “Yes, they certainly do according to our modern ways. Shakespeare wrote his plays a long time ago when people spoke quite differently. You must also take into account that the story is set down in a kind of poetic style, which is considered very beautiful.”

  “All I can understand of it is that Juliet’s father is being very cruel to her. She is only a little older than I am now, and he is going to force her into marrying some awful old man she barely knows.”

  “Very good, Gwendolyn. You have captured the essence of the scene even without comprehending every word. And such a situation is not all that unusual even now, except perhaps for the ages of those involved. A young lady often has little say in her own life, about whom she marries or anything else.”

  “But is that not mightily unfair?” Gwendolyn asked.

  “A girl might hope to have a kind father with her best interests at heart. As to ‘fair,’ I cannot say, Gwen. I believe most people tend to judge things just and fair only when they have their own way. Yet, none of us is allowed to simply please ourselves. We all have a sworn duty to God, to our country, and to our families. No one can escape it.”

  “Not even the king, Miss?” asked Grace earnestly.

  Michael added with a giggle. “Not even Father?”

  “Not the king, or even your father, children. Now, let us return to the play and look once more at this last part. Perhaps we may decipher the meaning together. Michael, please read it out to us again, one line at a time.”

  Gwendolyn, though her situation was far from being as desperate as Juliet’s, needed some help with her own father. Mary intended to keep her promise to speak on the girl’s behalf at first opportunity. If Mr. Farnsworth did not summon her soon, then she would initiate a conference herself.

  At week’s end, however, the master did send for her. To her knowledge, there had been no crisis or upheaval, so Mary hoped it would be an ordinary meeting where she could introduce her business without tempers flaring.

  And so it began.

  Mr. Farnsworth greeted her when she entered the library and, after they both settled into their customary spots, he called for an account of his children’s activities and progress, as usual. This Mary was happy to supply, taking her time and dwelling on the more positive aspects in her report. “And we have begun reading Shakespeare as well,” she told him finally.

  “Ah, Shakespeare. Very good.” He leant back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “Play or verse?”

  “A play: Romeo and Juliet.”

  “I trust you know it turns out badly,” he said in a wry tone.

  “Of course, but I think the children are old enough to understand and appreciate the pathos. Or would you shield them from that sort of unpleasantness? I could select something else,” Mary offered, wishing to keep the tenor of the meeting congenial.

  Mr. Farnsworth did not answer immediately. Instead, he stared up at the ceiling, a glimmer of emotion flickering across his face like candlelight. “No, your play will do, Miss Bennet,” he said in a more subdued voice. “Shielding my children from the reality of death is not something I have ever had within my power.” Then he straightened himself and addressed Mary directly. “Now, was there anything else?”

  Mary hesitated only a moment. “I did have one more subject I wished to discuss with you, sir. It is about Gwendolyn.”

  “Oh?”

  “I promised her I would speak to you about her desire for her own bedchamber, separate from Grace, that is. She is a young lady now, and begins to feel the very natural need for more privacy. It seems to me quite a reasonable request, but she says you did not take the idea seriously when she proposed it.”

  “So, since I refused her, she has sent you as her emissary.”

  “I volunteered my help. That is all.”

  “And this request of hers. You think it entirely reasonable.”

  “I do, sir, although I know you may not credit my opinion.”

  “I confess that I am at a loss, Miss Bennet. Does this matter relate to the girl’s education in some way? Because otherwise I fail to see where it is any of your concern.”

  She had come this far; there was no turning back. Mary drew a deep breath, and then pressed ahead. “Quite apart from my simple wish for her to be happy, Gwendolyn’s health and state of mind are my business, Mr. Farnsworth, for they affect her ability to concentrate on her studies. In this case, I believe your daughter would be more content and better rested – and therefore more able to learn – were she to have her own bedchamber. In a house this size, accommodating her request cannot present the slightest inconvenience.”

  “You presume to tell me how to run my household as well,” he said evenly, shooting Mary a challenging look.

  Mary felt an answering defiance rising within her breast. “Am I now to shrink back and apologize?” she demanded recklessly. “Well, I did not run away when first you directed that glare at me, sir, the day we met, and neither shall I do so now. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. You may dismiss me if you wish, Mr. Farnsworth, but you cannot prevent me from having an opinion and speaking my mind.”

  “Obviously,” he muttered. Harrison Farnsworth held her steady in his gaze a minute, a hint of his inscrutable thoughts in evidence behind his bright eyes. “Perhaps I should be grateful for that, Miss Bennet. We should not have one tolerably interesting conversation between us if you had no opinions and if I had always to be tip-toeing for fear of frightening you. Stimulating conversation is a luxury rare enough as it is. With whom can one discuss books? Who is capable of debating the latest scheme for social reform? That is what I should like to know.”

  Her employer’s remarks caught Mary completely off guard. Could they be meant as a backhanded compliment to her? Impossible. Then what was he playing at? She must tread carefully to avoid being drawn into his game before she knew the rules. “Surely that is what your family and your London friends are meant to supply,” she suggested. “They cannot all be ignorant.”

  He laughed. “You might be surprised. London society seems well versed in only one subject: London society. What a bore. As for my sister, although she does talk a great deal, I would hardly call it good conversation. However, she will serve if what I want is a lecture on etiquette or lady’s fashion. And I am afraid my brother is no better. Though I am nearly forty, to him I shall always be an underling, an inferior creature, a child to be dismissed and whose opinions are not to be taken seriously.”

  “Much the way you see Gwendolyn,” Mary pointed out.

  “But she is a child!”

  “She is thirteen, Mr. Farnsworth – old enough to be married in Shakespeare’s day.”

  “And old
enough to deserve her own bedchamber, I suppose you mean.”

  Mary simply nodded.

  “Very well, Miss Bennet.” He rose, signaling that the interview was drawing to a close. “You make a good case. I promise I will give the matter fair and genuine consideration. Are you satisfied?”

  “Well enough for now, sir.” Mary rose also, and turned to go.

  “By the way,” he said. “I meant to ask if you enjoyed yourself the other night.”

  She stopped and turned slowly back round to face him, expecting to see a mocking glint in his eye. There was something else in his countenance instead. Could it be concern? Perhaps he had not meant the comment as a taunt, then, yet it still called up a rush of awkward recollections to her mind and a flush of pink to her cheeks. “Did I enjoy myself?” she repeated, stalling for time. “Portions of the evening were pleasant to me, yes. I believe others enjoyed it far more, however.”

  “Your cousin, our guest of honor: I trust he is one to whom you refer.”

  “Yes, I believe Mr. Tristan Collins was very well pleased, although I was actually thinking more of your sister. Miss Farnsworth seemed to be laughing the whole night through.”

  “Much of it at your expense, I believe you mean – the dress and all.”

  Mary silently returned his gaze.

  “I am truly sorry for that, Miss Bennet, and I have reprimanded Lavinia. I cannot imagine what she was thinking, to go to such lengths to discomfort you. She can have no reason to dislike you, can she?”

  “I expect you know the answer to that question better than I do, Mr. Farnsworth.”

  16

  Keeping Occupied

  Longbourn house seemed strangely forlorn when Mary returned to it with Mrs. Bennet after church that Sunday. The rooms were silent and empty, with nothing to promise either adventure or novelty of any kind. Mr. Tristan, by his short residence there, had changed everything. He had become so much a part of the place that it felt as if something important were missing with him gone away again. Although the day was arguably no different from dozens of other Sundays past, the ordinary was suddenly more insipid and more impossible to bear, and the afternoon crawled miserably by as if dragging the weight of the world behind it.

  Mary spent some time at her old spinet, which pleased her mother as much as herself. Then, following their dinner of pork and potatoes, the two ladies whiled away the remaining hours together in the front parlor, Miss Bennet with a book before her and Mrs. Bennet with chatter enough to be sure her daughter could make no headway in it.

  “Did you notice Mrs. Plimpton’s hat this morning?” Mrs. Bennet was saying. “Of course you did. How could anybody have missed seeing that mountain of fruit and feathers piled up to the sky? The woman must have had to bend over when coming through the doorway just to keep from knocking the thing off her head. Gauche – that is what I call it – gauche and irreligious to wear such an abomination to church. And it is not just my opinion. No one would dare say so, of course, but I make no doubt everybody was thinking the same thing.”

  Listening to her mother prattle on, Mary was reminded of what Mr. Farnsworth had said to her so recently. Stimulating conversation was a rare luxury indeed. At that moment she would have gladly exchanged her current circumstances for another confrontation with her employer. At least there she felt alive, invigorated even. Thinking back to what had transpired the day before, she could scarcely believe she had spoken so freely and not been dismissed. On the contrary, by the way he had responded, Mr. Farnsworth seemed to be giving her permission to do so again in future. It would be wise not to depend on it, however. Another day he might be less tolerant.

  “Mary, did you hear me? Mary!”

  “Yes, of course, Mama. Mrs. Plimpton’s hat, feathers and fruit, an abomination,” she said without looking up from her neglected book.

  “Mercy, child! I had done with Mrs. Plimpton a good five minutes ago. Sometimes, Mary, I think you cannot be quite well, the way your mind wanders from what is going on about you. Mark my words; one of these days, it will get you into real trouble. If you become distracted whilst walking down the lane, you are just as likely as not to step out in front of a chaise traveling at breakneck speed. I daresay all your serious contemplation will not save you then.”

  Mary could think of no adequate rejoinder to this prediction of her own doom – nothing, at all events, that her mother would either understand or profit by. On such occasions, she had long since learnt, it was as well to be silent. And in that ensuing silence, she heard the means of her escape approaching. Mr. Farnsworth’s carriage had come for her at last. She immediately caught up her things, kissed her mother’s cheek, and flew out the door into the cool evening air, where she could breathe again.

  ~~*~~

  One week passed by, and then two, with nothing but her private lesson with Monsieur Hubert to lend exceptional interest and pleasure. It was July now and the fine weather had arrived in Hertfordshire at last, enabling them all to spend more time out of doors, as they were this particular afternoon. Mary sat with Gwendolyn on a blanket spread beneath a gnarled, old oak, whilst her two younger charges played on the lawn.

  As always, her duties at Netherfield kept her industriously employed, and yet Mary could not stay her mind from sometimes roaming north to Derbyshire, to Pemberley and all her friends there, wondering how they were getting on. So perhaps her mother was right after all; perhaps she was not entirely well. Judging by how often her thoughts returned to dwell on Mr. Tristan, for example, she had to admit suffering the effects of an emotional entanglement at the very least.

  It was no accident either. After being exposed to Tristan’s enlivening presence, she had deliberately chosen to step over the line, to allow herself to consider the possibility that she could have a different kind of life, one that included him, that she might not be a governess forever after all.

  The careful labor of a decade had been thus undone in only a few weeks’ time, she realized. After so painstakingly boarding up the door to her heart against assault and sealing every crack, she had now flung wide a window. One moment, Mary gloried in the resulting quiet cataclysm – the air, the brightness, the expanse – and the next it thoroughly terrified her. The daylight had already flooded in, however; it refused to be gathered up and shut out again.

  And it was not only Mr. Tristan that now had a claim on her heart, she knew, but also the Netherfield family.

  Gwendolyn was quite an altered creature – her attitude in general and towards her governess in particular. Her father had ultimately given his consent for the requested change in bedchambers, and Mary had much of the credit for it. The improvement might only be temporary, and yet it pleased her to be on such good terms with the girl for as long as it lasted.

  After observing Grace and Michael at their game of shuttlecock a few minutes more, Mary turned her attention to Gwendolyn, who was poised with a pensive aspect over a familiar book. “You have become quite a serious student of Shakespeare, I think,” said Mary genially. “Or is it only Juliet and Romeo who have captured your imagination? I shouldn’t be surprised if you had their play nearly memorized by now for how many times you have read it.”

  Gwendolyn looked up, squinting against the sun breaking through the leaf canopy overhead. “Are all Shakespeare’s plays like this one? Are they all so beautifully tragic?”

  “Nay, he wrote histories and farce as well, and I think you really should take some allowance of those in your daily study. Too much tragedy may be unsafe. I will choose something more cheerful for you from your father’s library – Twelfth Night, perhaps. I daresay you will learn to like it as much as Romeo and Juliet, although for different reasons.”

  “I will try, but I do not see how anything else could be near as good.”

  Mary checked her watch. “Time for your ride,” she told Gwendolyn. Then to the others she called the same news as she got to her feet. “Put your playthings up now, children. It is time we met your father at the stables
.

  “Hoorah!” shouted Michael, running to stow his racket in the cloth bag Mary held open for him.

  Grace came more slowly. “Must I go, Miss Bennet? I had much rather stay here with you.”

  Mary collected Grace’s things into the bag and cinched the drawstring tight. “Certainly you must go, Grace, and be grateful for your father’s kindness. ‘Tis not every day a girl has such a special invitation.”

  “Then will you come too?” Grace asked.

  Mary laughed and took her hand. “No, ma pauvre petite. I have not been invited. Come along now, all of you. We must not keep your father waiting.”

  Michael needed no urging. He led the way, galloping down the grassy slope to where the stables were hidden behind a grove of elm trees. Four saddled horses stood at the ready when they reached their destination, and Mr. Farnsworth arrived only moments later.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” said Mary.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Bennet,” he answered, touching the brim of his hat. “Well, children, I hope you are ready for a good ride,” he said in his customary dry tone. “I thought we might venture as far as Kirkfield today. What do you say?”

  Michael cheered and Grace nodded dutifully. Gwendolyn said, “Father, may we take Miss Bennet along? It was Grace’s particular wish that she should come with us.”

  Before he could answer, Mary protested, “No, Gwendolyn. It is not my place, and I really have no desire to intrude.”

  Ignoring her, Mr. Farnsworth answered his daughter’s question. “Why not. You do ride, I presume, Miss Bennet.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Then it is settled,” he said decisively.

  Mary could only stare at him. The idea of a ride did not strike her as unpleasant in itself. In fact, ever since Mr. Tristan had suggested the possibility, she had been pleasurably anticipating when the chance might come. Yet this was not at all what she had in mind. She had imagined the outing would be made by her own free choice… and with a very different riding companion.