by Diane Gaston
She hurried to the schoolroom and found paper and ink. She wrote a note for Lord Brookmore, explaining why she would not be at breakfast. She started to fold the paper, but opened it again and added another sentence.
If you so desire, you would be very welcome to share this breakfast in the Tower Room.
He would not come, of course. What man would? Certainly not her father. Nor her brother. At least he would know that she was not avoiding his company.
She blotted the ink dry and folded the note and went downstairs. As she hoped, a footman was attending the hall.
She handed him the note. ‘Would you please see that Lord Brookmore receives this note before he breakfasts?’
‘Yes, miss,’ the footman said.
She returned to her room and waited until Mary finished helping the girls dress.
* * *
Garret came in from his ride, feeling marginally more settled.
If Ben thought it important he help solve the problems on the estate, he’d do that. Perhaps if he kept busy, his mind would not wander to Miss Tilson so frequently.
He’d merely felt sympathy for her, because of the shipwreck, he decided. He must put her solely in the role of governess and that would be that.
He bounded up the back stairs to his bedchamber where Brant awaited him.
‘Good morning, my lord.’ Brant stood ready to help him with his coat.
He changed out of his riding clothes into buckskin breeches and boots and one of his more comfortable waistcoats and coats. He kept an eye on the time.
It was eight-thirty already before he descended the stairs.
When he entered the hall the footman stepped up to him. ‘Beg pardon, m’lord.’
‘What is it, Mason?’ He tried to disguise his impatience. He’d told Miss Tilson that breakfast was at eight-thirty and now he was late.
‘A note for you, m’lord.’ Mason handed him the folded piece of paper. ‘From the new governess.’
She was not coming. What else could it be? He unfolded the paper and read that she intended to eat breakfast with his nieces and that he was welcome to join them.
He expelled a relieved breath. A part of him feared she was writing a letter of resignation.
Breakfast with his nieces.
He could understand Miss Tilson’s desire to eat with Pamela and Ellen, but why would he be included?
It would be ridiculous for him to attend, would it not? On the other hand, he would have the opportunity to see Miss Tilson with the children. Make certain all was as it should be. It would give him an opportunity to see Miss Tilson...
‘May I assist you, m’lord?’ the footman asked.
‘Hmm?’ Garret was still lost in thought. ‘Oh. Yes, Mason. Tell Glover that I will have breakfast in the Tower Room with the children. Have the food brought up there.’
‘The Tower Room, sir?’
It did seem unbelievable.
‘Yes, Mason,’ Garret repeated. ‘The Tower Room.’
The Tower Room was back upstairs where the main hallway met the children’s wing. Unlike the medieval tower at the front of the house, the tower that had been part of the original house, this was only eighty years old or so. Unlike the medieval tower, the rooms on each floor of the tower had large windows facing east. Sunshine poured in in the mornings.
When he’d been a boy, he and his brother breakfasted in that room with his governess. His parents often joined them. His father never tired of hearing about his brother’s achievements.
So it made sense Garret had been invited. He was the children’s guardian.
He opened the door.
A table was placed in the centre of the room, just as it had when he’d been a child. Miss Tilson and the children all looked over at him in surprise. The children and Miss Tilson each had bowls of porridge, just as it had been in his youth.
She rose to her feet. ‘Lord Brookmore. How lovely of you to come. Are you staying to dine?’
‘I am staying,’ he responded. ‘Glover will bring my breakfast up here.’
‘How very nice!’
She sounded happy he’d come. His two nieces, though, merely gaped at him.
Miss Tilson gestured to the fourth chair. ‘Do sit, my lord. I’ll pour you some tea.’
He pulled the chair up to the table, but did not sit. ‘I should have coffee soon.’ He waited until she sat down before seating himself.
Sure enough, the footmen arrived with the food from the dining-room sideboard and a welcome pot of coffee. When they left, Garret filled his plate with ham and cheese and cold veal pie. He brought the basket of bread to the table as well as the butter, honey and blackberry jam, which he suspected the girls would like.
They went from staring at him to staring at the bread and jam.
‘You may have some,’ he told them. ‘As much as you like.’
They seemed very hesitant.
‘Show your uncle how you spread the butter and jam on the bread and do so like ladies,’ Miss Tilson suggested.
Only then did they accept the treat, little Ellen taking a gob of jam for her piece of bread. Miss Tilson gave him an amused smile over that. It was endearing, but should she not correct Ellen? It was not the best of manners to pile on so much jam.
If Miss Tilson did not scold the child, Garret certainly wouldn’t.
The room felt very quiet, filled only with the sounds of chewing. Garret had supposed he would merely observe the breakfast, but now he felt as if they were all waiting for him to direct the conversation.
He addressed the girls. ‘Did you fare well while I was away?’ he asked. ‘Did Mary take good care of you?’
‘Yes, Uncle Garret,’ they said in unison.
He tried again. ‘Have you become acquainted with Miss Tilson? Shown her a welcome?’
‘Yes, Uncle Garret,’ they parroted again.
He glanced at Miss Tilson for help, but she shrugged her shoulders.
‘You are so very quiet,’ he remarked. ‘Were you quiet when other people visited you at breakfast?’
This time they merely stared.
Finally Pamela spoke in a very quiet voice. ‘No one visited, Uncle Garret.’
‘Surely your parents—’ he began, but stopped himself. He did not wish to remind them of their loss.
‘No,’ Pamela quickly cried.
Ellen piped up. ‘Mama came to our classroom sometimes. And we visited her in her sitting room every afternoon.’
‘And your papa?’ he asked.
This time Pamela answered. ‘Papa did not like us,’ she said in a scathing tone. ‘I heard him once. He yelled at Mama for having girls instead of boys. He wanted boys.’
Ellen’s eyes grew very serious. ‘He made Mama cry.’
Garret felt pain deep in his gut, an old familiar pain. This one filled him with rage, as well. His damned brother. So they were little girls. They were his children.
He glanced at Miss Tilson and saw compassion in her face.
This was more pain than he’d thought his nieces had endured.
He leaned forward. ‘Your papa was my brother. He did not like me very much either.’ They had that in common.
The girls gaped at him again, hungry for something besides bread and jam. He probably could not give it to them, but he’d give them something.
He turned to Miss Tilson. ‘Miss Tilson, do you like boys above girls? I confess I like them both.’
Miss Tilson responded as if this point was the most important in life. ‘I’m a bit partial to girls.’
He almost smiled at that. He glanced back at Pamela and Ellen. ‘You may have something there. Little girls are charming.’
His nieces visibly relaxed. He had not realised how stiffly they were holding themselves, as if bracing for more hurt.
Neve
r had he thought he had any importance to them. He’d seen them only fleetingly, spoken only two or three words to them. Now, however, he’d inserted himself into their lives and if he withdrew too soon they would conclude that his brother was right.
Another reason to stay for a while. He must compose a letter to London this day, explain the reasons for his delayed return. Surely Lady Agnes would find enough to entertain her without his presence.
The conversation did not go any more smoothly after that. After more failed attempts at engaging the children, Garret finally asked, ‘What will you do after this?’
Pamela and Ellen glanced directly at Miss Tilson.
‘Um.’ She looked uncertain, but a light came into her eyes. ‘You promised me a tour of the house. We could all do that.’
Shouldn’t she have them do their lessons first? That’s what his governess would have done.
She turned to the girls. ‘Would you like that?’
‘Yes, Miss Tilson,’ they said in unison again, but at least this time they sounded a little pleased.
Chapter Eight
Rebecca followed Lord Brookmore down the stairs. Behind them both trailed the little girls, who were not nearly as thrilled at touring the house as Rebecca thought they would be.
‘We will start in the hall,’ Lord Brookmore said, leading them into the first room Rebecca had seen in the house.
Rebecca hesitated. He was conducting the tour? Not Mrs Dodd? She quickened her step. The children stood in the doorway to the room.
‘This is the oldest part of the house,’ he began. ‘It used to be the central part of the house in the 1300s.’ He pointed to the crest above the huge stone fireplace, so large Rebecca could have walked inside it without ducking. ‘Queen Elizabeth’s crest was added later, but she never visited here.’
The room was panelled in oak in parquetry squares, which indeed made it seem as old as the Middle Ages.
He proceeded to the drawing room, another oak-panelled room, but with decorative carving on the oak, especially above a smaller stone fireplace. ‘This drawing room was also part of the original house.’
The chairs, tables and sofas looked at least one hundred years old, although undoubtedly the red-damask upholstery was more recent.
Lord Brookmore gestured to a huge desk in the middle of the room. ‘The desk was my great-grandfather’s, made by Gillows of Lancaster.’
This meant nothing to Rebecca, except that the most modern piece of furniture in the room must have been over half a century old.
Lord Brookmore spoke of the portraits on the walls, ancestors whose names Rebecca instantly forgot.
During this discourse, Pamela remained very still, just inside the door, but little Ellen traversed the room, looking at whatever captured her eye, and there were certainly several porcelain decorative items at her eye level on the various tables. She stopped by the terrestrial globe when Lord Brookmore pointed it out. As he went on to another piece in the room, Ellen spun the globe.
She laughed and spun it again. The third time she swung her arm back to give it a really hard spin and knocked over an Oriental porcelain ginger jar. It careened off the table and smashed on to the wooden floor.
‘Ellen!’ Pamela cried in a panicked voice.
Ellen burst into tears and tried to pick up the shattered pieces.
Rebecca rushed over to the little girl, worried that she would cut herself. She took the pieces from Ellen’s hands and took over picking up the rest while Ellen continued to wail.
‘Leave it,’ boomed Lord Brookmore, crossing over to them.
Pamela stood where she was, trembling.
‘Leave it.’ His voice softened. He took little Ellen’s arms and guided her away. He turned to Rebecca. ‘The maids will clean it up.’
She placed the pieces she’d collected neatly on the floor. Why had she insisted the children come on this tour? Why had she not watched them more carefully? This was not going well at all.
‘No need to cry,’ he said, crouching down to Ellen’s level. ‘Things break sometimes.’
Rebecca gaped at him. He was not angry? The jar had obviously been valuable.
Pamela continued to look shocked and Ellen’s whole body still shook with her sobs. He guided Ellen over to a sofa and walked over to take Pamela by the hand to join her sister.
He sat between them and pointed to a pyramid-shaped blue and white Delft tulip vase that sat next to the fireplace.
‘See that tulip vase? Two hundred years ago our ancestor collected Dutch tulips. There was no price too high for him to pay for tulip bulbs. Tulip Madness it was called later.’ The two girls looked at him as if he were speaking Greek. ‘Anyway,’ he continued. ‘when I was a boy, there were ten of those tulip vases lined up. My father’s pride. He’d often tell the story of his ancestor’s tulip collection. One day, I was playing chase with your father, which we were not allowed to do.’ The girls’ interest seemed to increase with mention of their father. ‘I knocked into one of the vases and it fell against the next one and they all fell, one after the other. Only one—’ he pointed ‘—this one—survived.’
Ellen was rapt by this time. ‘Did your papa beat you?’
Her uncle nodded. ‘I had a proper whipping and a scolding, as well.’
Pamela cringed.
‘But I learned an important lesson that day,’ he went on.
‘Don’t break things?’ Ellen offered.
‘No.’ His arm around her tightened. ‘I learned that no vase or any item was worth so much as to deserve a whipping or even as big a scolding as I received.’ He looked from Ellen to Pamela. ‘Accidents can happen, but I know I can trust both of you to be careful, now you know what can happen.’
Rebecca gazed at him in wonder. What sort of man was this who thought a little girl’s feelings were more valuable than a priceless piece of porcelain? Her heart swelled.
Lord Brookmore looked up at her. ‘Is there anything you wish to say to Ellen, Miss Tilson?’
She was surprised to be included, but then she remembered she was the governess. ‘Yes.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Miss Ellen, you must be more careful.’
Lord Brookmore looked less than satisfied at her response. She was unsatisfied herself. A proper governess would have known the right way to handle this, but all she could think of was how upset Ellen had been.
The tour continued through the rest of the first floor, the library, the game room, and the bedrooms that had been the children’s parents’.
Rebecca hesitated on them visiting those rooms with the girls, but she did not intervene.
It seemed like the girls had never seen their father’s bedroom, but Ellen blurted out one or two memories about her mother. Pamela stood silent as a stone.
Ellen touched her mother’s comb and hairbrush, still resting on the dressing table. ‘Mama let me brush her hair sometimes,’ the little girl said. ‘Her hair was the colour of mine.’
‘Would you like her brush for your very own?’ her uncle asked.
Ellen’s eyes grew wide. ‘Am I allowed?’
Lord Brookmore smiled. ‘I am the one who says and I say you may have it.’ He turned to Pamela. ‘You must choose something of your mother’s, as well, Pamela. Something to keep for your own.’
Rebecca’s heart was melting.
Pamela stared at him for a long time. She eventually crossed the room to a chest of drawers. She opened one and pulled out a miniature.
‘Ah.’ Lord Brookmore nodded. ‘A miniature of your mother. Good choice.’
Rebecca’s throat tightened with emotion, but she managed to say, ‘Perhaps you should take your treasures up to your room before we continue the tour.’
They exited the bedchamber and the girls immediately turned to their right and disappeared up a back stairway.
* * *
&nbs
p; Garret called after the girls, ‘Meet us back in the hall.’ He turned to Miss Tilson. ‘That stairway leads to the room where you had breakfast. You might find it more convenient at times.’
He walked with her back to the hall.
He was surprised he could keep his demeanour so matter of fact. This entire episode with the children had shaken him.
They had never been in his brother’s room. Of course, what Pamela said of his brother should have made that no surprise. Their visit to their mother’s room had touched him deeply. He was glad he’d let them take something from the room. Some time, before he returned to London, perhaps, he ought to tend to her other belongings. Surely there was jewellery of hers that should be kept for them. Other personal items, as well.
Then there was the broken ginger jar. He’d never entered the drawing room that he did not think of breaking the tulip vases. He’d been about Ellen’s age. His father’s scolding had been a thousand times worse than the welts on his buttocks. He had concluded that his father would have preferred Garret die rather than the vases be destroyed.
Garret would not have his little niece feel the same, but he’d been shocked when Miss Tilson did not chastise Ellen. Weren’t governesses supposed to?
He turned to Miss Tilson. ‘I was surprised you did not scold Ellen for the broken vase. My governess certainly never missed a chance to scold me.’
She looked chastised. ‘I suppose I ought to have said something, but at the moment I was too afraid she’d cut herself on the pieces.’ Her expression turned curious. ‘For what did your governess scold you?’
He thought it a curious question. ‘Well, breaking things, for one.’
The scolding did have the effect of making him careful not to be reckless around his father’s possessions, but his father’s reaction had the opposite effect of what he might have supposed. From that moment on Garret placed very little value on things and more in people’s emotions.
Miss Tilson broke into his thoughts. ‘Those poor little girls.’ She sighed. ‘I thought I would weep when Ellen spoke of her mother.’
At least she had compassion for the girls.
‘Or when Pamela said nothing,’ he added.