by Bianca Bloom
“If you’ll excuse me,” said the nurse, “I must tend to my patient.”
“Of course,” said Luke, “I am sorry.”
For a moment, he and his mother were quiet, and then he made another demand.
“You must have Nurse Britton sleep here, then. It will not be safe to leave Miss Quinton all by herself.”
Mrs. Barlow did not accede to this. “Nurse Britton has been busy enough, coming by to see your grandfather.”
“And now she has to watch that our governess does not grow any sicker. Think of it, mama! If something were to happen to her, and under our watch. I am to be married, and we can’t have any scandals.”
My eyes closed, I smiled into the pillow. I could feel Luke’s eyes on me before he left the room. Scandal, indeed! The family had no idea what sort of scandal was to befall them.
12
For a while, there was no scandal to speak of. I passed a very good week staying in my bed. For days, I slept, but once I was waking more often Lillian managed to smuggle some books in to me. I hadn’t had so much leisure time in my entire life, and while I brushed up on French I was able to think with leisure of the future. Very soon, I would have the only protection that the law could offer me, both from poverty and from unscrupulous men.
My mother and I had never had much money, but she was convinced that I would be the one to change our fortunes. In fact, she had always proposed that I do so by working. “Marriage isn’t worth it, my dear,” she had always said to me. “Too little reward, and all the risk in the world. You can trust me on that one.”
In spite of this conviction, mama did manage to give me the best possible education, and I often suspected that she was secretly grooming me to make an excellent match. In exchange for helping her in her duties as housekeeper, I was educated for a few hours each day along with the daughters of the house. I was also the quickest to learn but the last to admit to knowing anything, as mama told me in no uncertain terms that well brought up girls did not like to be outclassed by a scamp with no family background and no fortune to speak of. Still, I learned how to read and write several languages, even if by the time the dancing mistress or the piano tutor arrived I would have gone back to my own chores.
What was even more valuable was my ability to blend with the upper classes, and I cursed myself for letting my sharp tongue get the better of me with the Barlows. My speech was impeccable, my accent flawless. Though I could slip up and start speaking like my mother at any moment, I took care to keep my vowels in check, and I knew that I passed for a woman from a “better” family than I actually had.
At the end of the week, I was firmly resolved to get well and reestablish myself in the household. If the marriage did not happen, I should have to be very careful not to get sacked. But as I recovered, I knew that admitting I was healthy would expose me again to the wretch who snuck by my door at night. The thought filled me with so much terror that I felt I might stay sick forever.
The answer to that problem, however, presented itself to me a week after I had fallen ill.
“Granddad really looks much worse,” Luke said to Nurse Britton, convincing her to leave me. “If you would only look in on him, that would give us all a bit of peace.”
She snorted. “A bit of peace because he’ll be railing at me, not at you, Mr. Barlow.”
Luke sighed. “Yes, that’s true. But I’ll just sit with Miss Quinton for a moment while you check, please.”
“You needn’t stay long, then,” she said to him, glaring with such spirit that I was sure she was on to me.
After all, for some days I had been feeling much better, and she must have seen it. But she likely knew why I was pretending that my cold continued. If she left me, even the strongest lock on the door was apparently not enough to protect me from the ugly old man.
Of course, he had made a few attempts to get near the room in the week that I was ill, but Nurse Britton made it clear each time that she was not afraid to slap him. And this tactic was so effective that I had to laugh. If Luke’s family had only employed the approach I had suggested before, that of treating the old man like a spoilt child, much of the trouble could be avoided.
This, apparently, was what Luke had come to ask me. “Are you quite well, Miss Quinton?” he asked, standing over me so that I could hardly resist pulling him underneath the soft blankets.
“Alice,” I said to him, taking his hand and hoping that my outwardly sickly nature had not made him change his mind about his offer.
He blushed. “Alice. You’ve not been troubled at night?”
“No. The old coot is leaving me alone,” I said, and smiled stupidly from the warmth of Luke’s hand in mine. “Your idea to have Nurse Britton here was a brilliant one.”
“Well, you shan’t have to worry about him much longer,” said Luke in a low voice. “There vicar has been to see me. We can marry tomorrow morning if you are well enough.”
I leapt out of bed, checking my impulse to throw my arms around the man. After all, a week had gone by, and I could no longer be sure whether he still felt quite the same. “Well enough? I could run there, or make some sort of pilgrimage on my hands and knees. To finally get away from that horrid man!”
Luke frowned for a moment, but then nodded. “Of course. He won’t be able to bother you after. But you’re sure that you are well?”
I cackled. “Of course I am! As you rightly suspected, Nurse Britton keeps the old man away. But I can’t stay in bed for another minute. Tonight, I shall have to go down to dinner.”
Just then, Nurse Britton returned, and she looked at me with a practiced eye. “Feeling better then, Miss Quinton?”
“Much better,” I managed, as Luke retreated and bowed to both of us.
“I’m going down to dinner tonight,” I told her, no longer worried about being forced into a purgatory of fear and dread by the old granddad. He would soon be sorted, after all. “Thank you for nursing me back to health.”
13
I was thankful to be at the dinner table. Though Lillian had been coming into the room to speak with me whenever she brought me books, I had still be starved for conversation. After all, ever since I was a child I had been used to passing the time with either servants or with other children, and since I shared a bedroom with my mother, I almost never had a moment to myself. The week of solitude had truly begun to wear on me. And since Luke Barlow had mostly stayed away, he and I had not had a single conversation except for the one in which he told me we were to be married the next day.
I caught myself smiling at him across the table, then quickly looked down into my soup. Miss Courtenay was speaking of London again, of course, but even that could not sour my mood. In fact, I enjoyed hearing her make cheerful plans to go there as the newly wedded Mrs. Barlow, knowing that those plans were likely to be soon smashed to bits.
“And, of course, Mr. Barlow will eventually inherit the title,” she said, and when all the Barlows looked alarmed at this breach of decorum she waved away their discomfort. “No, honestly! I hope that it shall be at some date in the very distant future, but he shall have to sit in the House of Lords. Which is such an honorable position. If only the House of Lords decided everything, there would be peace in our time,” she said with a smile, which was a line of vast stupidity that I had already heard repeated in more drawing rooms than I cared to count.
Luke shook his head, not even bothering to acknowledge her compliments to him or her greedy anticipation of the day when she would be Lady Barlow. “But we are meant to have both elements balancing our system, I think, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, as well as the sovereign. Otherwise, if one of the groups had too much power, things should be decided that were not the best for the nation as a whole.”
Miss Courtenay smiled. “Not if you played a greater role in the decisions, I am sure, Mr. Barlow.”
Mrs. Barlow shook her head. “I will confess that I do not like the thought myself. Going off to London to spend time with thos
e other men in the House of Lords? There is so much to be done here at Woodshire. It seems rather impractical.”
“Yes, but mama,” said Luke, ignoring Miss Courtenay to that lady’s consternation, “Like I said, I would play a necessary role. Only when everyone is able to be present can the decision-making begin to make sense.”
“Well,” I offered, “Only when the makeup of the House of Commons is reformed, and all the rotten boroughs excised from our maps, can any of it make sense. For the representation of the nation as a whole could hardly be more lopsided.”
This surprised Mr. Barlow, and it was now quite clear that he was engaging only with me. “Lopsided, you call it? That surprises me, Miss Quinton. I think there are hundreds of men who are in Parliament now who would not agree with you. Do not tell me you are in favor of reforming the whole makeup?”
With this, I set down my spoon and smiled with what I hoped was a fair imitation of sweetness. “If some little villager’s vote has more weight than that of two hundred new city-dwellers put together, I should say that our nation deserves the unrest. It is a miracle there is not more unrest now. Votes should be based on population in the present, not the influence of ages past.”
This made him chortle a little bit, though he quickly recovered himself. “Surely you cannot be proposing that we throw out the map. Heavens, Miss Quinton, even the Radicals could not propose such a thing. That map has served us well for centuries.”
“The map would not be entirely thrown out,” I told him. “Take a city like Bath, for example. They were represented then, and they would be represented on a new map. For them, it would not be a tragedy, just a re-affirmation of their place in our nation.”
“It’s not as if you would be able to vote,” said Miss Courtenay, frowning. “So why must you go on about it, then?”
My little charge tried to step in to defend me. “If Miss Quinton wishes to marry, she may influence her husband. After all, the half of the household that doesn’t have a vote is often the half that is most passionate about what voting is meant to accomplish. At least, that’s what the vicar says.”
Mrs. Barlow sat a little straighter in her chair. “Our vicar says a good deal about matters that should not concern young women. Miss Quinton, I hope you are not filling my daughter’s head with such matters.”
Luke, though, seemed much more interested in the subject of conversation that we had just bypassed. “Should you seek to influence your husband’s political opinions, Miss Quinton? In the future, that is,” he said with a smile.
I returned his smile and nodded. “But of course. I would hope that he would be educated about such matters himself, but if that were not the case, I would take care to educate him.”
“Then you would overstep your role, Miss Quinton,” said Mrs. Barlow, still frowning.
Miss Courtenay, on the other hand, seemed to find the prospect of my chastising any future husband rather hilarious. “You do realize that your husband might not respond well to such nagging, Miss Quinton?” she said.
Luke raised his eyebrows. “Indeed. What would you do if your husband grew ill-tempered?”
My smile faltered, but I realized from the kindness in his eyes that what he said must still have been part of a joke. “Oh, I would be very sure not to marry that sort of man.”
I had parried well, but I wondered whether I had made rather too many assumptions about the tenor of my married life. Was Luke saying that he did not think we would together, as husband and wife? Or that if we were, he would try and do something to change me?
14
As soon as I was alone with Miss Courtenay, in the corner of the drawing room, she decided that she needed to have the last word. Miss Barlow’s beautiful playing floated through the whole room, and Mrs. Barlow fluttered about looking for some special color of thread. But Miss Courtenay could apparently think of nothing better to do than to continue the conversation that should have ended at the table.
“I must confess, I do not agree at all with what you were saying at dinner, Miss Quinton,” she said, hovering over me as I attempted to read a novel called Love, Marriage, and Passion. Since it was French, Miss Courtenay could probably not make out what it was about, or she doubtless would have complained of that as well.
“It displays an ignorance about marriage that I suppose is understandable,” she was saying of my comments, touching at her perfectly formed curls as she did so.
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, really? Well, Mr. Barlow seemed inclined to agree with parts of what I said, so I suppose that shall have to console me.”
This seemed to be exactly what Miss Courtenay wished to hear. “Oh, my dear, let me tell you that my fiancé would never stand for such foolishness in his own wife.”
“Well, I am glad you are aware of this,” I said, smiling as I recalled that Mr. Barlow would have to make peace with a great deal of defiance from his wife, since he himself was choosing not to marry Miss Courtenay. “You are well matched.”
But instead of accepting my little olive branch, Miss Courtenay thought that she must go on. “I really must speak with you about putting such ideas in dear Lillian’s head,” she said. “You are to provide an example to her, and even if you never marry yourself, you at least ought not to teach her improper ways to behave with a husband.”
I smiled. “I believe that my behavior as governess is my own concern, Miss Courtenay.”
It was the very best I could do, because I was finding myself clenching my jaw to keep from shouting at the woman. But apparently, even my relatively peaceful admonishment was not enough for her.
“Miss Quinton,” she said. “There are different sorts of governesses that are appropriate for a young girl. One type is a companion, an excellent example, the sort of woman who might be employed by a household for many years. The other is the sort of girl who might do very well for the present, but isn’t worthy of long-term employment.”
“Why,” I said to her, “These two categories seem rather extraordinary. I must confess, I was unaware of them.”
Miss Courtenay did not seem quite sure of where the joke was, but she still forced a poisoned smile. “Well, you may have been unaware, but I know what my duties will be as mistress of the household. And if you continue to teach my sister all the wrong things, I’m afraid that you will not be employed here for long.”
At first I was angry, but then I realized that the case was rather simple. “That is disturbing news indeed, Miss Courtenay,” I said. “Let us go and discuss it with Mrs. Barlow.”
The lady of the house was sitting by the fire, squinting at her work, and I marched right over with Miss Courtenay.
“Mrs. Barlow,” I said. “Miss Courtenay has just raised objections to the way that I comport myself. She says that I should consider myself a temporary fixture in the household, and that any further mention of marriage could get me sacked.”
It quickly became clear that Mrs. Barlow was not the best possible person to mediate our conflict. She looked down at her work, then back up at us. “I’m sure that Miss Courtenay could not have said such a thing,” she said gently. “Is not that right, Miss Courtenay?”
The wretched little woman smirked. “I was simply talking of my upcoming marriage with Mr. Barlow. You’ll have to forgive a young bride for being excited, Miss Quinton. Indeed, the happiest day of my life is approaching, and though I know that this might make other women feel jealous, I am afraid that I cannot quite keep the anticipation to myself all of the time.”
This let me smile a little bit, as I knew that the silly girl’s wedding day was not approaching, but I was still galled by her distortion of our conversation.
“So Miss Quinton misunderstood you,” said Mrs. Barlow, looking very relieved that there was no conflict to be found. “She must have taken your words as a slight when that was not at all what was intended.”
“Indeed,” Miss Courtenay simpered, “I never meant any offense. I am very sorry that you got that idea in your head, and asha
med that you would think of me in such a light.”
The music in the background stopped, and I realized that Lillian must be listening in to our conversation. But neither of the two woman seemed aware. Miss Courtenay was smug with her triumph, Mrs. Barlow surprised by the entire conflict.
“Of course you are,” said Mrs. Barlow, plainly flustered. “Miss Quinton, apologize to Miss Courtenay.”
“Pardon?” I said, as if I had not heard. “Apologize?”
“Yes, for saying that I threatened to banish you,” said Miss Courtenay, grinning. “It hurts my feelings that you would believe such a thing of me, dear Miss Quinton.”
There was nothing for me to say. I simply stood there, struck dumb with all of it. I knew that the wisest move would have been to eat my words, but I was unable to force myself to grovel to the woman who had just insulted me.
The more I hesitated, the wider Miss Courtenay’s grin became. Eventually, Mrs. Barlow grew so uncomfortable that she decided to end the exchange rather than continue to endure my stony silence.
“We’ll be out all day tomorrow,” said Mrs. Barlow. “I am taking Miss Courtenay to meet a friend of mine, a Mrs. Curtis. We shall return late in the evening, and I expect you will have your apology prepared by then, Miss Quinton.”
Coming from a woman with no backbone, this was a serious threat. She had essentially informed me that I would be sacked if I did not apologize for telling the truth.
And before I could tear out her hair, or possibly my own, she had taken Miss Courtenay’s arm and left the room.
15
Since Nurse Britton knew the score, as it were, she offered to stay with me that night.
“You can be sick as long as you like, Miss Quinton,” she said. “I know why you need another body in your room, and while I don’t condone Mrs. Barlow’s trying to look the other way, she’ll hardly bother to fight me.”