by Laura Parker
“You refer to the years of starvation that England saw fit not to prevent?” Aisleen questioned.
“That kind of talk will land you in the gutter,” Miss Burke rapped out. “Ungrateful chit! Always were, always will be!”
Aisleen could scarcely contain her smile. She had never sought Miss Burke’s favor, only her respect. Now she did not need Miss Burke’s approval any longer. “For the past two years, I have worked as a teacher without benefit of salary or title. In that time I have not asked for nor received from you in the form of benefit a single sum. You will understand that I could not well refuse your dubious charity until now.”
“Until now? Why now?” Miss Burke asked.
“Because, Miss Burke, I have obtained a post.” Aisleen withdrew a paper from her apron pocket. “It’s a post as a governess for the Beetons of Salisbury. I have agreed to their terms and will leave on the morning coach at the end of the week.”
“Ungrateful chit!” Miss Burke repeated hoarsely. “After all I’ve done for you! You’ll regret leaving here. You’re not fit for the world beyond these doors. You’ll regret it!”
“Perhaps,” Aisleen agreed. “But I feel that it is my right to test myself against the world’s measure.”
“There’s a man in this,” Miss Burke said suddenly. “You believe you shall catch yourself a husband, that’s it!”
Aisleen shook her head firmly. “One thing I would not wish for myself is matrimony. Nothing I have ever heard or seen of it persuades me to believe that marriage is a fit institution for a woman of good morals and sound mind. You yourself have never married, and yet you prosper. So shall I.”
Miss Burke regarded the young woman before her in mingled pride and rage. “I have made you! You must never forget that. I turned you from a Gaelic heathen into a well-bred young lady. If you ever forget yourself, you are lost. As for marriage, it’s a trap for fools and dullards, and you’re neither, my girl, and do not forget it!”
Aisleen smiled “I do not intend to, Miss Burke.”
* * *
Beeton Cottage, Somerset: 1851
“Such a serious creature, Giles,” Mrs. Beeton said, as she buttered another slice of breakfast toast. “I do wonder that the children are not thoroughly frightened of her.”
Mr. Beeton peered over the edge of his newspaper. “‘Of whom do you speak, dear?”
“Of Miss Fitzgerald, of course. She’s quite the most daunting nanny any child ever had. I find myself correcting my own posture when she’s about.” Mrs. Beeton smiled coquettishly. “She’s positively a replica of Miss Burke!”
“’Tis why you hired her,” her husband answered reasonably. “I’ve not seen much of the young woman these past months, but I defer to your tastes in such matters.”
Far from mollified by his answer, she said, “I had hoped that a young woman of whom Miss Burke approved would prove beneficial to the girls, but I had forgotten quite how miserable I was my first year at Burke’s Academy.”
Mr. Beeton lowered his paper a fraction more. “Are the girls unhappy with Miss Fitzgerald?”
“Oh, no. I would not tolerate a single day of their misery, as well you know. All the same, I wish you would speak to her, Giles. She appears to be quite bereft of the finer feelings of nurturing that one would expect in a young lady. Why, I wonder if that explains why she has not wed. She’s passably pleasant to look at. One does wonder, Giles, why she has not formed an attachment.”
Giving up, Giles folded the paper. “I suppose her lack of suitors would have something to do with the lack of opportunity, my dear. A young woman closeted behind the doors of Burke’s Academy for six years would have little opportunity to meet gentlemen. As for the future, you must remember that she’s Irish and, well, there will be few of her kind who are her equal.”
“That’s true,” Mrs. Beeton mused. “Educated above her class and Catholic into the bargain. I suppose we performed an act of charity by taking her on.”
“I suppose,” her husband murmured, regarding his poached egg with distaste. “I do abhor poached eggs!”
“All the same, you will speak to her?” Mrs. Beeton urged.
Mr. Beeton looked up. “If you wish it, dear. A letter arrived for her in the morning post. I shall take it to her the moment breakfast is done. You will, of course, tell me what to say to her?”
“Of course,” his wife agreed in a pleasant voice. “Servants of her caliber are difficult to obtain. They must be handled carefully.”
*
At exactly half past ten o’clock, Mr. Beeton found himself crossing the topiary garden at the rear of his home in search of his governess and two daughters. The sound of laughter drew him to the wall that separated the gardens from the orchards.
“Up you go, Miss Hillary. Now hold on. I won’t allow you to fall. Pick the shiniest, reddest one! Pull hard. That’s my girl!”
Mr. Beeton entered the orchard just as his younger child was being swung high in the arms of the governess. Startled to find his stern governess caught in a moment of play, he paused in the shadows to watch.
“What a clever, clever girl you are!” Aisleen cried in approval when she had set Hillary on the ground. She bent forward to observe the treasure in the girl’s small hands.
“Why, I do believe that this must be the biggest, juiciest apple in all the county.”
“Mine’s bigger!” Mary called down from the branch onto which she had climbed. “See? Mine is the biggest apple of all.”
“Miss Mary, you come down from there this instant,” Aisleen said firmly.
Mary tossed her apple onto the ground and began to shinny backward until her sash caught on a limb. “Nanny! Oh, nanny, I’m stuck!”
“Serves you right for being a very naughty girl,” Aisleen replied, but she quickly added, “Don’t cry, dear. I’ll climb up and get you.”
To Mr. Beeton’s surprise, his very proper governess reached down and pulled the hem of her gown up between her legs and tucked it into her waistband. Then, using the stone bench at the base of the apple tree, she reached up and pulled herself into the lower branch of the tree.
His lips twitched as he spied a slim ankle encased in a black stocking. Was this the young lady his wife thought of as a termagant? She seemed more like one of the children than the severe lady his wife’s words had painted in his mind’s eye.
Aisleen grabbed Mary about the waist and handily returned to the ground with her charge in tow. “Now then, Miss Mary, what have you learned from today’s adventure?”
Mary looked down at her torn sash, and then a pair of dimples appeared. “That the biggest and best apples in all the world are at the top of the tree.”
Aisleen tried to keep a straight face, but it was impossible and she laughed. “You should be scolded. Your mother would be horrified to learn that her daughter climbs trees.”
“Then you must not tell her,” Mary said precociously.
Aisleen’s copper brows lifted. “If I do that, then you must do something for me in return “
“What?” Mary asked suspiciously.
“You must promise never to climb a tree again.”
“I think that a jolly good pledge!”
Aisleen swung about at the sound of a man’s voice and saw Mr. Beeton striding toward them. Blushing furiously, she shook out her skirts and then folded her arms primly. “Mr. Beeton. Curtsy to your father, Mary. Hillary.”
The clipped toned surprised Mr. Beeton, for it was quite different from the voice she had used with the girls before he appeared. “I trust you are adjusting well to your new life here,” he said kindly.
“It is sufficient to my needs,” Aisleen answered softly, embarrassment making her feel awkward. She was so seldom in the company of men that she did not know how to behave.
Mr. Beeton stared at the brim of her bonnet because she had lowered her head before his gaze. Where was the young woman who had moments ago climbed a tree with abandon and laughed freely? His wife believed her to be a T
artar. In reality, she appeared as tongue-tied and shy as any green girl. “Are there any changes that you would make?”
Aisleen shook her head, her eyes still downcast. “No. Thank you for inquiring, but I am quite content.”
At a loss, Mr. Beeton remembered the letter he carried and offered it. “This came for you in the morning post.” When Aisleen lifted her head, he smiled encouragingly. “It’s from Ireland—a relative perhaps? I hope it’s good news.”
To his amazement, she turned white as her gaze fell on the postmark. “Thank—thank you,” she said unsteadily and clutched the letter in her fist. “If I may be excused…” Without waiting for his permission, she turned and walked rapidly out of the garden.
“Was it sad news, Papa?” Hillary asked
“I don’t know, child,” Mr. Beeton replied. “Perhaps it’s delight that overcame Miss Fitzgerald.” But he doubted it. What a strange young woman she was. Perhaps his wife was right, that she bore watching.
*
Aisleen impatiently tore open the letter. It was from her mother. As she frantically scanned the lines, her heart slowed. There was no crisis, no emergency. It was nothing more than a friendly note.
Aisleen cast it angrily away, annoyed with herself for reacting so foolishly. Her mother was well, not ill or starving. And yet she felt responsible for her, as if her father had been correct when he said that the burden of her family had been placed at birth on her shoulders.
“I’ve never had a say in family matters. I have no family!” Aisleen murmured as she paced her small room. Yet this feeling of dreaded anticipation came over her more and more frequently in recent weeks. At every turn, Miss Burke’s final words echoed in her mind: “If you ever forget yourself, you are lost!”
Why did she so often feel on the verge of forgetting herself? The impetuousness of climbing an apple tree was forgetting herself. Laughing and running and glorying in the beauty of the day were threats to her peace of mind. Why should that be so?
She had found a safe haven, and if she were smart, she would settle in gratefully and never hope for and think of the possibility of anything else. After all, what else could there be?
Love.
Aisleen spun about. “Who said that?” she demanded angrily of the room. The chirping of the canary in the wicker cage in one corner of the nursery was the only reply.
“Foolish whims!” she murmured in an imitation of Miss Burke’s acerbic voice. “Foolish whims, Miss Fitzgerald, and well you know it!”
She wanted nothing more than to make a success of her post. That, and nothing more.
But the young queen would not listen,
She rose in her pale night-gown;
She drew in the heavy casement
And pushed the latches down.
—The Cap and Bells
W. B. Yeats
Chapter Three
Yorkshire, England: 1856
Aisleen slammed the door to her attic room and twisted the key in the lock an instant before a fist hammered upon it.
“Open up, Miss Alice! You know you want our company!” The latch was tried, and then the sound of masculine laughter exploded in the narrow hallway beyond.
Aisleen pressed her weight against the door, silent but for the pounding of her heart. She had made a grave error in visiting the kitchen after dark, but she had thought the house empty except for the Maclean servants. That was her mistake. Nicholas Maclean, the elder son, who was home from Oxford on holiday, had returned unexpectedly and with him was a male companion.
“Alice! Pretty Alice,” Nicholas called in singsong fashion. Drunk, Aisleen thought as her lips tightened in disapproval. It seemed it was a detestable habit that many men shared in common with her father.
“Go away!” she whispered in an angry hiss.
“Ah! She abides therein!” the second man voiced in amusement. “Shall we serenade her?”
“Nay, she’s not the sort of lass a man woos with songs, are you, Miss Alice?” she heard Nicholas ask just before the latch was tried again.
After checking the key to make certain it had made a complete turn, she stepped back and folded her arms across her bosom, only to notice her left sleeve gaped away at the shoulder, where an aggressive hand had torn it.
Righteous indignation fired her resolve. She had waited and prayed for this post for more than six months after the Beetons had been forced to let her go in the wake of a reversal in their finances. She was not about to lose it because of a drunk young lordling. “Step away from that door, Mr. Maclean,” she said in a stern voice, “or I shall be forced to call for aid.”
“She sounds serious,” the companion cautioned. “There’ll be Roberts to deal with if he hears us.”
“Roberts is a servant and knows his place,” Nicholas answered, but whether it was real doubt or merely the slurring effects of too much whiskey, Aisleen thought she heard hesitation in his voice.
“Good night, Mr. Maclean!” she said in a tone that brooked no defiance.
“Silly old bitch!” she heard him grumble under his breath before retreating footsteps sounded on the narrow stairwell.
A sudden blast of winter wind rattled the shutters and despite her outward calm, Aisleen jumped and turned toward them. All at once, her shoulders drooped, and she brushed from her face a strand of hair.
“Fools!” she muttered and crossed the room and picked up the poker to stir new flames from the dying fire. She would not be able to sleep now. The unsettling effects of having been attacked must have curdled the warm milk she had consumed, for she felt decidedly queasy.
When the flames had licked into the new scoop of coals she placed in the fireplace, she turned away and began to undress. She pulled the bodice from her shoulders and paused to inspect the tear. Luckily the threads had given way at the seam, and the damage could be easily repaired.
When the young gentlemen had first entered the kitchen she had seen their disappointed expressions. No doubt, they had hoped to corner younger, prettier game. After all, she was not a silly young scullery maid of eighteen but a twenty-five-year-old spinster who had been the Maclean governess for well over a year. She had not truly believed that they would touch her. But then, Nicholas had winked at her and offered her brandy while his companion reached out to stroke her sleeve as if she were some—some strumpet!
“Really, it is too much that a woman is not safe beneath the roof of the house she serves!” she muttered, so furious her hands shook. She stepped quickly out of the dress and hung it up on a peg, adding her petticoats and corset to hang from the others. Frigid drafts swept over her as she hurriedly slipped her nightgown over her head.
The Maclean estate was situated on the cold, barren flats of northern Yorkshire. Outside her window, the storm of the previous day had passed, and the velvet-black night was lightened by an iridescent white blanket of snow. Drifts pillowed the house and changed the familiar landscape into an eerie, white-duned scene. The weather was the reason none of the Macleans had been expected to return this night. Roberts, the butler, had informed the staff at supper that the Macleans would extend their Boxing Day visit with the Ventnors until the treacherous weather abated.
After tying a rough wool shawl over her nightgown, Aisleen pulled off her white cap, plucked out the combs that held her hair in a tight bun, and reached for her brush.
In the dimly lit room, the firelight struck bright red sparks from the billowing cloud of red-gold hair she brushed out. One and all, people were struck by the color. When she first came to work here, the younger of her charges, three-year-old Michael Maclean, had dared to touch a curl, expecting it to be warm like a candle’s flame, he had explained. She had noted in displeasure the gleam of interest in Nicholas Maclean’s eyes, but he had left almost immediately for college and she had not seen him for months, until this night.
Aisleen set her brush aside to massage her brow. For five years, she had been her own mistress, and never in that time had she been assaulted.
&n
bsp; She shook her head. She had taken this post out of desperation. Though the Beetons had been generous in their recommendation of her, she had been turned down repeatedly, often without explanation. Gradually, after countless interviews, she began to understand why. Being Irish and Catholic were handicaps, but her youth and striking appearance were greater impeachments to cautious wives. The Yorkshire Macleans had offered her employment at a time when she faced starvation. They were country-bred gentry with little respect for her excellent education beyond the status it gave them in the community. Yet until tonight, she had never been afraid to live on these desolate moors.
Even so, she wondered how she would tolerate another year in the north, where in winter nature succumbed to the colors of death: black, brown, and white. Winters in Ireland were cold but not bleak. She had never ached with chilblains until she came to Yorkshire. Now her fingers were blue and swollen, and she tried to warm them by working them in the folds of her shawl. When she had saved enough money, perhaps in a year, she might be able to afford the luxury of seeking other employment. The old restlessness was never far away.
She had not heard footsteps, but all at once there was a jiggling of her key in the lock. Even as she rose to her feet, the key fell to the floor on her side with a distinct clink. Moving toward the door with a look of disbelief, she heard the scrape of another key and realized too late that someone was unlocking her door from the outside. She turned and ran toward the mantel to pick up the poker as the door swung open.
“There she is!” Nicholas cried triumphantly as he reeled across the threshold.
Ordinarily, she would have credited Nicholas Maclean with more than an average measure of handsomeness, with his fair hair and tall, slender form, but his unwelcome presence made him repugnant to her. She addressed him as though speaking to a boy of six. “Your cravat is askew, sir, and your collar is unbuttoned.”