Georgie Lee – The Cinderella Governess (страница 9)
Lady Huntford gathered up her correspondence and beckoned her eldest daughter to follow her. ‘Come along, we must choose the gowns you’ll wear. We can’t waste this opportunity.’
‘What about me? Can I attend the house party?’ Catherine sat up straighter in her chair in eager anticipation.
‘Of course not. You’re not out yet.’
‘Even if you were, he isn’t likely to favour you,’ Frances sneered at her sister as she trudged after their mother.
Catherine slumped over her breakfast, struggling to hold back tears. Unlike her sister, Catherine had her father’s dark hair and long face with thin lips which seemed perpetually fixed in a downtrodden frown. Her one blessing was lacking the petty streak which permanently marred her older sister’s personality and beauty. At eighteen, Frances was only two years older than Catherine. Given their closeness in age they should have been friends, but Frances’s churlish nature, and Catherine’s more retiring one, discouraged it.
The grand clock in the entrance hall began to chime nine times.
‘Come, girls, it’s time for your French lesson,’ Joanna urged, feeling sorry for Catherine and wanting to distract her from her sister’s insults with activity.
‘I’m too old to be hustled into the schoolroom by a governess.’ Catherine’s defiance weakened Joanna’s pity.
Anne, the blonde seven-year-old, turned around and stuck her tongue out at Joanna. ‘We’ll tell you when it’s time for our lessons.’
Ava, her twin sister, ignored Joanna and continued to eat her half-burned toast.
Joanna stared at the back of their three heads and the bows wound through their curls. The twins were no better behaved or obedient than their eldest sister. She wondered how she would get them to the schoolroom when, to her surprise, it was their father who interceded.
‘Girls, get up at once and stop being contrary,’ he commanded as he strolled into the room, his large, black hunting dog muddying the carpet as it trotted beside him.
With deep pouts the girls shoved away from the table and stood up to form something of a straight line in front of Joanna.
‘That’s how you command charges, Miss Radcliff,’ Sir Rodger tossed at Joanna as he took his place at the head of the now-empty table. ‘One would think you’d have learned such things at that school of yours.’
Joanna’s cheeks burned at the insulting rebuke and the sniggering it elicited from the girls. After their father’s public reprimand, they’d be even more difficult to deal with once they got back to the schoolroom.
Gruger, the withered old butler, shuffled in and tossed the London newspaper down beside his employer’s plate with no attempt at ceremony. Sir Rodger didn’t correct the surly man with the pocked and wrinkled face, but picked up the paper and snapped it open in front of his face. Gruger shuffled out, mumbling insults about the cook under his breath.
‘Come along.’ Joanna led the girls upstairs to another day of fighting to get them to obey her and to do their work. With each step up the curving staircase in need of a polish, past the maids gossiping while the ashes remained in the fireplaces, she wished she could slip off to her room and pour out her heart to Rachel, or Grace or Isabel like she used to do at the school. It wasn’t likely anyone would notice her not working since half the staff hid in corners and shirked their duties, but what they did or didn’t do wasn’t her concern. Her pride in her work and her responsibility for the girls was what mattered and she would see to them, even if it proved as difficult as shooing Farmer Wilson’s cow out of Madame Dubois’s garden.
The single comfort she found in the long trudge down the halls kept dark to save on candles was the knowledge Major Preston would soon be here. While they crossed the second floor and made for the steep and unadorned third-floor stairs, her excitement faded. He wasn’t coming to visit her, and even if he was she had no interest in a dalliance which might result in a child as Grace’s had done. After the way he’d assisted her last night, she doubted he’d be anything but well behaved around her. Still, the strange feeling in her chest at the memory of him beside her at the ball made her wary. It wasn’t so much his weakness she worried about, but her own. She’d already made one mistake in talking to him at Pensum Manor and allowing his kindness and humour to make her forget herself in a room full of people. She feared what might happen between the two of them during some chance meeting in a darkened hallway.
Nothing will happen. She was too sensible of her place and all Miss Fanworth’s old warnings about gentlemen to be corrupted by a man’s fine words. She would do her duty and if she found herself alone with him, she’d smile, nod and continue on her way, no matter how much she wanted him to flatter and protect her as he had at the ball.
‘Miss Radcliff.’ Sir Rodger waved her over to him with a book as she came downstairs from the schoolroom. Frances and Catherine were upstairs with their mother discussing the house party while Ava and Anne were with their nurse, giving Joanna a brief rest from her duties.
‘Yes, Sir Rodger?’ She’d hope to take a walk in the garden. It appeared her plans were about to be waylaid by her employer. She wondered what he wanted of her. He’d barely said two words to her during her time here except to scold her in front of others or question the quality of her education.
‘Since it appears you have nothing to occupy you at present, I’d like you to return this book to Vicar Carlson.’ He handed her the tome, the blue cuff of his favourite coat sprinkled with food stains. With his wild grey hair frizzed out on either side of his head, he appeared more like some forgotten grandfather than a wealthy baronet. His dog sat beside him, its drool dripping on the stone floor. ‘While you walk, think about how you can better manage the girls. I won’t pay for a governess who has no control over my daughters. Do I make myself clear?’
Joanna’s fingers dug into the leather binding. She wanted to tell him the girls’ obstinacy wasn’t her fault but his since he rarely reprimanded them. Instead, she summoned up her best prim-and-proper governess stance to answer with all the deference required of her position. ‘Yes, Sir Rodger. I’ll deliver the book at once and consider what you’ve said.’
She dipped a curtsy and walked away, indignity making her insides burn as she left the house and headed down the drive. Sir Rodger employed slothful maids, a crotchety butler and a cook who couldn’t warm bread, yet he threatened to fire her? She snapped a thin branch off a poorly pruned topiary and swiped it at the air in front of her. It would take nothing short of an exorcism to drive out the wilful streak in the Huntford girls. She’d already employed every trick Madame Dubois and the other teachers had taught her, but nothing had worked. Without the support of their parents, there was little Joanna could do to make them mind. Her failure was almost assured.
She made the sharp turn on to the small path which led into the woods and to the narrow road traversing it. The woods covered the corner of land marking the boundaries between Huntford Place, Pensum Manor and Helmsworth Manor. She and the girls often walked here during their daily outings to study botany and geology. They were no more obedient outside than inside and it was always a chore to bring them home in time for supper, or with the twins not covered in mud.
Why didn’t Madame Dubois better vet the Huntfords before she sent me here? Or perhaps she’d been so eager to relinquish responsibility for Joanna after nineteen years, she hadn’t cared. Her parents hadn’t cared when they’d left her on the school’s doorstep as an infant without a clue as to who they were, so why should anyone else?
Joanna stumbled over a rock, the old rejection burning in her chest. It was an uncharitable thing to think of Madame Dubois who’d taken her in and been so kind to her, but she couldn’t help it. The loneliness which used to fill her every Christmas when the other girls would go home for the holidays while she remained at the school came over her again. The teachers had done their best to raise and guide her, but with so many students, Joanna had received no special attention, nor had she sought it. The teachers had always praised her for her independence, not realising it wasn’t independence at all, but resignation. There hadn’t been any point asking for something she wouldn’t receive.
The teachers might not have cooed over her, but they’d imparted their knowledge to her, preparing her for her present position. Sadly, it was nothing like what she’d been led to believe it would be, or what she’d hoped. When she’d viewed the house from the mail coach on her first day here, she’d been so excited, expecting to at last experience what it was like to be a member of a true family. It had all been a silly dream, like the one she used to have about her mother returning to claim her.
Joanna flung the branch away. It would be a blow to her and the school if she was dismissed and forced to return to Salisbury without a reference. All the many years of effort, time and work Madame Dubois, Miss Fanworth and the other teachers had put into her would be ruined because of her inability to maintain her first position. In the end she might not have a choice but to leave. Sir Rodger had made his unrealistic expectation of her clear and she didn’t see how she might meet it.