Chapter Three
“I am not a child, you know.”
Serena looked up from the lesson plan she was reviewing to find Ella standing in the doorway of the schoolroom, her arms crossed in what had become a familiar posture of defensive defiance.
“I am quite aware of your age, Miss Ella. You are eleven.”
“Eleven and three-quarters.” Ella advanced into the room with the deliberate stride of someone who had carefully observed how adults walked and was determined to imitate them. “Which is practically twelve. And twelve is practically grown.”
Serena set aside her pen and gave Ella her full attention. It was, she had learned over the past three days, the most effective way to manage her: to take her seriously, even when her conclusions were patently absurd.
“By that reasoning,” Serena said mildly, “twelve is also practically thirteen, which is practically fourteen, which is practically fifteen, and so on, until you have reasoned yourself into being a woman of thirty before teatime.”
Ella’s brow furrowed. “That’s not—It does not—”
“I know precisely what you meant.” Serena gestured to the chair opposite her. “Sit down, Miss Ella, and tell me what is truly troubling you.”
For a moment, Serena thought she would refuse, retreating behind that carefully constructed wall of premature composure. But something in Serena’s expression must have reached her, for after a pause, the girl crossed the room and sat.
“I do not need lessons,” Ella said, though her voice lacked some of its earlier certainty.
“I already know everything you intend to teach me. I have read all the books in the schoolroom. I can conjugate French verbs, name the kings of England, and calculate sums in my head. There is nothing left to learn.”
Serena absorbed this calmly. “I see. And what, precisely, do you intend to do with yourself, if you have already learned everything there is to learn?”
“I shall help with the household accounts. Uncle Nate says I have a head for figures. And I shall manage the younger ones, ensure that Samuel completes his lessons properly and that Rosie does not get into mischief. I am quite good at managing, you know. Mrs McConnor says so.”
Ah. There it was.
Serena studied the girl before her: the too-mature dress, the overly careful posture, the bright eyes that worked so hard to conceal any trace of vulnerability.
“Miss Ella,” she said gently, “who has been teaching you your lessons these past two years?”
The question clearly caught her off guard. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that your governesses did not remain long. Miss Pearson was here for less than a fortnight. Before her, there was a considerable interval without any governess at all. And before that…” Serena allowed the sentence to trail away, watching Ella’s face.
The girl’s jaw tightened. “I taught myself. It is not difficult, if one is clever enough.”
“No, I imagine it is not. You are very clever indeed.” Serena paused, choosing her words with care.
“But cleverness and education are not the same thing. One may memorise facts from books, but a book cannot discuss ideas with you. It cannot challenge your assumptions, nor help you examine a question from another perspective. Books present what they know, and they may even be mistaken at times.”
“Books are rarely mistaken.”
“Books are frequently incomplete, Miss Ella. They often present one truth as though it were the only truth, when there are many others waiting to be discovered.” Serena leaned forward slightly. “You say you have read all the books in the schoolroom. Have you read Mary Wollstonecraft?”
Ella’s expression flickered, uncertainty mingling with curiosity. “No. Who is that?”
“A woman who held some very interesting views on education and the place of women in society. Views that may surprise you, if you are willing to be surprised.” Serena allowed herself a small smile.
“I have a copy in my trunk. I brought it in case I should find a pupil clever enough to appreciate it.”
The effect was immediate. Ella’s rigid posture softened almost imperceptibly, and something like genuine interest stirred in her grey eyes.
“What sort of views?”
“I could tell you, but that would defeat the purpose. True learning requires discovery. One must wrestle with ideas, test them, examine them from every side. I can guide you through that process, but I cannot do it for you.” Serena settled back in her chair.
“The question is whether you are willing to be guided. Whether you can set aside the belief that you already know everything, and allow yourself to learn something new.”
Ella was silent for a long moment, her brow drawn tight in thought.
“And what of Samuel and Rosie?” she asked at last. “If you are teaching me about philosophical women and challenging ideas, who will ensure that they do their lessons properly?”
“I shall.”
“But you can’t teach all three of us at once. Not properly.”
Serena smiled. It was, she conceded, a fair observation. “You are correct. I cannot give each of you my full attention simultaneously. Which is why I have a proposal to make.”
Ella’s eyes narrowed at once. “What sort of proposal?”
“You have been acting as a second mother to your siblings, Miss Ella. I have seen it in the way you watch over them, anticipate their needs, and place yourself between them and anything that might cause them harm.” Serena lifted a hand as Ella opened her mouth to protest. “I do not reproach you for it. It is admirable, in its way. You have assumed a role no child should be required to fill, and you have done so with remarkable competence.”
Ella’s guarded expression wavered, uncertainty seeping through.
“But,” Serena continued, “it is not your role. You are not their mother. You are their sister. And sisters are permitted to be children themselves, at least some of the time.”
“I’m not—” Ella stopped, swallowed, then tried again. “I’m not trying to be their mother. I’m just... someone has to take care of them. Someone has to ensure they’re all right.”
“Yes. And that person is me.” Serena’s voice was gentle, but resolute.
“That is why I am here, Miss Ella. To care for them, and for you. To see that you are all learning what you ought, and growing into the people you are meant to become. Your task is not to be the adult of this household. Your task is to be eleven years old.”
“Eleven and three-quarters,” Ella said automatically, though the sharpness had left her voice.
“Eleven and three-quarters,” Serena agreed.
“Which means you are entitled to lessons that challenge you, to interests wholly unconnected to managing a household, and even to moments of doing nothing useful at all. It means you may laugh, and be foolish, and make mistakes without fearing that the world will collapse as a result.”
Ella stared at her, and for a brief instant Serena glimpsed the child beneath the armour: frightened, weary, and profoundly lonely.
“What if I have forgotten how?” Ella whispered. “What if I do not remember how to be… just a child?”
Serena reached across the table and laid her hand over Ella’s. “Then we shall discover it together. One day at a time. That is my proposal, Miss Ella. That you permit me to do my work, so that you may cease doing it in my stead. Can you agree to that?”
Ella’s lower lip trembled, only slightly. She drew a breath, squared her shoulders, and nodded.
“I can try,” she said.
It was, Serena thought, the most honest thing Ella had said since they met.
***
The morning lessons proceeded more smoothly than Serena had dared to hope.
Ella, buoyed by the promise of more advanced material, engaged with the standard curriculum without her usual objections.
Samuel remained silent, but completed his work with quiet competence, his handwriting neat and his arithmetic precise.
And Rosie, still too young for formal lessons, seemed content to sit at the table beside them, drawing pictures with coloured chalk and occasionally holding up her efforts for approval.
“That is a very fine horse,” Serena said, examining Rosie’s latest masterpiece, a cheerful arrangement of lines and loops that might, with sufficient imagination, be taken for an equine form.
“It is not a horse,” Rosie said, frowning at the paper. “It is Marianne.”
Serena looked again. “Ah, of course. I see it now. The yellow hair is particularly accurate.”
Rosie beamed, mollified, and returned to her artistic endeavours.
By noon, Serena found herself cautiously optimistic. The children were not, as she had been warned, impossible. They were simply complicated, wounded, and in need of patience and consistency rather than strict discipline or endless rules.
She dismissed them for luncheon with instructions to wash their hands and meet her in the small dining room, then gathered her materials and returned them neatly to the cabinet in the schoolroom.
She was just closing the door when she heard footsteps in the corridor, too heavy to belong to a child, too measured to be a servant going about daily duties.
Lord Greystone appeared in the doorway.
He looked as though he had slept poorly.
Shadows lay beneath his grey eyes, and his jaw was set with a tension that suggested he had been clenching it for some time.
His coat was perfectly tailored and his cravat immaculately tied, yet he wore his elegance like armour rather than ornament, as protection against something he had no wish to confront.
“Miss Collard,” he said, his voice carefully even. “I trust the morning went well?”
“Very well, my lord. The children were attentive and cooperative.”
Something flickered across his expression, surprise perhaps, or disbelief. “All three of them?”
“All three. Though I should add that Miss Rosie’s cooperation consisted chiefly of not eating the chalk, which I consider a notable success for a child of five.”
That earned her something very nearly resembling a smile. “You set modest standards.”
“I find that modest standards, reliably met, lead to more progress than lofty ones that are never attained. The children need to feel capable, my lord. Small victories remind them that effort yields results.”
Lord Greystone was silent for a moment, his gaze moving about the schoolroom, taking in the shelves of books, the globe in the corner, the small chairs gathered around the table where his nieces and nephew had sat that morning.
“My brother used to sit in this room,” he said quietly. “When we were boys. He was always the better student. More patient. More willing to apply himself.” He paused, his jaw tightening. “I preferred the outdoors. Running about, mischief, anything to avoid a lesson. Our tutors despaired of me.”
Serena, uncertain how to receive this unexpected confidence, remained silent.
“Edward, my brother,” he continued, as though compelled by the memory.
“He would cover for me. When I missed a lesson or failed to complete an exercise, he made excuses. Told the tutor I had been unwell, or that my work had been misplaced, or some other convenient invention.” A brief, bitter smile crossed his face.
“I never thanked him properly for it. I took it for granted, assumed he would always be there, as one does when one is young and foolish.”
“My lord,” Serena began.
“I beg your pardon.” He shook his head slightly, as though banishing unwelcome thoughts. “I do not know why I am telling you this. It is hardly relevant to… to anything.”
“On the contrary,” Serena said gently. “It tells me a great deal about the children’s father. About the sort of man he was, and the sort of home they knew.” She hesitated, then added carefully, “It also tells me something about you.”
His eyes met hers, wary and guarded. “And what is that?”
“That you loved your brother dearly. And that you miss him.”
His expression closed at once, as though a shutter had been drawn. “My feelings are not the subject of this discussion, Miss Collard.”
“No, my lord. But they shape the household in which these children live. If you are grieving—and you are, quite plainly—then that grief touches everything here. The children feel it, even if they cannot name it.” She took a steadying breath.
“I am not asking you to confide in me. I am only observing that healing rarely occurs in isolation. If you wish the children to recover, you must allow yourself the same.”
The silence that followed was heavy. Lord Greystone regarded her with an expression that hovered between offence and something else, something she could not quite decipher, but which caused her pulse to quicken.
“You overstep, Miss Collard,” he said at last, his voice taut.
“Yes,” Serena replied calmly. “I do. It is, I’m afraid, an unfortunate habit of mine.”
For a tense moment, she was certain he would dismiss her at once. She had gone too far, spoken too freely, forgotten her place.
But then, quite unexpectedly, he laughed.
It was a brief sound, startled from him against his will, and it altered his countenance entirely. For an instant, she glimpsed the man he must once have been, quick-witted, open, unburdened by loss.
“You are not what I expected,” he said, some of the tension easing from his shoulders.
“I seldom am, my lord. I have been told it is among my less endearing qualities.”
“On the contrary.” He shook his head, still faintly incredulous. “It may be precisely what this household requires.” He glanced towards the door, then back again. “The children take their luncheon at noon?”
“Yes, my lord. In the small dining room.”
He nodded slowly, as though settling a question within himself. “I shall join them today, if that is agreeable.”
Serena blinked. “You wish to dine with the children?”
“Is that so remarkable?”
“Forgive me, my lord,” she said at once. “Mrs McConnor indicated that you generally take your meals alone, and that the children are accustomed to…”
“They are accustomed to my absence,” he said quietly.
“I am aware of it, and it is a deficiency I mean to correct.” He adjusted his coat, a small, telling gesture that betrayed an uncertainty she had not expected.
“You spoke of healing not occurring in isolation. It seems only fair that I test the truth of it.”
Serena inclined her head, not trusting herself to speak. That was... unexpected. And unexpected things, in her experience, were seldom without consequence.
“I shall see you in the dining room,” Lord Greystone said, and without waiting for a reply, turned and left the schoolroom.
Serena stood where she was, staring after him, a curious flutter stirring in her chest. She pressed her hand briefly to her bodice and drew a steadying breath, telling herself firmly that it was nothing more than surprise.
It was certainly not anything else at all.