CHAPTER TWO
“I don’t see why you get to decide the order of lessons.”
Anna stood at the head of the schoolroom table with her arms crossed and her chin lifted, every inch the tiny general preparing to hold her ground against an invading force. It was Wednesday morning, the third day of Mel’s tenure at Hartfell House, and the battle for authority had begun in earnest.
“I decide the order of lessons,” Mel said, without looking up from the primer she was arranging, “Because I am the governess. That is what governesses do.”
“The last governess let me decide.”
“The last governess lasted three weeks. I intend to last considerably longer.”
Viola was already under the table, clutching a book to her chest like a shield. Thistle was at the window, pressing her nose against the glass and watching the rain with the intensity of a prisoner planning escape. Brutus sat in his usual pocket, a small lump of amphibian patience.
“But I know what order is best,” Anna insisted. “I’ve been here longer than you. I know how things work.”
Mel finally raised her eyes. Anna met her gaze with the unflinching determination of someone who had successfully bullied three previous governesses into submission, and who saw no reason why the fourth should prove any different.
A lesser woman might have raised her voice.
A lesser woman might have invoked authority, or threatened consequences, or simply given in for the sake of peace.
Mel had done all of these things, in her early years, and had learned that none of them worked on children like Anna.
Children like Anna did not respond to authority they did not respect. They responded only to competence.
“You’re quite right,” Mel said. “You do know how things work here better than I do.”
Anna blinked. This was not the response she had expected.
“Which is why,” Mel continued, “I should like you to keep the attendance register.”
“The what?”
Mel produced a small leather notebook from her bag and placed it on the table.
“Every proper schoolroom has an attendance register. It records who is present, who is absent, and why. It also records punctuality. I shall need someone responsible to maintain it.”
Anna stared at the notebook as though it might bite her.
“Additionally,” Mel said, “I find that choosing the evening’s story is a matter that requires careful consideration.
One must account for the preferences of all listeners, the length of the tale, and whether the content is appropriate for the hour.
It is a decision that requires judgment.
I believe you would be suited to the task. ”
“I would choose the story?” Anna’s voice had shifted from combative to cautiously interest.
“Each evening. Subject, of course, to my approval on matters of appropriateness. I shall not have anyone reading Gothic novels at bedtime and then complaining of nightmares.”
“I don’t get nightmares.”
“Then you are ideally suited to the responsibility.”
Anna picked up the attendance register and opened it to the first page, which was blank and waiting. She ran her finger along the spine with the reverence of someone who had just been handed something real.
“I shall need a quill.” she said.
“Top drawer of the desk, you may use the good ink, not the one that smudges.”
By the time Mel turned back to arrange the morning’s first lesson, Anna had already inscribed the date in careful letters at the top of the page and was entering her sisters’ names in the attendance register, each letter formed with meticulous precision.
The battle for authority, Mel reflected, was sometimes won not through force but through delegation.
Anna did not want to be managed. Anna wanted to be needed.
The attendance register would give her a purpose.
The story selection would give her power.
And in exchange, she would stop fighting lessons that did not belong to her.
It was, Mel thought, not so different from managing a household. One simply had to determine what each person truly wanted and find a way to provide it that served everyone’s interests.
Viola, of course, was another matter entirely.
The middle child did not fight. She did not argue or resist or stage small rebellions, she simply disappeared.
On the second day, Mel had found her inside the old armoire in the upstairs hallway, curled among the winter linens with a book propped against her knees.
On the third day, she had vanished behind the heavy curtains in the drawing room, so still that the footman had walked past twice without noticing her.
On the fourth day, she had wedged herself into the space between the bookshelf and the wall in the schoolroom itself, a gap so narrow that Mel was forced to admire the architectural assessment required to identify it as viable hiding space.
The previous governesses, Mel learned over tea with Mrs. Kemp on the fifth day, had been a study in well-intentioned defeat.
“The first,” Mrs. Kemp said, counting on her fingers with the grim efficiency of a woman who had held the household together through each departure, “Lasted nine weeks. She was the longest. A widow from Bath, quite respectable, with excellent references. She left after Thistle introduced her to Brutus in the washbasin.”
“A reasonable objection.”
“The second lasted six weeks. A young woman recommended by a cousin. She taught the girls a great deal of French, which I suppose was a grand feat. She left when she realised there were no balls in Cornwall and, if I may speak frankly, no gentlemen within a reasonable distance of this house.”
“Also reasonable.”
“The third lasted three weeks. She was the one who summoned the groundskeeper to check the well when Viola hid in the armoire. She later informed me that the position required a constitution she did not possess. I agreed with her and did not attempt to dissuade her.”
“And the fourth.”
“The fourth lasted eight days.” Mrs. Kemp poured more tea with an expression that suggested the memory still fatigued her.
“She was the one who believed Viola was possessed by spirits. She left in the middle of the night, I am told, without collecting her wages.”
Mel absorbed this in silence. She had assumed, from Mr. Grieves’s reluctant summary at the hiring interview, that the children were difficult. She had not assumed the adults in their lives had cycled through the house like visitors at a coaching inn.
“And Mr. Langford,” she asked, with careful neutrality.
“Does he not visit?”
“He visits.” Mrs. Kemp’s expression did not change.
“Briefly, once a month, he arrives, he departs, he sees the children for an afternoon, and he is gone again before supper. His visits do not overlap with any governess’s tenure in a manner that has been useful to us.”
“I see.”
“You may not, yet, but I assure you,you will.”
Mrs. Kemp did not elaborate, and Mel did not press. Some explanations, she had learned, were best allowed to arrive on their own schedule.
Mel did none of these things.
When Viola vanished during the fourth day’s geography lesson, Mel simply continued teaching.
She addressed her remarks to the empty chair where Viola should have been sitting, then adjusted her position so that her voice would carry toward the bookshelf gap where she had seen a flash of pale fabric disappear.
“The counties of England,” Mel said, pointing to the map she had hung on the wall, “…are divided into regions based on geography, history, and administrative convenience. Cornwall, where we currently reside, is the westernmost county and is notable for its tin mines, fishing industry, and dramatic coastline.”
From behind the bookshelf, there was no sound. But Mel had the distinct impression of listening.
“Can anyone tell me what body of water borders Cornwall to the south?”
Anna raised her hand with the enthusiasm of someone who had appointed herself the class’s star pupil.
“The English Channel.”
“Correct. And to the north?”
“The Bristol Channel. And the Celtic Sea.”
“Excellent. You may record that in the attendance register under ‘participation.’”
Anna bent over her notebook with barely concealed delight. Thistle, who had been attempting to teach Brutus to jump on command, looked up long enough to say, “Does Brutus count as participating if he’s here?”
“Brutus may be recorded as present but not participating, unless he demonstrates knowledge of English geography.”
“He’s French,” Thistle said. “His family came over with the Normans.”
“Then perhaps he would prefer to study the geography of France. We shall cover that next week.”
From behind the bookshelf, the tiniest sound emerged. It might have been a breath. It might have been the beginning of a laugh, quickly smothered. Mel did not look. She did not acknowledge. She simply continued the lesson as though nothing unusual had occurred.
On the fifth day, Viola emerged.
It transpired quite unheralded, stripped of all ceremony and the customary proclamations. One moment the chair beside Anna was empty; the next, Viola was sitting in it, her book closed in her lap, with her eyes fixed on the map of England as though she had been there all along.
Mel said nothing. She did not exclaim or celebrate or draw attention to the victory. She simply adjusted her teaching position slightly, so that Viola could see the map more clearly, and continued discussing the wool trade of Yorkshire.
When the lesson ended and the girls were released for their morning walk, Anna and Thistle tumbled out the door in their usual chaos of elbows and competing voices. Viola hung back for a moment, standing by her chair with her fingers twisted together.
“Miss Grace?” Her voice was barely audible, a wisp of sound that required leaning in to catch.
“Yes, Viola?”
“The Bristol Channel. It’s also called the Severn Estuary, at the eastern end. Where it gets narrow.”
Mel absorbed this information with appropriate gravity.