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Authors: Judith Harkness
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Your Excellency. I have had the happy expectation of meeting you ever since poor Papa died.â This was pronounced with a combination of such nice condescension and rapt interest that it fairly took my breath away. The child looked like a gypsy and spoke like a duchess! Sir Basil seemed equally amazed, and I saw Lady Cardovan turn away to hide her smiles.
âChild, here is your new governess, Miss Calder,â said His Excellency when he had recovered from his shock. The girl turned to me and held out her hand, saying with great cordiality that she was happy to make my acquaintance, too. For this I was heartily thankful, I can assure youâand said as much. It had begun to dawn upon me that I had contracted for a task quite beyond my abilities. The child was already so well-formed in her conduct, so candid in her manner, so condescending in her little murmurs and smiles, that the idea of teaching her at all seemed superfluous. It must have been, from my own small experience, something akin to teaching a kitten how to play. I had already a thousand questions for Lady Cardovan, but from one glance at her, I could see she was nearly as astounded as myself. From a later conversation with that lady, I gathered that she had no more information about the child than what she had imparted to me at our first meeting. Mr. Lessington was a solicitor, a respectable and respected man in his county, and Nicole had been his only child. That he had managed to be both mother and father to her during most of her life was astounding, especially considering the precocity of her mind and the maturity of her manner.
I have grown only more astonished by Miss Lessington since that day. We are on very intimate terms, for she instantly made it clear to me, upon our going home, that she intended to be as much my friend as my pupil. She commenced, the moment I had shown her her bedchamber and the schoolroom (an apartment at the top of the house, whichby the look of it would more properly have been used as a ballroom) to inquire into my own family and past. She did so with such a little motherly air that I was quite intimidated by her, and before I knew what I was about, had said something more than I ought. It was a moment before I caught myself up and remembered that I am as vulnerable to scrutiny here as Nicole is to tutoring. (If ever the clear light of her eye should happen upon a hint of what I really am, Heaven help me!) Though, to be absolutely just, I believe she might enjoy the charade more than she disapproved it. I am grown very fond of her, and grateful for the affection she has so instantly and openly offered me, for it is the ony human thing in the whole place.
Sir Basil, following upon this first astounding meeting, has made only the most mechanical attempts to converse with either of us. For the most part, he is away during the day, either at his club or at Carlton House. In the evening he nearly always dines away from home, and when he does not, we have dinner together. These sessions are apparently so painful to himâfor he cannot think of anything to say to a governess and a nine-year-old girlâthat as soon as we are done he rushes to his library to have his port, insured of privacy even more absolute than what he might have in the dining room. For my own part, I am nearly as tongue-tied with him , as he with me. I have ever found the greatest insurance of awkwardness to lie in conversing with a person who feels awkward himself, and so the two of us struggle for something to say, and only Nicole, unperturbed as always, chatters on. She attends to our silences quite like a seasoned hostess, knowing that even the most nonsensical stream of chatter at table is better than nothing at all.
My life here is nothing like what I had envisioned. Nothing, even, like what Lady Cardovan made me think it would be. She was certain I should be called upon to play hostess myself, as well as governess, but there has not been one
âChild, here is your new governess, Miss Calder,â said His Excellency when he had recovered from his shock. The girl turned to me and held out her hand, saying with great cordiality that she was happy to make my acquaintance, too. For this I was heartily thankful, I can assure youâand said as much. It had begun to dawn upon me that I had contracted for a task quite beyond my abilities. The child was already so well-formed in her conduct, so candid in her manner, so condescending in her little murmurs and smiles, that the idea of teaching her at all seemed superfluous. It must have been, from my own small experience, something akin to teaching a kitten how to play. I had already a thousand questions for Lady Cardovan, but from one glance at her, I could see she was nearly as astounded as myself. From a later conversation with that lady, I gathered that she had no more information about the child than what she had imparted to me at our first meeting. Mr. Lessington was a solicitor, a respectable and respected man in his county, and Nicole had been his only child. That he had managed to be both mother and father to her during most of her life was astounding, especially considering the precocity of her mind and the maturity of her manner.
I have grown only more astonished by Miss Lessington since that day. We are on very intimate terms, for she instantly made it clear to me, upon our going home, that she intended to be as much my friend as my pupil. She commenced, the moment I had shown her her bedchamber and the schoolroom (an apartment at the top of the house, whichby the look of it would more properly have been used as a ballroom) to inquire into my own family and past. She did so with such a little motherly air that I was quite intimidated by her, and before I knew what I was about, had said something more than I ought. It was a moment before I caught myself up and remembered that I am as vulnerable to scrutiny here as Nicole is to tutoring. (If ever the clear light of her eye should happen upon a hint of what I really am, Heaven help me!) Though, to be absolutely just, I believe she might enjoy the charade more than she disapproved it. I am grown very fond of her, and grateful for the affection she has so instantly and openly offered me, for it is the ony human thing in the whole place.
Sir Basil, following upon this first astounding meeting, has made only the most mechanical attempts to converse with either of us. For the most part, he is away during the day, either at his club or at Carlton House. In the evening he nearly always dines away from home, and when he does not, we have dinner together. These sessions are apparently so painful to himâfor he cannot think of anything to say to a governess and a nine-year-old girlâthat as soon as we are done he rushes to his library to have his port, insured of privacy even more absolute than what he might have in the dining room. For my own part, I am nearly as tongue-tied with him , as he with me. I have ever found the greatest insurance of awkwardness to lie in conversing with a person who feels awkward himself, and so the two of us struggle for something to say, and only Nicole, unperturbed as always, chatters on. She attends to our silences quite like a seasoned hostess, knowing that even the most nonsensical stream of chatter at table is better than nothing at all.
My life here is nothing like what I had envisioned. Nothing, even, like what Lady Cardovan made me think it would be. She was certain I should be called upon to play hostess myself, as well as governess, but there has not been one
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