by M. C. Beaton
“And where are they now?”
“In the workhouse, my lord.”
“This is quite dreadful. Get them out of the workhouse as soon as possible. Get builders or whatever you need to repair the place and the gates. I have an agent, do I not?”
“Mr. Peterman over at St. Giles.”
“Get him. I want him now.”
“Very good, my lord.”
“Wicked old man,” the viscount said, meaning Mr. Courtney. He suddenly pasted a strained smile on his face. “Why, here are the girls. Girls, make your curtsy to Miss Morrison, your new governess.”
Jean looked at the twins and her heart sank. They were both small and fat with black greasy hair and malicious little black eyes. Their dresses were dirty and they smelled abominable.
They curtsied and then stood hand in hand, staring at her. “The one with the eyebrows is Amanda,” the viscount said, and Amanda did indeed have black eyebrows across her brow in a straight bar. “T’other is Clarissa.”
“Your hair is awfully red,” Clarissa said. Her voice had a strong country accent.
“Your first lesson,” Jean said firmly, “is not to make personal comments. Perhaps, my lord, the girls will show me the schoolroom while one of your servants fetches my belongings from my aunt. She is Mrs. Delmar-Richardson of Peartrees, Gunshott.”
“That will be done,” the viscount said. “The housekeeper is Mrs. Moody. I will send her to you and she will show you to your quarters. Girls, take Miss Morrison to the schoolroom.”
The girls trudged out and Jean followed them. They led her up to the top of the house. The schoolroom had a little-used look. It was cold and dusty. It contained a teacher’s desk and two pupils’ desks.
“We may as well begin by getting to know each other,” Jean said. “Sit down.”
“Enjoy yourself while you can,” Clarissa said. “We’ll soon get rid of you.”
Jean ignored that. She opened the lid of her desk and saw that it contained sheets of paper, pens, and ink. She selected two steel pens, a bottle of ink, and two sheets of paper.
“Now,” she said, placing everything in front of them, “you will both begin by starting to write, ‘A lady should never be rude.’”
They stared at her in dumb insolence.
But Jean Morrison was full of unaccustomed brandy and Jean Morrison was suddenly determined to fight every inch of the way to stay with the golden viscount. She saw a cane standing in the corner of the room. She picked it up and brought it down with a crash across Amanda’s desk. Green eyes blazing, Jean Morrison ordered, “Write!”
Chapter 2
THERE WAS A SHOCKED SILENCE in the schoolroom. Then the girls dipped their pens in the ink bottle and began to write, slowly and painfully. Jean read, “A lady shude never be rood.”
She put down the cane, ashamed of her own outburst. Poor girls. Poor semiliterate girls. “No, no,” she said gently. “I will write it correctly for you and you may copy it.” In firm copperplate she wrote down the phrase just as the housekeeper came into the room. “Miss Morrison,” Mrs. Moody said, “I am come to show you to your room.”
“Continue writing, girls,” Jean ordered. “Fifty times. That one sentence.”
Mrs. Moody was delighted with this new governess. Jean thought of herself as plain and would have been startled to know that the servants put down their sudden increase in good fortune to the effect of her feminine charms on the viscount. As she followed the housekeeper downstairs and along a corridor on the second floor, Jean could hear the house coming to life. The servants were all hard at work.
She was shown into a large bedchamber with a high bed, high because it had five mattresses, four of horsehair and straw topped with a feather one. The bedroom had obviously just been cleaned and a fire was burning in the fireplace. Fresh jugs of water had been placed on the toilet table.
“We hope you will be very happy here,” Mrs. Moody said. “But be warned, miss, them hellions upstairs have put rout to I dunno how many governesses.”
“They are unfortunate, that is all,” Jean said. “What was old Mr. Courtney like?”
“A bit strange,” the housekeeper said cautiously. “Got tighter and tighter with money.”
“He must keep a generous table, however,” Jean said. “The girls are too fat.”
“Well, I’m blessed if I know where they get the money from, and that’s a fact,” the housekeeper said. “Always stuffing themselves with chocolates and sugarplums. But it wasn’t from any feeding they got from old Mr. Courtney.”
Jean picked up her trunk and put it on the bed. “I will just leave my clothes out on the bed, Mrs. Moody. I do not want to leave my charges alone too long.”
“I’ll gladly send the maids up to put everything away for you.”
“That will not be necessary.” Jean did not want the servants to see how plain and unfashionable her wardrobe was. She dismissed the housekeeper, quickly spread her small stock of clothes out on the bed, and arranged her brush and comb on the toilet table.
Then she went back to the schoolroom. It was empty. The girls had written only three blotted lines each. She rang the bell and told a footman to send the servants to look for them. Then she waited a half hour before deciding to go to her room and put her clothes away. The rest of her things should be arriving shortly.
She opened the door of her room and then stood, shocked, on the threshold. All her clothes had been cut and slashed and left in ribbons on the bed. Her brush was burning merrily in the fireplace along with what she gathered was the remains of her comb.
She went to a chair by the window, sat down, and clasped her knees to stop them from trembling. If she told the viscount, he would pay her for the damage and then he would probably dismiss her, as she could not maintain discipline—which was just what the twins wanted.
Jean thought of the golden viscount and of the kind way he had given her his handkerchief. She still had it. She took it out and spread it on her lap, her fingers caressing the monogram.
No, she thought. She was not going to be trounced by that couple of fiends. She carefully packed the ruined clothes back into the trunk and climbed up to the schoolroom, carrying it.
The twins were sitting at their desks, writing busily. Jean rang the bell and asked for a workbasket to be brought to the schoolroom.
The twins wrote on, heads down, the picture of innocence.
“Now,” Jean said grimly, “we will have a lesson in sewing. Put aside your writing and bring your chairs next to me. It is of no use protesting your innocence. You wrecked my clothes and you will repair them.”
She drew out two of the slashed dresses. “One each. You will repair the slashes with neat stitches. Your work will be ripped out and you will start again if it is not neat enough. Begin.”
Clarissa got up, walked over to Jean, and slapped her full across the face while Amanda cheered. Jean slapped Clarissa back with all her force.
“You bitch!” Clarissa said with a tinge of admiration in her voice.
“Begin!” Jean ordered, picking up the cane which she had no intention of using except in self-defense.
They stitched and stitched, clumsy, painful stitches. Jean duly ripped them out and set the twins to the task again. After they had been working for two hours, Jean looked out of the window and saw the sun was shining.
“We will go for a walk,” she announced, “and then we will resume again on our return. Fetch your cloaks and bonnets.”
Soon all were walking away from the house, Jean behind and the twins in front, their heads together, whispering, and occasionally looking back at her. Jean was determined to enjoy the sudden good weather. They walked through the gardens at the back of the house and down to a curve of white sandy beach. Great glassy waves curled and broke on the shore. “This is beautiful,” Jean said.
“I prefer Peter’s Tarn, inland. It’s more beautiful,” Amanda volunteered.
Glad of some sign of aesthetic appreciation from one of the
se horrible girls, Jean asked eagerly, “Is it far? Could you take me there?”
“Not far,” Amanda said laconically, and the twins turned inland. After a mile they came to the tarn, or small lake. It was almost a complete circle and as smooth as a mirror. Two weeping willows dipped their long branches into the water. The air was still and warm and sweet. Jean stood on a flat rock overhanging the water and looked down.
“It is indeed so very beautiful,” she said. “How deep is it, do you think?”
“Have a closer look and you’ll find out,” Amanda said from behind her.
And then with one almighty push, she sent Jean flying over the edge and into the water.
Arm in arm Amanda and Clarissa strolled off, deaf to the cries for help that were coming from the tarn.
“That’s got rid of her,” Amanda said. “Know’d it wouldn’t take long. Silly bitch.”
“Had a good bit o’ spirit, though,” Clarissa pointed out. “Think her’ll drown?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not.”
The viscount looked appalled at the little trunkful of slashed clothes Mrs. Moody had brought down from the schoolroom. “I’m telling you, my lord,” Mrs. Moody said, “them’s that governess’s clothes what she had placed on the bed of her room. Those fiends must have cut them up. Did Miss Morrison say nothing to you of it?”
“No, Mrs. Moody. She will be recompensed, of course. Where is she now?”
“Well, that’s the trouble, my lord. John, the second footman, said as how he had seen her go out for a walk with Miss Amanda and Miss Clarissa. Now, them other governesses, they usually took one of the men along for protection.”
“From footpads?”
“No, my lord, from the Courtney girls.”
“But didn’t old Mr. Courtney know what was going on?”
“He was a bit senile, my lord, and wouldn’t hear a word against his daughters. Don’t think they was his, but you couldn’t tell him that.” Mrs. Moody leaned one of her broad hips against a table and prepared for a comfortable gossip.
“No, I don’t see how they could be unless he was able to father them at the age of seventy-one, although that is not beyond the bounds of possibility. But we must go to look for Miss Morrison.”
He hurried down the stairs and out onto the grounds. And then he saw the twins walking slowly toward the house. They were arm in arm and highly pleased about something.
He ran toward them. “Where is Miss Morrison?”
Amanda gave him a slow smile. “Reckon as how her’s gone for a swim.”
Dread clutched at his throat. “Where?”
“Peter’s Tarn,” Clarissa volunteered.
He looked at their fat white faces in horror. “You pushed her in!”
“Her fell,” Clarissa protested while Amanda stifled a snort of laughter.
“If you have killed her, then you will both hang and I shall see to it personally,” the viscount said. He was by now surrounded by a ring of listening servants.
“Take these girls to the schoolroom and lock them in,” he ordered. “You men, come with me and show me where this tarn is.”
The viscount and a group of servants set off at a run. “Please God she is still alive,” the viscount prayed. “This is too much. Damn the money and damn the inheritance. Basil is welcome to it.”
And then, in the distance, he saw a small figure, striding along, the sun glinting on her red hair.
He let out a long sigh of pure relief. Jean Morrison!
She came up to him and smiled in a composed way, although her face was very white and her clothes dripping wet. “Thank God you were able to swim,” he said.
Jean half closed her eyes as she remembered those terrifying few moments when she thought she would drown. “No,” she said evenly, “I am not able to swim. I was able to grasp the branches of a willow tree overhanging the water and pull myself out. But the so-charming Misses Courtney were not to know that.”
“No, they were not. I will send for the magistrate if you wish and have them charged with attempted murder.”
Jean had planned, as she walked back, to tell him that she was leaving. But he stood there before her, his hat in his hand, his blue eyes full of concern, and the sunlight glinting in his thick fair curls, and her heart turned over.
“We will see,” she said quietly. “I am on trial, but they are on trial with me. Something may yet be done with them.”
He courteously held out his arm and she gratefully took it. The servants following, they made their way back to the castle. “Furthermore,” the viscount said, “they ruined your dresses. Oh, yes, Mrs. Moody told me. You will be paid handsomely for them.”
“Thank you, my lord. Has Mrs. Delmar-Richardson sent my belongings?”
“Yes, and sent me a stern note. She is to call.”
“Oh, dear, I have had enough to face today,” Jean mourned. “As to dresses, perhaps it would be a good idea to hire a seamstress. I will take the girls to the nearest town tomorrow and choose material for myself and for them. Pretty dresses are such a civilizing influence.”
“As you will. But take two of the strongest servants with you.”
“Perhaps the young ladies might find their appearance improved by the services of a lady’s maid … a very strong and muscular lady’s maid.”
“That they shall have. You know, Miss Morrison, I do not need to be troubled with the Misses Courtney or the castle and lands. I can tell the lawyers I don’t want any of it and it will all go to Toad Basil!”
“And who is Toad Basil?”
“Basil Devenham, my cousin.”
“And would Basil Devenham do something for these poor servants and for tenants such as the lodgekeeper and his family who were driven off to the workhouse?”
“No, he’d probably find a few more to impoverish.”
“Well, then, it is not as if it is too onerous a task. You have me to take care of the twins, you need a good agent to cope with everything else. A good agent would leave you free to do as you wished.”
“You have the right of it. I miss the fun of London. I miss—” He bit his lip. He had been about to mention Nancy. He could never mention his mistress to such a lady as Miss Morrison, or, indeed, he thought ruefully, to any lady.
“There is, however, something else.”
“Yes, Miss Morrison?”
“The Misses Courtney do not seem to have been taught the difference between right and wrong. I think the vicar should call on them and give them some religious instruction. In pushing me into the water, they acted on spiteful impulse, but they did not mean to murder me, of that I am sure.”
“I will try, but I cannot help feeling a prison chaplain might be more in their line. The only thing to lighten my gloom is that I find Mr. Courtney has built up an excellent cellar. When you have changed, join me for a glass of claret.”
Jean’s heart rose and then fell again. He was treating her with the same easy camaraderie as he probably treated his masculine friends.
Before she parted from him in the hall, he said, “Those brats are locked in the schoolroom. Leave them there until I think what best to say to them and join me in the drawing room … no, make it the library. The drawing room is depressing.”
Jean went upstairs, realizing she had not eaten all day. She dressed and changed and then, before she went downstairs, she asked to be taken to the twins’ bedchamber. In it she discovered boxes of chocolates, sweet biscuits, and sugarplums. She told the servants to take them all down to the kitchens and share them among the rest of the staff.
Then with a final pat to her hair she went down to the library.
The viscount poured her a glass of claret. He had a vague feeling that he should not be on such familiar terms with a governess, but he felt the need of someone to talk to. “The agent, a Josiah Peterman, is calling shortly. I have been glancing through the estate books. The rents are too high. I want to know what this bloodsucker was about.”
Jean sipped her claret. “P
erhaps he was simply acting under Mr. Courtney’s instructions.”
“Mr. Peterman,” Dredwort announced.
A small, old white-haired man came into the room.
“Well, Peterman,” the viscount said, “what have you to say for yourself? I’ve been going through the books, and I don’t like the look of the rents at all.”
“My lord,” the old man said miserably, “I cannot think it possible to extract any more.”
“I am not telling you to extract more, man, I’m telling you to extract less.”
“But Mr. Courtney was most insistent, most insistent. He said I would lose my job if I did not go on raising the rents.”
The viscount clutched his fair curls. “Listen, I am not Courtney. We will ride out tomorrow and see the tenants. Repairs must be made where repairs are needed. No more rent to be paid until they come about. Any more apart from the lodgekeeper in the workhouse?”
“Oh, yes, my lord.”
“Then get them all out and put them back. I was going to fire you, Peterman, but I see you have been simply saving your own skin. Be here at nine in the morning and we will start making reparation.”
“Oh, my lord, this is a happy day. I call down the blessings of all the angels on—”
“Don’t start preaching at me. You make my head ache. Off with you, and we will arrange everything in the morning. And then hire painters and builders and decorators and let us put some life into this mausoleum!”
Jean, who had been thinking her master was a saint, quickly changed her mind when the agent had left and he said, “How all this bores me! I’ll be glad when it’s over and I can get back to Town and kick up my heels.”
“Mrs. Delmar-Richardson,” Dredwort intoned.
Jean’s aunt sailed in. Her cold glance at the two, sitting companionably drinking claret, seemed to realize her worst fears.
“So!” she said.
Jean found to her fury that she was blushing. She admired the viscount, who got to his feet, made a brief bow, and then politely waited for more.
“I am come!” Mrs. Delmar-Richardson declared.
“Do you usually stand in doorways making obvious statements?” asked the viscount with interest.
