“Harry,” she said. “Your story is so lovely.”
He looked at her in alarm. “But it made you cry.”
“It made me cry of happiness,” she said. “But you go to far into it. The lady from across the sea did love the princes, but as for whether she became queen…”
She stopped and smiled. “It would be remarkable indeed, but the king hurt so deeply may find such a happy ending harder to come by. So let’s leave off hear, because I want to think on the lady’s love for the princes. That is happiness enough for me.”
The boy threw himself into her arms then, grasping her around and pulling her tight to him. Elspeth knew he was getting flour all over her frock but did not care. She’d not felt this loved or cared for since before she’d left her homeland. And now Colin was climbing in her lap, too, and nudging his brother aside for attention as a kitten will edge a sibling away from the warmth of its mother’s belly.
Elspeth held them for several long moments, enjoying the sounds of their breathing, the glow of the fire and the happiness in her heart, even as she found herself wishing Clifford could indeed share in it.
But she knew in her heart that what she told the lad was true. A man like Clifford would never choose a country servant like her. This was the best she could expect. And as far as she was concerned, this was more than enough.
***
Clifford came to her the next morning as she was cooking breakfast. Elspeth usually did not see him until he came down after she’d gotten the boys up and dressed. Then and only then would he join them, his critical eye appraising their grooming and table manners.
She startled when she turned to see him standing there.
“Master,” she said, recovering as she put a hand to her chest. “My pardon for being frightened but I didn’t expect to see you so soon in the day. Is all well?”
“Quite,” he said. “I just came to inform you that I plan to intend tutoring you today.”
In all the drama of the day before, Elspeth had quite forgotten Clifford Harker’s plans to instruct her so that she could eventually teach his sons. And after her behavior the previous day, she was surprised and delighted that he was still planning to do it. After all, if he was planning for her to teach his sons, he obviously expected her to be part of his household for a long time.
She could not contain her smile as she curtsied. “Thank you, sir.”
“I’m not doing it for you,” he said gruffly, but Elspeth got the distinct impression that this gruffness was something he somehow felt he must do for her benefit. “I’m doing it so that you can take over my son’s instruction.”
“Yes, you’ve made me aware of that,” she replied with what she hoped was sufficient humility. “And I promise to study hard so that I can become a worthy tutor for both young Harry and Colin.”
“Indeed,” he said. “But the added responsibility of your lessons will not alleviate you from your other duties. I expect them to be performed fully and completely.”
His eyes were on her, as if he were expecting some sort of protest. Then when none came his face softened a bit as the stern features grew more relaxed.
“Very well then,” he said. “After breakfast set the boys about something to busy themselves in the parlor. You shall take your lessons with me in my study.”
“Yes master,” she said, and then he was gone.
“Then the king fell in love with the lady….” Harry’s words came drifting through her subconscious and she felt a sudden guilty horror.
“Don’t,” she told herself sternly. “Don’t you dare even entertain such a ridiculous notion. You don’t even know him. And besides, you yourself told Harry that men like Master Harker never choose women like you as wives. If the townsfolk object to my wearing Caroline’s dress, what would they say if he took me to wife?”
She pushed the thought from her mind and stirred the porridge bubbling over the fire before removing it and placing it on the stones. Carefully, she ladled portions into four bowls, topping them with a small dollop of cream and berries before setting them on the table to cool.
The boys objected to being roused from their beds until Elspeth told them if they didn’t rise soon the sun would melt the traces of frost left on the windows overnight.
“You’ll be sad indeed if you miss your chance to look for the patterns they left behind,” she said, and soon Harry and Colin were up and dressed.
She was showing them the delicate patterns in the iced over windows, and explaining how fairies left the tracks, when Clifford walked into the room.
“Take your seats, lads,” she said as he shot her an impatient look and the boys scurried to their chairs.
After breakfast, Elspeth helped the boys tote down their little farm animals and the wooden barn that went with them. She set them up in the center of the room, some distance from the fireplace but close enough so they could stay warm. The wind from the previous night was still whipping ferociously outside, and every now and then Colin would look up at her with an expression of worry and then settle down when she told him she’d seen worse in her homeland and that it would pass soon enough.
Clifford Harker was standing in the study waiting for her when she arrived.
“Sir,” she said, with a small curtsy and he bowed his head to her. This surprised Elspeth, for he had never done anything like that before. She felt her face grow warm.
“Sit down,” he said, directing her to a chair by the desk.
Clifford sat down across from her. In his hands were two primers. He handed them to Elspeth.
Being from a poor family, her access to books had been virtually nonexistent. In the Harker’s nursery, in fact, it had been the books that fascinated her the most and sometimes when the boys were napping or preoccupied with some sort of rare play that did not require her to play a role, she would sit and look with awe at the colorful pictures and gibberish script she so longed to read.
She recognized the shapes on the front of the books he handed her as letters, but could only make a few out. “That’s an ‘A,’” she said. “That one I know.”
Clifford Harker gave a small smile and nodded, watching as Elspeth opened the cover of the top book. Inside were individual letters, beside each a pictures and some writing. The books were fine, the illustrations ornate.
“It’s so pretty,” she said then, running a finger down the page.
“My wife bought them at a shop in London,” he said. “Her intention was to instruct our children using them. We only had Harry then, and he was quite small, yet a babe in arms.”
Elspeth’s head shot up at the reference to Caroline and she looked at the man she called Master. His face had a far-off, pained appearance. Should she respond? She did before she could stop herself.
“She must have loved them so,” she said, “to have dreamed of their education so early.”
His eyes met hers, and she saw remembrance mixed with embarrassment for having divulged such information to her. Again she was reminded of her place and turned her attention back to the book, only to look up in surprised when he continued.
“Of course she loved them,” he said. “She was their mother.”
Elspeth swallowed. “Pardon me, sir, but not every mother so loves their children. I grew up in a village where not all children were loved.”
“You grew up poor,” he said curtly.
She shook her head. “Poor has nothing to do with it. I’d wager there are parents here who birthed children without the love to give them. Money can’t rob one of a heart. Or buy it.”
Elspeth wasn’t talking about him, but she could see by his expression that he thought she was. She felt suddenly horrified with herself for her words.
“Perhaps love has more than one face,” he replied, his voice strained. “Perhaps practicality and attention to needs for a warm berth and hot food are manifestations of love as surely as a hug or a cuddle.”
Elspeth wanted to say that she hadn’t been attacking him, but some
thing told her to back off, that to address him personally would make him distant at best or angry at worst.
“Indeed, both are important,” she said.
“Mothers are better at supplying the little endearments,” he said. “And Caroline was perhaps he best at that. I’m sure the boys miss that kind of attention very much.”
Elspeth did not dare say that they had more than missed it, that she’d arrived to find them virtually starving for it. Nor did she point out that since arriving she’d seem the boys unfold like tightly closed flowers under her natural maternal touch. Did Clifford Harker not notice? Or was he purposefully denying that his boys could learn to feel again when he himself seemed to be resisting the urge out of whatever sense of duty he felt to Caroline.
Her mind raced back to the day Harry had visited his mother’s grave – an act forbidden by his father – and had asked Elspeth if she thought Caroline would be angry to see him hug another woman.
She knew the lad was only mirroring what he sensed in his father – a silent, loveless tribute that Elspeth’s care had slowly eroded through a mixture of understanding and attentiveness.
“Everyone needs a bit of warmth,” Elspeth replied, running her finger down the spine of the book. “I don’t think your wife would want to see those she loved live without it.”
He was silent for a moment and then reached over and took the book from her hand.
“You already know the letter ‘A’,” he said. “But we shall start with it nonetheless.”
Elspeth’s heart sank a bit at how easily he had dismissed her, not knowing that Clifford had not only heard the words but was – even then – processing and pondering them in his own way.
Again Elspeth had impressed him with her simple insight. She’d impressed him with more than that; the boys seemed happy and he knew his conflict over that was what kept him from acknowledging this to Elspeth. He’d seen on her face the shadow of hurt when he’d made the comment about the boys missing a mother’s touch, for had she not stood up to him, defied him – even after he beat her – to give his children what they had lost?
There was a magic about the girl that he was beginning to see, no matter how hard he tried to dismiss her due to her lowly station. And yet her station warranted acknowledgement, as did his loneliness. They were both factors in how he felt about her. She was close to him, day in and day out, caring for him and his boys. She was pretty, even if she was a bit small and pale. And he was a man without a wife.
Seeing her as anything other than his boys’ governess was out of the realm of possibility, which was why he had to be dishonest with Elspeth. For he’d seen how she looked at his son’s books, had watched as her face scrunched with the will to make out the words swimming on those brightly illustrated pages.
The reading lessons he gave her weren’t simply because he wanted her to tutor his sons. Indeed he did, but he knew quite well that he could just as easily do for them what he now did for her. No. He was teaching Elspeth as a way to reward her. It was his clumsy, secret attempt to show appreciation and affection for the young woman who had brought smiles back to his sons’ faces and purged the worry he felt about what to do with them when he had to run out of the house on business.
But he could not tell her this, so instead he showed her the “A,” sounded out the beginning sound as he pointed to the picture of the red apple beside it and read her the little rhyme designed to help her remember the letter.
“To fashion the letter you must do it like this,” he said, picking up a slate and a piece of chalk. Elspeth’s eyes widened as his hand formed first the capital letter and then the small one.
“You’re going to teach me to write as well?” she asked, her tone more indicative of someone who’s opened a treasure chest than being taught.
He laughed a bit, the sound unusual to his own ears. “They go hand and hand, don’t you think Elspeth?”
“I’ll be able to make lists,” she said. “And write stories for the boys!”
He looked up at her. “And write home if you wish. To your family.” He paused. “Can they read?”
“No,” she said. “But the village priest can.”
“Then you can send it to him with instructions for him to read it to your family.”
Her family. The words sounded odd to Elspeth, who’d gotten used to the notion that this was her family – Clifford Harker and young Harry and Colin. She felt a sudden stab of angst, a jab of guilt. She had no claim to them, so why should she feel sad when he mentioned the existence of the people who had loved and cared for her.
“Elspeth, what’s wrong?”
She didn’t know what was more surprising to her, that he had noticed her moment of sadness or cared enough to ask her about it.
“Are you homesick?”
She shook her head and smiled a sad smile. “No,” she said. “I mean, a bit. I miss the land, the open green hills, my grandmother’s face. Part of me somewhere realizes I’ll probably never see her again, at least not on this side of the veil. I think I do feel some sadness, but it’s not for what you think.”
“So why are you sad?”
“Because I don’t miss them more,” she said. “When you mentioned writing to them I realized then how little I have thought of them. I’ve been so busy with the boys…”
“Do you regret that?”
“No.” Her answer was emphatic. “Not in the least. Colin and Harry have saved me from despair.” She looked down. “You too. The day you took me from the dock I was so afraid, and so desperately sad that the lady I was to serve had died before I could work for her. Now I see that I was meant to come here. It is where I belong.”
As she had spoken, Clifford Harker had filled and lit his pipe. Now he sat looking at her, inhaling deeply before releasing the fragrant smoke which drifted in hazy tendrils to the ceiling. Elspeth watched them float upwards, changing shape as they went. A circle floated near to the ceiling and morphed briefly into a heart before disappearing.
“That is a kind thing to say,” he replied, and then continued her lesson, his hand falling on hers occasionally to help shape the letters he taught her to write.
Chapter Eight
Elspeth was a quick study and, Clifford observed, as dedicated as she was smart. When she was sitting by herself when the boys were napping or huddled together, Elspeth could be found scratching letters in the frost on the window, twirled them in the flour on the sideboard or etched them into the ground.
What’s more, she began to teach Harry along with her.
“What is this?” she asked, holding up a bowl.
“Bowl!” Harry said.
“Very good. And what sound does ‘bowl’ start with.”
“Buh,” Harry said.
“Well done.” Elspeth handed him an apple, reminding him that it began with a ‘short a’ sound.
From the doorway, Clifford watched in silence. As his son bit into the fruit, he smiled at the pretty young nursemaid. For a moment, he considered going in the room but thought the better of it. Something about the intimacy between his son and Elsepth made him feel like an intruder and he realized it was because he’d forgotten how to banter. What used to come naturally when his wife was alive now seemed awkward, even disloyal. And part of him even wanted to chide his eldest son for the familiarity and ease he showed around his woman who’d been a stranger just months ago.
But the grip of that desire which had been so strong when she’d first arrived had lessened. For Clifford knew now that he could not hold his son back from caring for others. But he could hold himself back, and must. He could not take another heartbreak, could not bear the risk of letting himself love again.
Love. It was as much as sickness as any other the way it weakened a man, made him susceptible to pain and fevered thoughts. To giddiness. And to grief. It was the one sickness that children seem immune to. No matter how grave the loss they recovered.
But for adults, well, that was a different story. Love, when los
t, left a festering wound that would not heal. It pulsed with each beat of the heart, the agony coming in waves.
Clifford moved quietly away from the door and Elspeth, so involved with her giggling charges, never even noticed he was there.
She’d been in high spirits since Clifford had begun teaching her to read and write. Succeeding at her studies had filled her with pride, but so had the approving glances he rewarded her with when she grasped new material so quickly.
“You’ve been studying,” he’d say in a mock-accusing voice. “And here I was thinking you were about your chores.”
“No sir!” she’d protest lightly. “The chores are done, but there’s no rule saying I can’t practice my alphabet while I’m work.”
“Well perhaps there should be,” he’d counter. “Or else you’ll soon be teaching me.”
Then Clifford would catch himself and look away and the magic of the moment would be gone. And Elspeth, who had never been a greedy sort of girl, would try not to fret as she reminded herself she was lucky to have even gotten that.
Within two weeks Elspeth was writing out simple household words. Clifford had her memorize about a dozen each week, and she printed them out in careful, blocky script over and over, determined to have them perfectly memorized by the time he tested her on them.
The more pleased he became with her progress, the more relaxed Elspeth felt, and the less fearful she became. The painful spanking she’d endured faded into hazy memory and with each passing day she felt less like a servant and more like a member of the family.
But there were times when she was reminded of her place, and of the consequences of getting out of line.
Elspeth’s love of the boys combined with her natural, easygoing manner made her far more nurturer than disciplinarian. And despite the fact that Clifford clung to order and schedules the Harry and Colin quickly realized that they could wheedle just one more story out of her past their bedtime if they pleaded enough.
The first time Clifford discovered his boys awake and giggling with their nursemaid after he’d thought she’d put them to bed he took her aside later and reminded her that as the boys’ bedtime was intended to be just that. The second time he warned her that he was displeased that she seemed to have forgotten his orders.
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