A Governess of Great Talents

by Murdoch, Emily E K

  They moved on to allow the Talbots to take their leave of the vicar, and Alfred breathed in the heady warm air outside.

  “I do believe I have given him rather a fright,” said Miss Hubert under her breath as Archibald wandered off in the churchyard.

  Alfred swallowed. He knew what he had to say, even if the words were momentarily stuck in his throat. His gaze raked over the rows of headstones as he spoke.

  “Thank you,” he said stiffly. “For covering up my brother’s indiscretion. You did not need to do that.”

  “I was happy to, and I think in a way, it taught him a little lesson, too.”

  Alfred looked at her properly and saw a teasing smile on her face.

  “Permit me to say, Your Grace,” she continued, utterly ignoring his request to call him Rochdale, “that you did not look entirely comfortable in there. Lack of faith?”

  It was such a personal question that Alfred blinked. Inquiring into one’s faith was simply not something one did—or at least not in polite society. But then, Miss Hubert had a reason to ask. Understanding the family’s religious ties was, after all, a core part of her role as a governess.

  But it wasn’t that. It was never a disagreement between himself and the Church, nor his God, not really.

  How to put it into words?

  “I have always found it rather strange, Miss Hubert,” Alfred said, starting to walk slowly across the churchyard, “to know from a very young age where one’s final resting place will be.”

  The words were stilted, the effort of opening up in this rather bizarre way difficult. But still, the words came, and the silence from Miss Hubert allowed him to continue.

  “I even know where my plaque is going to be on the wall in the church, and out here in the churchyard,” he said as lightly as he could.

  Miss Hubert seemed to see right through him, however. “How macabre. And you have known this all your life?”

  Alfred came to a stop before the family memorial. Carmichaels from ages past had their names and dates etched into the marble every thirty years or so.

  “My father,” he said, pointing out the name. “His father, his father, his father…and there. The space for me.”

  His finger paused at the gap below Arthur, his father. Blank space, waiting for him.

  An elegant hand joined his in touching the memorial. “It must be rather strange, especially knowing it at such a young age. But of course, there is the alternate version, and I must say, I dislike it just as much.”

  A gentle summer breeze brushed past them, and Alfred glanced at her. Miss Hubert’s mouth was set in a serious look, a frown across her forehead.

  “What is that?”

  Miss Hubert straightened up and smiled. “Not knowing where you will be in five years’ time, let alone fifty. You are hemmed in by your family name, Your Grace, with little to surprise you in the years to come. I believe I would choose that rather than the life I lead. Never knowing what the future holds. Never knowing where your journey will take you.”

  Alfred stared. The thought had never occurred to him that one could go through life with no plans, no future steps marked out. He had certainly never experienced anything like it. His life had been mapped out for him before he had been born—before conception!

  There were things everyone else did, and there was what the Duke of Rochdale did. No choice. No discussion.

  “If you could see into the future,” he said quietly as the congregation milled about in the sunshine, exchanging news and gossip, the farmers looking tired and wishing for their luncheons, “would you? Would you like to see where you were going next?”

  Miss Hubert considered him for a moment before replying, “No. Even with the fear of the unknown before me, I do not think I would wish to know everything. It would be very tiring, I think, to feel as though all choice was taken from me.”

  It was only then that Alfred realized how close they were standing. Why, there could only be a few feet between them. His mouth was dry for some unknown reason, and—

  “Archibald Carmichael, no!” Miss Hubert’s words were spoken like a papal edict and were obeyed just as instantly.

  Alfred turned to see the boy climbing down, red-faced, from a headstone. He walked sullenly back toward them.

  “I think it is time we returned home,” said Miss Hubert. “Do you not think, Your Grace?”

  Alfred nodded, and the three of them started toward the churchyard gate.

  It was only a short walk from St. Matthews to Rochdale Abbey. It was, after all, the church originally built for the abbey itself, which then became the family church. Within ten minutes, they were stepping across the lawns, and Archibald’s spirits, flattened for only a moment, had risen again.

  “Will you play with me, Alfred? Can we play horses? Can I go riding later, like you and Father—”

  Alfred sighed heavily at the child weaving about the place as he and Miss Hubert walked sedately. “No, Archibald. I must go and prepare for the next husting.”

  He saw with surprise that the boy looked genuinely disappointed and was tempted to avoid the husting to spend a little time with the child—but then, the election would not win itself. Like a dark cloud on the horizon, it grew ever closer and ignoring it would sadly not slow its path.

  “I cannot play in the dirt with a child,” he said, a little more harshly than he had intended. “I need to win this election, Archibald, and you know that.”

  Archibald stopped dancing about and fell silently in step with Miss Hubert, taking her hand. Alfred saw he squeezed it and received an answering squeeze.

  Heat flushed through his chest with embarrassment. His own brother was already finding refuge with a stranger! But he could not, would not apologize. He was doing this for him, for the family.

  “Why do we not go to the front lawn and leave your brother to his work?” Miss Hubert could be heard saying quietly to her charge. “When we get there, you can tell me…”

  Her voice faded as they took a different direction.

  Alfred sighed. He had never been struck with a desire to spend time with the boy, not really, though the idea of doing so with Miss Hubert was an interesting one. But he had to do what was expected of him, and if he knew Mr. Walker, he was already inside, waiting for him.

  “Ah, Your Grace!” Mr. Walker said with open arms as Alfred entered the hallway. “I was just speaking with Mrs. Martin, and she has agreed to lay out the ballroom in the style of a husting for our practice.”

  Alfred groaned. “You know how I hate public speaking, Mr. Walker. Can we not just sit in the drawing room and work on the speech itself?”

  Rochdales were not supposed to hate public speaking. Even the thought of it made the hackles on the back of his neck rise, and Alfred could well remember the first hustings practice he had endured with his father.

  “You’ll never make me proud if you continue like that.”

  But Mr. Walker seemed unperturbed. “Nonsense, practice makes perfect!”

  Allowing himself to be dragged to the ballroom by Mr. Walker’s sheer enthusiasm, Alfred knew in his heart practice would not make perfect—not for him, anyway. Sometimes there were things one simply could not do, and there were but few of them.

  Public speaking was one.

  “Now, I have put a table up here,” said Mrs. Martin impressively as they swept into the ballroom, her voice echoing. “And a row of chairs here, where you can pretend your loyal subjects are—”

  “I copied out the latest version of your speech here,” said Mr. Walker, thrusting a pile of papers into Alfred’s hands and ignoring Mrs. Martin’s glare. “All you need to do is pretend we are your audience. And…go!”

  Alfred blinked at Mr. Walker and his housekeeper as they sat primly in the first row of seats, waiting for him to begin.

  He swallowed, tasting the fear in his throat. This was not where he wanted to be—especially as he could hear the yells and whoops of the boy from outside.

  Why was public s
peaking considered so important, anyway? John Talbot was a fine public speaker. Damn his thoughts, traitorous to the last!

  Alfred swallowed again and looked down at the papers in his hands.

  My dear friends, an election is not simply a vote but an enormous decision: who should represent you and your concerns in the highest house in the land.

  “M-My dear…my dear friends an…an election,” Alfred began, tongue twisting around the words, his chest tightening painfully.

  “We cannot hear you!” Mrs. Martin shouted. “Louder, Your Grace, you need to speak more clearly!”

  Visited by a desire to fire Mrs. Martin on the spot and simply do without a housekeeper, Alfred reined in his temper and looked at the speech. She was doing this to help, and he knew that. If only it helped.

  “B-But an enormous…enormous…”

  “From the beginning, if you do not mind!” came the voice of Mr. Walker.

  Alfred sighed and lifted his gaze from the speech in his hands. “You know perfectly well I am not suited to this, Mr. Walker, and I do not know why we cannot…”

  His voice trailed away. His gaze had moved beyond his sparse audience of two and to the French doors at the end of the ballroom. His mother had considered them an extravagance, but his father had insisted, and they now gave him a clear view of Miss Hubert and Archibald.

  They were playing tig, from what he could see. Miss Hubert shrieked as she turned quickly, Archibald reaching out and tapping her on the arm, giggling furiously.

  Alfred smiled. The temptation to just throw the pages up in the air and stride out to join them soared through him. He wanted to be close to her. There was something about Miss Hubert—something that calmed him, and at the same time, riled him.

  He needed her in here.

  “Mrs. Martin, please bring in the boy and his governess,” he said curtly, hoping his tone would brook no opposition.

  That was not accounting for Mrs. Martin. “Miss Hubert?” After one look from Alfred, she rose from her seat. “Very good, Your Grace.”

  He examined the speech. Had he written this? He must have done, or most of it, at least. It sounded like his words. He was excellent on paper; it was getting them out before an audience that was the trouble.

  “Hallo, Alfred!” Archibald grinned as he stepped forward with Miss Hubert. “Do you want to play?”

  Very much, thought Alfred. Anything to escape this.

  Aloud, he said stiffly, “No, Archibald. Like our father before us, one day, you will be the Rochdale member of Parliament, and you will need to start learning what it takes to get there. Sit.”

  Alfred tried not to look at Miss Hubert as she took a seat next to the boy.

  “When is the election?” said Archibald with wide eyes. “Who is voting? I heard from Christopher Walker that John Talbot—”

  “Enough questions,” said Alfred testily. This was already starting to feel like a mistake. “You are here to learn, not to ask questions.”

  The light of enthusiasm went out in Archibald’s face.

  “Your brother will be voted into Parliament in mid-October,” said Miss Hubert quietly. “Everyone eligible in Rochdale will vote over three days, and John Talbot is standing against your brother.”

  She looked pointedly at Alfred as she finished answering the boy’s questions, as though demonstrating it was possible to respond to him without getting irritated.

  It was a look designed to make Alfred feel small, and it worked. The woman had a better understanding of his brother than he did, and she had only been here—what, a week and a half? Two weeks at most?

  Then Miss Hubert smiled encouragingly, and Alfred’s stomach lurched in a way that had nothing to do with public speaking.

  He coughed. “Right. Here we go. M-My dear…friends.”

  Damnit, he could speak perfectly fine when it was off the cuff—why did this speech have to be so difficult!

  He had thought a larger audience and Miss Hubert’s calming presence would help, but all it seemed to have done was made it worse.

  “An election is not simply a vote,” he said in a rush and then found he had run out of breath, taking a huge gulp of air before attempting the next part. “B-But an…an…”

  Miss Hubert rose to her feet. “If I may?”

  Before Alfred could comprehend what was happening, she had joined him at the table and was taking the papers out of his hand. Their fingers touched, heat searing between them, magnetism pulling them together, closer, as though they were alone, as though no other people existed in the—

  “I have a pencil somewhere,” said Miss Hubert, pulling one out of her carefully constructed bun.

  Alfred struggled to regain his equilibrium. What had just happened? Had she been aware of it, or had the entire thing been in his mind?

  “Right, let me see,” Miss Hubert said distractedly, and she leaned over the table and started marking up the speech.

  Alfred goggled as Mr. Walker rose. “Excuse me, Miss, but this is politics, you can leave it to us gentlemen.”

  Miss Hubert straightened up with a smile. “Yes, but this is also the art of speech-making, Mr. Walker, and something I have both studied and taught. Please let me work.”

  Without saying another word, she bent back over the table to continue scribbling over the speech with her pencil. Mr. Walker sat down with his mouth open, and Alfred could not help but be amazed at how calmly she had spoken to him.

  “Right,” she said abruptly, placing the papers back in his hands. “There. You will see I have drawn marks across the words—a v is where you draw breath, n is where you breathe out, and you pause wherever there is an asterisk. Do you see?”

  Alfred could barely take in a word she was saying, but he could see the little pencil scribbles across the paper.

  “Try that,” said Miss Hubert, taking her seat beside Archibald and looking expectant.

  Alfred nodded mutely. His heart was still racing from that touch, that infinitesimal touch, which seemed to have had no effect on her at all.

  Right. So, the v is where one draws breath…

  “My dear friends,” he said in one breath and then paused at an asterisk. Fine so far… “An election is not simply a vote. B-But an enormous decision. Who should…”

  The marks were helping. Alfred could hardly believe it. His tongue still stuttered on a few of the areas, but he was able to get through the first page without so much as a dropped syllable. The second page was easier. By the third page, he could see the pattern of the marks, see where they were going, what they were trying to do.

  “…and that is why you should vote Rochdale for Rochdale,” he finished.

  Mrs. Martin applauded loudly. “My goodness, that was wonderful! You…well, really know your stuff, Miss Hubert.”

  The last was said rather begrudgingly, but Miss Hubert took it in good grace. “Thank you, Mrs. Martin.”

  “You should consider running, too!” the housekeeper said, laughing at her own joke.

  Miss Hubert smiled. “I am a governess, not a politician.”

  “No, she is right. You are a natural.” Alfred almost looked around to see who had spoken before realizing that it was himself.

  Miss Hubert’s eyes were glittering, as though she had seen the punchline of a joke that was only just being made. “I may have great talents, but I lack one quality required.”

  Alfred stared, curious. There did not appear to be anything Miss Hubert could not do, and the idea that there was a quality she lacked was rather startling.

  “Goodness, really? What?”

  “Why, Your Grace, I am not a man,” she said sweetly. “Come on, Archibald.”

  The two left the ballroom, leaving the three others in silence. Alfred smiled. There was something charming and yet mischievous about that woman. He needed to get to know her a little better, he thought, for she was as beautiful as she was intriguing.

  “Right then!” Mr. Walker clapped his hands, causing Alfred to jump. “One more time
, then, Your Grace, and with feeling!”

  Chapter Seven

  August 15, 1812

  Meredith sighed, her breath the only moving air in the stifling schoolroom. She had even requested Roberts to fetch her the key to the large bay windows, something he had done rather begrudgingly, but despite opening them, the hot air did not move.

  The trees in the gardens were still. Not a sound could be heard, and Archibald was almost asleep over his desk.

  He lifted his gaze, and Meredith looked down pointedly at the sums he was supposed to be working on. If she threw a holiday every warm day, they would never get anywhere.

  “Which question are you working on now, Archibald?” she said quietly.

  Archibald yawned. “I am too hot to think of math, Miss Hubert.”

  It was difficult to disagree with him, not when her skin was sticky with the humidity of the day.

  She had always believed it was cooler up in the north. That was what she had always been told. Not today, not this summer. It was unbearably warm.

  “My bedchamber was too hot last n-n-night,” Archibald yawned again. “I simply could not sleep, Miss Hubert. Must I continue with my sums?”

  Meredith considered it. She, too, had found her bedchamber oppressively hot the night before, though had not mentioned it to anyone else, hoping to keep it to herself. After that rather ridiculous display she had taken on herself just last week with the master of the house in the ballroom, she had purposefully kept out of Mrs. Martin’s way.

  Weren’t these large houses supposed to be cooler in summer? She was certain she had read somewhere that they were meant to keep cool in the summer and warm in the winter. From what Meredith could see, it was quite the opposite.

  There was a small sigh, and she focused on her charge—her charge who had slipped onto the desk before him and closed his eyes in the languishing heat.

  “Archibald Carmichael, come here.”

  She allowed just a touch of the stern governess tone into her words, and Archibald awoke with a start. Sighing heavily, he rose from his chair and brought his worksheet to her.

  “Speed, distance, time,” she said. “Let us see how much you took in from this morning.”