“Do you mean it?” she breathed.
He smiled for the first time. “I do, if you think you can manage.”
“Yes!” She nodded vigorously. “I can manage, and I will make up for all my poor treatment of Miss Hollingsworth. You must know I am not a cruel person.”
“If you were, Colleen, we would not be having this conversation.”
Julia
Julia arranged the letter tiles into a word for Marjorie to transcribe onto her slate, then turned to Leah sitting on the other side of her and went through a list of words that started with the short e sound, which was where she was in today’s lesson.
“Eh-lephant,” Julia said. “Eh-verything. Eh-legant.”
Leah dutifully repeated each word.
The door to the nursery opened, and Julia glanced up, hoping it was Peter, even though he was at the vicarage making arrangements for her to move there this weekend. Yesterday evening had changed her entire world. They had seen one another that morning in the dog yard. It had taken them twice as long as usual to do the morning chores, but the privacy was priceless, and the ease in which they had transitioned from employer and governess to something else was surprising and very welcome.
It was not Peter at the door; it was Mr. Allen. He gave her a slight frown she could not immediately interpret, and then stepped aside to reveal her caller.
Julia felt a jolt of surprise at seeing her mother tentatively step into the room.
“Thank you, Mr. Allen,” Julia said after the initial shock had passed, glad no one could tell how her chest thrummed with the increased speed of her heart. Her plan to go to Feltwell next week and announce to her mother what direction her life was taking crumbled in an instant. The confrontation would take place now, and Julia was not very good at confrontation.
The butler nodded and backed out of the room, leaving Mother standing just over the threshold.
Julia whispered to the girls to continue with their lessons, then stood in a measured way, determined to present herself in a calm and mature manner.
Mother looked ill at ease standing in this room that had become so comfortable to Julia.
“Good afternoon, Mother,” Julia said, more polite than cool, she hoped. She kept her voice low to keep the girls from overhearing. “I was not expecting you.”
“No, I am sure you were not.” She cleared her throat, looked past Julia to the girls, who were not disguising their interest very well, and then back to Julia. “Could we perhaps speak in private?”
Julia opened her mouth to agree, then closed it. She did not have to agree to her mother’s wishes and put everything and everyone else aside to comply. She steeled herself and then spoke. “We have another half an hour of lessons, then the girls will take their quiet hour. We could speak at that time, quietly.”
Mother looked about the room as though evaluating whether or not it was a fitting place for whatever it was she’d come to discuss. “We cannot, perhaps, take a walk in the gardens during quiet hour?”
It was hard not to give in, but Julia was determined to stand her ground. She could not very well prove herself a grown woman capable of making her own decisions if she allowed herself to be bullied in something as small as this. “You may converse with me here in half an hour, or you can wait until five o’clock when I leave the nursery so the girls might have time with Mr. Mayfield. I’m sure Mr. Allen can set you up in the drawing room with some tea in the meantime. There is a good collection of books in that room.”
Her mind filled with the idea that she was giving direction above her place in this home, and yet when she and Mr. Mayfield married, this would be her home as well. She would be mistress of it. A shot of anxiety passed through her chest. How would she manage that?
Mother considered Julia’s suggestion without irritation, which Julia found surprising. “I should prefer to converse with you during quiet hour, then.”
“Very well.” Julia waved toward the writing desk and chair near the window. “You are welcome to rest while we finish.”
Julia knew she was being unreasonably determined. There was no reason why she could not have quiet hour now and resume lessons later—she’d done it often enough when one thing or another interfered with their daily routine—but she was feeling stubborn. Mother “forbidding” Julia’s relationship with Peter was reason enough to make her wait.
“Might I help with the lessons?” Mother asked. She remained standing, fidgeting with the side of her skirt and looking uncertain—something Julia had rarely seen. Her mother was the type to command a room or organize a committee, and yet right now Julia was the one in charge. Interesting.
“That would be appreciated, Mother. Thank you.”
Mother joined them at the teaching table, a circular table with two curved benches. Mother sat beside Leah, and Julia quickly explained what they had been working on so that she could take up reciting words with the soft e sound, allowing Julia to focus solely on Marjorie’s penmanship.
They worked separate from one another, though Julia kept an ear tuned to her mother’s interactions with Leah. Despite herself, she felt her heart softening with memories of when she had been the pupil.
Mother would sit with her for hours, teaching letters and numbers, then words and equations. Simon had gone to a boarding school when he turned ten years old, despite it being a dear expense and unusual for their class. Louisa and Julia had attended a local parish school. Most girls only attended to the age of fourteen, though Louisa and Julia had stayed until they were seventeen, and Julia had stayed on two more years as an assistant teacher.
It was only later in her life that Julia realized the sacrifice her parents had made to educate them so far above the expectations of their class and sex. Her parents had wanted their children to have choices and opportunity. How ironic that Mother had then disagreed with nearly every choice and opportunity Julia had followed since then.
Leah had worked through the list of soft e words, and so they moved on to the f sound.
“Oh, this is an easy one,” Mother said, looking at the primer in her hand. Julia prickled slightly. If it turned out that it was not easy for Leah, then what?
“F—first. Sometimes in a game you go first.”
“Sometimes Marjorie goes first,” Leah said in a complaining tone. “She says she should always go first because she is the oldest.”
Marjorie leaned past Julia and Mother to scowl at her sister. “I do not always say that.”
“We are focused on your work, Marjorie.” Julia redirected her attention.
“F—finger,” Mother said. “How many do you have?”
“Ten!” They counted Leah’s fingers.
“Did any of those numbers start with an f?”
Leah paused, then exclaimed, “Five!”
“Yes,” Mother praised. “Excellent. There’s one more number that started with f.”
Leah was quiet for a few moments. Mother was changing up the exercise, but not in a bad way. Just not Julia’s way.
“Four!”
“Yes. Oh, that is very good. What are some other words that begin with f?”
“Fuh-fuh-fuh—furry. The puppies are very furry.”
Julia had an idea and arranged the letter tiles into the word furry for Marjorie to write.
“Excellent. And I bet they are also fuh-friendly.”
“Yes, they are so friendly, Mrs. Mother,” Leah said.
Julia pursed her lips together to keep from laughing.
“You may call me Mrs. Hollingsworth.”
“Mrs. Holl—eng—uh . . .”
“How about ‘Mrs. Amelia,’” Julia offered. She caught her mother’s eye, and they both smiled slightly. They were building something here.
They went back to their work, Mother helping Leah identify words and Julia arranging the tiles for Marjorie to writ
e those words on her slate. It became a challenge for Marjorie to transcribe the word before Mother and Leah moved on to the next one. As it turned out, there were a great deal of attributes that started with f to describe the puppies—furry, friendly, frolicking, fat, funny.
“Here’s one that isn’t about the puppies,” Mother said. “F—forgiveness.”
Julia tensed but arranged the tiles.
Mother did not turn her attention from Leah. “Do you know what that means, Leah?”
“It means you feel bad.”
“Well, somewhat. When you have done something you should not have done, you can apologize, and the person you hurt then has the chance to forgive you.”
“The Bible says to forgive,” Marjorie chimed in as she finished writing the word. “It says we have to.”
Everyone was quiet for the space of a tick of the clock. “That has been a hard one for me,” Mother said. “I am not very good at forgiveness.”
Julia furrowed her brow. She’d thought Mother was asking for her forgiveness, but this was something different.
“I am very good at forgivingness,” Leah said.
“Then you are f-fortunate,” Mother said. “Were you not so good at it, you would find that not forgiving can make you very unhappy. It can make you bitter and hard-hearted and . . . blind.”
Leah looked at Mother in horror. “It can make you blind?”
Mother gave the girl’s shoulder a squeeze. “Not the blind that makes your eyes not see—more of a blind heart, where you cannot feel the way you should.”
“That is confusing.”
Mother chuckled. “Yes, I suppose it is. How about the word feel—that starts with an f.”
Julia spelled it out in tiles for Marjorie.
“How about fear?” Mother suggested. “Fear can make it hard to forgive, and to trust other people.”
“And it makes you afraid!” Leah added helpfully.
“Yes, it does,” Mother said. “Do you know what an opposite is?”
“The different thing,” Leah said. “Marjorie is the opposite of me because she likes asp-ruh-gus and I hate it.”
“That’s not an opposite,” Marjorie interjected. “An opposite is like black and white or night and day or hot and cold.” She sat back, smug in her wisdom.
“Yes,” Mother said. “And the opposite of fear is another word that starts with f—faith.”
Julia arranged the tiles for Marjorie, who was getting faster at writing.
“Faith is saying your prayers,” Leah informed Mother.
“That is part, but I think faith is mostly about believing you don’t know all the answers but that, even when it seems impossible, things usually turn out all right in the end if you treat people fairly.”
“Fair starts with f!”
“Very good,” Mother said. “You are a very smart little girl.”
“That’s because I am six.”
They spent a few more minutes on the lesson before Julia announced it was time for quiet hour. Though the girls had protested—vehemently—when Julia had first introduced this part of the day early in her employ, they had come to accept it as routine. Marjorie selected a book from the shelf on her way to the area that Julia had set with thick quilts and pillows, a spot that was in full sun on the days when the sun was out. Leah grabbed her doll and the tin of soldiers, but Julia knew she would fall asleep before she fully executed whatever game she had in mind with them. That girl could sleep!
Julia gathered up the letter tiles, taking more time than necessary to arrange them inside the small wooden box.
“I am sorry, Julia.”
Julia let those words seep deep into her heart so that she might see them clearly enough and determine if they were sincere. Her heart did not spit them out. She put the lid on top of the letter box. Part of her wanted to soften, forgive everything and put it in the past, but it was time for Mother to know that Julia would manage her own life, and that meant confronting this. All of it.
“What, exactly, are you sorry for, Mother?”
“Many things,” Mother said softly. “I’m sorry for selling the dogs when your father died.”
Julia startled, then tensed, waiting for the justification that would surely follow. It didn’t.
“And I’m sorry I was not more affectionate and concerned about the pain my children felt then. I was far too caught up in my own hurt. And I’m sorry for trying to force you into marrying when you did not feel ready.” Her eyes got glassy, and her voice cracked as she continued. “I am sorry that I chose your clothes and criticized your hair and felt so sure that I knew the way you should do every little thing in your life. I’m sorry that I was not soft and open to you as a mother should be, and I’m sorry I did not support your first position in London. I am ashamed of myself for never once coming to see you there.”
Julia pulled her eyebrows together. She had not expected any of this and struggled to take it all in and formulate a response. “I never expected you to come to London, Mother.”
“I thought of coming a hundred times.” Mother shook her head as though disappointed in herself. “My youngest child had traveled further than any of my children had. And I know London. I lived there for a substantial part of my life. I could have shown you the parks and helped you understand the workings of society. But I felt that if I came, I would be showing support for a choice I did not agree with, and so I did not come. Not one time in five years.”
Julia said nothing. Would she have wanted her mother to come? She couldn’t decide because it had never crossed her mind that she would, for the very reasons Mother had admitted.
“I suppose, overall, I am sorry that I have been so set on what I wanted you to be that I have not realized what an exceptional woman you truly are.”
Julia blinked. “I had thought you were going to say you were sorry for withholding your blessing from Peter.”
“Oh, that, too.” She smiled a vulnerable yet hopeful smile.
Julia did not know what to say. Manners dictated that she should also apologize for something, but she could not think what to apologize for that would not somehow unravel the power of these last few minutes. Her mother was so real right now, so open and fair-minded. “Thank you, Mother.”
“You’re welcome.” She paused for a breath and then looked up from her hands in her lap. “I assume that you and Peter have reached an understanding.”
Julia could not help but smile. Peter was the best thing that had ever happened to her. “I’m half in love with him, Mother. If things continue as they have the last twenty-four hours, I expect to be full in love with him by sunset.”
Mother took a breath, nodded, and let it out.
“You should also know that I will not listen to additional objections. You had no right.” Her voice dwindled to a hiss, and she paused before she continued, her voice stronger. “You had no right to speak with him the way you did or presume to manage the course of my life.”
“You’re right,” Mother said with a surprising lack of defensiveness. “It was wrong of me, and I am very sorry.”
They looked at one another, and Julia thought back to Marjorie writing the word forgiveness on her slate.
“I also owe you an apology for not telling you the truth about my connection to Lord Howardsford.” She looked at Julia as though gauging how much she knew. Julia did not tell her, forcing her mother to explain it herself.
“Did you love him?” Julia asked, feeling an ache in her chest, mostly for her father. He had adored Mother, and it made Julia sad to think that her mother’s heart had been divided.
“I am not entirely sure,” Mother said with a shrug. “I thought I did, at the time, but then the way I felt toward your father was so different, so much . . . more.” She held Julia’s eyes. “I did not pine after Elliott, Julia, not after those first months. I
was hurt, and when I thought of him it was painful, but not because he was the love of my life.”
“But you’ve reacted so strongly to him now.”
Her mother pulled her eyebrows together as though trying to puzzle that out. “Yes, I have, but that does not mean I have regrets for how things happened for me.”
“What if Papa were alive now?” Julia asked. “And I’d taken a job in this house?”
“Well, I’d have had him talk to you about it, to be sure.” She smiled at the almost-joke, and Julia could not help but smile back, though a bit sadly.
She could see how things would have happened if Papa were here, but then, would she have become a governess if Papa were here? Would she have been a teacher? There was no way to unravel who she would be if he had not died.
Julia glanced across the room to where Marjorie was lying on her stomach reading a book and Leah was enacting what looked like a battle between her doll and the soldiers. And if Sybil had not died? What then?
She looked back to see Mother watching her. “I think we could drive ourselves mad trying to make sense of what could have been. I’ve learned that lesson all over again these last weeks. I think that the best any of us can do is to hold on to joy when it comes and enjoy it fully while it lasts so that we might draw every lesson from it and be better for the hurt we suffer.”
A bubble of warm confirmation deemed those words both true and wise. Julia nodded. They sat in silence a few moments, then Julia brought the conversation back around to the reason her mother had come. “So, we have your blessing now?”
“Yes. I do, however, have some concerns.”
Of course you do, Julia thought, then wondered why she was keeping such a thought to herself. “Of course, you do,” she said aloud, readying her arguments.
“My concerns do not undo my apologies, Julia, and I am trusting you to at least try to believe that. I have been wrong about you, about Elliott, about Mr. Mayfield—about so many people and things. However, I am still your mother, and I would like your permission to share my concerns, not to talk you out of your course, but to give you the chance to consider these things.”
Promises and Primroses Page 25
