The Cinderella Governess

Lady Huntford fixed on her eldest daughter, her voice snapping Joanna out of her daydream. ‘It appears we have even more reason for you to try and impress him.’

‘I don’t see why. He’s only the second son and it could be years before he inherits, if he does at all. A woman might waste her life waiting for nothing.’ Frances crossed her arms over her chest in a huff.

Joanna balled her hands into fists at her sides, her nails biting into her palms. After last night, and the quick way Major Preston had defended her, Frances should be grateful. Joanna would give her eye teeth to be able to speak freely with him. All Frances could do was cast him aside and pout over her rake of a lieutenant. Her behaviour disgusted Joanna, but she buried it deep down, afraid it would show in what she did or said. Her one consolation was Major Preston having seen Frances’s true personality. She doubted a man as honourable as he would take a genuine interest in a woman like Frances. Though if he didn’t, why had he accepted the invitation? Lady Huntford had lamented the lack of a response from the Inghams for days. Joanna wondered what had changed his mind and if it had something to do with her.

Of course not. She was nothing to no one. Not even her mother or father, who’d cast her on the charity of Madame Dubois instead of raising her themselves, had wanted her. It was foolish to think the second son of an earl would defy his parents’ and society’s expectations to woo her. His concern for her well-being last night had been a fluke, like Catherine completing her French lessons without an argument yesterday. While Major Preston was staying at Huntford Place, he wasn’t likely to be kind or attentive to Joanna, but to ignore her like everyone else did. There was no reason for him to behave differently when there’d be so many other eligible ladies here to hold his attention.

Lady Huntford gathered up her correspondence and beckoned her eldest daughter to follow her. ‘Come along, we must choose the gowns you’ll wear. We can’t waste this opportunity.’

‘What about me? Can I attend the house party?’ Catherine sat up straighter in her chair in eager anticipation.

‘Of course not. You’re not out yet.’

‘Even if you were, he isn’t likely to favour you,’ Frances sneered at her sister as she trudged after their mother.

Catherine slumped over her breakfast, struggling to hold back tears. Unlike her sister, Catherine had her father’s dark hair and long face with thin lips which seemed perpetually fixed in a downtrodden frown. Her one blessing was lacking the petty streak which permanently marred her older sister’s personality and beauty. At eighteen, Frances was only two years older than Catherine. Given their closeness in age they should have been friends, but Frances’s churlish nature, and Catherine’s more retiring one, discouraged it.

The grand clock in the entrance hall began to chime nine times.

‘Come, girls, it’s time for your French lesson,’ Joanna urged, feeling sorry for Catherine and wanting to distract her from her sister’s insults with activity.

‘I’m too old to be hustled into the schoolroom by a governess.’ Catherine’s defiance weakened Joanna’s pity.

Anne, the blonde seven-year-old, turned around and stuck her tongue out at Joanna. ‘We’ll tell you when it’s time for our lessons.’

Ava, her twin sister, ignored Joanna and continued to eat her half-burned toast.

Joanna stared at the back of their three heads and the bows wound through their curls. The twins were no better behaved or obedient than their eldest sister. She wondered how she would get them to the schoolroom when, to her surprise, it was their father who interceded.

‘Girls, get up at once and stop being contrary,’ he commanded as he strolled into the room, his large, black hunting dog muddying the carpet as it trotted beside him.

With deep pouts the girls shoved away from the table and stood up to form something of a straight line in front of Joanna.

‘That’s how you command charges, Miss Radcliff,’ Sir Rodger tossed at Joanna as he took his place at the head of the now-empty table. ‘One would think you’d have learned such things at that school of yours.’

Joanna’s cheeks burned at the insulting rebuke and the sniggering it elicited from the girls. After their father’s public reprimand, they’d be even more difficult to deal with once they got back to the schoolroom.

Gruger, the withered old butler, shuffled in and tossed the London newspaper down beside his employer’s plate with no attempt at ceremony. Sir Rodger didn’t correct the surly man with the pocked and wrinkled face, but picked up the paper and snapped it open in front of his face. Gruger shuffled out, mumbling insults about the cook under his breath.

‘Come along.’ Joanna led the girls upstairs to another day of fighting to get them to obey her and to do their work. With each step up the curving staircase in need of a polish, past the maids gossiping while the ashes remained in the fireplaces, she wished she could slip off to her room and pour out her heart to Rachel, or Grace or Isabel like she used to do at the school. It wasn’t likely anyone would notice her not working since half the staff hid in corners and shirked their duties, but what they did or didn’t do wasn’t her concern. Her pride in her work and her responsibility for the girls was what mattered and she would see to them, even if it proved as difficult as shooing Farmer Wilson’s cow out of Madame Dubois’s garden.

The single comfort she found in the long trudge down the halls kept dark to save on candles was the knowledge Major Preston would soon be here. While they crossed the second floor and made for the steep and unadorned third-floor stairs, her excitement faded. He wasn’t coming to visit her, and even if he was she had no interest in a dalliance which might result in a child as Grace’s had done. After the way he’d assisted her last night, she doubted he’d be anything but well behaved around her. Still, the strange feeling in her chest at the memory of him beside her at the ball made her wary. It wasn’t so much his weakness she worried about, but her own. She’d already made one mistake in talking to him at Pensum Manor and allowing his kindness and humour to make her forget herself in a room full of people. She feared what might happen between the two of them during some chance meeting in a darkened hallway.

Nothing will happen. She was too sensible of her place and all Miss Fanworth’s old warnings about gentlemen to be corrupted by a man’s fine words. She would do her duty and if she found herself alone with him, she’d smile, nod and continue on her way, no matter how much she wanted him to flatter and protect her as he had at the ball.

Chapter Four (#ulink_7df8ab2c-ae02-5b0d-9b26-ccca83aeeb9d)

‘Miss Radcliff.’ Sir Rodger waved her over to him with a book as she came downstairs from the schoolroom. Frances and Catherine were upstairs with their mother discussing the house party while Ava and Anne were with their nurse, giving Joanna a brief rest from her duties.

‘Yes, Sir Rodger?’ She’d hope to take a walk in the garden. It appeared her plans were about to be waylaid by her employer. She wondered what he wanted of her. He’d barely said two words to her during her time here except to scold her in front of others or question the quality of her education.

‘Since it appears you have nothing to occupy you at present, I’d like you to return this book to Vicar Carlson.’ He handed her the tome, the blue cuff of his favourite coat sprinkled with food stains. With his wild grey hair frizzed out on either side of his head, he appeared more like some forgotten grandfather than a wealthy baronet. His dog sat beside him, its drool dripping on the stone floor. ‘While you walk, think about how you can better manage the girls. I won’t pay for a governess who has no control over my daughters. Do I make myself clear?’

Joanna’s fingers dug into the leather binding. She wanted to tell him the girls’ obstinacy wasn’t her fault but his since he rarely reprimanded them. Instead, she summoned up her best prim-and-proper governess stance to answer with all the deference required of her position. ‘Yes, Sir Rodger. I’ll deliver the book at once and consider what you’ve said.’

She dipped a curtsy and walked away, indignity making her insides burn as she left the house and headed down the drive. Sir Rodger employed slothful maids, a crotchety butler and a cook who couldn’t warm bread, yet he threatened to fire her? She snapped a thin branch off a poorly pruned topiary and swiped it at the air in front of her. It would take nothing short of an exorcism to drive out the wilful streak in the Huntford girls. She’d already employed every trick Madame Dubois and the other teachers had taught her, but nothing had worked. Without the support of their parents, there was little Joanna could do to make them mind. Her failure was almost assured.

She made the sharp turn on to the small path which led into the woods and to the narrow road traversing it. The woods covered the corner of land marking the boundaries between Huntford Place, Pensum Manor and Helmsworth Manor. She and the girls often walked here during their daily outings to study botany and geology. They were no more obedient outside than inside and it was always a chore to bring them home in time for supper, or with the twins not covered in mud.

Why didn’t Madame Dubois better vet the Huntfords before she sent me here? Or perhaps she’d been so eager to relinquish responsibility for Joanna after nineteen years, she hadn’t cared. Her parents hadn’t cared when they’d left her on the school’s doorstep as an infant without a clue as to who they were, so why should anyone else?

Joanna stumbled over a rock, the old rejection burning in her chest. It was an uncharitable thing to think of Madame Dubois who’d taken her in and been so kind to her, but she couldn’t help it. The loneliness which used to fill her every Christmas when the other girls would go home for the holidays while she remained at the school came over her again. The teachers had done their best to raise and guide her, but with so many students, Joanna had received no special attention, nor had she sought it. The teachers had always praised her for her independence, not realising it wasn’t independence at all, but resignation. There hadn’t been any point asking for something she wouldn’t receive.

The teachers might not have cooed over her, but they’d imparted their knowledge to her, preparing her for her present position. Sadly, it was nothing like what she’d been led to believe it would be, or what she’d hoped. When she’d viewed the house from the mail coach on her first day here, she’d been so excited, expecting to at last experience what it was like to be a member of a true family. It had all been a silly dream, like the one she used to have about her mother returning to claim her.

Joanna flung the branch away. It would be a blow to her and the school if she was dismissed and forced to return to Salisbury without a reference. All the many years of effort, time and work Madame Dubois, Miss Fanworth and the other teachers had put into her would be ruined because of her inability to maintain her first position. In the end she might not have a choice but to leave. Sir Rodger had made his unrealistic expectation of her clear and she didn’t see how she might meet it.

She reached the small brook cutting across a dip in the road and paused on the sloping and muddy bank. Further away, outside the woods, she could hear the river it came from rushing along its banks. A line of flat stones split the small current which ran clear, showing the smooth pebbles and mud at the bottom of the bed. She wanted to sit down on the bank, drop her head in her hands and watch the water flowing past until nothing else mattered.

No, I can’t give up. There had to be a way to succeed, she only needed to find it and soon. She stepped on to the first rock and then the next one. She almost slipped off the third when it tilted beneath her weight. She threw out her arms to regain her balance, then hurried to the far bank. She didn’t need wet boots on top of her present troubles.

Reaching the other side, her resolve began to fade. She didn’t want to continue with this errand, or her time at Huntford Place. Finding a way to make the girls behave seemed as impossible as finding her mother, but she couldn’t give up. She’d write to Miss Fanworth about what to do and ask her not to tell Madame. Perhaps she’d have some suggestions for Joanna.

In a clearing up ahead, the grey-stone vicarage with a tilted chimney releasing a tendril of pine-scented smoke came into view. Over the low roof rose the square spire of the church behind it, squat against the scattered clouds filling the September sky. This wasn’t the church she and the family attended on Sunday in town, but a living on Helmsworth Manor which served the Marquis of Helmsworth, his staff and the tenants in the small village a mile off.

She heaved a large sigh as she entered the front garden, too upset to summon her usual steadfast cheerfulness. Let Vicar Carlson see her surly and ill-tempered, she didn’t care. A tangle of chrysanthemums, mallow and weeds choked both sides of the slate walk leading to the sturdy door. She knocked lightly on the wood and listened for the answering footsteps of the vicar or a housekeeper from inside. The rustle of the wind through the surrounding trees were the only noises which greeted her.

She leaned off the steps to peer in the front window. Inside was as untidy as the garden with stacks of books piled on every surface. It appeared more like the messy studio of their old art master, Signor Bertolli, than the neat and orderly abode of a vicar. Leaning away from the window, she caught her pinched expression reflected in the glass.

Taking another deep breath, she forced the crease between her eyes to soften and the impassive look she’d perfected during the last four weeks at Huntford Place to return. No one needed to know anything was wrong with her, especially not a stranger. Even if they did, they wouldn’t care. Few people gave a second thought to a lowly governess.

A few more minutes passed while she waited for someone to return. She tapped the book against her hand. It was clear there was no one here. She could leave the book on the step and be on her way, but she couldn’t risk it being damaged. Sir Rodger had given her an errand and she must do it well. She didn’t want to fail at every task she’d been set to here in Hertfordshire.

She tucked her skirt under her legs, about to sit down and wait, when the whinny of a horse from behind the house caught her notice. She followed the vicarage around to the back. A horse was tied to a tree in the small graveyard between the house and the church. An older man stood before one of the headstones, staring down at the brown grass surrounding it. He was heavyset but tall, with grey hair slicked back above a proud forehead. Sadness left deep creases in the smooth skin and drew down the lines around his mouth, adding years to his face. He held his hat in one hand as he reached out to trace the etched and weathered headstone in front of him. It was pitched to one side from age, but the small bunch of violets laid on its curving top set it apart from the others.

He hadn’t seen her and she didn’t want to interrupt his contemplation. She was about to go, but he clenched his fist in his mouth in a stifled sob. She was afraid to approach him, to interrupt his grief, but she couldn’t leave him alone any more than she could have the new girls who used to cry during their first night at the school.

She approached him, the dry grass crunching beneath her boots and announcing her presence. ‘Are you all right, sir?’

‘Yes, just an old man weeping over the past.’ He rubbed the moisture from his eyes with his fingers then dropped his arm and at last looked at her.

Joanna gasped. His eyes were the same colour as hers and just as vivid.

‘Jane?’ he whispered, dropping his hat. His face went white beneath his grey hair with the same shock Isabel had worn the time she’d come down from the attic claiming to have spied a ghost. In the end it had been nothing more than an old dress dummy covered in dust.

‘No, I’m Miss Radcliff, the new governess at Huntford Place.’ Joanna was eager to ease his alarm the way she’d eased Isabel’s.

He continued to stare at her and she studied his round face and the slender nose set over full lips. Something about him seemed familiar but she’d never seen the gentleman before.