The Silent Governess Read online

  “The young man was a Harrow lad, you say?”

  She shrugged. “Herbert something.”

  His eyes brightened. “Herbert? Herbert Fitzpatrick?”

  “I never heard a surname. Nor his father’s name at all.” The name Fitzpatrick did seem mildly familiar, though she did not know why.

  “I’d wager it was my old school chum Herbert.” He laughed. “Boy never could conquer arithmetic. Pale boy. The blackest hair. How he would perspire during examinations! We teased him mercilessly.”

  “I cannot credit it. From London, was he?”

  “You know, I just saw his father in church on Christmas. Visiting a sister or some such.”

  That was the man she had seen from the church gallery at Christmas?—the man she thought familiar but could not place?

  “He lives in Cheltenham, I believe. But he mentioned Herbert is managing one of his interests in the north somewhere.”

  Olivia frowned, thinking back to what she remembered of the gentleman and his son. “I am not certain it can be the same Herbert. I distinctly remember they were merely passing through on their way home to Harrow and London.”

  “If memory serves, they moved to the Cheltenham area a year or two ago.”

  She did not respond to this, and after several minutes of silence, he said quietly, “It was not fair of your father to put you in such a position, Miss Keene. But do you not see what confidence he had in you? What pride? But he ought to have realized what you were about in allowing poor Herbert to win and been proud of you for that as well. It was very noble of you, especially for one so young.”

  “He was not in the least proud.”

  Lord Bradley looked at her, eyes soft in understanding. “I see that you did not have a typical upbringing, nor a typical father, Miss Keene. But as you have caused me to appreciate my father’s qualities anew, I hope you will allow yourself to admit that your father has his good qualities as well.”

  “I don’t want to admit it.”

  He looked at her, surprised. “Why? What do you risk in doing so?”

  “More than you know.” For if she admitted the good along with the bad, then how could she live with herself, knowing what she had done to him?

  She did not tell him the most condemning charge against her father—what he had done, or at least tried to do, to her mother. She was too ashamed to form the words.

  Chapter 26

  Rebuked and saddened, I resigned myself with no good grace

  to my routine of instruction.

  Where were all the romantic fancies and proud anticipations

  with which I had accepted the position of governess . . . ?

  —ANNA LEONOWENS, THE ENGLISH GOVERNESS AT THE SIAMESE COURT

  All that night, Miss Keene’s words echoed over and over again in Edward’s mind. “What else have you to do but enjoy yourself?”

  The question goaded more than it should have.

  Edward regarded himself in the looking glass above his washbasin. The face he always saw stared back at him, his fair hair darkening to a bronze in the long side whiskers, golden stubble glinting on his cheeks in the candlelight. His blond brows, a shade lighter than his hair. The pale blue eyes, so prevalent in the Bradley family, which he supposed was an ironic gift of fate. The nose, with the slight angle at its tip—a “gift” from Felix when they were boys and his cousin had rammed a sled right into his face. The snow had turned as bright red as cherry ice.

  Edward had always assumed his looks came from his father. People had even commented on how Edward favoured Lord-Brightwell—in looks, if not in character or temperament. His father had always been sanguine—an easygoing man who did not demand perfection in himself or others. He was at his ease in company, smiled often, and everybody liked him.

  Edward, however, was not easily given to smiles. His neutral expression was intense, he knew, always seeming to waver on displeasure or disapproval. Why, he could not say. As Miss Keene had remarked so flippantly, what had he to do but enjoy life? At least until recently, he’d had no real reason not to smile throughout his days of blessing and ease. Yet, he had not. It was as if every minute he had been waiting for the fairy tale to end, for someone to disappoint him, to take it all away and destroy the grand illusion. But no, he could not factor recent revelations into a character formed over four and twenty years when he’d had not one inkling that he wasn’t his father’s boy. His mother’s son.

  His mother had known, however, and Edward found himself wondering if her awareness of his low birth had colored her perception, made her suspect his behavior and abilities were not all they should be. If she had sometimes been critical—surely he might be further along in Latin, and what did he mean he had no ear for the Italian? How his laugh grated on her nerves and his table manners were low indeed. Might not any mother have the same irritations with a son—boys being what they were, especially when young? Still, he knew she had loved him in her way. And he had loved her. Tears pricked his eyes at the thought. He would always miss her.

  Perhaps he was more like his mother in temperament. More critical of others, never satisfied with his own performance. After all, he had spent more time in her company than in his father’s, who was occupied with parliament so much of the year.

  Parliament . Edward had known from boyhood that he would take his father’s seat one day. He thought he might be good at lawmaking, since he tended to see things in black and white. Right or wrong. Good or bad. A person of quality or not. Educated or uneducated. Master or servant. But now . . . ? What sort of person was he?

  If his secret was exposed, what then of his career in parliament, his marriage to Miss Harrington, his future as an earl? It was all at risk now. And if it all disappeared tomorrow . . . ? What then? What would he do with his life?

  Olivia sat at the library table on Sunday afternoon, playing chess with Lord Brightwell. Winter sun spilled in through the library window through which she had first laid eyes on the earl and his wife. How long ago that seemed. Dust motes floated on the shaft of sunlight, which illuminated the ornate pieces and inlaid chessboard of the rosewood table. The earl seemed preoccupied, whether with his next move or something of greater import she did not know.

  Lifting his queen, Lord Brightwell began, “Olivia, I must tell you something about your mother.”

  Olivia dropped her chess piece. “You have news of my mother?”

  He nodded gravely. “I sent a man to search for her when you were ill. I thought she would want to know.”

  “A search?”

  “You had been quite vague in your direction, if you will recall, something about ‘near Cheltenham.’ ”

  Olivia blushed.

  “I am afraid he returned unsuccessful. When you finally named your village—for the school reference—I sent Talbot once again on horseback. Winter roads being what they are, he would never have made it in a carriage. As it was, he barely got through. In Withington, he located the constable, who was able to direct him to the home of Simon and Dorothea Keene.”

  Olivia nodded. “The cottage with the green door, just past the cobblers and beside the churchyard.”

  “Not any longer,” he said quietly.

  Olivia started to say Talbot must have missed it. It was a small cottage after all, but something in the earl’s eyes stilled her tongue.

  “He found the house, my dear, but no one was there.”

  Olivia swallowed, her mind working. “My father . . . was perhaps away at his work, and my mother gone. . . .”

  “My dear, I do not mean that no one was home at that moment. I mean that no one had lived there for some time. The place was deserted. A neighbor confirmed it.”

  Olivia flinched. Was it as she feared, her mother gone and her father dead? But if her mother had left, why had she not gone to the school in St. Aldwyns and been directed to Brightwell Court? Or learnt her whereabouts from Miss Cresswell and come directly to find her?

  Lord Brightwell scooted his chair closer to
hers and held her hands in his. “Talbot spoke with several neighbors. While no one claimed personal knowledge, the rumor is that Simon Keene has fled the village to avoid arrest, and that your mother . . .”

  Father is alive. I did not kill him. Her brain barely had time to register relief at this confirmation before a new fear swept in to take its place. “Yes?” she urged.

  “There is a new grave in the churchyard, Olivia. I am deeply sorry to have to tell you that Dorothea Keene is believed dead.”

  Olivia stared with unseeing eyes. Her heart felt as if it had burst within her, and throbbed with the pain of it. Had her father lived only to end her mother’s life?

  “The constable would neither confirm nor deny anything. He told Talbot if he wanted to know who was buried in the churchyard, he would have to ask the church warden. That man referred him to the local midwife. A Miss . . .”

  “Miss Atkins.”

  “That was it. But she would tell Talbot little. Seemed very suspicious of him and said she was under no compulsion to tell a stranger anything. When Talbot asked if she knew where Dorothea Keene was, the only answer she made was, ‘She won’t be coming back.’ ”

  “I don’t understand,” Olivia said, voice trembling. “There must be some mistake. Miss Atkins would tell me everything. I know she would.” Olivia leapt to her feet. “I shall have to go home.”

  His expression deeply apologetic, the earl said, “My dear, the roads are quite impassable at present after the recent snows. You shall have to wait for a thaw.”

  She bit her lip and blinked back tears. “At the first opportunity, then.” She strode to the door, then forced herself to turn back, adding woodenly, “Thank you for telling me.”

  Edward found Miss Keene a short while later, sitting on the fallen log beside the river, crying into her hands. Scooping aside the wet snow, he sat down next to her on the log.

  She looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “Did Lord Brightwell send you to find me? I am sorry to have troubled you.”

  “He did not send me, Miss Keene,” Edward said gently. “But he is concerned about you. As am I.”

  She drew in a shaky breath. “I thank you, but I shall be well presently.”

  He tilted his head to regard her more closely. “Good. But I should like to stay with you, if I may.”

  “Have wild dogs been seen again?”

  “No.”

  She nodded, tears trailing down her cheeks. Edward longed to touch her face, to wipe the tears from her eyes. But she turned away from him toward the river.

  He said, “Lord Brightwell briefly described to me what Talbot learnt, and the rumors of your father’s hand in your mother’s disappearance. If true, how I regret defending him that day on the ice.” Edward hesitated. “Do you . . . think such a thing possible?”

  She inhaled. “A year ago I would not have believed it. But now . . . yes, it is possible, though I pray I am wrong.”

  He lifted her cold hand and placed it onto his palm. She had neglected to wear gloves. When she didn’t stiffen, he began to softly stroke her knuckles with his free hand.

  “I know,” he murmured. “I know.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, “you must know. You have lost two mothers yourself.”

  For the first time, he allowed himself to acknowledge that truth. “Yes, I suppose I have.”

  They sat in silence for a long moment.

  Edward hesitated. “I am sorry I kept you here. Kept you from returning home.”

  She shook her head. “I could not have gone home then in any case. And now . . . if what Talbot discovered is true . . . there is nothing to go home for.”

  He didn’t know how to respond. Simply held her hand.

  After a moment she said, “Mr. Tugwell once told me he was praying that God would work ‘all things work together for good.’ But I do not see how that can be so now.”

  Nor I, Edward thought, but forbore to say so.

  Chapter 27

  I sit alone in the evening, in the schoolroom.

  Really I should be very glad of some society,

  it would be such an enjoyment.

  —MISS ELLEN WEETON, JOURNAL OF A GOVERNESS 1811–1825

  Tamping down her sadness, Olivia did her best to keep to a schedule, knowing children thrived under order and regularity. Bedtime promptly at eight was the rule, although Mrs. Howe often disturbed their routine, coming in after the wicks were extinguished to kiss Alexander “just once more.”

  While she was there, she would bid Audrey and Andrew “good night” or “sweet dreams,” and how they, the boy, especially, would beam up at her. Now and then Judith would stop by his bed and lay her hand on Andrew’s head, much as Lord Bradley often did, and ruffle his hair. The look of pleasure on the boy’s face always pricked Olivia’s heart. Did the woman not see the power she held to wield joy or pain?

  Seeing how much these nighttime visits delighted her charges, Olivia did not think to complain about them, even had she dared.

  And so they passed the next few weeks of winter in relative peace and tranquility, Olivia’s uncertainty over her mother’s fate wavering from grief to hope and back again. She kept busy, finding new and more active ways to teach Andrew, while Audrey continued to advance in her studies by the methods that had proved so effective at Miss Cresswell’s.

  Still, Olivia had never spent so much time alone in her life. When the children ate suppers with the family, and each evening after they were in their beds, Olivia spent time alone in the schoolroom, since it was larger and warmer than her room, and more private than the nursery, which was clearly Nurse Peale’s domain. There, she read or sewed by candlelight. She thought back to the fine needlework her mother had done for Mrs. Meacham, the wife of her father’s former employer, and more recently, for the wife of his new employer as well. Olivia had not such fine skills with the needle, nor such patience for the craft, but she could repair hems and darn socks, and that passed the time better than nothing.

  She remembered with fondness the small cushions and bedclothes she had fashioned for the doll’s house Lord Bradley had made. How she had enjoyed working on that clandestine project with him.

  Lord Brightwell had extended an open invitation for her to sit with him in the library of an evening, but this she did but rarely, loath as she was to cause gossip among the servants.

  In bed at night, the doubts would come, torturing her with endless scenarios of what might have happened after she left home. Feeding her worries over her mother’s fate . . . and her own. And where was her father? A part of her longed for the roads to clear quickly, while another part dreaded the confirmation of her worst fears.

  In the meantime, she arose each morning eager to return to the schoolroom, to lose herself and her worries to teaching once more. She even began teaching Becky to read and write whenever the maid’s heavy workload allowed. She took great satisfaction from this. She thought Nurse Peale, who sometimes hovered nearby to watch when Becky bent her head over her slate or a simple book, would complain. But she did not.

  On a day in early March, Olivia was listening to Becky read aloud from one of Andrew’s books, helping her whenever she stumbled over a word. The two women froze when Lord Bradley strode into the nursery without knocking. He drew up short at seeing the two of them huddled together near the hearth, a candle lamp between them, for the evening was dark and rainy.

  “A new pupil, Miss Keene?” he asked, and she could not tell if he was angry or simply curious.

  She rose. “Yes, my lord. Becky is coming along nicely with her reading. But we only have lessons when Becky’s duties are done, and Andrew and Audrey are with you or their stepmother.”

  “Where are they now? I have just returned from Northleach and can find no one about the place.”

  “Mrs. Howe took the children to visit their grandmother Howe.”

  “Dominick’s mother? Good. And my father?”

  “I am afraid I do not know.”

  “Well, the roads are
finally becoming passable. Perhaps he has gone on some long-neglected errand or some such.”

  Olivia thought of the promised trip to Withington, once the roads had cleared. Surely he had not gone without her.

  “Would you join me in the study, Miss Keene? When you are through here, of course.”

  “Certainly, my lord.”

  Becky looked at her apologetically, as though it was her fault Olivia was about to be reprimanded. She smiled at the girl, hoping to reassure her.

  When Olivia stepped through the open study door a few minutes later, Lord Bradley rose from his chair near the fire.

  “Please, be seated.”

  If she were about to be called to account, she would rather stand. “Do you not approve of my teaching Becky? As I said, I only do so when the both of us are—”

  He lifted a hand to silence her. “I do not disapprove, Miss Keene. That would be rather hypocritical of me, would it not? But do be warned that Mrs. Howe might not be as liberal minded as I have recently become.”

  “Very well.”

  “Please sit down,” he repeated. “I would ring for tea, but well, I think . . .”

  She sat in the facing chair. “No, thank you, my lord. Nothing for me.” She understood perfectly that a servant bringing tea to the young lord and the governess would set tongues to wagging in a hurry.

  He sat down again as well. “I am curious, Miss Keene. I would think after teaching all day, taking on another pupil would be the last thing you would want to do.”

  She chuckled. “I believe it is the other way round. Becky is so exhausted by day’s end, she can barely keep her eyes open to read.”

  He leaned back, steepling his fingers. “Do you really enjoy it so much?”

  Olivia shrugged. “I know it may sound strange. But I believe God made me to teach, or at least gave me abilities that lend themselves to the calling. I have wanted to be a teacher—like my mother before me—since I was a little girl.”