Death at Dawn - Caro Peacock [38]
‘I’ve delivered your application. She will probably want to see you tomorrow, Wednesday. We have a lot of work to do.’
All that long summer day, with the scent of lime trees and coos of courting pigeons drifting in through the window, Miss Bodenham coached me in my part.
‘The family lived in Geneva, down by the lake. You know Geneva?’
‘Yes. We stopped a week there on our way back from the Alps.’
‘Keep to yes and no whenever possible. She will not be interested in you and the Alps. Your charges were two girls and a boy: Sylvia who is now twelve, Fitzgeorge, nine and Margaret, five. Repeat.’
‘Sylvia, twelve, Fitzgeorge, nine, Margaret, five. Was I fond of them?’
‘It is unwise for a governess to express fondness. The mother may be jealous. You found them charming and well-behaved.’
‘Were you ever a governess?’
‘Yes. But you must cure yourself of asking questions. Governesses don’t, except in the schoolroom.’
‘Is it very miserable?’
‘How old is Fitzgeorge?’
She seemed pleased, in her gruff way, with my speed in getting this fictional family into my head. Less pleased, though, when it came to my accomplishments.
‘She will probably ask you to show her a sample of your needlework.’
‘I don’t possess one.’
‘Not even a handkerchief?’
I eventually found in my reticule a ten-year-old handkerchief which the nuns had made me hem. She looked at it critically.
‘The stitches are too large.’
‘That’s what Sister Immaculata said. She made me unpick it nine times.’
‘It will have to do, but you must wash and iron it.’
She issued me with a wafer of hard yellow soap. I washed the handkerchief in the basin on the landing, hung it from the window sill to dry, went downstairs to beg the loan of a flat iron from the frizzy-haired maid and the favour of heating it on the kitchen range. I was ironing it in the scullery when somebody knocked at the door. The maid had gone upstairs, so I went to answer it and found a footman outside in black-and-gold livery, powdered wig and hurt pride from having to stand on a doorstep in Store Street.
‘I have a letter for a Miss Lock.’
Scented paper, address written in violet ink, seal a coat of arms with three perched birds. Inside, a short note hoping that Miss Lock would find it convenient to call at eleven o’clock on Wednesday, the following day, signed Lucasta Mandeville. I told the footman that Miss Lock would keep the appointment, then fled to the scullery from which a smell of burned linen was rising. Handkerchief totally ruined with a flat-iron shaped hole in the middle. Miss Bodenham sighed as if she hadn’t expected anything better and found me one of her own. It was more neatly stitched, but I had to go through the whole laundering and ironing process again.
In the evening, Miss Bodenham put on her bonnet, bundled together a great sheaf of papers, and said she must go and deliver it to the printers in Clerkenwell.
‘I’ll come with you.’
My head felt muzzy from a long day of study.
‘No, you stay here. I’ll bring back something for a supper.’
I watched from the window as her straw bonnet with its surprisingly frivolous green ribbon turned the corner, then caught up my own bonnet and hurried down the stairs. I was tired of being obedient. Blackstone and Miss Bodenham might think they’d taken control of my life, but I had my own trail to follow. It took me southwards down Tottenham Court Road towards St Giles. It was the busiest time of the evening with the streets full of traffic; at the point where Tottenham Court Road met Oxford Street there was such a jam of carriages that I could hardly find a way through. Wheels were grinding against wheels, drivers swearing, gentry leaning out of carriage windows wanting to know what was going on, horses whinnying. It seemed worse than the usual evening crush so I asked a crossing sweeper who was leaning