Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - Donoghue [52]
The governess was in the parlour, sipping cold tea. Mistress Mary, her employer called her; it was to be understood that the Irish preferred this traditional form of address, and besides, it avoided the outlandish surname. Her Ladyship showed no interest in wages, nor in the little school Mistress Mary used to run in London, nor in her recent treatise on female education. Her Ladyship's questions sounded like statements. She outlined the children's day, hour by hour. They had been let run wild too long, and now it was a race to make the eldest presentable for Dublin Castle in a bare two years. The girl was somewhat perverse, her Ladyship mentioned over the silver teapot, and seemed to be growing larger by the day.
Mistress Mary watched a minute grain of powder from her Ladyship's widow's peak drift down and alight on the surface of the tea. She had been here one hour and felt light with fatigue already. The three children were the kind of hoydens she liked least, the fourteen-year-old Margaret in particular having an unrestrained guffaw certain to set on edge the nerves of any potential suitors. The governess asked herself again why she had exiled herself among the wild Irish rather than scour pots for a living.
"But your mother was a native of this country, was she not, Mistress Mary? You are half one of us, then."
"Oh, your Ladyship, I would not presume."
But that bony voice did remind the governess of her mother's limper tones. Bending her head over the tea, Mistress Mary heard in her gut the usual battle between gall and compassion.
Behind an oak, Margaret was shivering as she nipped her muslin skirts between her knees. If she stood narrow as a sapling she would not be seen. The outraged words of two languages carried across the field, equally indistinguishable. Dot would carry the news later: who said what, which of the usual threats and three-generation curses were made, which fists shaken in which faces. It had to be time for dinner, Margaret thought. She would go when the smoke rose white as feathers from the second thatch.
"Stand up straight," her mother told her. "You have been telling your sisters wicked make-believe once more. How can I persuade you of the difference between what is real and what is not?"
"I do not know, madam."
"You will run mad before the age of sixteen and then I will be spared the trouble of finding a husband for you."
"Yes, madam."
"Have you forgotten who you are, girl?"
"Margaret King of the family of Lord and Lady Kingsborough of Kingsborough Estate."
"Of which county?"
"Of the county of Cork in the kingdom of Ireland in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-six."
"Now go and wash your face so your new governess will not think you a peasant."
In November the evictions were more plentiful, and Margaret wearied of them. The apple trees stooped under their cloaks of rain. Mistress Mary had been here three weeks. She and the girls were kept busy all day from half past six to half past five with a list of nonsensical duties. So-called accomplishments, being in her view those things which were never fully accomplished. Mistress Mary kept biting her soft lips and thinking of Lisbon. The children churned out acres of lace, lists of the tributaries of the Nile, piles of netted purses, and an assortment of complaints from violin, flute, and harpsichord. The two small girls could sing five songs in French without understanding any of the words, and frequently did. The harpsichord was often silent, on days when Margaret, blank-faced and docile, slipped away with a message for the cook and was not seen again.
Sometimes, losing herself along windy corridors, her air of calm efficiency beginning to slip, Mistress Mary caught sight of a long booted ankle disappearing round a corner. On the first occasion, the matter was mentioned to her Ladyship. Bruises slowed Margaret's walk for a week, though no one referred to them. After that, Mistress Mary kept silent about her pupils comings