The Poor Governess

CHAPTER ONE 1887-2

Jane had been extremely grateful and had gone to Lady Ludlow’s house in London where she had three small children to teach and had been, Lara always understood, a success.

As she opened the door of the study and Jane followed her in, she thought that it was providential that she should have arrived at this particular moment when she was badly in need of information for the background to the book she was writing about the life of a Governess.

“Sit down, Jane,” she suggested. “I suppose you have had luncheon and it is too early for tea, but I will tell Nanny you are here and would like a cup of coffee.”

“No, I want nothing, Lara, except your help,” Jane replied.

“My help?” Lara repeated and smiled. “That is what I want from you!”

She thought that Jane looked puzzled and she said quickly,

“Never mind that for the moment. Tell me what it is you want first and I will talk afterwards.”

Jane was taking off her white cotton gloves and, when she had put them down, she clasped her hands together and said,

“Oh, Lara – I am in such – trouble!”

The way she spoke told Lara that it was serious and she asked,

“In trouble, Jane? How? What has happened?”

“I really don’t know – how to – begin,” Jane replied, “but the reason I came here today was to ask – your father if he would be kind – enough to give me another – reference.”

“What happened to the one you had before?” Lara enquired.

“Your relation Lady Ludlow gave it to the Marquis of Keyston, where I am now employed.”

“You have left Lady Ludlow?” Lara exclaimed. “I had no idea of that.”

“It was not for anything I had done wrong,” Jane said quickly, “but the two boys went to a preparatory school and it was decided that the little girl should have lessons with some other children of her own age.”

“Oh, poor Jane! So they did not want you any longer.”

“I was very sorry to leave them,” Jane went on. “I had been happy there and Lady Ludlow was very kind.”

“So she found you a new position?”

Jane nodded.

“And what is wrong with that?”

She thought for a moment that Jane was not going to answer and there was an expression in her blue eyes that Lara did not understand.

Then she said,

“Oh, Lara – it is so – frightening! I don’t – know what to do.”

“Tell me everything from the very beginning,” Lara proposed.

It flashed through her mind that Jane’s revelations of what was happening in her position as a Governess were exactly what she needed for her novel.

Then she told herself that was a very selfish thought and she must concentrate on helping Jane, who she was quite certain would never be able to help herself.

“When Lady Ludlow told me that I was to go to the Marquis of Keyston, I was rather frightened,” Jane began, “because he is so – important.”

“Who is he?” Lara asked. “I have never heard of him.”

“He is a friend of the Prince of Wales and owns a great number of racehorses. Lady Ludlow spoke of him in a way that told me she admired him very much.”

“He sounds fascinating!” Lara said. “Go on, Jane. What is the Marquis’s wife like?”

“He is not married,” Jane answered. “I teach his niece, the only child of his elder brother who died without having a son.”

“Oh, I see that is why the present Marquis inherited.”

“Yes, that is right,” Jane agreed, “and Georgina is a nice little girl.”

“How old is she?” Lara interposed.

“She is ten, but rather stupid and I am not able to teach her very much.”

“And where does the Marquis live?”

“In an enormous house called ‘Keyston Priory’,” Jane answered. “It has beautiful grounds and I would be happy there, except – ”

She stopped and bit on her lower lip as if it was trembling.

Lara’s eyes were alight with interest.

“What has happened, Jane?” she asked. “Is it the Marquis who is making life difficult for you?”

She did not know quite how to phrase it, but she was sure in her imagination that a wicked villain, as in a play, was menacing the gentle and pure maiden who was Jane and only the hero could save her.

“No, it is – not the Marquis who is the – difficulty,” Jane faltered, “but – his friend.”

“What friend?”

“He is called Lord Magor – and he is quite – old.”

Lara waited and Jane added, the words seeming to burst from her lips,

“Oh, Lara, I am frightened of him – and I don’t know what to do. I have to – leave and there is – nowhere I can go.”

Lara drew her chair a little nearer to Jane’s.

“What is he doing to frighten you?” she asked.

“He keeps coming into the schoolroom in the – evenings when I am – alone and the night before last he tried to kiss me – Oh, Lara – I know it is wrong and wicked – but he will not listen when I – tell him to go away.”

“But you came away today?”

“I was just fortunate,” Jane replied. “Georgina had a terrible toothache yesterday morning. In fact it was so bad that I told his Lordship’s secretary, Mr. Simpson, who runs the house, that she would have to visit the dentist.”

“So you took her to London?”

“That is right,” Jane agreed, “and she saw the dentist, who found that she has an abscess in one of her teeth. She was so unwell that he insisted on her staying in bed today.”

She paused for breath and went on,

“Her old Nanny came to London with us, which gave me a chance to catch a train which brought me here to you, but I must be careful not to miss the one that goes back at five o’clock.”

“You will have to walk to the station, unless Papa returns with the trap,” Lara told her.

“I will leave in plenty of time,” Jane replied.

“Go on about Lord Magor.”

“He is always – staying at The Priory because the Marquis likes having him there. He has big parties, so I cannot see why Lord Magor should want to come and talk to me when the ladies who the Marquis invites are – so beautiful and have the most glorious gowns you have ever seen.”

“I want to know everything about them too,” Lara said. “But go on about Lord Magor. Surely you can tell him to leave you alone.”

“He will not listen,” Jane said. “He keeps telling me how pretty I am, and he is very – overpowering. Besides, it is – very difficult to be rude to a gentleman who must be at least – forty.”

‘He is exactly the sort of man I would expect him to be,’ Lara’s imagination told her.

She was sure that Lord Magor was rather large and stout with a ruddy complexion, and smoked a huge cigar.

“I suppose,” she asked, “you could not tell the Marquis about his friend and ask him to order Lord Magor to leave you alone?”

“Tell the – Marquis?” Jane repeated in horror. “I could not! As it is, I find it – difficult to say even ‘good morning’ or ‘good evening’ to him. He is – terrifying!”

“Why? In what way?” Lara asked.

“It’s hard to – explain,” Jane answered. “He is very cynical and autocratic and appears to be contemptuous of everything and – everybody and – especially of me!”

“Oh, poor Jane!” Lara said sympathetically. “You seem to have got yourself into exactly the wrong sort of place.”

She was going to add, ‘for somebody like you’ and then thought that it would sound rather rude.

But she knew better than anybody how helpless Jane was to cope with even the small difficulties of life, let alone gentlemen who pursued her, obviously with evil intentions.

Lara was very innocent and was not certain exactly what that meant.

She only knew that the villains in the novels she had read and the stories that filled her mind were always pursuing innocent young maidens, not because they wished to marry them, but to offer them what was described as ‘a fate worse than death’.

What that was she had no idea, but she knew it was something to do with the Ten Commandments.

Her father occasionally preached against ‘sinners who deserved the fires of hell’ and the sinners unquestionably were the villains in her stories.

Now out of the blue Jane was giving her half-a-dozen new plots!

She felt her fingers itching to set them down in the neat books she had once used for her lessons, but which now contained two chapters of her precious novel.

“Tell me about the Marquis,” she said and thought that Jane shuddered before she said,

“He is – terrifying and I never go near him if I can – help it. But Lord Magor is much – much worse. Oh, Lara, what can I do to – make him – leave me alone?”

Before Lara could answer she blurted out,

“It’s no use – I simply cannot stay at the Priory and that is why I came to ask your father if he would be kind enough to give me a reference. If I ask Mr. Simpson for mine, he may guess that I am trying to find another – situation.”

“How will you obtain one without his knowing you are leaving?” Lara asked.

“I thought,” Jane said hesitatingly, “that I would – write to a – Domestic Bureau where I know the servants come from and then later ask – Lady Ludlow if she will – recommend me,”

“I am sure she will do that for you.”

“Yes, but I don’t wish her to tell the Marquis what I am doing until I actually have – somewhere else to – go. You know I have no home and since Papa’s relations live in the North of England – I cannot afford to go and stay with them.”

“You can always come here,” Lara suggested.

Jane’s eyes lit up.

“Do you really mean that?”

“Of course I mean it. I would love to have you and so would Papa. He will write you a glowing reference or, if you like, I can write you out the same one that Mama gave you and sign it with her name.”

“Do you – think that would be quite – honest?” Jane asked.

“Of course it would! It would only be like Mama giving you the same reference twice, if she had thought about it at the time.”

“Yes – I suppose so,” Jane said doubtfully, “and it is very – very kind of you, Lara, but I still have to go back and – face Lord Magor until I have found – somewhere else.”

“What is he like?” Lara asked.

“I suppose he was rather good-looking when he was young. The housekeeper, Mrs. Brigstow, was talking about him one day and said he had a reputation with women! I suppose that is why he cannot – understand why I don’t want him to – kiss me.”

Lara gave an exclamation and said,

“You know, this is exactly what I was certain happened to Governesses in the big houses where gentlemen think, because they are neither upstairs nor downstairs but in the middle, they are ‘fair game’.”

She was puzzling it out for herself when she saw that Jane was looking shocked.

“That sounds – horrid, Lara!” she cried. “But I suppose it is – true.”

“I was saying to Nanny just before you came,” Lara went on, “that Mama said once that a Governess’s life was somewhere between Heaven and Hell, in a no-man’s land of their own, and that is where you are, Jane.”

“I know,” Jane said with a little sigh, “but it – frightens me, and when I – lock myself in my room at night, I am always – afraid that somehow – Lord Magor may – get in.”

“How could he do that?”

“He could not – and it is silly of me even to think of it – but I cannot sleep and in the morning I have a – headache, and feel so – ill that I can hardly teach Georgina. I know really I just – want to run away and never – never go back.”

The way Jane spoke told Lara that she was indeed very upset.

In fact, she knew now she looked at her that her face was unnaturally pale and she had dark shadows under her eyes.

Lara remembered that Jane had always been very highly strung.

If she had ever had a disagreement with her father or anybody else she would cry herself sick and would lie on her bed sobbing and refusing to have anything to eat.

It flashed through her mind that, if Jane had a nervous breakdown, she would be dismissed and might find it impossible to find another job.

“What you really need, Jane, is a holiday,” she said. “Have you made any arrangement as to when you should have one?”

“I forgot to ask about it when I was engaged,” Jane replied. “Anyway, I don’t want a holiday – I have nowhere to go.”

“I really think you ought to have one,” Lara insisted.

“How can I?” Jane asked. “And I suppose things will be better when the Marquis goes away and does not have so many parties. I understand from the servants that when the Season starts in London – he only occasionally comes down from Saturday to Monday.”

“But you think Lord Magor will be staying with him?”