Karen Harbaugh (8 page)

I felt a moment of guilt, wondering if I were taking selfish advantage of Mama’s stubborn hopes for me, but reflected that even if she did believe that Lord Ashcombe and I were only friends, she could hardly object to—indeed, she might even encourage—my making friends with respectable people of my own age.

His lordship was right. I did like Samantha. As we quickly came to know each other, we turned “Miss Canning” and “Miss Ashcombe” into Georgia and Samantha. With Lord Ashcombe becoming very much like a brother to me, I came to call him Lucas as Samantha did. She was very like her brother in coloring: very wavy black hair, with clear translucent skin that became stained a light cherry about her cheeks when she became animated. Her eyes were not so blue as Lord Ashcombe’s—they were more of a bluish green, almost aqua color—but her lashes were as enviably long. She was slim and neat as a pin, but not as tall as I had expected she would be after seeing her brother. Indeed, I had thought I was short, but I must have topped her by almost four inches. She was a bit shy and quiet at first, but when I revealed to her my scholastic ambitions, she grew more lively and disclosed that she, too, had ambitions: she wished to be a Writer of Novels.

Lord Ashcombe listened to these revelations with what was clearly a superior air and too obvious tolerance as he quite expertly tooled our carriage down Rotten Row. Samantha caught his eye and said: “And I don’t want to hear anything from you about if it is worth doing or not, because I am determined to Write. I was
born
to do so! I am sure of it!” She lifted her little chin, looked at me, and nodded her head with assurance. I nodded back. I had to admire someone with serious ambitions and the determination to carry them out.

Lucas shook his head. “If I ever saw two chits less suited toward your ‘ambitions,’ I don’t remember ‘em! Why, I haven’t seen you lift a pen, Sam, since Miss Jamieson left to visit her mother! As for writing letters, who was it that was two weeks late writing thank-you notes after Christmas, may I ask?”

Samantha retorted, “Well, I did finally write them, and they were good ones, too! Better than yours, at any rate! And longer! Besides, an Author must be Inspired! One just does not write any insipid thing down on paper. As for writing since Miss Jamieson left, why, you don’t think I would show my writing to just anyone, do you?” She sniffed haughtily and sat back against the cushions on her seat, arms tucked in her muffler.

It seemed to me that she was in the right of it, but I turned to Lord Ashcombe and asked: “And what is it about me that isn’t suited toward teaching and scholarship?”

He pondered this a moment. “Don’t doubt that you’re intelligent enough, you know your geography and books and all that. Thing is, you’re too pretty.”

I gasped and blushed. “Well, of all the whiskers! You’re quite wrong about that, I know! I have grown up with Mama, you might remember, and I know what pretty is! Now, tell me the true reason you think I would not be suited to being a governess. No flimflamming about, if you please!”

“Not flimflamming at all! Not saying you’re as beautiful as your mama—different coloring, for one thing—but you have a look of her, enough to make a man sit up and take notice. Not trying to put you to the blush,” he said, looking at my flushed face. “Ask Samantha! Got a ‘Writer’s eye.’ She would know,” he ended with some irony.

I turned to Samantha questioningly. She nodded. “Oh, yes, Georgia, Lucas is right! I don’t know what your mama looks like, but you are prettier than most young ladies I have seen, and I have seen many, both at home and out the window, for you must know my window looks out on the square and I can see ever so many people! It is very useful for me as a writer; I note down in my journal everything about the people I see just in case I might use it sometime in a story.”

I felt suddenly shy, for I had never seriously considered myself pretty; Mama was always the standard I went by, and I had not thought that one could not look like her but be thought handsome on one’s own. “Th-thank you!” I murmured, eyes downcast. “I feel you must be mistaken, but it is very kind in you to compliment me so.” My mind turned inexorably, however, back to Lucas’s comment about being too pretty for teaching. “Even so,” I said briskly, raising a firm eye to his, “what do one’s looks have to do with teaching? If one is learned and a competent teacher, that should be qualification enough, I should think!”

“Qualifications!” snorted Lucas. “That’s all well and good, but pretty governesses ain’t hired. Think about it. What did your governesses or schoolmistresses look like?”

I did think about it and was silent, for though there were many schoolmistresses I liked, none of them could be said to be above passably good-looking.

“You see? Passable, some of ‘em, but others are out-and-out antidotes!”

Samantha looked, puzzled, at her brother. “But why is that so? Georgia is right; the way one looks shouldn’t have bearing on whether one is hired or not—it should be because one is a competent teacher. In fact, you didn’t really answer her question, you know! You just said pretty governesses simply aren’t hired. That is not an answer!”

Lucas shifted uncomfortably on his seat, caught sight of a familiar face, and hailed the passerby. It was a while before all the introductions were done and his acquaintance was on his way, but Samantha was persistent. “Now that you’ve tried to make me forget the subject, but failed, do let us get back to it.” She somehow managed to insert a hint of steel into her softly smiling voice. I laughed.

“Wasn’t trying to make you forget anything—not that it wouldn’t have been a good thing! Can’t cut an acquaintance, after all! Bad ton!” he protested indignantly.

“Lucas!”

“Oh, dash it all!” He sighed. “Pretty governesses ain’t hired because it’d cause trouble. Especially if there are male members of the family around.”

Samantha’s brow furrowed. “But I don’t see—”

“I do,” I said. Lucas was staring out above the horses’ ears, apparently concentrating on squeezing between a phaeton and a wagon, but his cheeks had grown a bit pink. “You’re saying that a man of the family might fall in love—or worse— with the governess if she were pretty. And it isn’t proper that such a thing should happen.” I had read of this in some of the novels Mama borrowed from the circulating library—but it had come out all right in the end. Perhaps it was different in real life.

“Well, if that isn’t the most unjust thing I have ever heard!” Samantha exclaimed.

Her brother shrugged his shoulders. “Not saying it isn’t, but think: If you were hiring someone and thought her presence might cause some trouble, and things would be nice and calm if you simply did not hire her, wouldn’t you take that road? Simple as can be. Wouldn’t have to watch things every minute, rely on a plain woman’s looks to keep the air cool, teach your children at the same time.” Samantha looked troubled, but again, I had to admit he was right.

“It still isn’t just!” cried Samantha, not wanting to give up.

“Wish there were something I could do about it, but it can’t be helped.” Lucas snapped the whip just above the horses’ ears, and we slid past the wagon. “Just the way things are.”

“Perhaps I could become a schoolmistress, if not a governess,” I pursued hopefully. “I wouldn’t encounter many men in a young ladies’ academy like Miss Angstead’s, I am sure.”

“If,” replied Lucas dampingly, “there isn’t a painting master or one of those dancing masters about. Might fall head over heels for you, and then what will you do? Can’t have that sort of thing happening in a school, I imagine.”

I thought of the dancing master at Miss Angstead’s and doubted that this would ever occur. Signore Trapelli, contrary to my preferred image of Italians, was a dour, sallow, spindle-shanked little man; he could dance elegantly to the most liveliest music and never change his basset-hound countenance to anything more cheerful than a brief grimace of teeth. I could not imagine Signore Trapelli falling head over heels for anyone. I shrugged and cast a skeptical glance at Lucas. Catching it, he said: “That is, if there’s a position available for you at all. Seems like there’s any number of females looking for a position like that all the time.”

That sent me to point non plus as none of his other arguments did. I well knew the number of young women who applied at Miss Angstead’s Seminary for Young Ladies and how many were turned away, for it was seldom that a position became vacant, and when it did, it was not for long. I had always assumed that I would take a position as a governess or schoolmistress when I came of age, for I did not want to be a burden to Mama. I had not considered other options, for my love of scholarship was really the one thing that occupied my mind and my time. I felt at quite a loss.

Samantha saw my crestfallen face and tried to help. “Well, how about millinery?” she said tentatively.

“I don’t know anything about making hats,” I said, “unless I could paint them. I suppose I could design some dresses, but I can hardly sew a straight seam, much less know how one could make a living designing dresses.”

We rode in silence for a while, when suddenly Lucas spoke up. “Dash it all, don’t see why we have to make a big thing of it! Thing is, don’t see why you think you have to have an occupation.”

“Not have an occupation! Why, why, of course I do! I can not be a burden on Mama once I come of age! She has had enough to bear!”

Lord Ashcombe clicked his tongue in impatience. “Wouldn’t
be
a burden on your mama if you
married\”

“Lucas is right!” exclaimed Samantha. “How silly of me not to think of it! I suppose you were so bent on being a governess that I was led to think that was your only fate! Then, too, I have never thought of my ambition as being exclusive of marriage, while you, it seems, have been thinking so of your own. Stupid of me, really; I should have
thought
...! I have never known a governess who was also married!”

“B-but I have not thought of marriage,” I stammered.

Two pairs of blue eyes stared at me incredulously.

“Well, of all the—!”

“How can you not think—” blurted brother and sister at the same time.

They looked at each other humorously for a moment, then Samantha nodded for Lucas to go ahead. “Well, of all the nonsense I have ever heard, that one beats everything! Not thought of marriage! My word!”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Samantha interrupted, glaring at her brother. “You gudgeon! That’s the last time I let you speak first! Merciful heavens! If your berating her isn’t the best way to make marriage repulsive to her, I do not know what is!” She cast a scornful look at Lucas.

“Respect for your elders, my girl, that’s what you don’t know!” he retorted with a superior air.

“Respect for my—! Bah!” she uttered in accents of extreme disgust.

Silence reigned for a few moments, but I could not hold back my laughter. At my initial giggle, two pairs of offended eyes turned toward me, but then they lightened, and Samantha joined in the laughter, while Lucas relaxed and smiled.

“That was beastly of us, having a row in front of you,” Samantha apologized. “But Lucas
will
speak before he thinks!” She glanced laughingly at Lucas, who maintained an expression of long-suffering martyrdom—not for long, however, for his eyes twinkled suddenly, and he nudged his sister with his elbow.

“Obnoxious chit!” he said affectionately. “I hope your husband takes you firmly in hand; he’d be living under the sign of the cat’s foot, else!”

“That is not, dear Georgia, what husbands are for,” said Samantha, turning to me.

“As if you knew!” muttered Lucas.

His sister ignored him. “Now I am curious. Why haven’t you thought of marriage? I have ambitions, too, but that hasn’t deterred
me
from thinking of it.”

I pondered this. “I do not know,” I said slowly. “I have just been absorbed with my studies as far as I can remember, and I suppose I did not think there was much else. Then, too, Mama has remained unmarried so long that the idea of having a man about the house is not one that comes naturally to me.” I shook my head again and shrugged.

Samantha looked at me with kind pity. I felt heat creeping up to my cheeks; I had never thought that I might be an object of pity, and the idea did not sit well with me. But I did feel glad that she was friend enough to care. She took my hand in hers and pressed it. “Well, it is about time you did think of it. Certainly your admirers will think of it when they see you.”

Lucas nodded in agreement. “That’s what I’ve been telling you,” he said briskly. “Need to get out and about, acquire some Town bronze, let yourself be seen. There’s any number of possibilities out in the world.”

“Yes!” exclaimed Samantha. “Mama has been thinking of giving a small party for me, just to let me get used to such a setting. I will ask that you be invited. Then you will be able to get as much practice as I. Everyone is to dress as if we are already presented, too! It will be ever so much fun!”

“Good girl!” approved her brother. “Thought you might have something aside from sawdust in that brainbox of yours, but I wasn’t sure.” Samantha wrinkled her nose at him.

I laughed. “I must thank you! I do hope Mama will allow me to go! I am sure it will be most enjoyable.”

“Don’t think why she’d object. Let you come along for a carriage ride, didn’t she?” Lucas said.

“But a party—!”

“All the more reason to let you go,” he replied cynically. His sister glanced quizzically at him. He looked embarrassed but said: “Her mother wants to throw us together, you see. Thinks to, ah, encourage, ah, interests.”

I could see a speculative gleam growing in her eye, and apparently Lucas saw this, too, for he expostulated: “Now, don’t you be getting any ideas! Thing is, too young! Both of us! Besides, you heard her! Hadn’t thought of marriage! Not a thing to get used to in a twinkling, either—needs time!” He ran a finger between cravat and neck, eyeing his sister warily.

She did not look at him and seemed to be staring at a passing tobacco shop window. “Hmm,” she murmured. She turned to me. “Well, at any rate, Georgia, you will certainly have the opportunity to meet people. Who knows, perhaps a future swain will be there who will eventually sweep you off your feet and carry you off!”