with food stains. With his wild grey hair frizzed out on either side of his head, he appeared more like some forgotten grandfather than a wealthy baronet. His dog sat beside him, its drool dripping on the stone floor. ‘While you walk, think about how you can better manage the girls. I won’t pay for a governess who has no control over my daughters. Do I make myself clear?’
Joanna’s fingers dug into the leather binding. She wanted to tell him the girls’ obstinacy wasn’t her fault but his since he rarely reprimanded them. Instead, she summoned up her best prim-and-proper governess stance to answer with all the deference required of her position. ‘Yes, Sir Rodger. I’ll deliver the book at once and consider what you’ve said.’
She dipped a curtsy and walked away, indignity making her insides burn as she left the house and headed down the drive. Sir Rodger employed slothful maids, a crotchety butler and a cook who couldn’t warm bread, yet he threatened to fire her? She snapped a thin branch off a poorly pruned topiary and swiped it at the air in front of her. It would take nothing short of an exorcism to drive out the wilful streak in the Huntford girls. She’d already employed every trick Madame Dubois and the other teachers had taught her, but nothing had worked. Without the support of their parents, there was little Joanna could do to make them mind. Her failure was almost assured.
She made the sharp turn on to the small path which led into the woods and to the narrow road traversing it. The woods covered the corner of land marking the boundaries between Huntford Place, Pensum Manor and Helmsworth Manor. She and the girls often walked here during their daily outings to study botany and geology. They were no more obedient outside than inside and it was always a chore to bring them home in time for supper, or with the twins not covered in mud.
Why didn’t Madame Dubois better vet the Huntfords before she sent me here? Or perhaps she’d been so eager to relinquish responsibility for Joanna after nineteen years, she hadn’t cared. Her parents hadn’t cared when they’d left her on the school’s doorstep as an infant without a clue as to who they were, so why should anyone else?
Joanna stumbled over a rock, the old rejection burning in her chest. It was an uncharitable thing to think of Madame Dubois who’d taken her in and been so kind to her, but she couldn’t help it. The loneliness which used to fill her every Christmas when the other girls would go home for the holidays while she remained at the school came over her again. The teachers had done their best to raise and guide her, but with so many students, Joanna had received no special attention, nor had she sought it. The teachers had always praised her for her independence, not realising it wasn’t independence at all, but resignation. There hadn’t been any point asking for something she wouldn’t receive.
The teachers might not have cooed over her, but they’d imparted their knowledge to her, preparing her for her present position. Sadly, it was nothing like what she’d been led to believe it would be, or what she’d hoped. When she’d viewed the house from the mail coach on her first day here, she’d been so excited, expecting to at last experience what it was like to be a member of a true family. It had all been a silly dream, like the one she used to have about her mother returning to claim her.
Joanna flung the branch away. It would be a blow to her and the school if she was dismissed and forced to return to Salisbury without a reference. All the many years of effort, time and work Madame Dubois, Miss Fanworth and the other teachers had put into her would be ruined because of her inability to maintain her first position. In the end she might not have a choice but to leave. Sir Rodger had made his unrealistic expectation of her clear and she didn’t see how she might meet it.
She reached the small brook cutting across a dip in the road and paused on the sloping and muddy bank. Further away, outside the woods, she could hear the river it came from rushing along its banks. A line of flat stones split the small current which ran clear, showing the smooth pebbles and mud at the bottom of the bed. She wanted to sit down on the bank, drop her head in her hands and watch the water flowing past until nothing else mattered.
No, I can’t give up. There had to be a way to succeed, she only needed to find it and soon. She stepped on to the first rock and then the next one. She almost slipped off the third when it tilted beneath her weight. She threw out her arms to regain her balance, then hurried to the far bank. She didn’t need wet boots on top of her present troubles.
Reaching the other side, her resolve began to fade. She didn’t want to continue with this errand, or her time at Huntford Place. Finding a way to make the girls behave seemed as impossible as finding her mother, but she couldn’t give up. She’d write to Miss Fanworth about what to do and ask her not to tell Madame. Perhaps she’d have some suggestions for Joanna.
In a clearing up ahead, the grey-stone vicarage with a tilted chimney releasing a tendril of pine-scented smoke came into view. Over the low roof rose the square spire of the church behind it, squat against the scattered clouds filling the September sky. This wasn’t the church she and the family attended on Sunday in town, but a living on Helmsworth Manor which served the Marquis of Helmsworth, his staff and the tenants in the small village a mile off.
She heaved a large sigh as she entered the front garden, too upset to summon her usual steadfast cheerfulness. Let Vicar Carlson see her surly and ill-tempered, she didn’t care. A tangle of chrysanthemums, mallow and weeds choked both sides of the slate walk leading to the sturdy door. She knocked lightly on the wood and listened for the answering footsteps of the vicar or a housekeeper from inside. The rustle of the wind through the surrounding trees were the only noises which greeted her.
She leaned off the steps to peer in the front window. Inside was as untidy as the garden with stacks of books piled on every surface. It appeared more like the messy studio of their old art master, Signor Bertolli, than the neat and orderly abode of a vicar. Leaning away from the window, she caught her pinched expression reflected in the glass.
Taking another deep breath, she forced the crease between her eyes to soften and the impassive look she’d perfected during the last four weeks at Huntford Place to return. No one needed to know anything was wrong with her, especially not a stranger. Even if they did, they wouldn’t care. Few people gave a second thought to a lowly governess.
A few more minutes passed while she waited for someone to return. She tapped the book against her hand. It was clear there was no one here. She could leave the book on the step and be on her way, but she couldn’t risk it being damaged. Sir Rodger had given her an errand and she must do it well. She didn’t want to fail at every task she’d been set to here in Hertfordshire.
She tucked her skirt under her legs, about to sit down and wait, when the whinny of a horse from behind the house caught her notice. She followed the vicarage around to the back. A horse was tied to a tree in the small graveyard between the house and the church. An older man stood before one of the headstones, staring down at the brown grass surrounding it. He was heavyset but tall, with grey hair slicked back above a proud forehead. Sadness left deep creases in the smooth skin and drew down the lines around his mouth, adding years to his face. He held his hat in one hand as he reached out to trace the etched and weathered headstone in front of him. It was pitched to one side from age, but the small bunch of violets laid on its curving top set it apart from the others.
He hadn’t seen her and she didn’t want to interrupt his contemplation. She was about to go, but he clenched his fist in his mouth in a stifled sob. She was afraid to approach him, to interrupt his grief, but she couldn’t leave him alone any more than she could have the new girls who used to cry during their first night at the school.
She approached him, the dry grass crunching beneath her boots and announcing her presence. ‘Are you all right, sir?’
‘Yes, just an old man weeping over the past.’ He rubbed the moisture from his eyes with his fingers then dropped his arm and at last looked at her.
Joanna gasped. His eyes were the same colour as hers and just as vivid.
‘Jane?’ he whispered, dropping his hat. His face went white beneath his grey hair with the same shock Isabel had worn the time she’d come down from the attic claiming to have spied a ghost. In the end it had been nothing more than an old dress dummy covered in dust.
‘No,