Drops of Gold(22)
Layton looked away from Caroline toward her governess, who was looking on with a cheerful smile. He’d spent four years in a perpetual state of despondency, but in the two weeks since Miss Wood had arrived, her smile had succeeded in providing moments of uncharacteristic lightness.
“I can take Caroline to her room, Miss Wood. I am certain you will wish to join the celebration below stairs.”
Her smile slipped almost imperceptibly, and she mutely nodded.
“Please can she stay, Papa?” Caroline asked—pleaded. She continued before he had a chance to reply. “Maggie said that Mary, er, Miss Wood, was a fishy chicken, and I don’t think that is very nice and Mar—Miss Wood—won’t want to eat cake with someone who says that.”
“Fishy chicken?” Layton could not make heads or tails of Caroline’s words. He noticed, however, that Miss Wood’s smile had returned.
“‘Neither fish nor fowl,’ sir. Maggie, the chambermaid, commented on the fact that I do not particularly belong anywhere.” A hint of embarrassment pinked her cheeks. “I am a servant, but I am afraid my welcome below stairs has been lukewarm at best.”
“Have they treated you poorly?” Why the thought disconcerted him, Layton couldn’t immediately say.
“No, sir.” But she had hesitated. “A new person in the household.” She shrugged. “I suppose I haven’t found my place yet.”
“Can’t she stay here with us, Papa?” Caroline looked up at him this time, her bright blue eyes tugging at his heart.
“Servants do not take their meals with the family, Miss Caroline,” Miss Wood told her gently, her blush deepening. Obviously, the statement had cost her some of her pride. Governesses generally came from the gentry, families who would have had servants of their own but had endured financial setbacks requiring even their female members to seek employment.
Caroline wiggled out of Layton’s arms and crossed the room to where Miss Wood hovered one step inside the doorway. Caroline looked up at her governess, arms akimbo. When she spoke, she sounded decidedly petulant. “But you aren’t my servant.”
Miss Wood knelt in front of the frustrated four-year-old. “But I am your father’s servant, dearest.” Miss Wood ran her hand lightly along Caroline’s curls.
“You’re my friend.” Caroline’s voice broke on the last word, and she sniffed.
Layton instinctively moved to pull the child into his arms, but Miss Wood was there before him, holding and rocking Caroline. “A fishy bird, indeed,” she said quietly, as if to herself.
He suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of Miss Wood spending Twelfth Night alone in the nursery, unwelcome both above and below stairs.
“Caroline certainly has the right to invite her friends to celebrate with her,” he said.
Miss Wood looked up at him, her smile turned to one of gratitude tinged with resignation. “Oh, sir, can you not see that would only make it worse?”
He furrowed his brow. Worse?
“I will never be accepted below stairs if the other servants are made to wait upon me.” She gave Caroline another squeeze before rising. “My sitting to dinner with the family, even once, would only widen the gulf I am attempting to span, sir.”
Layton could not argue with the wisdom of her observation. Then Caroline turned her teary-eyed face up toward him. He wished he could do something. Caroline had no friends, and she considered this redheaded, fiery-eyed governess to be one. How could he allow her to be disillusioned?
“Perhaps, Miss Wood,” Layton said, extemporizing a proposition, “you would not object if Caroline and I were to bring our cake up to the nursery wing. If she is chosen queen for the night, she would certainly appreciate reigning over the part of the house where she spends her days.”
“Oh, please, Mary! Please!” Caroline clasped Miss Wood’s skirts in her tiny fingers.
Miss Wood smiled once more. “I think it an excellent suggestion.”
An hour later, Layton and Caroline joined Miss Wood in the nursery wing. His knees didn’t begin to fit under the miniature table in the schoolroom, and Miss Wood seemed to find his attempts to force his legs into cooperation particularly funny. She barely bit back repeated peals of laughter.
“You couldn’t possibly have chosen the taller table, I suppose,” Layton grumbled but without any real irritation as he shifted in his undersized chair.
He and Caroline had entered the schoolroom to find that Miss Wood had anticipated them. She’d spread a slightly yellowed tablecloth on the child-sized table and created a makeshift table decoration of pine boughs and slightly damp holly berries.