Drops of Gold(7)
“Caroline.” She scrunched her eyes in the bright sunlight.
Miss Caroline! Her charge was a tiny child, the appropriate age for a nurse, not a governess. There must be a mistake!
“Are you my new nurse?” Miss Caroline did not look entirely sure of the arrangement.
“No,” Marion answered carefully. “I am . . .” Well? What am I? “I am to be your governess.”
“What’s a gubness?”
Don’t ask me. But Marion smiled. “A governess teaches and tends to children.”
“Sounds like a nurse.”
“Except I will teach you to be grown-up.”
The girl stood frozen, obviously scrutinizing this newest arrival into her small world.
“Do you know how to curtsy, Miss Caroline?” She kept a cheerful tone in her voice lest the child think she was scolding.
Miss Caroline offered an awkward dip then watched Marion uncertainly for her evaluation.
Marion smiled more broadly, something she didn’t think she could have prevented herself from doing. “Very well done. You are quite a young lady, I see.”
A smile tugged at the girl’s mouth. That was the right approach, then. Most little girls wished to be thought of as grown-up.
“How old are you?” Marion sat back on her feet, trying to seem unconcerned.
She held up four dimpled fingers. Four! Furuncle. Four was definitely too young for a governess. What was going on?
“Oh my!” Marion allowed her eyes to widen. This mess wasn’t the child’s fault. “How old do you think I am?”
Miss Caroline studied her for the better part of a minute, her eyes alternately narrowing and widening, her mouth pursing and twisting as she pondered the puzzle. Adorable!
“Ten?” Miss Caroline guessed.
“That is very nearly correct,” Marion replied. “I will be twenty years old in only a few weeks.”
The girl’s mouth formed a perfect O as her eyes grew wide once again. Marion nodded her agreement. Twenty must seem positively antiquated to a child of four.
“Are you leaving too?” Obvious uncertainty colored Miss Caroline’s tone.
“Leaving?”
“Everyone leaves,” Miss Caroline said quite matter-of-factly.
Not I! For one thing, Marion had nowhere to go. For another, she had already begun to adore the fair-haired angel standing before her.
Marion used her best pondering face, going so far as to tap her lip with her finger. “I had planned to stay here for some time. Would that be acceptable, do you think? Or would it be better for me to leave?”
Miss Caroline shook her head so vehemently her curls bounced about.
“Then I should stay?”
“Forever and ever!” Miss Caroline declared before running across the room and throwing her arms around Marion’s neck.
Pulling the girl onto her lap, Marion held the angelic child in her arms. It probably was not very governessy, but it felt right. How terribly lonely the girl must be to take to a stranger so quickly, so desperately.
“Did you know today is Christmas Day?” Marion asked her armful. The girl nodded. “What shall you do with your family today?”
“Oh, they are all gone.”
Again, the unemotional explanation of an unusual situation. Perhaps Miss Caroline did not even realize that a household where “everyone leaves,” as well as having her family gone on Christmas Day, was an unexpected situation.
“Where have they gone?” Marion wanted more information about this unusual household. If she knew more, she might discover the reason she’d been hired as governess to a child far too young for the schoolroom.
“Papa is in Stuckfolk,” Miss Caroline said.
Fighting down a laugh, Marion corrected, “Suffolk.”
“Mm-hmm. With Grammy and all the boys.”
“Boys?” Mrs. Sanders hadn’t mentioned any boys in the household. Perhaps she was to teach them. They ought to have tutors though. No. Mrs. Sanders’s letter specifically said she was to be governess to Miss Caroline.
“Papa has lots of big boys,” Miss Caroline said.
“Do they live here?” Perhaps she’d been hired under false pretenses.
“No-o-o.” Miss Caroline pulled back enough to look Marion in the face. “They live lots of places.” She began counting off on her dimpled fingers. “With the horses.” A groom? “With the books.” Hmm. “With all the blue.” What does that mean? “At Painage and Beatin’. And Flip lives all over.”
“Ah.” Marion nodded her head as if the explanation was perfectly clear. “That sounds . . . exciting.”
Miss Caroline smiled brightly.
“I’ve brought you a ribbon for your hair. A Christmas present.” Marion was glad she’d chosen a blue ribbon during her wait for the mail in Southwell. The ribbon would nearly match the color of Miss Caroline’s eyes.