‘I don’t
‘Then cheer up,’ David said. ‘I have it on good authority that a
Hannah frowned, its impact weakened by the involuntary beginnings of a smile. ‘Well I’m not going to do any of her stinking lessons today. I’m tired of reciting
‘She’s crying for her own lost love,’ Emmeline said with a sigh.
Hannah rolled her eyes.
‘It’s true!’ Emmeline said. ‘I heard Grandmamma tell Lady Clem. Before she came to us, Miss Prince was engaged to be married.’
‘Came to his senses, I suppose,’ Hannah said.
‘He married her sister instead,’ Emmeline said.
This silenced Hannah, but only briefly. ‘She should have sued him for breach of promise.’
‘That’s what Lady Clem said-and worse-but Grandmamma said Miss Prince didn’t want to cause him trouble.’
‘Then she’s a fool,’ Hannah said. ‘She’s better off without him.’
‘What a romantic,’ David said archly. ‘The poor lady’s hopelessly in love with a man she can’t have and you begrudge reading her the occasional piece of sad poetry. Cruelty, thy name is Hannah.’
Hannah set her chin. ‘Not cruel, practical. Romance makes people forget themselves, do silly things.’
David was smiling: the amused smile of an elder brother who believed that time would change her.
‘It’s true,’ Hannah said, stubbornly. ‘Miss Prince would be better to stop pining and start filling her mind-and ours-with interesting things. Like the building of the pyramids, the lost city of Atlantis, the adventures of the Vikings…’
Emmeline yawned and David held up his hands in an attitude of surrender.
‘Anyway,’ Hannah said, frowning as she picked up her papers. ‘We’re wasting time. We’ll go from the bit where Miriam gets leprosy.’
‘We’ve done it a hundred times,’ Emmeline said. ‘Can’t we do something else?’
‘Like what?’
Emmeline shrugged uncertainly. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked from Hannah to David. ‘Couldn’t we play The Game?’
No. It wasn’t The Game then. It was just the game. A game. Emmeline may have been referring to conkers, or jacks, or marbles for all I knew that morning. It wasn’t for some time that The Game took on capital letters in my mind. That I came to associate the term with secrets and fancies and adventures unimagined. On that dull, wet morning, as the rain pattered against the nursery windowpanes, I barely gave it a thought.
Hidden behind the armchair sweeping up the dried and scattered petals, I was imagining what it might be like to have siblings. I had always longed for one. I had told Mother once, asked her whether I might have a sister. Someone with whom to gossip and plot, whisper and dream. How potent the mystique of sisterhood that I had even longed for someone with whom to quarrel. Mother had laughed, but not in a happy way, and said she wasn’t given to making the same mistake twice.
What must it feel like, I wondered, to belong somewhere, to face the world, a member of a tribe with ready-made allies? I was pondering this, brushing absently at the armchair, when something moved beneath my duster. A blanket flapped and a female voice croaked: ‘What? What’s all this? Hannah? David?’
She was as old as age itself. An ancient woman, recessed amongst the cushions, hidden from view. This, I knew, must be Nanny. I had heard her spoken of in hushed and reverent tones, both upstairs and down: she had nursed Lord Ashbury himself when he was a lad and was as much a family institution as the house itself.
I froze where I stood, duster in hand, under the gaze of three sets of pale blue eyes.
The old woman spoke again. ‘Hannah? What’s going on?’
‘Nothing, Nanny,’ Hannah said, finding her tongue. ‘We’re just rehearsing for the recital. We’ll be quieter from now on.’
‘You mind Raverley doesn’t get too frisky, cooped up inside,’ Nanny said.
‘No, Nanny,’ Hannah said, her voice revealing a sensitivity to match her fierceness. ‘We’ll make sure he’s nice and quiet.’ She came forward and tucked the blanket back around the old lady’s tiny form. ‘There, there, Nanny dear, you rest now.’
‘Well,’ Nanny said sleepily, ‘maybe just for a little while.’ Her eyes fluttered shut and after a moment her breathing grew deep and regular.
I held my own breath, waiting for one of the children to speak. They were still looking at me, eyes wide. A slow instant passed, during which I envisaged myself being hauled before Myra, or worse, Mr Hamilton; called to explain how I came to be dusting Nanny; the displeasure on Mother’s face as I returned home, released without references…
But they did not scold, or frown, or reprove. They did something far more unexpected. As if on cue, they started to laugh; raucously, easily, collapsing into one another so that they seemed somehow joined.
I stood, watching and waiting; their reaction more disquieting than the silence that preceded it. I could not help my lip from trembling.
Finally, the elder girl managed to speak. ‘I’m Hannah,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘Have we met?’
I exhaled, curtseyed. My voice was tiny. ‘No m’lady. I’m Grace.’
Emmeline giggled. ‘She’s not your lady. She’s just miss.’
I curtseyed again. Avoided her gaze. ‘I’m Grace, miss.’
‘You look familiar,’ Hannah said. ‘Are you sure you weren’t here at Easter?’
‘Yes, miss. I just started. Going on for a month now.’
‘You don’t look old enough to be a maid,’ Emmeline said.
‘I’m fourteen, miss.’
‘Snap,’ Hannah said. ‘So am I. And Emmeline is ten and David is practically ancient-sixteen.’
David spoke then. ‘And do you always clean right over the top of sleeping persons, Grace?’ At this, Emmeline started to laugh again.
‘Oh, no. No, sir. Just this once, sir.’
‘Pity,’ David said. ‘It would be rather convenient never to have to bathe again.’
I was stricken; my cheeks filled with heat. I had never met a real gentleman before. Not one my age, not the sort who made my heart flutter against my rib cage with his talk of bathing. Strange. I am an old woman now, yet as I think of David, I find the echoes of those old feelings creeping back. I am not dead yet then.
‘Don’t mind him,’ Hannah said. ‘He thinks he’s a riot.’
‘Yes, miss.’
