However, when the carriage pulled up in front of the neat and modern home, fronted with fine white columns and large windows, Fanny was nearly overcome with trepidation and remorse. She was as frightened as she had ever been throughout her journey, not excluding the commencement of it, and heartily desired herself back at Mansfield Park, and was even silently formulating her protestations and apologies for having falsely imposed herself upon others as qualified in any respect to be a governess! Her inner struggle to maintain her composure must have shown on her face, or betrayed itself by a trembling hand and a faltering step, as the lady’s maid gave her an encouraging wink and a smile, and the groomsman fetched her portmanteau and gave her a little bow. Upon finding she had not the fortitude to speak out to end the masquerade—indeed, she was at that moment too overcome to speak at all—she uttered a silent prayer, and followed the broad back of Mrs. Butters through the front door and was swept along helplessly to the sitting-room where the mistress of the house awaited her arrival.
Keynsham Hill was smaller than Mansfield Park, but it was modern-built and all new-furnished and landscaped in the Capability Brown style. Mrs. Smallridge, to whom Fanny was presented, gave the impression of being landscaped in the old style, being so festooned and ornamented and emblazoned with ribbons and bows and silk flowers that she resembled an Elizabethan knot garden more than an Englishwoman of nine or eight-and-twenty. This was perhaps owing to modesty, Fanny surmised, as she was in an interesting condition and the stiff embroidery and embellishments to every part of her dress helped to conceal, or at least distract. She was a handsome woman, if no longer young, with dark eyebrows and eyelashes and the direct gaze of her aunt.
She welcomed Fanny not unkindly, expressed some dismay at her youthful appearance, and waved her away to be escorted to the nursery to meet her new charges. Fanny escaped, grateful to have avoided an interview, for it seemed Mrs. Butters, having made the choice of Fanny, would do the talking on this occasion. Mrs. Butters had overruled her niece, who desired a governess who could paint, draw, play and sing, but had armed herself with the argument that firstly, the children were too young to study these pursuits seriously, secondly, the lack of these accomplishments meant that Miss Price could not expect to command the salary that their cousins the Bragges were paying to Miss Lee, and thirdly, should little Caroline show promise as an artist or musician, Miss Price could be discharged and a new governess hired. “And, Honoria,” Mrs. Butters pointed out, “These so-called accomplishments are on display only for a season or two and are abandoned by most ladies upon marriage. When did you last sit down to your pianoforte? And can we demonstrate that a gentleman chooses a wife because she can cover a screen or play a cross-hand piece? So much effort and expense for so little proven return. A knowledge of cookery and all the branches of housekeeping will better enable your daughter to become mistress of her own house one day. Of course she will never perform these offices herself, but she will know how they are to be done, and that’s what signifies.”
“I understand you, ma’am, and am vastly obliged to you for fetching Miss Price to us—but isn’t she rather too young for the responsibility of looking after my children?”
“In many ways, she has an old head on those young shoulders. She can talk better extempore than I can write, and she is almost amusing when she starts prosing on in her quaint fashion! And, you know, she will do very well when you invite the vicar or any other superfluous gentlemen for dinner. She is very genteel, without appearing above herself.” Privately, the widow added to herself, but she’s as unworldly as a day-old chick, for all that.
In the nursery, the ceremony of meeting the two children who were to be her charges was less of a trial on Fanny’s nerves. Caroline was six years old, and Edward had just entered his fourth year. There had been another little boy, who, to the grief of his parents, had not survived his second summer, while the cradle in the corner of the nursery testified to the expectation of another little Smallridge.
Caroline at first showed herself indifferent to the new governess, being absorbed in play with her dolls, and only looked up briefly to regard Miss Price without expression or reply to her greeting, before returning her attention to Polly and Molly. Edward ran and hid behind the nursery maid’s skirts and refused, despite Anna’s coaxing, to come out and say ‘how do you do.’ Fanny was a little disappointed that she was not loved at first sight, but knew enough about children and their ways to let them become accustomed to her presence.
Madame Orly, Mrs. Butter’s lady’s maid, kindly gave Fanny a tour of the principal rooms of Keynsham Hill. Her new home was built on a low prominence that had received an elevation, in name if not in fact, to a hill. There were several adjoining sitting-rooms and a large dining-room, all done in shades of rose and blue with gilded mirrors. In lieu of ancestral portraits, Daphne and Echo, Venus and Mars, Paris and Helen, clad in the flimsiest of draperies, chased each other across wooded groves. There was a small study, and a billiards room, and an imposing formal entrance hall and staircase that led to an open hallway above. This, with the offices at the rear of the house, comprised the ground floor.
Fanny was struck
