while she dexterously flicked the table napkins into fancy shapes and set them out.
“Don’t it look lovely?” she would say, surveying her handiwork.
“Not that they’ll notice. It’s just talk, talk, talk with them and you don’t have a blooming notion of what they’re talking about. Get quite aerated, some of them do. You’d think they was all going up in smoke all about things that happened long ago … places and people you’ve never heard of. They get so wild about them, too.”
Then I would go round with Meg. We would make the beds together. When she stripped them I would take off my shoes and jump on the feather mattresses because I loved the way my feet sank into them.
I used to help with the making of the beds.
“First the heel and then the head.
That’s the way to make a bed,” we would sing.
“Here,” said Meg.
“Tuck in a bit more. Don’t want their feet falling out, do you? They’d be as cold as that there stone what you was named after.”
Yes, it was a good life and I felt in no sense deprived by a lack of parental interest. I was only grateful to my name sake and all those Egyptian Kings and Queens who took up so much of their attention so that they had none to spare for me. Happy days spent making beds, laying tables, watching Mrs. Harlow chop meat and stir puddings, getting the occasional titbit thrust into my mouth, listening to the dramatic scenes from Mr. Dolland’s frustrated past; and always there were the loving arms of Nanny Pollock, for those moments when comfort was needed.
It was a happy childhood in which I could safely dispense with the attention of my parents.
Then came the day when Miss Felicity Wills, niece of Professor Wills, was to come to the household to be governess to me and concern herself with the rudiments of my education until further plans were made for my future.
I heard the cab draw up at the door. We were at the nursery window, myself, Nanny Pollock, Mrs. Harlow, Dot, Meg and Emily.
I saw her alight and the cabby brought her bags to the door. She looked young and helpless and certainly not in the least terrifying.
“Just a slip of a thing,” commented Nanny.
“You wait,” said Mrs. Harlow, determined to be pessimistic.
“As I’ve told you often, looks ain’t everything to go by.”
The summons to the drawing-room which we were expecting came at length. Nanny had put me into a clean dress and combed my hair.
“Remember to answer up sharp,” she told me.
“And don’t be afraid of them. You’re all right, you are, and Nanny loves you.”
I kissed her fervently and went to the drawing-room, where my parents were waiting for me with Miss Felicity Wills.
“Ah, Rosetta,” said my mother, recognizing me, I supposed, because she was expecting me.
“This is your governess, Miss Felicity Wills. Our daughter, Rosetta, Miss Wills.”
She came towards me and I think I loved her from that moment. She was so dainty and pretty, like a picture I had seen somewhere. She took both my hands and smiled at me. I returned the smile.
“I am afraid you will have to begin on virgin soil, Miss Wills,” said my mother.
“Rosetta has had no tuition as yet.”
“I am sure she has already learned quite a good deal,” said Miss Wills.
My mother lifted her shoulders.
“Rosetta could show you the schoolroom,” said my father.
“That would be an excellent idea,” said Miss Wills. She turned to me, still smiling.
The worst was over. We left the drawing-room together.
“It’s right at the top of the house,” I said.
“Yes. Schoolrooms often are. To leave us undisturbed, I suppose. I hope we shall get along together. So I am your first governess.”
I nodded.
“I’ll tell you something,” she went on.
“You’re my first pupil. So we are beginners … both of us.”
It made an immediate bond between us. I felt a great deal happier than I had when I had awakened that morning and the first thing I had thought of was her arrival. I had imagined a fierce old woman and here was a pretty young girl. She could not have been more than seventeen; and she had already confessed that she had never taught before.
It was a lovely surprise. I knew I was going to be all right.
Life had taken on a new dimension. It was a great joy to me to discover that I was not as ignorant as I had feared.
Somehow I had taught myself to read with the help of Mr. Dolland. I had studied the pictures in the Bible and had loved the stories told by him with dramatic emphasis. They had fascinated me, those pictures:
Rachel at the Well; Adam and Eve being turned out of the Garden of Eden, looking back over their shoulders at the angel with a flaming sword;
John the Baptist standing in the water and preaching. Then of course I had listened to Mr. Dolland’s rendering of Henry V’s speech before
Harfleur and I could recite it, as well as some of “To be or not to be’. Mr. Dolland had greatly fancied himself as Hamlet.
Miss Wills was delighted with me and we were friends from the start.
It was true there was a certain amount of hostility to be overcome with my friends in the kitchen. But Felicity-I was soon calling her Felicity when we were alone was so gracious and by no means as arrogant as Mrs. Harlow had feared, that she soon broke through the barrier between the kitchen and those who, Mrs. Harlow said, thought themselves to be ‘a cut above’. Soon the meals on trays were no more and Felicity joined us at the kitchen table.
Of course it was a state of affairs which would never have been accepted in a well ordered household, but one of the advantages of having parents who lived in a remote atmosphere of scholarship, apart from the mundane menage of a household, was that it gave us freedom.
And how we revelled in it! When I look back on what many would call my neglected childhood, I can only rejoice in it, because it was one of the most wonderful and loving any child could have. But, of course, when one is living it, one does not realize how good it is. It is only when it is over that that becomes clear.
Learning was fun with Felicity. We did our lessons every morning. She made it all so interesting. In fact, she gave the impression that we were finding out things together. She never pretended to know. If I asked a question she would say frankly: “I’ll have to look that up.”
She told me about herself. Her father had died some years ago and they were very poor. She had two sisters of whom she was the eldest. She was fortunate to have her uncle. Professor Wills, her father’s brother, who had helped the family and found this post for her.
She admitted that she had been terrified, expecting a very clever child who would know more than she did.
We laughed about that.
“Well,” she said, ‘the daughter of Professor Cranleigh. He’s a great authority, you know, and very highly respected in the academic world.”
I wasn’t sure what the academic world was but I felt a glow of pride.
After all, he was my father, and it was pleasant to know that he was highly thought of.
“He and your mother have many demands made on them,” she explained.
That was further good news. It would keep them out of our way.
“I thought there would be a great deal of supervision and guidance and that sort of thing. So it has all turned out much better than I expected.”
“I thought you’d be terrible … neither fish nor fowl.”
That seemed very funny and we laughed. We were always laughing. So I was learning fast. History was about people some very odd, not just names and a string of dates. Geography was like an exciting tour round the world.
