Before the Storm (4 page)

‘Are you sure you can’t guess?’ one of the girls, a gorgeous blonde with enormous blue eyes asked cajolingly. ‘Oh do try! We have a wager on you being able to guess straight away.’

‘How very improper,’ Sidonie said with a twinkle that belied her stern tone.
 

‘But it is Bath,’ another girl, this one a very lovely brunette with large gold hoops hanging from her ears that jingled pleasingly whenever she moved, which was constantly. ‘Everybody gambles in Bath.’

‘Well, in that case...’ Sidonie laughingly threw up her hands as though giving in, but before she could say anything more, Clementine stepped away from the group and ran towards the stairs, rudely pushing past her as she went. ‘Oh dear,’ she murmured.

Clementine put one foot on the bottom step, paused and turned to look at Sidonie for the first time since she had arrived. ‘I don’t want a governess!’ she shouted. ‘I didn’t ask for you to come here, I don’t want you and I wish that you would go away again!’ And with that, she burst into tears and fled upstairs.

‘Well, how awkward,’ the redhead said with a laugh as an uncomfortable silence fell over the hall. ‘Of course, having a tantrum is always the best way to convince people that you are too old for a governess,’ she remarked drily before turning to Sidonie and offering her hand, which Sidonie shook. ‘Never mind. I am Venetia Wrotham,’ she said with a friendly smile. ‘This is Eliza Garland and Phoebe and Matilda Knowles.’

‘Clementine is my sister,’ Eliza, who turned out to be the lovely blonde, said with a roll of her expressive blue eyes, ‘and your pupil but you had already guessed that, hadn’t you?’

Sidonie laughed. ‘Yes, I am afraid that I did. I must confess that I had no idea that my arrival would cause so much consternation!’ She smiled. ‘I hope that I am not an ogre?’

Eliza sighed. ‘No, not at all. I am afraid that Clementine takes after Mama and is a little given to over excitement. It never lasts for very long.’ She smiled rather stiffly at Sidonie, who was rather worriedly wondering what she had meant by ‘over excitement’. Was she to be subjected to vapours and hysterics? ‘Now, I must take you up to see Mama. She wants to talk to you before you start.’

Sidonie followed the elder Miss Garland up the sweeping staircase to a large pale blue drawing room on the first floor, where they came upon Mrs Garland dressed in a beribboned and flounced lilac gauze and satin gown that was just a tad too young for her. She was arranged rather becomingly upon a pink silk
chaise longue
by the tall windows, where she was working her way through a box of violet creams while idly flicking through the pages of a fashion magazine. ‘Ah, here you are!’ she exclaimed gladly as they entered the room.
 

‘Mama, this is Miss Roche,’ Eliza said. ‘I am afraid that Clementine was rather displeased to see her.’

Mrs Garland frowned. ‘Oh dear, was there a scene? I do hope not.’ Sidonie was surprised to find that her new mistress was well spoken; she had been expecting something quite different since accepting a position with the Garlands, who her research had revealed to be exceedingly wealthy but not particularly well bred. Of course she may well have hired actors to improve her diction, as Sidonie’s last employer had done with variable results, but she thought it unlikely.

‘My dear, you look very young!’ Mrs Garland remarked with a frown as she peered up into Sidonie’s face. ‘Oh dear, did they not send the right person?’

‘I am six and twenty and no, there wasn’t a scene,’ Sidonie replied in a placatory manner. ‘Clementine was upset but it was nothing that I have not seen before. It is usually thus with young ladies who are unused to governesses.’
 

‘Well, I am sorry for it,’ Mrs Garland said, putting aside her magazine and chocolate box. ‘We may not be nobility, but I assure you that my girls have been better brought up than to make scenes in public.’ She nodded fondly to her eldest daughter, who was lurking impatiently by the door and clearly longing to be with her friends again. ‘You may leave us now, Eliza.’

As soon as the door had softly closed behind the elder Miss Garland, she indicated that Sidonie should sit down, which she gratefully did as she was beginning to feel awkward standing over the still reclining Mrs Garland. ‘I am so grateful to you for accepting this position,’ she began with a little nervous flutter of her hands. ‘You have already met Clementine so you can see how wild she is becoming.’

Sidonie smiled, well used to soothing the worries of anxious mamas. ‘I did not think that Clementine is wild,’ she said. ‘She is very young and has the high and changeable spirits that are natural to her age. I see nothing wrong with that.’

Mrs Garland acknowledged the attempt to pacify her with a thin lipped smile but carried on as though Sidonie had not spoken. ‘You must not think that my girls have had no education, Miss Roche for that just isn’t true. We made sure to send them to the very best school that money could buy, a proper seminary for young ladies in Islington village where they were taught to read and write and do sums and sew such pretty samplers. It suited Eliza very well for she, as you have seen, always behaves just as a young lady ought to.’ She allowed herself a proud smile before sighing and carrying on. ‘Clementine turned out less well, I am afraid to say and I am very worried that if things don’t improve then she won’t make a good marriage.’

Sidonie sighed. ‘To be sure, a good marriage is very important but it is not the only concern that a young lady should have,’ she murmured as her mistress gazed at her uncomprehendingly.
 

‘No? And what other concerns should she have?’ Mrs Garland asked with a frown. ‘It’s all very well being accomplished and being able to sing and dance and draw pretty pictures but what good is it all really if you can’t get a husband?’

Sidonie was a little startled by this outburst. ‘So what sort of marriage do you envision for your daughters, Mrs Garland?’ she asked patiently, regretting the words as soon as they had left her lips as she feared that she already knew the dispiriting answer.

‘The very best,’ Mrs Garland immediately replied as Sidonie, unnoticed by her, gave an enormous inward sigh and collapsed a little in her chair. ‘Their father would be happy if they were to marry businessmen like himself but I don’t see why they couldn’t both marry into the nobility,’ she said with a petulant moue of her red rouged lips. ‘They’re both pretty, have nice manners and will be rich too. What man
wouldn’t
want one of them for a wife?’

‘I can’t possibly imagine,’ Sidonie responded mechanically, having had this conversation a few times before with other proudly ambitious mamas who were keen to see their pretty, well brought up girls decorate the glittering drawing rooms of the aristocracy. ‘They are both very lovely young ladies.’

‘To be sure we do not move in the very best circles,’ Mrs Garland admitted with some difficulty, ‘but it didn’t do the Gunning sisters any harm did it? I’ve seen a painting of the one that married two Dukes and I’m sure that my Eliza is twice the beauty that she was. She will certainly be much richer!’

Sidonie smiled faintly but she inwardly cursed the existence of the celebrated Gunning sisters, a pair of impoverished but exquisitely beautiful Irish girls from a similar background, she imagined, to Mrs Garland. They had taken English society by storm a few decades earlier and married into the aristocracy and ever since then the two Gunnings had been twin deities to ambitious mamas everywhere and a byword for serious social mobility.

She briefly considered asking what the two Garland girls thought of their mother’s plans for them but quickly decided against it. Instead she fixed a bright smile to her face and asked if she could meet her pupil.

Chapter Four

Clementine’s heart sank when she heard the gentle knock on her bedroom door. She’d been expecting it of course - her family seemed to delight in seeking her out just when she most wished to be alone and this was no exception. She’d been crying at her little mahogany writing desk ever since coming upstairs, caught between feelings of despair and also horrible, crushing embarrassment that once again she had allowed her feelings to get the better of her. No wonder they all treated her like a child, when she behaved so appallingly.

‘Can I come in?’ Miss Roche’s voice was quiet with a very slight French accent.
 

‘Of course.’ After a moment’s hesitation, Clementine wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand, stood up and went to open the door herself. She couldn’t help but blush when she saw Sidonie again and remembered her awful, mortifying outburst in the hall. ‘I couldn’t help it...’ she mumbled now, not knowing what else to say. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘Let’s not speak of it again,’ Sidonie replied with a warm smile. ‘Shall we talk now or would you like me to come back later?’ She looked past Clementine to the desk that she had been sitting at, which was strewn with notebooks and scraps of paper, all of which were covered with large, sloping handwriting. ‘Do you enjoy writing?’ she asked. ‘What do you write?’

Clementine shrugged and pushed back her long auburn hair, which she wore loose and held back from her face by a broad blue silk ribbon. ‘It’s only poetry and a story that I have been working on,’ she replied diffidently. ‘Nothing good. I read a lot but don’t know how to say things. Do you know what I mean?’ She looked at Sidonie then for the first time, taking in her bright dark brown eyes, her simply arranged brown hair and the slight dusting of freckles across her nose.

‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Sidonie responded. ‘My brother writes books, you know. Nothing very exciting or famous but I do envy him the ability to paint pictures with words and take people on journeys with him.’

Clementine’s eyes shone and she clasped her hands together excitedly. ‘Oh, but that’s it exactly!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s what I want to do, if I only knew how.’

Sidonie smiled then. ‘You are very young, my dear. I am sure that it will all come with time.’ She went to the desk and gave her new pupil a quizzical look. ‘Do you mind if I have a look?’

Clementine stared at her curiously. ‘No one has ever asked before,’ she said, blushing crimson. ‘It’s not very good.’ She watched, her heart in her mouth as Sidonie lifted up a sheaf of papers and began to read. ‘It’s just ideas at the moment,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what it is going to be yet.’

Sidonie smiled and looked across at her. ‘Just like you then,’ she remarked.

Clementine looked at her feet. ‘That’s just my age.’

‘No, not at all or at least not totally that!’ Sidonie replied. ‘You are a bundle of engaging possibilities, Miss Clementine Garland.’ She looked down at the page she held in her hand. It was a short description of a piece of countryside and full of life and thoughtful, sensitive details.‘You are also a very talented writer. This is very good, you know.’

Clementine stared at her. ‘It is?’ She shrugged a little. ‘Mama and Eliza don’t think much of my scribblings,’ she said. ‘They think it is a waste of time.’

Sidonie carefully put down the paper and went to Clementine’s side. ‘First of all, this isn’t just scribblings, it is writing and secondly, well, you shouldn’t care so much about what other people think.’

‘That’s not what Mama says,’ Clementine said with a wry laugh. ‘Public opinion is like a religion to her. All she cares about is how we look and what people think about it.’ She pulled a face. ‘Heaven forfend that we should be seen to do anything that might hinder our chances of getting a husband.’

Sidonie sighed. ‘Your mother is very keen that you should both marry well,’ she murmured.
 
‘That’s understandable, you know. She’s your mother and wants the best for you.’

Clementine sat down on her bed, pulling the soft pink counterpane over her knees. ‘It’s not
everything
though, is it?’ She gazed up at Sidonie with wide, huge eyes. ‘Marriage. It isn’t as important as Mama says is it?’ She moved across on the bed, silently indicating that Sidonie could sit beside her, which she duly did. ‘And perhaps Mama is wrong? Perhaps it isn’t always the best thing?’

Sidonie hesitated for a moment before answering. ‘Perhaps not.’

Clementine laughed. ‘I have decided that I don’t want to marry,’ she said with an impish grin. ‘I am going to be a rich man’s mistress instead. Venetia says that is a much better arrangement.’

‘Does she now?’ Sidonie hid a smile behind her hand. ‘Well, I think you will find being a rich man’s mistress just as tiresome as being his wife. Just think of all those hours of getting dressed only to get undressed all over again when you see him and taking the most exacting care of one’s appearance. Not to mention always having to hide bad moods and never be anything less than smiling and cheerful so that you don’t frighten him away.’

There was a party that night at the Garland’s house. ‘Just a few friends,’ Mrs Garland assured Sidonie when she came up to Clementine’s room later on. ‘We don’t usually allow Clementine to come downstairs for our little
soirées
but I would like it if you accompanied her just for an hour or so.’ She smiled fondly at the glowering Clementine as though she was bestowing the most wondrous treat upon her. ‘After all, how else will she learn the proper way to behave in society?’

‘How indeed,’ agreed Sidonie with a sympathetic look at her pupil.

She dressed carefully that evening in her best grey Spitalfields silk gown with a fine black lace
fichu
arranged around her shoulders and tied behind her back. Her room, at the very top of the Garlands’ town house was small but comfortable with cheerful floral wallpaper and a blue and pink patchwork counterpane on the narrow wooden bed. There was also an unexpected luxury: a tarnished upright mirror in the corner before which she could turn this way and that and smooth her bodice and long flowing skirt to her satisfaction.