Winter Wonderland (14 page)

He'd gone halfway across the floor to the bookshelves before he saw her. He stopped in his tracks in embarrassment. “Oh! I beg your pardon, Miss Ponsonby,” he said, backing toward the door. “I didn't mean to intrude.”

She took a quick glance round, colored, and then turned away again, lowering her head and brushing away her tears. “You d-don't intrude, sir,” she managed, her light, girlish voice choked. “You have as much r-right here as I. More, in fact.”

Something in her tone made Barnaby pause on the threshold. It seemed to him that the girl might actually desire a little companionship. “I'd hoped we had reached less formal terms than
sir
and
ma'am
,” he said gently. “Can you not call me Barnaby?”

“But just now you c-called me M-Miss P-Ponsonby, didn't you?” she accused, throwing him a tearful little smile over her shoulder.

“I apologize for that. Olivia you shall be from this moment on.”

She turned round to him. “Livy, please.” She looked quite appealing in a figured-muslin morning dress with a neat white tucker and long sleeves puffed at the top. Her gold ringlets were pinned up at the top of her head in tousled charm, and her lips were swollen from her weeping. A man would be a churl not to wish to comfort her.

In this instance, Barnaby was no churl. “Livy, then,” he said, smiling at her. He crossed the room to the window where she stood. “You were crying, Livy. Is something amiss?”

She shook her head. “I am a silly wetgoose. It was only … only …”

He took her elbow and guided her to an easy chair near the fire. “Only—?”

She lowered her lovely blue eyes. “Only that I was feeling lonely.”

“Oh, is
that
all?” He perched on the hearth before her and grinned. “In an hour or less, the whole family will come tumbling down the stairs in various states of undress demanding their breakfasts, and the din will be so great you'll find yourself wishing to be lonely again.”

She gave a hiccuping laugh and then, astoundingly, burst into tears again. “You don't understand,” she wept. “You're such a jolly, c-close, af-f-fectionate family. Seeing you laugh and joke together as you do m-makes me miss m-mine.”

“Oh, I
see
.” Barnaby now fully understood her tears. The poor girl, being the only outsider in the midst of this close-knit clan, was feeling left out. “I can't say I blame you,” he said, patting her hand sympathetically. “It's hard to be taken away from your family circle, especially at Christmastime.”

“Yes,” she admitted, wiping her eyes with an already-soaked handkerchief.

He pulled out his own handkerchief, lifted her chin and dabbed at her cheeks. “How many are there in your family?”

“Not so m-many as yours,” she said, sniffing back a final sob and favoring him with a grateful, if tremulous, smile. “My mother, of course. And Papa. And my married sister, Charlotte, who always comes with her baby to spend Christmas with us, and my little sister Hetty.” Her smile faded and she sighed pensively. “I've never traveled without Mama before. I m-miss her.”

“Then tell me, Livy, what made you tear yourself away to come to us?”

“Mama insisted. She positively insisted.”

“Did she? Why?”

“She said it was an honor that I could not refuse.”

“An
honor
?”

“Oh, yes, indeed. Positively. Not many girls, Mama said, are invited to spend a fortnight with the family of someone as important—and as kind—as Lady Shallcross.”

“I see.” Barnaby couldn't help wondering if Honoria realized that the kindness she'd bestowed on the girl was the cause of loneliness and pain. “So, for this ‘honor' you must miss Christmas at home with your mother and sisters. That
is
too bad. You have two sisters, you say?”

“Yes. I'm the middle one.”

“No brothers?”

“No.”

“How fortunate for you. Brothers can be a nuisance.”

“Barnaby!” Livy clucked her tongue in reproof. “How
can
you say such a dreadful thing? You positively revel in each other's company, you
know
you do!”

“Yes, in truth, I do. Though my brothers can be irksome sometimes, I admit that I enjoy spending time in the family circle.”

“Oh, yes. One's family circle is the very best place. Positively.”

He chuckled, both amused and touched by her repetitive use of the word
positively
when her personality was not in the least positive. “Then, Livy, I shall see to it that you, too, enjoy this family circle,” he said, rising and pulling her to her feet. In trying to cheer the girl, he found that he himself was feeling more cheerful. “From this moment on, you will share my brothers with me. I know that sharing my family will not be as satisfying as being with your own, but we shall make it the next best thing. Positively.”

As Barnaby guided the girl to the door, intending to lift her spirits by encouraging her to take a hearty breakfast, he came face-to-face with Mrs. Velacott and her eldest charge, George. The boy's face lit at the sight of his uncle. “Good morning, Uncle Barney,” he cried. “You'll never guess what we're doing.”

“Then you must tell me,” his uncle said, ruffling the boy's hair affectionately.

“We're studying history. We've come down to find a proper history book. Mrs. Velacott doesn't like the one I've been using.” He glanced up at his governess, an expression of pride crossing his face. “She says it's too childish for me.”

Barnaby eyed Miranda with raised eyebrows. “Starting lessons already? Two days before Christmas?”

“It seemed a good idea,” Miranda said, feeling defensive. “The weather is not conducive to much else.”

“I was not criticizing,” Barnaby assured her. “Just surprised. I didn't expect you immerse yourself so promptly in your work.”

“No?” she asked, lifting her chin belligerently. “Why not?”

Because I didn't think you a conscientious sort
, he said to himself, but he would not make so disparaging a comment aloud—not now, in front of his nephew. So he only said, “No reason, ma'am.” He stepped aside to let her by. “Are the younger boys doing lessons, too?”

“Oh, yes, indeed they are.”

“Maury is writing a story in his notebook, and Jamie is practicing the letter A on his slate,” George volunteered.

“Then you all are very busy, and I shouldn't keep you,” Barnaby said, throwing Miranda a quizzical look before turning back to George and patting his shoulder approvingly. “But I must warn you, ma'am, that my brother's library is distressingly inadequate and idiosyncratic, despite the fact that he's managed to fill a wall of shelves. I believe the best you'll find here is Smollett's
History of England
. It might do for a while. When I return to London, I can send you something better, if you like.”

“I would be very grateful, sir,” Miranda said.

Barnaby nodded and, with his hand on Livy's elbow, led the girl off down the corridor.

Miranda stood gazing after them, feeling strangely irked. The man had not let go of the girl's arm during their entire conversation. Was he courting her? Miranda wondered. And what if he were? What difference could it make to her? “Come, George,” she said, forcing herself to put the irritating Barnaby Traherne out of her mind, “let's find the Smollett. If his history is anything like his novels, reading it will be entertaining, even if not very accurate.”

They returned to the schoolroom with three volumes of
A History of England from the Revolution to the Death of George II
by Tobias Smollett tucked under their arms. George, full of first-day enthusiasm, immediately took Volume I to the window seat and began to read, while Miranda placed the other two books on a shelf she'd cleared of toys for that purpose. Then she noticed that Jamie was not at the worktable. Instead, he was sitting on the floor in the corner, absently fingering one of his little soldiers and staring morosely into space. “Jamie,” she asked, “have you finished your writing already?”

He turned his head away. “It'th on the table,” he muttered.

She looked at the slate. It was covered with three rows of A's, surprisingly well executed for a first-time writer. “Why, this is excellent writing!” she exclaimed. “I'm very pleased.”

“Mmmph,” the child grunted, not looking up.

Puzzled at his strange reaction, she knelt down beside him. “Aren't you proud of yourself, Jamie? You should be.”

“
Maury
should be proud.”

“Maury?”

“He'th the one who did it.”

“Maury did your work for you?”

“Yeth. Tho you can be proud of
him
, not me.”

She got to her feet. “Maury, why—?”

Maury looked up from his work and shrugged. “He wasn't doing it right. You're not cross with me, are you? I just tried to help him.”

“No, I'm not cross. But please let him do his own work in future. Come to the table, Jamie, and erase your slate. We'll start again. You can still be proud of—”

“No!” the child shouted, throwing his toy soldier across the room, getting to his feet and running to the door. “I can't do it. I won't be proud. I want Mama!” And, his underlip trembling, he ran out and slammed the door behind him.

Miranda stared at the door, aghast. What had she said or done that had caused this outburst? She'd been at work as governess barely an hour, and she'd already blundered. Being a governess, she realized with a sinking heart, was not going to be as easy as she'd anticipated.

Fourteen

The weather for Miranda's second day as governess was quite different from the first. The air sparkled with sunshine made glistening by a brisk wind. The snowy landscape and the crisply fragant air were too inviting for boys to be kept indoors. Besides, they had worked hard at their lessons all day yesterday. Even Jamie had returned to the table and, after much tender cajoling, had learned to read and write his name. Miranda decided they needed an outing. With Delia's permission, she instructed their nursemaid to dress them in warm jackets, boots, mittens and mufflers, and she took them outside for a couple of hours of play.

The ladies of the household, too, would probably have enjoyed an outing, but as soon as their leisurely breakfast had been consumed, they all agreed that they preferred to occupy themselves fashioning wreaths and mistletoe boughs with which to decorate the doorways, windows, bannisters and mantels. The gentlemen, on the other hand, were given an outdoor assignment: to fetch a suitable yule log from the home woods. Only Lawrence was unwilling to face the chilly outdoors. “I'm too old to chop trees and pull logs,” he said, ensconcing himself in an easy chair before the sitting-room fire with a copy of
Waverly
on his lap, Sir Walter Scott being his favorite writer.

“Not too old, Your Lordship,” his brother Harry taunted. “Just too high in the instep.”

“Right,” Terence agreed. “Taking advantage of your lordly privileges, if you ask me.”

The Earl turned a page with calm deliberation. “There wouldn't be much use in lordly privileges,” he said, waving them off, “if one didn't take advantage of them.”

Terence, Harry and Barnaby, well protected from the cold with mufflers and wool caps, set off on their excursion with noisy enthusiasm. The task, even complicated by a great deal of snowball throwing and wrestling about in the drifts, was accomplished in less than an hour. It was not yet noon when they dragged the log to the kitchen door. Harry and Terence handed their axes to Barnaby, hoisted the six-foot-long tree trunk to their shoulders, and were just about to enter the doorway when Barnaby caught a glimpse of Jamie's red wool cap on the other side of the kitchen-garden shrubbery. “Go on ahead,” he said to his brothers. “I'll be with you shortly.”

He disposed of the axes and tramped round the shrubbery. There he found his little nephew sitting cross-legged on a pile of snow, his chin resting on his mittened hands and his expression glum. Jamie's teary eyes were fixed on a scene across the field, where his two brothers and Mrs. Velacott were busily making a snowman. The sounds of their laughter tinkled in the air.

“Tell me, Jamie lad,” Barnaby said, dropping down beside the boy, “how can you be looking so miserable when there is all this wonderful snow lying about?”

“They're makin'
my
thnowman,” the boy said, pouting.

“What do you mean? Whom are you speaking of?”

“George an' Maury. They were buildin' a fort, an' I wath makin' a thnowman. An' then the head fell off.” His underlip trembled, and he wiped his dripping nose with a soggy mitten. “An' then they came an' fixthed it, an' now
they're
makin' him an' I'm
not
!”

“I see. So it won't be your snowman any more.”

“No, it won't.” The boy unfolded his legs, threw himself upon his uncle and buried his head in Barnaby's lap. “I never get to make anythin' by mythelf,” he whined.

“That
is
too bad,” Barnaby said kindly, “but it seems to be the way of big brothers. Your father and your uncle Harry did the very same sort of thing to me, when I was your age.”
And they still try to do it
, he added to himself.

The child looked up. “
Did
they? Honetht and truly?”

“They certainly did. It's the curse of being the youngest.”

Jamie nodded wisely. “The curthe, yeth.”

“But there's something you can do about it, you know.”

“There ith?”

“Yes. You can fight back.”

Jamie's eyes brightened. “I can?”

“Yes, you can. Come with me, and I'll show you how it's done.”

They got up, Barnaby took hold of the boy's mittened hand, and they plodded across the field to the merrymakers. “I say, chaps, that's a very fine snowman,” Barnaby said when they arrived.