“I decide the order of lessons,” Mel said, without looking up from the primer she was arranging, “Because I am the governess. That is what governesses do.”
“The last governess let me decide.”
“The last governess lasted three weeks. I intend to last considerably longer.”
Viola was already under the table, clutching a book to her chest like a shield. Thistle was at the window, pressing her nose against the glass and watching the rain with the intensity of a prisoner planning escape. Brutus sat in his usual pocket, a small lump of amphibian patience.
“But Iknowwhat order is best,” Anna insisted. “I’ve been here longer than you. I know how things work.”
Mel finally raised her eyes. Anna met her gaze with the unflinching determination of someone who had successfullybullied three previous governesses into submission, and who saw no reason why the fourth should prove any different.
A lesser woman might have raised her voice. A lesser woman might have invoked authority, or threatened consequences, or simply given in for the sake of peace. Mel had done all of these things, in her early years, and had learned that none of them worked on children like Anna. Children like Anna did not respond to authority they did not respect. They responded only to competence.
“You’re quite right,” Mel said. “You do know how things work here better than I do.”
Anna blinked. This was not the response she had expected.
“Which is why,” Mel continued, “I should like you to keep the attendance register.”
“The what?”
Mel produced a small leather notebook from her bag and placed it on the table.
“Every proper schoolroom has an attendance register. It records who is present, who is absent, and why. It also records punctuality. I shall need someone responsible to maintain it.”
Anna stared at the notebook as though it might bite her.
“Additionally,” Mel said, “I find that choosing the evening’s story is a matter that requires careful consideration. One must account for the preferences of all listeners, the length of thetale, and whether the content is appropriate for the hour. It is a decision that requires judgment. I believe you would be suited to the task.”
“I would choose the story?” Anna’s voice had shifted from combative to cautiously interest.
“Each evening. Subject, of course, to my approval on matters of appropriateness. I shall not have anyone reading Gothic novels at bedtime and then complaining of nightmares.”
“I don’t get nightmares.”
“Then you are ideally suited to the responsibility.”
Anna picked up the attendance register and opened it to the first page, which was blank and waiting. She ran her finger along the spine with the reverence of someone who had just been handed something real.
“I shall need a quill.” she said.
“Top drawer of the desk, you may use the good ink, not the one that smudges.”
By the time Mel turned back to arrange the morning’s first lesson, Anna had already inscribed the date in careful letters at the top of the page and was entering her sisters’ names in the attendance register, each letter formed with meticulous precision.
The battle for authority, Mel reflected, was sometimes won not through force but through delegation. Anna did not want tobe managed. Anna wanted to beneeded. The attendance register would give her a purpose. The story selection would give her power. And in exchange, she would stop fighting lessons that did not belong to her.
It was, Mel thought, not so different from managing a household. One simply had to determine what each person truly wanted and find a way to provide it that served everyone’s interests.
Viola, of course, was another matter entirely.
The middle child did not fight. She did not argue or resist or stage small rebellions, she simply disappeared.
On the second day, Mel had found her inside the old armoire in the upstairs hallway, curled among the winter linens with a book propped against her knees. On the third day, she had vanished behind the heavy curtains in the drawing room, so still that the footman had walked past twice without noticing her. On the fourth day, she had wedged herself into the space between the bookshelf and the wall in the schoolroom itself, a gap so narrow that Mel was forced to admire the architectural assessment required to identify it as viable hiding space.
The previous governesses, Mel learned over tea with Mrs. Kemp on the fifth day, had been a study in well-intentioned defeat.
“The first,” Mrs. Kemp said, counting on her fingers with the grim efficiency of a woman who had held the household together through each departure, “Lasted nine weeks. She was the longest. A widow from Bath, quite respectable, with excellentreferences. She left after Thistle introduced her to Brutus in the washbasin.”
